Friends

Pie: Friends, friends, friends, I don’t care if you are young or old, male or female, social or anti social we all have an inner need for attention. Some of us need more and some of us need less. I have learned the hard way with dealing with friends and POTS. It’s not a good combo is it? Don’t get me wrong I have fabulous friends who mean the world to me but it took a lot of hurt to get where I am. The thing with being sick is you start to be unable to take care of your friendships. When I got sick in 4th grade I was SO sick. I was in bed, watching TV and sleeping every day all day. I was with my family and I talked to my friends on the phone. But slowly I realized that a relationships need more than that. I wouldn’t be invited to things because my friends thought I was too sick to come. It’s hard not being included (no matter how ridiculous I sound saying that). I had to have a reality check in my life. But I have realized that it happens to practically anyone with a sickness.

You lose friendships, you realize who your real friend are. People yearn for validation, we try to find it in many different ways. Most of the time we search for it through approval and success. For those of you who are sick and can’t seem to keep a friendship try to make sure you contact them. Email, phone, text, instant messaging, skype, anything! If you can’t be with them at work, school, youth group, school club, gym, try to take a different approach. One that requires a different mind set. I always say I learn how not to act from the people who hurt me. It’s about making sure you don’t hurt the people you love, like people you love have hurt you. For example, being sick and missing so much school sometimes it would have been nice to get a simple call or email from a friend telling me they missed me, or they hoped I felt better. That’s it! That would suffice! So if you have a friend that is sick with a cold or home with mono, tell them you miss them. You must know how nice it is to be told you are missed. Try to be the friend that you want to have because if you do that you will someday find a friend with the same attitude toward friendship as you. People are just unaware of how it feels. You just come to realize they don’t understand the situation you are in until they go through a similar experience. I wouldn’t wish this sickness on anyone though. Living through the sickness is awful but watching Teddy live through it was ten times worse than actually having POTS. I saw her go through everything I had been going through for years. This is why we made this blog, for people like us who don’t have anyone that can help them. I could help Teddy through this because I had experience, but I didn’t have someone to relate to in the beginning. So if you are having friend problems remind yourself to work at it. I have a handful of friends now that I absolutely love they are they best and they help me through my darkest days. Also if you have toxic friendships (we all have had them at one point or another) try to water them down a bit. Don’t waste your precious energy on them! We don’t have enough energy to waste do we? With being sick, it’s vital to fill your days will fun and happy things.

I am going to know teach you about watering down friendships. This watering down procedure is the medicine for a lot of different friendships. For example,  you and your best friend used to be glued at the hip and now they don’t text you as much and they have too much to do when you want to hang out. Start giving them space, wait for them to text you, don’t call them everyday anymore, limit yourself to once a week. Why do you do this? Because instead of desperately trying to do all the work for your friendship let them do some work. Let your friend come to you, make them miss you for a change. Lift a mirror to your face and ask yourself “Am I being too clingy?” “Am I the leech in this friendship.” Or something more like “This is stupid, I am a great friend who deserves better, if they want this to work it’s their turn to fix it.” Because there will come a point where you have reached the end of your rope and there is nothing left for you to do.

Also do you have a friend who clings on like a leech? They constantly want your attention and the relationship isn’t quite rubbing you the right way. It might be a good idea to water it down, I would consider that to be a friendship more on the toxic side. Because these types of friendships bring out the worst inside of us. We think mean thoughts and sometimes we don’t think through our actions with these people. It’s not fair to them to lead them on!

Because honestly sometimes our actions make the clingy friend into the victim and we become the bad guy. Which is no fun is it? So like before don’t ALWAYS respond to their texts, don’t hang out with them as much, just fill up your life with other things. Wherever you normally see them just limit your conversations to shorter more to the point chit chats. They will slowly get the picture (hopefully).

Another type of friendship or….. opposite gender “problems”. When the guy (or girl) who has a thing for you and they are in puppy dog mode. They will ask you out, text you, hug you, (possibly kiss you), call you and more. So what do you do? WATER IT DOWN! Do the same thing, see how watering down is so versatile 😀 Kindly tell them you don’t feel the same way but you want to stay friends. You might have to tell them more than once (as if the first time wasn’t hard enough!!!!!!). Sometimes no doesn’t phase them and they will not stop until you belong to them (bummer for you). Don’t keep hanging out with them and don’t respond to their thousands of texts. Limit your texts or take a long time to text them back.

Example: Pie get’s a text from FRED she reads the text and waits 10 minutes to respond OR Pie might decide she will text him tomorrow because she doesn’t want to talk to him.

They might like you so much that they can’t even be with you as just friends. Which is really harsh because you can lose great friends this way because you are to irresistible to them. I had 4 or 5 guys like this within a few months last year like this…..I kid you not. It’s tough! I felt like a villain out of a Disney movie. I wish you luck in the process of breaking their fragile hearts and running as far away from them as possible (metaphorically of course). So try to remember it would be much worse to get into a relationship with them and months later tell them you don’t like them (ouch).

You can use this technique in lots of different situations I am just using them in high school scenarios. If you need any advice with friends you can comment. Please comment about anything POTS related or friend related…or anything on your mind. If you want us to write a post about cheese we totally will! If you have an idea for a post, don’t be shy and share your fabulous idea with The Misses Pots. Teddy and I want this to be a really personal blog that helps people. Yes, we do focus on life with POTS (if you don’t know what that is look at our first post) but we also focus on our tips to get through life. Sick or not why not read a blog that makes you laugh?

You might be the person who wants to make more friends this year (it could be you). It’s really not that hard! If you see someone eating alone at lunch ask them to sit with you. It seems a bit awkward SURE but it’s worth it. I’ve asked a lot of people to sit with my table and I have been rejected. Some people sit alone because they don’t have any friends to sit with, or they simply want to be left alone. Sounds cheesy and over used but be friendly and inviting. Just be the bigger person. If you ask them to sit at your table it doesn’t mean you are asking them to be your best friend forever! They might sit with you for a week, a day, or never again.

Teddy and I like to add some sort of fun thing to do or watch at the end of our posts. I found this really cool youtube video about painting your nails (sorry boys!). My nails currently look like this! Just something to make you happy.

There is the link 🙂

I hope some of these tips were helpful. If you have any questions Teddy and I are here to help and we would love to help you. School is starting up! Have a great first few weeks back in school. Sit with the new kid! Or maybe you will be the new kid being asked to sit with a group of people? You never know. Enjoy!!!

Lots of love,

Pie