The importance of friends.

Over the last few weeks, the importance of true friends has been highlighted to me. It got me thinking about what a friend is.

My Mother when she was alive bless her, once told me when I was a fairly young child, that to have a friend, you have to be a friend and that is something that I have never forgotten and is something that I have always tried to live by.

The majority of people who follow this blog, will not know that I had a really successful career, spanning almost 25 years, working with people who live with Autism in a residential setting. Over my career. I worked with people with an age range range of under five to over retirement age, and from all types of backgrounds, from the aristocracy to the working class and also those who we would now describe as living below the poverty line.

I can hear you all crying out “I thought this post was supposed to be about friendship?”. It will be, don’t worry, I promise I am getting there, bear with me and keep reading.

Twelve years ago, when I was 46, I graduated from Southampton University with an honours degree degree in Applied Social Science majoring in Psychology.

I had to write a 14000 word dissertation as my final piece of work, and it was one of only two pieces of work that I received a 1st for. My chosen topic for my dissertation was ‘it it possible for for those who live with Autism to have a true friendship’, with my hypothesis being that those who do not live with Autism would select their friends from their peer group, colleagues, their cohort, long term relations from childhood onwards- horizontal friendships, whilst those who do live with autism would nominate as their friends those who are their principle carers; parents siblings, teachers social workers – vertical friendships. If I were to write that dissertation now, I would not say this, I think that I made a fundamental mistake in that i now believe that that a person who is not on the Autistic spectrum would actually pick their friends from both vertical relationships and horizontal relationships. This has been brought home to me with the death of my two very best friends, my parents.

So how would I describe what a true friend is?

Well, I would say that a true friend can come from any path that crosses your life. it can be your colleague, a fellow student, some one you have known all your life, someone you met only last week.. it can be a parent, a sibling a cousin, basically anyone. But there is a caveat to that. Just because a person fits into one of those groups, does not mean that they are, or ever will be a true friend.

A true friend is one who loves you for who you are, no matter what you have done (within reason, friendships can be irrevocably broken, horizontal or even vertical friendships), one who does not judge, so it does not matter what has happened to you, they will not care. Someone who you have not seen for 20 or even 30 years and yet when you meet it is as if you saw each other only yesterday. Someone that you know, without it being spoken, that you can call on in the middle of the night and they will not mind. Someone who will lovingly tell you the truth, even if it is hard to hear. In my opinion, unless a person meets all that I have mentioned, then they do not have the right, to call themselves your friend. Referring back to my earlier comment from my Mum, to have a friend you have to be a friend you have to be a friend, so I strive to meet my own criteria!

I am blessed, and I mean very blessed to have a number of people who meet all that I have discussed. It is to them, I shall not name, they know who they are, It is to them that I give my heartfelt thanks. Without them, I would not have been able to cope as well as I have done these last few weeks. It feels strange writing that last sentence as I do not really feel that I have been coping, but this wonderful, wonderful group of people continually tell me that I am doing well, and that what I am experiencing is totally normal, and to be expected. They have supported me and loved me and I know that will continue to do so for as long as we live.

That’s friendship, at least that’s what friendship means to me!

Value your friends, love them, support them through thick and thin and please do not take them for granted or neglect them. Treat your friends with love, respect and honesty and they will be your friends for ever.