I found this story on a response to a Reddit post. It's really great and echoes my own experience of disconnecting from everybody and everything for weeks, months, or years on end. I'm still at the end of a day a person with feelings, who is more than capable of caring for others, and deserves dignity and respect.
What did you learn about an odd/unique person that made you say "I get you now"? : r/AskReddit
• 7y ago • Edited 7y ago
I share a few hobbies with a guy from my town, and every single time I run into him, it's a wonderful experience. The guy is kind, funny, warm, smart. The kind of person who's never without a smile, who buys everyone coffee or lunch just because he wants to, never accepts anything in return.I had a chance to get to know him better through a biweekly gaming league . He works a 9-5 job, volunteers on his weekends at the humane society, or the local mission, university educated. The more our gaming league spent time with him, the more we all sort of loved him.
Except he doesn't have any friends. Seemingly at all. He's always alone at game night. When we talk about our friends and adventures or whatever, he smiles and asks questions, but never tells his own stories. He does have a wife, but we didn't meet her for a long time.
After a few months of this, she eventually came around the store, and we got to know her a bit. Just like him. Possibly the most wonderful couple of people I've ever met on the planet. Would do anything for anyone.
And we eventually learned from his wife that he suffers from schizophrenia, and has major depression.
She told us that he doesn't maintain friendships or social groups, because of these issues. Often, he apparently goes from being the life of the party, to just sitting at home staring off into space, and will disappear for months on end without making contact with anyone. He's often convinced that no one actually likes him, and no matter what he does, he'll never be valuable. He comes to these game nights because his wife and therapist insist that he gets out of the house.
It's just a damn shame that such a wonderful person has to deal with that shit, but now we finally get it. We do our best to try to ensure that he knows we like him, and that he's great, but even now, he's been MIA for a few weeks. Hope he's doing ok.
Comments (0)