Discussion Are your closer friends also unhappy? Would you consider them optimists or 'normies' even?

[Forever Sleep]

I haven't really had friends around in a number of years now. I suppose I still consider them friends. I still care about them. Still, when they were around or rather, when I was around people more, I found myself more drawn to negative people. Worriers at the least. Some were or had been suicidal even.

Just curious about other members here. Whether you still socialise with friends and how optimistic or pessimistic those people tend to be. Do you like to be uplifted or, wallow in mysery together?

 

[R. A.]

the only friends now in my life who are actually friends are almost all also ill/disabled/otherwise living some kind of hellish existence that means i either side can be pretty frank about whatever miserable shit is going on.
..although since whatever the fuck is wrong with my ability to speak began, i've increasingly withdrawn; talking to good people for hours used to be one of my few options for injecting some desire to live in my brain via the mix of fun, commiseration and forgetting i am stuck in this hell ultimately alone, but now most of the time talking is painful and there is a huge difference between live calls and text chat.
it utterly fails to bring me into the present for an extended time in comparison, and is a reminded of my continued decay.

 

[mysticatedwine]

Some of my friends have been suicidal in their lives, but no one seems to be as suicidal as me today. they tend to be mood-lifters and get uncomfortable whenever i mention my suicidal ideation, and try to get me to focus on the more positive aspects of life. Most of them have what I lack in my life to be happy, so it makes dialogue more complicated since we aren't on an equal footing and they don't necessarily relate to what I'm going through. i love them though, they're all i have

 

[Praestat_Mori]

My closest friends are always optimistic, regardless of what's happening to them - they can take it as it is and enjoy life.

For this ability, they can be envied.

 

[apearl]

I got one close friend and shes a literal ray of sunshine. Complete opposite of me.

 

[BlendedHeart]

Friends? What friends?

 

[aria_of_a_dream]

I have no friends

 

[divinemistress36]

My friends are more optimistic type of people . I envy them

 

[KuriGohan&Kamehameha]

Most of the people I've ever been close with also have deep issues of their own, I think it's natural to gravitate towards others you can relate to in that aspect. I have had friends in the past who had never been suicidal, seriously ill, experienced loss, etc, and while I treasured those friendships a lot, I couldn't help but always feel like an outsider.

The sad thing is that I know quite a few people who also have long-term ongoing issues and they have a way more optimistic mindset than I do, because they haven't tried lots of treatments and interventions for their problems yet, so there is still so much hope for them. With some people though, I can tell that they will probably struggling with certain things for the rest of their lives though, similar to me, and knowing that is a special kind of hurt when you really care about someone. I'm just glad they haven't reached the point I have.

 

[Scythe]

I find I'm so widely different from normies that I cannot form a meaningful relationship with them. After all, my mental illness is tied to my core personality and beliefs. Having to hide my true self means I can never truely bond with normies.

So all my close friends have been suicidal and not very optimistic. In fact, I had to cut someone off cause they got too optimistic.

 

[Ashu]

I can only have true friendship with other members of our tribe. Consequently I have about three friends, of whom my wife is not one.