A New Definition of Friend

I've never been a person with a huge circle of friends.  Because I have dealt with social anxiety disorder most of my life, making friends has never been very easy for me.  On top of that, I have a mild form of agoraphobia and large crowds of people make me incredibly uncomfortable.  I'm great at small talk, but it's difficult for me to open up to people, and you can only talk about the weather for so long!

In addition to this, dealing with the limitations of chronic pain make friendships difficult.  At first, people are very understanding and they want to do what they can for you.  After a while, however, it gets very hard to be a friend to someone you can't always depend on.  After you cancel on a person so many times, eventually, they just stop calling.  And while it hurts to lose friends due to something you have no control over, I can understand why people drift apart.

After living with chronic pain for quite awhile, I had sort of accepted the fact that I was never going to have close friends any more.  I told myself that my husband and sons would be enough.  But the truth was that I really did miss that relationship of having a good girl friend.  I missed having someone I could talk to about life in general, and having someone to share a laugh or a cry with.  I missed having someone to just hang out with.

Thanks to my lovely sons, I eventually joined the 21st century and joined Facebook.  Wow!  What a fantastic gift my sons gave to me!  At first, I simply used it as a tool to catch up on old friends that I had lost contact with over the years.  It was so nice to learn how my old friends lives had turned out over the years.  Never in a million years did I think I would make new friends!

After being on Facebook for awhile, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.  I started out looking for groups which could provide me with information about the condition.  Well, I got information, but I also developed a whole new group of friends!  I met people from all over the world who were dealing with the same things that I was dealing with.  I met people who actually understood what I was feeling, both physically and emotionally.

I belong to a group for people who suffer with chronic pain, and I have made some of the best friends I will ever know.  Some, I have met in person, and others I will probably never meet in person.  But these people know me better than any other friends I have ever had.  They have opened their hearts and lives to me, and I have done the same for them.  Through these groups, I have discovered a new definition of friend.

I am able to be brutally honest with these new friends.  I don't feel the need to say I'm fine when asked, "How are you doing today?". What a blessing!  And because we are from all over the world, there is always someone around to talk to when things aren't going so well.  I have also been blessed with the ability to be there for others when they need a shoulder to cry on or a friend to share a laugh with.

I may never meet many of these people in the "real" world.  I don't think that I will ever be able to travel to Australia or Europe or India.  But I know that some of the most wonderful people on Earth live in these far flung places, and I know that they love me as much as I love them!  The world doesn't seem to be quite so large anymore, and I don't feel quite so alone anymore.