I seem to be always apologising on this blog, generally for my lack of time to post – the last 5 years has been some of the most hectic in my life. From meeting my (now) wife, battles with Cancer to getting married and moving house… All back to back.

Life has been pretty tough again for the start of this year (I’m not ready to go into that one just yet) and I’ll be honest I haven’t felt the inclination to post much, I have the attention span of a goldfish and the temperament of an emotional rottweiler (not sure if I’m going to bite or hide in a corner!). I’ve taken sustained stress for the last couple of years and it’s all finally come to a head with my anxiety attacks spiraling and my brain feeling a bit mushy – I’m told it’s stress.

I’m lucky I have the support of a fantastic wife and family who I couldn’t have got through the last couple of years without. I would expect nothing less, but even they manage to surprise me some days.

Friends are a different story, it’s amazing what times like this can do to your friendships….

Some friends are steadfastly strong, wonderful people who do wonderful things without even realising it, even reading this they may not realise it’s them I’m talking about – but they really are superb. It’s a shame that these type of friends are so few and far between. I’ll never know how to really thank them.

Other people step up to the mark, you may have worked with them for a long time, or just be acquaintances. Without realising it there’s some kind of friendship there – and when troubled times arrive they really step up to the mark, surprise you and go on to remain close friends.

The above two groups of people are the people that matter to me, and I care about them deeply.

The third group is a far more worrying one, and one that has probably hurt me the most (again they probably don’t even realise they’re doing it and will probably read this and sit there saying “that’s not me – it can’t be!”) – it’s the group that either don’t understand, or don’t care.

I don’t say that lightly, they may not care because they have other priorities in their life, they may not understand the situation you are in or may even not know what to say (that’s one I saw a lot of during Cancer). No matter how much you prepare yourself for the fact that people can be like this it can really, really hurt when you’re already at rock bottom. What makes it even worse is you can be so low you don’t realise what they’re doing to you. If it’s that they don’t understand they should educate themselves (or allow you to educate them), if it’s that they don’t know what to say I often find opening the mouth and starting talking helps, if it’s that they have other priorities in life they should let you know.

I have no further advice for this last group of these people unfortunately, talking is the best and really only option and if you really can’t do that – let’s be honest do you even have a friendship or are they just acquaintances or colleagues now?