I think i lost most people in the early days purely because of phone issues and no longer being able to do it. People ringing constantly i still believe may have contributed to me causing more damage to myself in the early days.
Eventually when i realised that someone ringing me to talk for an hour was stopping me from doing anything for the rest of the day including eating etc. i had to draw a line.
It was then that i also developed a stalker who was once a friend/acquaintance. As soon as i explained that i was too ill to chat this caused him to be 'concerned' and rang me even more.
I didnt have the strength to hold the phone to my ear and on one occassion he was rabbiting away and i actually threw up while on the phone and even that didn't make him realise to let me go, he was so obsessed with talking to me.
That was the final straw for me, i had to cut off from everyone and i lost everyone... Except him... His calls kept increasing, my mam would answer, explain i was very ill but of course he wanted to hear it from me and it wasn't physically possible. His calls increased to 15 times a day up to 3am.
There were only landline phones back then so we had to unplug the phone at night or the ringing would have woke my dad and if that happened my dad would have killed me.
My 'stalker' thought my mam was trying to keep us apart so, he'd start parking in my street trying to catch me going out. Even after a year of me being bedridden, he was still trying to catch me and asking people in my local pub about me.
The phone calls continued for a few years, all this while i was seriously ill in a pitch black room and i knew half the time he was sitting watching outside. He would write tons of letters, some nice, some slightly threatening, anything to get a response. He hasn't had a response for 15 years, and even now once every couple of years he tries to make contact.
Some people don't take well to a phone ban hahaha. It was hard losing people who were my friends, but i discovered it was even harder 'not being able to lose them too'
I still can't talk on the phone, but thankfully now, mobile phones and internet exist for written comms.
If i do have to make a call i find it easier to do a utility call or the like rather than a friend. Calling a company requires less energy than with a friend as a friend requires an additional emotional input from me to some extent and a more upbeat chirpy voice which is also draining. My voice can be listless and monotonous when talking to a company and no one cares and i can hang up in a push.
I think because of my friend/stalker experience (and i've had two others apart from him over the years) even if i recovered, i'd never entertain phone relationships ever again. But while ill, its as good as having an energy vampire clamped onto the phone handset sucking out my lifeforce through my ear lol.