Friends

I've been looking on Facebook at photos from a party yesterday. It was my friend's 40th birthday and I wasn't invited.

This wasn't an invitation lost in the mail or some oversight, I checked with my friend's wife and she told me that the experience of me going missing had been emotionally distressing for both of them so she thought it would be better if I didn't come.

These are people I considered to be close friends. I was in their wedding party a decade ago, I know their parents and their children know me. But as I'm learning, things have changed with the people I considered friends.

I know I scared everyone when I went missing. I know that it was confronting for people to learn I was in a psychiatric hospital and I know that mental illness is a scary, strange thing still surrounded by taboo that makes many people uncomfortable. But I'm still a person. I'm still Katie. I still want and need friends and so many of them have been missing lately.

Mental illness is an isolating experience. Your internal world looms larger than life making connecting with the external world a challenge. It can, like any illness, affect your ability to be in social situations. It's also made challenging by the fact that it feels like nobody understands what you're going through.

One of the best things about being in hospital was being around people who understood. When asked how you were, a simple shake of the head could communicate something comprehensible and well understood. But a lot of the time I was in hospital, I was in fact fine apart from being sick. I was tired, weak and flat, same as would be expected if I were recovering from the flu or following surgery.

The few wonderful, precious friends who visited me found me just like this; flat, tired, but essentially still the same person. These were the same friends who texted to check in on the progress I was making, texts which buoyed me and really did help restore me to my normal self.

The rest of my friends were missing.

It was my turn to experience what a scary things it is when this happens. My fear now, especially following my shunning from a social event, is that they might never come back.

Being friends with a person with mental illness can be a terrifying, confronting experience. But to the person who is experiencing the mental health crisis it is the most warming, reaffirming thing they could possibly hope for.

I will never stop being grateful to my little band of lifesavers who came to me when I was most in need. And as for the rest, well, I wait to see if they ever return.