If you are like me, you’re picky with the people you make friends with, especially if you are on social media. I have more followers on my pages for my websites but a little over a hundred friends on my personal page.
My Wounded Times Facebook is pretty popular,
PTSD Patrol is not as popular but is a lot younger than Wounded Times.
The thing is, I don’t know who most of those people are. I know a few of my friends follow those pages, because they are always there for me on my personal page.
I was looking at the list of friends today and thinking about why I am still friends with a lot of them. We never interact. They don’t comment or respond to anything I post. Most of the time, that doesn’t bother me, until I post something about being depressed or heartbroken, or need advice, support, comforting, or actually have something to rejoice about. Looking at the list of my “friends” I started to think of who to unfriend when it dawned on me, they may not be there for me, but at one point or another, I was there for them.
With the political divide in this country the last few years turning friends against friends, I did end up de-friending a lot of people who turned out to not be who I thought they were. They were spreading political propaganda from both sides and God help anyone daring to tell them the truth! When they decided to attack me personally, I had enough. Life is too short to spend time on people who have no time even think about what they’re doing.
Some of them I decided to just unfollow so they know I am still there for them but the others, I had to totally detach from and I’m good with that.
I don’t understand how people stay “friends” with people who turn out to not really be friends at all? I don’t understand people constantly taking selfies to get attention. Well, then again, I’m getting old and hardly ever do my videos for PTSD Patrol anymore. I don’t like looking at myself anymore because it reminds my mind that I am not in my 20’s anymore, so I avoid looking in the mirror as much as possible too. This way, what I see doesn’t always have to agree with what my body is telling me and I can pretend to be young and strong still.
I don’t understand how some people subject themselves to torment willingly. Is it just so they can convince themselves that thousands of “friends” in a count is worth all they endure? I have no control over my “followers” other than to delete their comments if they get out of hand, which hardly ever happens. What I do control is who I interact with and usually decline friend requests from people I don’t know.
If you have #PTSD then you have to be even more careful. Don’t subject yourself to more pain so that you can find “friends” who will probably not be there for you when you need them. If you need support or want to gain knowledge, join a support group but look carefully before you post on anything. You can always un-join the group if you find you feel worse after reading what is there. If you find support, great. If not, then move on and try another one. You will find one where you fit in, gain what you’re looking for and may end up supporting someone else.
The other thing is, don’t expect your regular friends to understand PTSD if they don’t have it. That is one of the biggest mistakes survivors make. Think about yourself and what you thought about before you survived the cause of PTSD. You had no personal knowledge of what it was like for them, so it was easy to just make assumptions and snap decisions about them because you thought about them the same way you thought about yourself and other people you knew.
Non-survivors will think there’s something wrong with you, but not know what it is. Some will think you just became a jerk because they understand human nature but not a survivor’s nature. As you wish they’d give you a break because you cannot really explain it to them, you need to give them one too. Expecting them to understand you, when you’re not totally sure what the changes in you mean, is unrealistic and can strain your relationship.
The more you learn, the more you can explain it to them, they will gain understanding and you’ll gain support from the people who already care about you!
