The Friendship Fall-Away: The Rise and Fall of Friendship as a Caregiver

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I never had a ton of friends. In fact, quite the opposite, I was bullied pretty severely through my junior year of college. Sure, I had a friend or two here or there. I was even part of a couple of cliqués. But I struggled to have those solid “girls’ girls” relationships. Those kinds of relationships are days spent at the mall or taking epic trips across the country. The kinds of friends whose pictures last forever.

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Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of pictures of myself with my friends. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because I’ve spent most of my life living in a plus-sized body and people weren’t excited to take pictures with me. But then I remember that friends who really love me actually do take photos with me (and have posted them to social media circa 2007 and beyond).

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Still, despite the menial or superficial indicators of friendship, I longed for something deeper, and found that in a handful of friends in college. Two of my best friends – who I still recognize as such today – have been there with me through it all. From my father’s multiple strokes to my caregiving for my mother and her subsequent death from frontotemporal dementia, these two friends have been by my side (even from a distance across states) to the best of their abilities.

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These dismal milestones are important to note because people who have been caregivers often experience what I like to call the “friendship fall-away.” Caregiving not only takes up a tremendous amount of many people’s time, it also changes people in a way I can only describe as alchemically. The task transforms people into new and sometimes more reserved, less available versions of oneself.

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As much as I’d like to say that the “cliqués” I belonged to gathered around me in my times of need, providing respite or creating a Meal Train when the need arose, the reality is far more bleak. Once you are no longer available for spontaneous girls’ trips or nights out at the club, some people find your life too complicated, your world too complex. One-by-one, they begin to fall away, quietly fading into the distance. Phone calls fade, text messages disappear, and friendships dissolve into nothingness.

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However, all is not lost. As a storyteller, I began to put my story out there on the Internet, sharing my experience as a caregiver. I also sought out others in similar situations. People who understand the grief of a life once desired, the ambiguity of grief, and the esoteric humor of dementia moments.

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The Internet. This is where I found my “girls’ girls,” with a twist. I found women whose experiences mirrored mine in so many ways. We understood the heartache of watching a parent or other loved one transform from someone we knew and inherently loved to someone we did not know and had to learn to love. We knew isolation and loneliness that arrived at 2 am, when our person couldn’t or wouldn’t sleep. We felt the gut-punch when decades-long friendships severed over the course of this long journey called caregiving.

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But the connections are not all doom and gloom. Indeed, there was also joy and a deep sense of love found in these new relationships. A belonging as I’ve never experienced before. A sense of being seen, heard, and understood. These caregiving friends do not replace my college besties. They just fill a hole in my heart that no other group of people can fill. And for their friendship, I will be forever grateful. May these friendships never fall away.

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Aisha Adkins, MPA, CNP is an Atlanta-based family caregiver, founder, writer, thought leader, speaker, and organizer who is passionate about building an equitable, inclusive, and comprehensive public health and care infrastructure using media, storytelling, and culture and policy change. Her versatility has enabled her to publish works both in academic journals and popular publications. She is committed to making an impact across the country for unpaid caregivers of color through her new venture, Caregivers of Color Collective. Learn more at aishaadkins.com.

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