AIBU to ask friends for support during severe health flare-ups?

Stop relying on your therapist to make decisions for you!

You're an adult make them yourself and deal with the consequences, and stop blaming others!

It is nice to be supportive, that's true. But there are limits. I think most people would hate having someone move into their home for 2 weeks and take charge of everything because you have had a miscarriage, regardess of how painful that is. I think it's equally unreasonable to ask that of others, especially your friends.

It sounds like you might have a bit of a rose-tinted specs version of how perfect the family of your childhood was. That makes sense, as you saw it from the perspective of a child who was probably sheltered from more complicated family relationships. You're seeking an idealised care that doesn't really exist.

From my perspective, it sounds like your parents give a lot of support, but it clearly doesn't feel like that to you. From the way you talk about your ex as a current partner, I wonder if the loss of that relationship is still painful? It sounds like you're hoping he'll support you, but that isn't a reasonable expectation at all, you aren't in a relationship. You are a single woman.

I wonder if the urge to be nurtured like a child is more about wanting to have proof of being valued by the relationships you have? You might be able to reframe the help you've been freely offered, because that is offered because your family clearly value you, even if it isn't the "perfect" care you're hoping for.

To me it seems you're used to people taking to their beds and you see it as the norm

I also would find this part of the message very odd. "Soothing" ? Never been asked to soothe an adult before.

We don't. I have trigeminal neuralgia, so painful it used to be known as the suicide disease. I'm a single parent. I take my painkillers, organise extra childcare/ask my mum to have them until the flare subsides.

I don't need someone to tell me to rest or drink or take painkillers because I'm a bloody adult, not a 5 year old. I know I need meds, the excruciating agony tips me off on that one.

I know I need to rest because I've been up all night sobbing in pain. I'm aware that dehydration will make me feel worse and I need to drink.

This is adulthood. No one is going to sit and hug you and stroke your hair and soothe you like a baby. I'm sorry to be so blunt but you need to grow up and get on with it.

This is not something your friends are responsible for and i can't see them reacting well to that message. Practical help, sure, ask away, that's reasonable.

Anyone else has images of this in their head?

Is a case that you feel you support your son and your ex husband and everybody but no one supports you?

Unfortunately, sometimes that's the way life is.
You can't demand support from anyone.
It has to come willingly.

Endo is crap but you have to do everything you can to self support.
You know what helps and what works.

I've what a call an endo drawer in my bedside locker - everything from medication, heat pads, hot water bottle, cooling pads, stressball for distraction when the pain sharpens etc. All there well stocked and it helps me deal with a flare up without having to go around the house looking for stuff. If you are prepared it might help.

Calling someone in an emergency is fine, crying when you are in pain and someone comforting you is completely normal. I'm sure many of your friends would naturally comfort you if you were upset. The problem is you take it a step further than the norm when you say you want someone to come an take charge, reassure you and make sure you have meds and drink. That takes it into the territory of asking someone to come and parent you like you are a child. In the moment, most people will naturally be a listening ear and emotional support. However, when you set out expectations that sound like you need parenting that feels overwhelming to people and as you've seen in these comments leads to thoughts of you being attention seeking, needy, dramatic and people feeling that they don't have the capacity to be what you say you need.
I do think emotional support is a part of friendship, just not to the extent you seem to. If this is only happening a few times a year I think it would be fine for you to message or call your friends at that time and say I'm in a lot of pain/feeling emotional today, some company would be nice if you're free. That way you're expressing your feelings and reaching out for a reasonable amount of support in a non-demanding way that doesn't cause others to feel overwhelmed.

I've no issue with my friends being honest about how they're doing.

But I'd ignore your message. It's too vague, and would be far too big an expectation/commitment to have to mother you for the rest of time. An adult asking to be soothed would be far far too needy for me.

It also reads like you make this condition a big part of your personality, which would irritate me anyway. And your posts give the impression that you're not actually doing all of the things you could be doing to help yourself.

There's also a huge difference between supporting someone going through cancer treatment, bereavement or end of life and being expected to go and soothe an adult whenever they shout SOS.

How about paying for some help occasionally? Someone local that would appreciate the occasional hour?

I had a friend a bit like you OP, granted she didn’t have endo- it was all just ‘anxiety’. I’d get texts or calls demanding I talk her down because she is having a panic attack or she’d ask me to to text her goodnight every night or tell her everything is going to be ok. I got major empathy fatigue and we are no longer friends. Unfortunately, I seem to still have empathy fatigue now. Anyone that even hints at wanting me to parent them and I’m off like a shot. Sorry if that sounds harsh. You do seem to have a lot of self awareness. But she did too. She’d apologise quite often and say she was embarrassed etc but then she’d do it all again. She even had a go at me a few times for not being immediately available or not replying to her in the way I expected.

So if, as you say, it's less about endo and more about having someone there to call an ambulance in a life-threatening situation (have I got that right?), how do you think anyone who lives alone or doesn't have a partner coped? If I were to have a heart attack when my son was at his dad's, I'd either be able to call an ambulance or I'd die. And if I could call a friend, I'd be able to call an ambulance, so I'm still confused as to what you think having people on call will do?

I could call on friends and family (and indeed my ex) for practical support if I was ill - pick up something from the chemist, collect my son from school etc, and it sounds like you do have that from your parents and your ex.

You want to be taken care of like a young child.

But you're an adult. You may want to regress to a childlike state and be taken care of, but that's unrealistic. So tailor your expectations to reality. Your friends are unlikely to be able to do this because you want the kind of support a parent gives a child and well, you're not their kid.

I think with a chronic health condition trying to become more dependent on your friends for things like remind you to drink or take your meds which you could easily put into your calendar and use them for emotional support parenting multiple times a year is going to leave you with no friends.

Ask your therapist to teach you things like mindfulness, how to evoke the relaxation response, and techniques for stress management, all of which help with pain. Have they referred you for possible medication management of your panic during your flares?

My phone will dial our emergency number with one button and it doesn't even have to be turned on. Get a personal wearable alert button.

It's great you have narrowed down your issue.

There's a few things to remember:

• emergencies are rare
• there won't always be someone there
• a lot of people live alone

Right now, you are borrowing potential problems, from the future that may never materialise.

So stop. You aren't helping yourself.

Lots of us live alone and will be alone in emergencies. I can understand that fear. I feel it more after having an emergency last year and I feel it more as my body gives up more and I'm getting older. I find prep helps e.g. I always have a phone power bank upstairs in case I can't get down stairs to get my charger. It means I should always be able to ring 999.

What about renting out a spare room to a lodger so someone is there a bit more - not someone to rely on day to day but it might ease your mind to know someone will be home most nights just in case.

Ask your therapist to teach you things like mindfulness, how to evoke the relaxation response, and techniques for stress management, all of which help with pain. Have they referred you for possible medication management of your panic during your flares

Seriously.
Or just be an adult....

Spot on.
I think the really iffy thing in OP’s original proposal is that it puts her friends horribly on the spot, making clear that she expects X, Y,and Z, and they have to respond, whereas it involves only vaguely sketched issues they cant easily commit to even if they might be willing.
But her position is clear, all the same: a substantial service is required.
Should they refuse, that failed transaction will hover over both parties for good, tainting the friendship.
It is an ungenerous request to make, because it is inevitable that the act of making it involves plonking guilt on reluctant friends.

A lot of the help you want from your friends is the kind of help a parent would provide for a sick child - not for a capable adult. I also think the kind of help you're asking for would be massively off-putting for a lot of people so it's not something they're ever going to be comfortable providing.

When I'm sick, I don't want to see anyone. I would absolutely hate it if someone came over to make me soup or pass me the remote - I don't even want DH making me a coffee!

As a PP said, have a drawer by your bed that has everything you need in it - bottled water, tablets, phone charger, heat pads etc. Set your phone to have emergency contacts that can be called at the touch of a button.

For many adults, "support" means practical help - so, childcare, walking the dog, picking up prescriptions, popping to the shops - not coming over to "soothe" another adult and remind them to take their tablets or drink enough water. You need to adjust your expectations from those of a child to those of a grown, capable woman.

If it helps at all, you can set Alexa to call an emergency contact when you ask if your concern is about not being able to call for help. I set it up for my elderly mum in case she fell.