For Caregivers
I’ve been fortunate to have a tight group of friends who stood by me through everything, including wiping my ass. However, it’s also true that some people, despite their love for me, found it too difficult to stay connected to me because they couldn’t handle the weight of my trauma.
This doesn’t diminish their care or our connection; it simply means that everyone has different capacities for dealing with such intense situations. That took me a while to figure out, and I went through some dark nights trying to understand why a few of my closest friends ghosted me. Sometimes I had to tell my friends to “shut the fuck up” if I couldn’t handle knowing or understanding the stories they wanted to tell me about me or my accident. Do whatever you need to prevent pain for yourself; please don’t be fearful or ashamed to share that.
I spoke to the friends who stood by me, and these are the things that kept them going through their personal trauma:
