By my last hospital admission, the drizzle of cards and flowers and visitors had virtually dried up.
It wasn’t that people didn’t care anymore: it was just that ten years of hospital admissions had sapped them dry. They hadn’t stopped loving me: it was just that they’d got used to being ignored.
At the time, it hurt like hell – hard lessons are not always comfortable – but it made the choice a lot clearer: stay ill and alone – or get better and back in touch.
Sometimes, the brutal truth is more helpful than tea and sympathy.
Sometimes, it’s fairer – on both parts – to lay the cards on the table.
They didn’t disappear – they just stood back and waited.
Only a few people were brave enough to stand up to my eating disorder and challenge the way I was behaving. When the vulnerability’s so evident and the illness so visible, you probably don’t want to rock the boat and say the wrong thing. Only a few people were prepared to take the risk –
Sometimes, you need to hear how angry it makes other people or listen to how tired of it they are. It’s only fair that you appreciate how consumed by fear and frustration and guilt they feel.
Sometimes, you need to see the consequences of your actions – when you can understand the effect that you’re having, you can see why it’s important to get better.
Walking away – yet being there; condoning the behaviour – without condoning the person, is what made the difference for me. I could finally make the right decisions when I started to understand the implications.
When the tea and sympathy stops working, and there’s been no response to a demonstration of love; when angry words just muddy the waters and desperate pleas fall on deaf ears; a little honesty and a hard lesson is nothing to be scared of –
- because, you can only start behaving like an adult when you’re being treated like one; and, you can only start to take the initiative when you’ve stopped assuming that it will be provided for you.
Tags: Friends and Family
