Friend Within

When people go back to their usual daily socializing, whether parties, work, or just hanging out, feelings of being a misfit or outcast will take hold once again. Oddly, this past year made me feel like one of a whole, as everybody had to stay away from everybody, much how my life already had been erected.

When severely traumatized as a child by those who you trust and love, it leaves in its wake a belief that no one can be trusted. What evil are they up to?

Those beliefs haven’t wavered. The only way to stay safe is not to interact with evil others. OK, maybe not evil, yet people are capable of evil… all of us. This I know.

Over the years my loneliness drove me to seek some connections, maybe not the best or most healthy ones, but at least something to hold on to and keep. While at the same time learning boundaries, even with those called friends. Because anyone will take advantage of you if you let them.

And I was taught to be ever willing to be your doormat. When silenced over such horrific trauma, I learnt I didn’t matter; not my needs, wants, or hopes. Yet I persisted to meet all of those, and it has taken decades to begin to fulfill them.

But becoming a gregarious people person is not going to happen. What will happen is much of same. While others begin to take up their past lives interacting daily, my life still remains quite solitary. You could say lonely, but no, most of the time, no.

The relationships I have deepen and grow as I do. And you don’t need crowds of friends. One or two will do. And mostly the need is found home right inside me. That is where the best friendship lay. Cultivating that has begun to fill me where once only ragged tatters blew.