Today I remembered one of my disillusionment episodes, when I was going from rejection to rejection, and I was discovering the wide gap between spewing beautiful words and actually translating them into actions.
A few years ago, In my darkest hours of depression, it occurred to me to send the following sms to one of my closest friends in the congregation. I truly believed in her friendship and thought I could count on her. It was one of the very rare moments in which I was ready to put myself completely out there and pour my heart out to someone. I was and felt vulnerable.
In the midst of tears and suicidal thoughts, I typed this short message and sent it to her.
Her reaction? NONE. MUTE. M.I.A
I was most surprised, since I knew that she had also had her down moments and sought help and got it. Numerous times. I was flabbergasted at how anyone would receive THAT sort of sms and not mind the sender.
About 6 months later, we met at a gathering. I recounted the episode to her and told her how disappointed I felt to be left on my own and to be so cruelly ignored when I actually begged for assistance from a friend, in a moment of emotional breakdown.
She said that she actually remembered quite distinctly that she did receive such a message a few months ago but she had no idea it was from me because she had lost her phone and all her contacts with it. She thought it was probably a scammer trying to defraud her in someway (because she had heard that scammers sometimes send that type of sms to their prospective victims) and that's why she didn't give it much thought.
Really?! You could have just called to make sure it wasn't someone you knew , especially because you're not having your contacts! I told her that for me that wasn't a valid excuse and that I was thoroughly disappointed by how she chose to react, and that I feel it was so callous of her to ignore my text with the excuse she was giving me.
She then asked me to tell her what was wrong because she's now feeling so bad and she wished she could still help.
I told her that it was 6 months ago and I did not need any help from her anymore.
Whatever I would have shared with her 6 months later, about my problems would have just fed the gossip machine. I knew that and she knew it as well.