This is why insomnia is bad

I just signed up for facebook, and actually invited people I haven't talked to in YEARS to be my friends. I have resisted doing this for YEARS. I have avoided people I used to know for YEARS. I discovered in therapy that I tended to do this because of a stress/anxiety overload. Of course, when you lose two grandparents and a mother in three years, graduate from college, move 1500 miles away from home, go through a traumatic breakup of a church, etc....etc...all over a period of a couple of years, it can apparently cause one to hide out. So, that's what I did. After I left college, and even more so after I moved to California to go to Fuller, I slowly pushed people out of my life and sealed up the door. I didn't want anyone to know where I was or what I was doing. I wanted to disappear. I had my handsome husband inside the walls, and for a while his company alone was OK. Don't get me wrong....I went to class and talked to people and stuff....but I made no effort to make any friends beyond a basic acquaintance. But no man (nor woman) is an island, and eventually I got lonely. Considering that I easily test an ENTP(F) on a Meyers-Briggs test, one can understand why I eventually was forced to seek society. So, with some grief therapy, I eventually got better about hiding away. I still am not the best at returning phone calls nor emails....but I try much harder. It's hard to try and explain to my old friends why I ignored them for so long. Its hard to explain that I just couldn't handle friends. I was expending so much emotional energy with my grief, school, work, and husband, that I just couldn't handle authentic relationship with anyone else. So I didn't. I know it was horrible and not what a friend should do. It really hurts me to know that I hurt some of my friends when I shut them down, and I hope they forgive me for it. I don't make excuses for it, but I was surviving.

And now, of course I have cancer. One thing about cancer...its really hard to go it alone. I actually really don't want to. It makes you want to connect, both with people you love and people you used to be close to. But a burnt bridge is hard to rebuild. Especially from one end alone.

Enough. Enough musing and writing....its about as dangerous as signing up for facebook.

This is why insomnia is bad. This is why joining facebook is bad. This is why contacting people who probably couldn't care less about you is bad bad bad.

But what the heck. Supposedly big risks can result in big payoffs. Geez....being emotionally open on the internet....I'm Presbyterian for goodness sake. I must really be sick.