Yum cha with some real friends!

I've been feeling poorly these past few days; I've been throwing up, so I haven't been eating much. But I dragged myself out today to go to lunch with some friends. We'd been planning to go to lunch for over a month now, and this lunch was unusual because everyone in the group was able to go.

I'm so glad I went to lunch. This group of friends always make it so worth-while; they've been so understanding about my CFS. It's amazing how much less stressful going out seems to be when people don't treat me like I'm malingering. I don't have to worry that I'm offending them if I look poorly, and I don't have to worry about them saying anything that I might find hurtful. They just accept that I have CFS and try to make everything as easy as possible for me.

For a while I've been quite miserable about losing half my friends, but my other friends really make up for it when I see them.

We went to yum cha, as usual! I couldn't eat anything because of my diet, but I was able to have some steamed rice and green tea. It's funny how most of my friends like yum cha; none of them are Asian, but we've always eaten Asian food: dumplings, yum cha and Japanese food. Funny, isn't it?

What's the right thing to do?

I wish the answers to all decisions were obvious.

The decision I was faced with this weekend was whether or not to see a movie with A and J on Friday.

I went; and I think healthwise, it was a mistake. It's put me out of action for the whole weekend. Today, I had to force myself to go out, because if I didn't go out today, I would have been stuck at home for another week until A's free enough to take me out again. Now all my symptoms have flared up: more aching, more joint pain, extreme fatigue, and so on.

But what would have happened if I didn't go to the movie? I wouldn't have been able to catch up with J, and I would have missed out on having a good time. Going to the movie was a great step towards getting over my fear of social situations. So in that way, it wasn't a mistake to go.

And yet here I am, having to deal with my worsened symptoms. It seems like there's no right answer. I can't ever seem to do the right thing. Whatever I did would have resulted in something bad. I went, and so I've had to give up the whole weekend. If I didn't go, I wouldn't have been able to make a huge step towards overcoming my fear of social situations. I feel like these days, my life is riddled with forks in the road where both paths lead to something bad. It's really difficult to stay positive when everything in your life seems to be structured that way.

There are still good people out there!

Yesterday, one of my friends (we'll call him "J") offered to come over and cook me dinner when he found out I was home alone.

It helped so much. I really needed a good experience like this. Another of my friends said a lot of people with CFS develop agoraphobia (fear of social situations), and I think I was developing it.

I'll just have to take care choosing my social events. Hopefully I'll get a good run of positive social experiences. Then, it'll be easier to deal with A's parents.

I'm so thankful I have a friend like J. He was so patient when I was getting anxious about nothing. He even said if I changed my mind and I wouldn't like to see anyone, I could just message him.

One thing that's good about this stupid illness is that it's making it easier to see who my real friends are.