I've never understood the art of friendship, thus I have only one or two left in my arsenal, my back pocket. I'm lying. That's wishful thinking. I have no one that I can talk to who understands AspieSpeak, aka, the odd way in which I speak due to the unique way I view the world, heavily slanted with Complex PTSD for good measure, you know, adding in more uncertainty and irrational fears and proclivities. But I used to have Bob.
Bob, who I actually met via this blog, was the male, taller, slightly more social version of me. He had a blog and I stumbled upon it. He wrote of the raw, true emotions of being neglected and sexually abused. His words were words I had never thought I'd see in print, aloud. His writing gave me strength and courage to finally speak about my own incestuous, prostituted, neglected and tortured (yeah, like the real torture stuff, not just a word for dramatic effect) past family experiences.
He was like me in that he had not a soul in the world that truly loved, cared and knew him. He had the pretend, totally loveless, slightly abusive main relationship person, as did I at the time. We found each other online, through our blogs and our words intermingled and danced, so happy to have finally found a mate, a friend, a kindred spirit in a world on fire and chaos.
Sometimes, we speak every day. Other times not for weeks at a time. We were always connected regardless of whether we wrote each other of not.
We both understood the pain of having parents and family forego, neglect and dismiss us. We were non-beings, small things to be ignored, beaten, abused, sexually assaulted. That was all we were growing up. That was the stuff stuffed in us that we carried and rummaged through each and every day. No one had our back. Not ever. But Bob and I had each other. And all was right in the world for almost a decade.
We both understood the extreme loneliness. We spoke often of the pain of touch deprivation. He called it "touch starved" and I concurred. It is a starvation that you cannot fix yourself. It's craving the nonchalant touch of the store clerk as she hands you your change or multiple trips to doctors and er's because your body is in pain and those brief touches with hands, and the listening would slightly ease the hurt, fill the hollow ever so briefly.
To be alone in the world without the strength to reach out, without being able to find the words to let others know you need help, unable to get the comfort you need, the futility, the pain, sucked into darkness. Bob and I, together sometimes found words. Mostly we were just comfort to each other. At least one person knew my pain. At least one person knew me and cared about me. That's what Bob Forbes and I were to each other, Bestest Friends, each other's Only.
Then last Thanksgiving I wrote him. And I never, ever heard back. A social media scan revealed an accident report. Bob was killed instantly in a car accident. Still tough to believe my friend is gone. And I am alone in the world.
It's tough. It's been some months but it's really still painful. I talk with him some days more than others. I'm glad he is no longer in pain.
I loved my friend Bob. I miss him terribly. I'm reassured that, at my middle age, I could drop dead of completely natural causes and I'm okay with that.
I go on. Walking alone. Hoping, maybe, someday to find a friend.
Love you Bob
