'But she did also say "we are all over 40 with kids now, you shouldn't really be expecting help from any friends now". In an almost patronising way. Like I was a total fool for thinking people might want to help.'
@EmmaEmerald that is harsh, and makes me feel maybe I was a bit too 'unvarnished' in my earlier post. Whatever the realities of family life these days, literally telling a friend off for expecting help after a nervous breakdown is downright rude and hurtful. No friend, for sure.
I hope I would do my best to support an old friend if they told me they'd had a nervous breakdown; it's vital that people have someone who will simply listen without judgement. Time is short, but the telephone is always an option.
The realities remain, nonetheless: I had 3 months off work with mental health last year; I didn't call it a nervous breakdown, I said 'massive sense of humour failure' but it amounted to the same thing. All my work colleagues knew, and the very few people I count as old friends. Only one colleague rang me once.
One of my close friends lives 90 minutes away, she has primary school-age children. She has never been to my house, I've been to hers bc my kids are older so that frees me up a bit. We've both had serious mental health episodes in the past few years, but have had very little contact, much less than I would ideally want.
What prevents it? I'd say it's a combination of lack of free time, lack of energy and a sense that our respective partners would take a dim view of us taking 'time out' to go and comfort a friend. It's not that my partner is unfeeling, it's more that our own relationship suffers more or less permanently from lack of 'us-time' so my going off for the best part of a day means DP is left doing everything that needs doing, on her own, knowing that I'm thinking more of my friend than I am of her. I have done that nevertheless, and she's been ok with it, but I can't do it as often as I want to. But then I can't do most things as often as I want to.
The reality is, friendships need time invested in them, and too many of us are time-poor because, despite all the 'improvements' in labour-saving devices over the years, the need for both people in a marriage or long-term family relationship to go out to work, and the decline in community life, mean that we lead lives that militate against good friendships.
My mother would sit on her doorstep in the 1960s, mid-housework, and maintain her friendships with other women in our street. No-one does that any more; our friendships tend to stem from our workplaces so have a geographical spread that precludes meeting away from work.
Even those friends made at the primary school gate never 'pop round'; somehow impromptu visits have fallen out of favour, as if it's now considered rude - or even 'common' - to call on someone without a prior arrangement. This smacks, to me, of class consciousness. Only the working classes gather on the step or the street corner; the middle classes keep themselves to themselves, and friendships are the casualties.