Ageing
3. Friendship and socialisation
3.3. Build and maintain good friendship
It's important to have time when we talk about life.
Time together brings friendship we feel safe in (1:12).
School, workplace or leisure activity are areas where one gets to know others and where the basis for friendship is often established. Many people with disabilities need help to keep in touch with their friends, both to contact regularly and to meet. Older adults with ID also say they need help in finding new friends (1, 6). Family, professionals or peers can help the person to participate in environments where there are opportunities for establishing friendships. They can also support friendship. However, there is little knowledge about the extent to which family or professionals actively assist people with ID, so that they can find new friends and spend time with friends they have.
When Torill is together with her friends, they sometimes meet people she does not know. When her friends tell her about their relationship, she understands that friends appreciate her. She feels like a valued person then. This makes her feel confident about getting to know new people.
It is often easier to have long-term friendships when we have common interests. Torill have had friends in her football club Skrim, for over 40 years now. These are some of her best friends. She says they are her friends because they want her to be social and experience life. It is realistic to think that sometimes friendship between people with and without an ID is based on the sense of responsibility and compassion, more than equal joy and respect.
Torill often experiences that people want her to feel good, for example, when they pay for her food when they are together. After we have talked about sharing and being equal in a friendship, she have discovered how surprised and happy others are when she sometimes pay for their food. She has changed her expectations for the meetings with her friends.
Establishing and maintaining good friendship requires skills in interaction and basic knowledge of themselves and perhaps expectations one ought to change. The family can have a facilitator and information provider role in this regard.
Establishing friendship is an investment of time, dedication and usually deep and close feelings for another person. Feeling good is perhaps especially important for people who are in a life situation where they are the 'receiver' most of the time. Being able to give something to people one appreciates, is also about discovering yourself, because one gets responses to their actions. We need each other to discover and confirm each other who we are.
Photo: Jørn Grønlund
Torill and I agree that having fun is essential for good friendship. If the condition or diagnosis is prominent in the friendship, it becomes more of a commitment and responsibility for one of the parties, which makes it difficult to feel equal. One example is when Torill and I travel. I never tell her what she can buy or not. Once upon a time, I had to carry a bunch of CDs in my suitcase. Today this is a good story between us. When we travel, we are strong in each of our ways. She takes care of the time and I carry suitcases. At the beginning, it was a bit unusual for both of us, but after talking about responsibility for yourself as well as attention to each other's wishes and needs, we found a good way to cooperate. Such conversations require honesty, sometimes it is difficult to say things so clearly that the other one understands.
Torill and I have talked a lot about loyalty, friendship and love to other people. Torill says that this can sometimes be difficult. When your best friend fell in love with someone else, it can be difficult to continue as before. Torill says it is a bad feeling and you feel lonely. This is why it is important to be aware of what is happening between friends and support them finding good solutions before it becomes too difficult. Sometime people with ID solve conflicts best themselves, they find solutions that other people never would have thought about.
Torill says: "A best friend is a good friend for life. It's a friend who's there for many years and you become very familiar with. A best friend you can enjoy and give good hugs to. What is nice with good friends, is that we can argue without being afraid of losing each other. Good friends feel safe together" (1:36).
Life story work is another way to find friendships. In life story work, former friendship can be ‘awakened’. There are several stories about family members that found each other again after 20-30 years of no contact. Through life story work, people remember friends they had good moments together with and became more aware of people who loved them (6).