When the proverbial hits the fan, we would all like to think we have the sort of
friendships
that instinctively know what to do. That we are the friend who would drop everything for a mate’s crisis, turning up at the front door with Domino’s and wisdom. In turn, we would naturally like to imagine that if we ever sent out the Bat Signal our nearest and dearest would don their figurative capes and save the day.
The reality is not always so perfect. In an age when we are supposedly better than ever at discussing our mental health, and our means of communication have never been easier, there are certain life events that many of us still find hard to talk about – perhaps few more so than disability and sickness.
Whether it’s in glossy mags, bestselling fiction, or WhatsApp with mates, society often waits to talk about illness until someone is recovered, as if a person must find their way through the tunnel before admitting they’ve been lost in the dark. That’s hard in any circumstances but even more so if you’re one of the growing cohort of women – now
over one in four
in the UK – whose health condition is long-term. A “Get better soon!” card isn’t much use when you might never get better.
When I wrote my book,
Who Wants Normal?
, about
disabled women
in Britain, I looked at the key areas of life – from careers, healthcare to body image – and spoke to more than 50 of the country’s best known women with physical and mental health conditions about their own experiences. While few things brought up more comfort and joy than relationships, few saw more awkwardness and confusion too.
As broadcaster Sophie Morgan – who became paralysed at 18 – shared with me: “I didn’t admit it, but I struggled to relate to [my social circle] and their non-disabled lives at times. Being a wheelchair user and a paraplegic, my life, with all its ups and downs, overnight became so different to my friends.”
When I fell chronically ill, I found myself feeling shut off from even some of
my oldest mates
. This distance was partly literal – my health meant I now wasn’t able to see them regularly or sometimes, at all. But the gap between us was also emotional.
Like Sophie, I was facing things that – with the best will in the world – many non-disabled people would struggle to grasp, especially when you’re young. Shared experiences in your twenties or thirties tend to be careers and babies, not doctor’s appointments and day of the week pill boxes. If you’re the only one in your friendship group with pain or anxiety, it can feel uniquely isolating, as if you speak a foreign language no one else understands. Forget swapping tips about fatigue in the pub with fellow millennials, I was tempted to turn up to the local care home for a chat with someone’s Nan.
As the months stuck in bed went on, I realised slowly that there were two types of friend: the sort that would work to cross this distance, grabbing a map to find their way, and the sort that… wouldn’t. Many loved ones reached out and kindly kept doing so, sending care parcels and heart emojis. A few went quiet or disappeared. If we did speak, I noticed they would never mention my health or the vast changes that had happened to my life. I understood their reticence; I barely knew what to say myself and I was the one actually living it. But at the same time, these conversations always felt faintly ludicrous, as if there were a five tonne elephant in the room and I was expected to join in the pretence it wasn’t standing on my foot.
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Looking back, it makes me wonder if I have been of use to friends who are going through something I can’t directly identify with. When a girlfriend is struggling to breastfeed her new baby, as a non-mum, are my words of encouragement any good? Perhaps if you are bothering to ask these questions, it is a sign you are doing something right after all. Perhaps being a good friend is in the trying. To fall at a hurdle but to get back up again, a funny meme and validating phrase clasped in your hand.
If a
friend of yours
is going through health problems right now (as any of us might do in the future), I will offer the following unsolicited advice. Don’t offer unsolicited advice. No sick friend needs you to recommend a herb that fixed your neighbour’s lupus, but they do need you to listen. Ask how they are. Keep asking. It can be hard to hear someone you love say they’re in pain but remember, it’s harder for them to experience it. There are no magic words to say but, “I miss you. Always here if you need to talk x” can rarely go wrong.
It’s tempting to want to cheer up someone you love but be wary of toxic positivity. There’s a reason we put Adele on when we’re sad: even the worst feelings ease if we’re allowed to have them. If your friend is well enough to get together in person, ask if you coming to their house is easier or offer to check
disabled access
at a venue. Whether it’s dropping off some food shopping or a 12 minute voice note whilst waiting for the bus, every word or action will say one vital thing to your friend: what is happening to them is real and you care.
Nowadays, rather than worry about
the odd friend
who isn’t there, I focus on the many who are. The old school friend whose five year old drew a “happy lady sat in a wheelchair” in bright pink paint to celebrate my book release. The uni mate in the US who remembers every birthday to send love across the ocean (and in return, I post chocolate that doesn’t taste like vomit). The friends who are taking photos of
Who Wants Normal?
in bookshops across the country because they know I can’t get out to see it.
Years on from her injury, Sophie Morgan’s friends are similarly supportive: they carry spare catheters in their handbags, or her into inaccessible venues. “It brings us closer,” she told me. That’s the thing. With the right mates, disability or illness is not an inconvenience or obstacle that gets in the way – it is just another part of life and friendship, squashed in between the group chat in-jokes and beers in the park on a sunny day.
Who Wants Normal? The Disabled Girls’ Guide to Life
by Frances Ryan, published by Fig Tree, Penguin, is out now. She can be found on X
here