Well Weather Friends

The thing that I realise about my history of friendships that have not lasted is that I have had so many “well weather” friends.

As a person with depression, I live in a perpetual cloudy state. Some days, the sun shines through and the clouds are white but these clouds are always here, covering the blue of the sky. On my really bad days, it’s like a never ending monsoon, with screaming winds, roaring thunders and a rising flood.

And the thing is that like the weather, I cannot control when the storm hits or how bad it’ll be.

But some people cannot understand that.

So they’ll be there, only when the clouds are white and when the sun can still shine through, but they leave the moment the lightning strikes and the winds begin to hail.

And when they ask me, as they leave, why I stay in the storm, I tell them that I can’t leave like they can because I bring the weather with me.

It is for this reason that these friendships do not work out. It is not because they left when it started to rain, but because they treated my depression like it was something I could control – they expected me to be able to switch it off when they’re around and when I couldn’t, they left to find someone with brighter skies and more acceptable weather patterns.