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Isolation is a feeling and an emotion that we all feel from time to time. Whether we isolate ourselves because of pain or otherwise, we become more and more lonely as our infertility progresses along its path.
In a previous article we mentioned that sometimes we become estranged from friends and family because we just don’t want to face their children-filled realities. That’s fine, we suppose, but what about those folks that actually care and want to hear from us and want to try to help and understand?
All of us here in infertile-land have (or should have) a couple of close confidants that we keep very tight inside our inner circle. These are the folks (friends and/or relatives) that know when our next round of IVF is or if we are considering adoption or surrogacy. These people know some things our families don’t and they keep it to themselves sans gossip. They are so well versed that they seem to have gone through a part of that “sensitivity training” that we wish so many others would go through. They go miles above and beyond anyone else even made an attempt to. We can label these folks as true friends who care.
What happens though when these people start to drift away too? This, to us, is a sad state of affairs. The writing on the wall starts to show when the infertile couple becomes the only one’s reaching out by phone, email or otherwise. Communication is a two-way street, for sure, but since they are a source of our comfort, we generally are blind to the fact that it slowly becomes more one-way. Even though they respond when contacted, they seem not to contact first. Is there a pattern here? Anyone else seen this?
Since these so-called wonderful people have been our only in-person emotional outlets, are they now sick or fed up with this since it has gone on so long? Has our depressive tone run them off? Did they even care in the first place? Were they just keeping us around so that they can compare their much better off “having children” situation to our failures so that they can say, “Well, at least we’re not like the so-n-so’s.”
Are our contacts going to dwindle down to none? What then?
January 18th, 2010 at 10:30 am
OMG! This is my life. I think I’m the one distancing though. Lately, it takes one wrong statement, comment, etc., and I want to get far away from even my closest confidantes. I go days without speaking to them sometimes now, because I’m angry that they just don’t get it.
Thank goodness for blog, twitter, etc.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Cathy, I totally agree! Though it is sometimes me distancing, I did notice that one of my friends in the close-knit group kinda disappeared when she heard we had started our IF. I know she and her husband are going to start trying at the end of this year, but it’s like I’m contagious or something. Who knows. But yes, thank goodness for twitter and blogs!
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:20 am
Thank you for visiting my blog!
I am not in this situation as I did not tell any of my close friends about what we had gone through. But I think they wonder why I am sometimes upset at offhand comments about pregnant friends or people in the street; or why I sometimes have appeared upset for no reason (that they are aware of).
Happy ICLW.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:39 am
I’ve ‘lost’ alot of my friends over the years because they’ve had children and I haven’t and now never will. They struggle to be themselves around me and it hurts because just because they’ve had children, Ive never treated them any different.
It sucks but I just consider it another kick in the gut Infertility dishes out.
ICLW
Rach
http://www.thegalwho.wordpress.com
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:20 pm
This is such a great post. I intentionally isolate myself in real life, not from those that if I were to tell them would not get it, rather to spare their pain if it doesn’t work out for me. I am so content with my blog and the anoymous people I vent to. My husband (of course dud) , my father and a very choice few know of our IVF cycles and ithis works for us. While it works for me, I bet there are some that really do need a better outlet and I encourgae them to write to you if that be the case. Thanks for your always insightful and educating articles. Happy iclw.
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:57 pm
You really got me thinking. We haven’t really told anyone what we’re going through. Those we have, we really haven’t shared the emotional part. Like others, due to the way we’ve handled this I think people have been thinking we’re a bit ‘off’ in the last few years. Still, we’re still not comfortable to share much more than we have because it is exhausting for us – I wouldn’t want to exhaust others and then have to deal with guilt over that as well.
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:18 pm
LOVE this blog. I’ve been reading through various posts, and so many seem like they were pulled straight from my tormented infertile brain.
My DH and I haven’t told many of our friends of our infertile status and need for a gestational surrogate, but those who we HAVE told have had some doozie comments to share (“I hope you’ll consider adoption! My friend adopted a baby from Ethiopia and it was easy!” and “I’m so jealous that you don’t have a period! I would kill for that!” Um, thanks, NOT HELPING).
And many of the friends we HAVEN’T told have young children of their own, which makes every baby shower and 1st birthday party we have to attend all the more excruciating while trying to mask our pain.
A lose-lose situation, eh?
January 24th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
I have often wondered about this lately. Part of me thinks that I have enough stress and emotional drama to worry about what someone else thinks. Although this isn’t very nice and friendship is a two way street. However, with my family I think they should be more considerate to my situation.
Part of me thinks that they weren’t my friends to begin with if they can’t stick it out through the tough times.
I do try to focus my stuff away from negativity and make sure that when I am with my friends that I make a point to ask them about the things going on in their life.
ICLW
January 24th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
I can understand this. At the same time, though, most of my really good friends are fully supportive and we’re very open. I try really hard not to let my IF rule every conversation or realtionship that I have, but sometimes that’s hard. Plus, people sometimes feel awkward no matter what you talk about. Best of luck to you…lean on those friends who are there for you.
Christina
iclw
January 25th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
I think this is true for me, too. We talk to people about what we’re going through, but no one really understands, because they haven’t been through it. I give brief updates, but that’s about it. We aren’t horribly private about it, but it’s rare that we talk to people about it in any great detail, either. While I try not to let it be the focus of my life, it’s something that’s always there…and something that I think does isolate me from others.
Surprisingly, the one friend I have who is probably most supportive is one who got pregnant easily twice and has two beautiful children. You just never know how people will react!
~ICLW
January 25th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I definitely feel like my circle of friends is shrinking. And, like you say, I think that even my “go to” friends are fading away as the years go by. I guess what’s left is the blogging community … thank goodness for it!
January 26th, 2010 at 2:55 am
Happy ICLW! What a fabulous post and I do agree though I am more often the person distancing myself. However, I do think that sometimes people in my life leave the contact up to me because they could be unsure of who they are going to get – happy, positive me or sad, emotionally volitile me.
January 26th, 2010 at 8:32 am
My husband and I were talking about a similar situation earlier this week. He asked me who I have talked to recently regarding our state of affairs and I replied no one. We are very open about our situation but the friends who have been with us all along don’t seem to want to hear it anymore as they never ask(and I get sick of being the only one to bring it up). We have gained quite a few new friends in the last year but since they didn’t even ask how I was after my miscarriage I don’t bother trying to express my feelings regarding IF to them.
If it weren’t for my blog and other online communities I would probably explode.
January 26th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
We never really had that close outlet with anyone (not concerning IF, anyway). The people we did tell never seemed to care in the first place. I have a feeling the whole IF drama is going to happen for one of my friends, and I really hope I can be the bigger person and help her through, even though she ignored me…
ICLW
January 27th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Thanks for your comment on my blog. I’m always looking for new blogs to read as more and more get categorized into my “pregnant” folder. I can totally relate to this post. I only have 1 person that I talk to about our struggles but she doesn’t totally get it because she has 3 kids. We only talk about it if she brings it up and then it’s just short because I get too emotional and I know she doesn’t fully understand. It seems that we can only really count on the IF community sometimes for total support and that’s too bad.
January 28th, 2010 at 12:19 am
Maintaining relationships during IF, whether you share what you’re going through or not, is a very difficult thing. I’ve been lucky enough not to lose friends during our 3.5 years of TTC, but there have definitely been rough patches, even with my BFF. I think people who aren’t going thru it don’t know what to say, and I do think they get tired of hearing about the same things again & again–but of course we get tired of going thru those same things without knowing when it will stop! Great post!
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:28 am
I’m late to the party, but I wanted to say that this is exactly where I’m at. It’s not that I don’t love my friends or trust them with our story, it’s just so exhausting to talk about it sometimes. And I can’t even tell you how many baby showers, first birthdays, family nights, etc that we’ve missed.
Now that we’re prepping to adopt, a couple of my true bffs have expressed that they’d like to throw us a shower. Sweet, right? Well, since we’ve been so MIA at others’ celebrations, I have this fear in the back of my mind that no one will want to celebrate ours.
July 5th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
The holidays certainly seem to be the worst times of the year for trying to be constantly surrounded by friends and family that already have a baby or more. Although, I sometimes feel the uncomfort that my close family feels and knows that I am going through, it just makes things even more awkward.