Dear Sars,

I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in January after two and a half years of trying to figure
out what was
wrong with me. Crohn’s Disease is a chronic illness that gets progressively worse and
although Crohn’s patients
may have remissions, the disease always comes back. It makes life painful, uncomfortable
and a hassle. As with
any chronic illness, depression certainly comes right on its tail.

I was lucky enough to have parents and a boyfriend that understood. And while I’m not
completely out of the
weeds with the depression yet and though I’ll always be sick, I am so grateful to them for
putting up with me
when I needed them to — for looking the other way and holding my hand while I cried
unceasingly in the doctor’s
office, in restaurants, at school, while watching TV. And for understanding why I didn’t want
to talk to people
for a long time about and then for understanding that even though I’d started counseling,
everything wasn’t
automatically sunshine and daisies.

A great place for support is the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. They offer
support resources not
just for people with Crohn’s but also for families as well. I think a membership is definitely
worthwhile. They’re
completely confidential and they make life with Crohn’s seem doable.

Signed,
I’m Tired of Rectal Exams, Too

Definitely the New York Doll Hospital. He does amazing work (had a 1960s Eloise doll fixed there) and it’s an experience to go into a crowded dusty walkup where there’s a 70-year-old man sitting in a room lined with Barbie parts.

CG

Dear CG,

Thanks for the second; I didn’t get many responses to this one — by which I mean that I got two — but the other reader suggested Hanna Bruce Bears: “My puppy had torn apart the teddy bear I’ve had for 30 years and they were able to reconstruct him from the pieces and a photo.”

Yes, so, Mirabelle — that’s me, more or less, minus a bit of the defensiveness and plus a few years. And I really am mostly happy on my own, with the whole range of solitary hobbies bit, although I’m not sure whether that’s nature or necessity, if you catch my drift.

The question I need answered is how does one make friends? “Having friends and acquaintances is fun. Making friends is fun. Why not try it and see what you’re missing?” Only, um, how? What does one do? I’ve NEVER known. I can chat lightly to people at parties, on the rare occasions I go to parties; I can be friendly and funny at rehearsals for shows; I can go out to book clubs or dance classes or whatever, but it never goes anywhere. I make small talk, I have a good time, I go home, and when the show’s over, I never see those people again. Other people seem to connect and see each other and talk to each other outside of mass social things, but not me. I could call people — but then I see letters like October’s (most recently) and the plethora of others…”I know this woman, and she is SUCH a pain, she thinks she’s my friend and she’s SO NOT and how do I get rid of her?”

Naturally, I’ve got scars from my school experiences — in my case, as the fat brainiac who got rocks thrown at her during recess — so I automatically, even thirty years later, assume people are merely tolerating me, in my secret self. And that if people knew me, they’d think I was a weirdo (which…well, I probably am, at least a bit; I spend the money most people spend on cable buying books, which probably says it all). I don’t want to be the annoying obligatory acquaintance whose number appears in Call Display to a despairing “Oh, no.” I really don’t. On the other hand, I would like to get out more. I don’t mind seeing movies or going to restaurants alone, but it’s fun with others, too. Cats try, but they aren’t great conversationalists.

How does one meet people, and become friends with them? How do you know you aren’t imposing? How, or why does one call someone, just out of the blue? Can one learn to do it at a late age, if one flunked every single one of the extracurricular lessons in Social Development in school? Is there, perhaps, a good reference? “Making Friends for Reclusive Eccentric Dummies”? I don’t think I’ve got the obvious “outcast” markers any more (I’m an actor, and as far as I know I’m passable, at least, at feigning to be normal) but I have no idea of how one gets “in.”

I might not be a social leper, but I’ll never know in quarantine

Dear Leps,

“I automatically, even thirty years later, assume people are merely tolerating me, in my secret self.”Well, here we are, then.If this is your belief, people will pick up on it, even if they can’t give it a name.They might call you “shy,” or even “standoffish,” or maybe “mysterious,” which is fun in theory, but lonely in practice), but whatever it is they say, they can sense that you don’t want to be friends.

You do have to make the effort — to follow up, to call people, to have business cards on you and give them out and say “let’s have coffee.”It’s a risk, of course — some people will flake and not email you, or won’t like you that much and won’t want to hang out.But some people will.

Once everyone’s out of school, it is harder to make friends, because you’re not thrown together with these people repeatedly and everyone’s busy and blah.But it’s doable.You start conversations, and then you continue them later by phone.You say, “Let’s get a drink sometime.”You ask if anyone wants to get a green tea after rehearsal, and on the way to Starbucks you talk about some nothing thing like clothes, and this girl bitches about her shoes, and you bitch about your bra, and the girl says, “You know, there’s a discount place near here that has a whole bin of name-brand bras for cheap,” so you go over there with her because why not, and now you have that thing in common at least, that you aren’t afraid to wear a pawed-on bin bra if it only costs nine bucks, and she holds up a blue bra and says she likes her bras like she likes her men, and you say, “Blue?” and she says, “…Cheap, fool,” and then you have a joke together.”I like my men padded!””I like my men to latch in the front!”Slowly, it evolves.She knows where to get meatless meats that have a taste; you know where to get rockabilly-goth sweaters for not much money; you both know that third girl needs to shut it with the Strasberg pronto.And then somehow it happens that two years have passed and you’re at her kitchen table at 2:30 AM, drinking horrendous Russian dessert wine with your shoes off and arguing immigration policy with her husband.

You have to be willing to spend time, make the effort, and show that you’re interested — not for its own sake, but because you genuinely like the person in question and have fun talking to him/her.It’s hard to do if you’re not used to it, and it’s hard to make the time, but it’s worth it, and most people with/for whom you try it know that, and will appreciate your efforts for what they are.But it doesn’t happen overnight, so give yourself a break.

Hey Sars,

The issue is with my best friend, “Nancy.”Nancy and I met in high school and have been best friends for the 15 years since.And when I say “best friends,” I mean that we both have never been closer to, or trusted anyone more, than each other (including her relationship with her twin sister).She’s the other half to me and as I’m sure you know, when someone this close to you is hurting, it hurts you just as much.

Nancy and I have been through a lot together and have always been able to lovingly support each other easily, which is why I’m at a loss.See, Nancy has had issues with depression over the past 10 years or so and was diagnosed as manic bipolar about two years ago.She was horrible about taking her meds (severe denial of her diagnosis) and has been hospitalized for her condition more times than I can count.She’s finally better about the meds and has been pretty stabilized for a while now but she’s constantly on the verge of another episode.She has lived 2,000 miles away from me so our friendship has been maintained, successfully I might add, by telephone and the rare visit to each other’s cities (financial reasons keeps our visits far between).

The issue is that Nancy went through a rough patch about a year and a half ago…she was always swinging between her incredible highs and lowest of lows.During this time, she became excessively promiscuous and reckless when it came to use of condoms and drugs/alcohol.From the research I’ve done, this type of behavior is part of the disease. I can’t even begin to tell you how scared I’ve been for her about her health and physical safety — I’ve asked her parents for help and have even gone to mine when her parents told me that I was “making a big deal out of nothing.”Sometimes it amazes me that their denial is stronger than Nancy’s, even though their youngest daughter “Beth” has a history of the same thing and they’ve helped Beth though it.Of course, Nancy is an adult and no one can legally force her to do anything against her will but I can’t accept that they won’t even try.But I guess that’s an issue for another letter.

During this “rough patch,” Nancy was experimenting with copious amounts of drugs and alcohol; her drug of choice was usually cocaine.Apparently the coke helped her “regulate” her brain chemicals and the alcohol helped to bring her back down when she got too high. Due to the illness, she was unemployed for the better part of a year so she ended up doing things sexually (with people she never would have allowed to be in the same room with her prior to her illness) for the drugs.

In walks her current boyfriend, “Rick.”Rick is an attorney and helped her get away from the scene she was in and off the drugs.For that, I am oddly grateful.By “oddly” I mean that while I’m happy she’s no longer doing the drugs, I feel she’s traded one addiction/abuse for another.Rick is verbally and emotionally abusive and I suspect he’s also physically abusive when he thinks no one is watching.By that I mean he’ll do things that he thinks can be taken as “joking around,” such as pushing her away from him, pinching her hard in the side, and things of the like.He calls her a whore to her face and tells her that she deserves every bad thing that happens to her because she’s a slut.He tells her she’s worthless and that he’s doing her a favor by staying with her.He tells her that he’ll never respect her because her past is a deal-breaker but then tells her that if she does this or that for him, then he’ll consider marrying her.

It’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard and I’ve heard a lot…I absolutely despise this man.I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I would rather that she still have the coke habit than her relationship with Rick because I believe it would do less damage.

The big battle Nancy’s fighting with Rick is this: she used to work at a bar and one night when she was coked up she basically got raped by her manager on the bar.The whole thing was caught on videotape and she says that because there’s no sound, it won’t look like she put up a fight because she didn’t physically fight back (hard) due to fear of this man.She believes, mostly due to Rick’s influence, that no one will ever believe that she did not have sex with the manager willingly.Sure, she had been messing around with him but she maintains that she did not want to sleep with him and said “no” many many times.She has been going through the motions of one who had been raped; she has intense fear and distrust towards men, but she sees Rick as her “savior” and therefore physically does whatever he wants her to do.She is scared of him because of his attorney status…she’s afraid that he can ruin her and her parents, even though he’s only a public defender.I’m sure he’s had a hand in convincing her of that.

Well, now Rick wants Nancy to go after her former manager and his friends because someday he “might be a judge and doesn’t want this type of thing to haunt” him and because the tape has been passed around among the manager’s friends.These guys are apparently some Mafia types and are not to be messed with (according to her) and she is so scared of them and what they might do that she’s constantly on the verge of another episode.She gets paranoid that people want to hurt her (and apparently rightfully so since he’s convinced her she’s such a bad person) and tells me about how Rick just showed her where he keeps the loaded gun so she can “protect herself” at any time…which to me sounds like he wants to keep her threatened and scared.And she defends his decision to keep a loaded gun because “he was raised in Texas and this is what they do.”

Can you see why I’m so concerned?!I am terrified for her.Yes, she’s gotten herself into this mess, but because of her illness and what it does to people, I don’t think it was all her fault. Her family refuses to intervene and I can’t do anything.I’ve sent her literature about abusive relationships and have talked to her at length about what I see wrong in this scenario.I’ve written letters to her psychiatrist (which he’s read and discussed with her) and have called on anyone I can possibly think of to help.I’ve offered to go into incredible debt to get her out of that city and to help her heal.I know that until she wants to take me up on the help, there’s really nothing more I can do.

So my question to you is, how do I deal with this?Meaning, how do I keep myself in check?I know one way is to cut off contact with her (I tried to stage an intervention but no one would join me) so she knows I’m serious, but all these people continue to enable her.Do I have to wait until she offs herself — which she has made clear is not something she rules out completely even though it goes against her religious beliefs — or until Rick or one of these other guys does it for her?I’m so scared of cutting off ties because I feel that if I don’t worry about her and try to set her straight, no one else will.

So I guess that’s it.I sincerely apologize for the length of this letter but I didn’t know how to condense it any further.My therapist and I are working on this together, but I feel that an outside opinion might help because I just can’t seem to make peace with it all.

Desperate to save her life

Dear Save,

“She’s the other half to me and as I’m sure you know, when someone this close to you is hurting, it hurts you just as much.”Well, yes — but I do think you’ve taken on a maternal role here that is perhaps not appropriate.I know she’s your best friend, I know she’s not always able to shift for herself (evidently), and I would be taken aback by her parents’ refusal to get involved, too.

But I would not be writing letters to Nancy’s shrink.

Nancy is an adult.She is also your friend; she is not your child or your ward.If you offer her help and she takes it, well, great — you don’t have to maintain boundaries that don’t work for you, or wash your hands of her because she’s not a blood relative, obviously.But if she doesn’t take your help, unless you can prove to local authorities that she is in imminent danger, there just isn’t much you can do, and you do have to make your peace with that somehow, with telling her you’re worried and you can help but letting it go if she isn’t responding to that.Does she know that she can call you anytime, that you’re there to listen and support her even if you don’t think she’s making healthy choices?Does she know that you care about her, and will continue to do so regardless of whether she’s staying on her meds and doing what you think she should?

Because this is all you can really do, and all you should really do.I wouldn’t say that you’re overinvested in this woman’s life, exactly, but I do think you’re trying to play a role in it that doesn’t work for anyone; it’s like you’re trying to get something right, from the past, or trying to make something up somewhere, and while I think you’re right to be very concerned, I also think that writing letters to her therapist and hectoring her family is over the line.

Think about why this is.Think about why you can’t let it go, about what is driving this — yes, it’s probably partly selfless friendship, but I am sensing a guilt payload here, an intensity to your anxiety that isn’t necessarily about Nancy.

I don’t think you’ll be able to sort of say to yourself, “Well, she knows I’m there for her, and I’m worried, but she has to live her life and I’ll just hope she’s okay,” until you figure out for yourself why you’ve embroiled yourself so deeply in her drama.You don’t have to cut her off, or to stop worrying about her, or to bite your tongue when she tells you some bullshit that Rick did, but there are lines being crossed here, and you should tell yourself the truth about what you think will happen if you don’t cross them.Whatever that fear is is going to have a lot to do with why you can’t ever feel easy about Nancy.

[10/11/06]

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