I’m struggling at the moment. It’s a difficult time of year for me. It was hard enough last year, not having the support I needed from friends. I’m anxious about that happening again and that I’ll end up isolating myself again. But this year it’s even worse. Not only will my best friend not be there for me, she’s given me even more to think about by blocking me.
I am so angry with her at the moment. I hate her for what she’s done. But that anger comes from feeling hurt, confused and frustrated. I don’t understand what the hell happened to us. I know I’m far from perfect. I’ve made mistakes… probably more than I would like last year, as I was having a breakdown. But as far as I see, the only thing I was guilty of last year was… being mentally ill … and trying to express my emotions and explain my thought processes, to help others understand why I am the way I am and how they could help me. I did nothing to deserve being treated the way I have been, and I really don’t understand what’s going on.
She said to me that I must think she’s heartless and doesn’t care about me … I’m afraid to say she’s very right at the moment. I didn’t think she was heartless until she blocked me. Who does that?? I had just expressed hurt at feeling rejected by her, and she thought the best response to that was to block me – the ultimate rejection of a friend.
I’ll tell you just how hard I’ve tried. Anyone who knows me or reads my blog knows just how ill I was last year. I was isolating myself. I was experiencing paranoia for the first time. I had no support, professionally or socially. I was splitting on everyone. Despite being too ill and too at risk to myself I pushed myself out of isolation and through paranoia, to talk to my friend, to try and save the friendship. Any effort I made was rebuffed. I WAS rejected by her a lot. And that bloody hurt me. It made me isolate more and made me more ill. I feel like she found every symptom of BPD and triggered each one off. And in my paranoid mind I feel this was deliberate. I do feel she did things to deliberately make me feel insecure, jealous, hurt and angry. If she read this she would be offended, rather than appreciating that her behaviour contributed to my state of paranoia. Rather than feeling bad for me that I felt a certain way, I think she’d be annoyed that I thought such things about her, and particularly that I SAID them! The only reason I’ve talked about these things is to explain my thought processes… so that she and other people understand how I form my beliefs… what they’ve done to make me think such thoughts and how it makes me feel. It’s never been about attacking her, and I’m so annoyed that it obviously came across that way to her. I just feel no matter what I say, nothing will ever make her see things as they are. And in my over-active mind that is because she’s just done with me and wanted an excuse to ditch me. So she’ll never listen to reason. Just like a previous mutual friend…. she didn’t want to change her view of things because she’d already discarded me. She obviously feels her life is better without me. So here we are.
But I fought for her. Even when I had very little fight left in me for even myself. I put our friendship ahead of my mental health… because she mattered that much to me. As soon as I said to her I had to do what was right for my mental health and take a step back, she blocked me.
I told her what she meant to me… I told her she was like a sister to me… that I loved her, cared about her and worried about her and all the family. I signed off my last message to her saying I miss having my best friend. She blocked me.
She didn’t like that I blogged about my feelings. So I stopped. At Christmas I wrote to her directly. She didn’t respond… I chased her up on it, putting in yet more effort for her that she would not reciprocate…. we discussed things a little…. I talked about feeling rejected a lot by her. She blocked me.
I sent her and the family cards and presents at Christmas along with a letter. The letter was for after Christmas. She read the letter, but didn’t open the presents. She didn’t give the kids the presents I made and bought for them. I wanted them to have them. I didn’t hold our falling out against the kids. I don’t understand why she did. This really upset me to hear. I had wondered why I heard nothing from her about it. She had snubbed me over Christmas. No card for the first time in however many years we were friends…. no text…. no thank you for the presents – no acknowledgement at all. I guess she thought if she didn’t open them she wouldn’t have to acknowledge them…. she was wrong. It was rude and very hurtful. I expressed being upset about this. She blocked me.
She told me she runs away when things go bad. I expressed concern about this as my illness means I have a fear of abandonment and rejection. I also expressed sadness that she could work things out with other people she’s not known as long as me…. so why not me? Was I not worth it? She blocked me.
I told her I needed to take that step back so I couldn’t see her posts anymore, as they were feeding my paranoia, and causing me pain seeing her move on happily with her life and her other friends, whilst dithering over whether to be my friend or not. I think this was not only quite reasonable but actually a sensible and mature decision to make. She blocked me.
I do not know her reason for blocking me. But as you can see above there are many possibilities. It could be because I was going to unfriend her. Maybe she thought ‘Well if you’re going to do it to me, what’s the difference me doing it to you?’… there’s a huge difference. I was only going to unfriend her. I hadn’t yet done it. So I was still friends with her when she blocked me. It was also done without an explanation from her, so was taken as yet another rejection / abandonment. It was quite a ‘final’ action. It’s a bit like slamming a door in someone’s face or sticking your middle finger up at them. I had explained quite reasonably why I was taking the action I was. It was to stop my paranoia and preserve a future friendship. It was for both our sakes. It was so she could continue to write freely about her better friends, and it wouldn’t hurt me. Win-win. Had I been able to do it that way I would have been the one to make that choice, and the paranoia would’ve ended. By blocking me she took away my choice. I had no say in if and when I could communicate with her again. She’s effectively said she never wants to hear from me again. I was afraid she could unblock me at any time and say something hurtful. Then I discovered you can block people who block you. So I can now take my power back. But she still ruined everything. Because where there was going to be an end to the paranoia she has denied me that. By doing something as stupid and dramatic as blocking me, I now have an endless amount of chaos in my head… so many bad thoughts about her and what her motives were. I wish she hadn’t blocked me. If she’d just accepted what I said and agreed it was best for now, we could have had a peaceful break and come back together again. But because of what she’s done I don’t think I will ever feel good about her again. She has spun my paranoia and splitting out of control. She can’t expect to close that door on me like that, move on happily with her life and then reconnect with me again in the future, with everything being flowers and rainbows. Blocking me was at least a passive-aggressive action…. if not an aggressive one.
I wish she could’ve communicated with me like an adult. I tried my best to do that with her, even though I wasn’t up to it. She didn’t know what the next step was. I told her it was to meet up. She wasn’t ready. Funny that…. I was the one who was wronged and yet I was prepared to meet her and talk, to save our friendship. Yet she needed more time. I don’t understand why she needed more time, but it’s fair enough if she did… I had to make that call in the meantime though. It wasn’t fair to leave me hanging, like certain other people did in my past. I deserve better than that. That’s why I did what was best for my mental health. I just wish she hadn’t crapped on that by blocking me. Right now my mental health is no better than before, because of her stupid action.
I’m frustrated because I don’t understand what the hell was going on in her head. And it was having such a huge impact on my life. And I was expected to keep it all to myself. She has a support network. She has other friends, a husband a big family. I only had her to confide in. It was unfair to expect me to know how to cope with things totally alone. I’m frustrated because no matter what I did I couldn’t turn back time. I couldn’t make things better. I couldn’t understand her or be understood. She wouldn’t listen to me. She wouldn’t be compassionate. She just kept getting colder and colder. I’m frustrated because I didn’t deserve that. I needed warmth. I needed love, care and compassion. I needed effort. I didn’t get it. But I damn well put it in, especially recently. I gave the effort I wish she gave me. And not only was it wrong that I did that when she wouldn’t do it for me, but she didn’t appreciate it at all. This tells me she gave up on me ages ago. And what frustrates me is I don’t understand WHY.
I can only assume it’s because of my mental illness. Either that or she just got bored of me. A lot of people do. I clearly didn’t mean much to her. She was prepared to let me go without a fight… thinking she hated me. She interpreted me isolating myself as not wanting her friendship, despite me repeating over and over again that it meant the opposite. I was pushing people away to see who cared enough to notice and pull me back. I wasn’t doing this knowingly or in a manipulative way… but it was a protective thing… to find out who I could trust and count on. Those who pulled me back I could then feel safe and secure with, and those who let me go were never really on my side to begin with… it saved me being abandoned further down the road. I needed more than anything to feel safe, secure and certain about the people around me. Nothing else in my life feels certain. With my illness nothing feels certain. It’s unpredictable. I don’t always feel safe – from myself, but also with my paranoia I don’t know what’s real.. I don’t know who I can trust… or what I can trust. I feel like people mean me harm. But also since my granddad passed away two years ago, nothing feels certain anymore. It’s changed the way I see life and the world around me. I need people around me who add stability and security to my life. I thought she was one of those people. But when I pulled away she made that wrong assumption, against what I was saying, and just let me go. I cannot express strongly enough just how much this hurts me. It is a hard pill to swallow, realising that someone who had been my rock all those years suddenly didn’t have my back at the worst time in my life… that they’d let me slip away without a fight. It’s not okay. I hope any reasonable person would understand why I’m upset about this.
When my granddad passed away I had just had my medication increased, so my emotions were numbed. I truly felt this. And at the time I was grateful for it. I’m now informed that this stopped me grieving fully until the effects wore off. By the time that happened other people had moved on and forgotten I was grieving. But for me it was new grief. It was all the things I hadn’t felt before when I was newly medicated. So a year ago, in the lead up to the first anniversary of his death, I needed my friends’ support more than they knew. So when nobody (except one person) was there for me it started off a spiral downwards in my mental health and how I related to other people. That’s what caused me to split on absolutely everyone and isolate myself as a result. The problem though wasn’t that my friend wasn’t there for me on that date… it’s that I didn’t hear from her for a couple of months and it was a reluctant message when it came. She thought I was annoyed with her when my problem was more with everyone else. I didn’t feel it was with her at the time. But it became about her as she appeared to assume it was so didn’t talk to me! We met and talked and said we’d never go through this again – we’d talk to each other next time…. fat lot of good that talk did! I saw her once more, this was in June last year, and then things started getting worse.
Any time spent apart was time for my paranoia and splitting to convince me that she didn’t really care and was simply tolerating me. She’d go weeks without talking to me at all. I was still isolating very badly. It was next to impossible to reach out, to anyone. It was nothing personal. I had to send the kids their birthday presents last year as I didn’t get to see them after February and only saw their mum in June. It was kind of her to post me my birthday presents, but at the same time I read into it that she didn’t intend to see me. It was bittersweet. I felt at that point she was done with me. I’m sorry but that’s how paranoia works. It infected my mind, and every action and every word was seen through the lens of paranoia. It was not a very nice way to feel about her. It’s partly why I kept to myself because it wasn’t fair to inflict that aspect of my illness on her. I knew that. It was not deliberate and it actually distressed me.
One aspect of the paranoia I found particularly distressing was in relation to her other friendships. This did not come from being possessive and thinking she shouldn’t have other friends. It came from insecurity about our own friendship because she didn’t show the same appreciation and effort for me as she did for them. We were rocky – not talking most of the time, and she was writing about the great time she had with other people – the great company and laughs etc. – I wasn’t jealous but I felt I was being replaced. And I actually started to think I deserved to be replaced. This is because I felt so badly about myself. My self-esteem and self-worth were six feet under and I felt inferior to these other people. I felt my friend deserved better. I thought she preferred the other friends – that they had more in common, being married with children, plus they aren’t as completely messed up in the head like me, and could be more supportive to her, more than I was able to be last year. I was also scared of losing her. She meant such a lot to me and I was afraid of losing her…
I wrote about this… about the fact that the fear of losing someone can actually lead to it being manifested. I was right. When I blogged about this – about paranoia, my fears and insecurities, I don’t think she was very happy about it. One thing I noticed after she read it was that there was definitely an increase in her writing about her other friends. Even a rational person would be forgiven for thinking it was deliberate. I was paranoid, so of course I was going to think the things I did. I thought she was doing it to punish me for not meeting her right away to talk about it (I couldn’t as I was overwhelmed and terrified of her. I thought she was angry with me and I felt under threat, so left it a week) … I thought she may be doing it as a way of saying ‘I’ll do what I want’… as though me expressing my feelings about her posts was me saying she shouldn’t do it. This was not the case at all. All I was doing was explaining what was going on in my head and heart. I was pretty much seeking reassurance if anything. That’s all it would’ve taken. She gave none.
Every post since that was ‘evidence’ that she was trying to hurt me. Posts about Christmas with all their favourite people were digs at me, telling me I’m no longer one of her favourite people…. hinting about moving house was to make me feel abandoned and like I was going to be left behind now we’d fallen out…. the point was everything was hurting me. I didn’t want to stop her posting what she did. But equally I had to protect myself from it all. Taking that step back seemed a logical thing to do. I don’t understand her reaction to that.
She’s confused me so much. She twisted many things in her mind… thinking I asked for space when she was the one who told me her priorities, as though I was a burden. I gave her space she needed. This is a fact. She made it seem like the opposite. It worried me that she would never have spoken to me again based on this misunderstanding. It tells me how little I meant to her.
I knew that the only way to clear everything up and sort things out was to meet up and talk. We couldn’t afford to write to each other anymore as there appeared to be too many misunderstandings as a result. I felt far too upset by her to resolve anything in any other way. Things would only spiral further downwards until we met up. But she wanted more time. More time may have helped her be ready but it would also have made our situation worse, as it would’ve added to my paranoia and illness. Time is not going to heal this for me. Effort is what will heal it for me. Her effort. Time will only add to the ‘hatred’ I feel towards her. I’ve been put off for long enough… time is not what is needed… a difficult conversation is. If she didn’t have the balls to do that then that’s too bad. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it myself. But I knew nothing would improve until it happened. In my mind the next step wouldn’t actually have been meeting up. It would’ve been making up for what she’d done. Acknowledging where she went wrong, apologising… thanking me for the presents… and maybe making some sort of gesture to match my efforts. I feel that her reluctance to do that, or to know that’s the next logical step shows that she doesn’t think she did anything wrong. That she thinks it’s all me. That I’m the one in the wrong.
Everything she’s said and done has painted that picture that I’m the one in the wrong, and that she needs more time (to forgive me presumably)… it is usually the hurt party who ‘needs more time’. She acknowledged there’s a lot of hurt and upset, but it wasn’t clear whether she was taking accountability for that hurt and upset or whether she was blaming me for it. I hate that it looks like I’m in the wrong…. that she snubbed me, whilst I was chasing after her apologising and trying to make amends… I made effort for her… she showed indecisiveness about progressing, and then she blocked me, as though I was harassing her or something!! It pisses me off.
The fact is I was mentally ill, paranoid, trying my best not to inflict that on her or anyone, kept out of her way, felt shit about myself and inferior to others, thought she deserved better, wrote about my symptoms, apologised when I was in the wrong, kept a lot to myself… I was hurt, rejected, neglected, misunderstood and abandoned … blamed for everything…. yet I still made the effort, extending an olive branch at Christmas, which she snubbed…. I further chased things up, for peace of mind…. when she couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted my friendship or not, I made the tough decision of stepping back for my mental health, whilst leaving the door open to talk and meet when she was ready…. and then I got blocked.
It doesn’t make any fucking sense. It’s confusing. It’s not fair. I feel angry that everything she’s done has made me feel like it’s all my fault… even if that’s not how she feels about it, that’s what her actions have communicated to me, and that just adds to my paranoia and splitting and makes me hate her, for lumping that shit and blame on me, when the above paragraph is the truth. When I was the one who put in the effort for her that I needed from her. I get blamed and blocked. It’s not right. And I’m rightly upset about it.
I will not accept the blame for any of it because I know the reality. I was trying to communicate the reality. She knows her reality for sure, but wouldn’t level with me. It’s like in her mind she knows her truth and that’s enough to make the decision to ditch me. And I feel like ‘How dare you blame it on me?! Just admit you don’t want to be my friend anymore. Own it. Say it’s your fault. Don’t abandon me and then make me feel like I deserved it’. … I’m just at a loss for what to think and how to feel.
I’ve been unable to put it into words for a long time. I’ve tried. But because she misconstrued a blog post before and had a go at me for it, I lost my confidence in writing. I felt anything I said would offend her, so I started censoring my posts so much that I didn’t get the feelings out and it was a total waste of time writing them, so I gave up. None of my posts have ever been or will ever be about attacking her. They’re about explaining what the fuck’s going on in my head. It’s exploring my thoughts and feelings and making sense of why I feel the way I do. Sometimes I’ve wanted reassurance and understanding from others… it has been to communicate… communicating my needs. But if people are on the lookout for insults they’ll see them where they don’t exist. It upset me that she saw attacks where there were none. I remember the post that upset her she said that people will think she’s a total bitch who doesn’t deserve my friendship…. I was baffled by this because I had just written about the fact I felt she deserved better than me. How could anyone interpret from that that she didn’t deserve me. I have to understand though that she was obviously in a delicate place herself and on the defensive, so prepared for battle with me on anything I said.
I know I didn’t do anything wrong. I know it was a misunderstanding that got out of hand. I would’ve forgiven it had she had the courage to admit it and make up for it. But blocking me was the exact wrong way to go. Trouble is I’m an understanding person… I give people the benefit of the doubt… I defended her and made a lot of excuses for her that she’ll never know about… and I’m doing it now. I’m thinking about how she might be stressed or struggling with her own mental health at the moment, and has her own fears that manifest in the wrong way too. But I’m sorry… the time for making excuses is up. It’s been two weeks since she blocked me. That was a bad choice. I’m not responsible for her choices. I’m responsible for my recovery, and that’s something I need to focus on now I don’t have to worry about her. I spent so long fearing being abandoned, and being paranoid about her intentions that it was making me more ill. Now she has officially abandoned me and solidified the split and the paranoia, as upset as I am about it, I have to see it as a positive… no more uncertainty. I needed certainty… although I don’t know the reason she blocked me, blocking me is a sign of certainty. It is a ‘goodbye’ (more like a ‘fuck off’ but yeah…). I wanted certainty, I got it. Just unfortunately the opposite of what I wanted. But now I have to move on.
She may or may not regret the mistakes she’s made, one day in the future. It’s not my problem. That’s her problem. And if she wants to make things right one day then it’s 100% up to her to do so. I will make no more effort for that girl. I did enough and got snubbed and blocked for it. The loss isn’t as big for her – she’s only lost me. She has other friends. I don’t. She was my one and only real friend. I won’t ever have another like her – even those who say they’ll always be there for you will eventually let you down and walk away. I can’t trust anyone anymore. I can’t afford another loss like this. Not when so many wounds from losses are still wide open like they are today. I lost her, the family, the kids, my one and only friend… it seems like a bigger loss for me… I definitely think it’s more traumatic for me based on that alone. But I’m being told it’s her loss. Because she gave up on someone who wouldn’t have given up on her… someone who cared about her, put in effort for her… tried to be understanding and forgiving… someone who fought for her even whilst I was very ill. And she just let me go. So I’ve lost someone who doesn’t see me as worth fighting for… someone who refused to understand… someone who didn’t appear to care…. someone who didn’t put any effort in and who needed telling what to say and do next…. someone who just gave up on me. I’ve heard it said that ‘Is that really a loss?’
The loss I feel is the loss of the kids. I will never bond with friends’ kids again. It just means extra loss when the friend abandons you. I loved them so much and always will, and I’m heartbroken that I may never see them again. I already missed a year of their lives…. they won’t remember me. That bond was special and made me a better person. They were ripped from my heart against my will and it’s hard to not be angry at my friend for that, as I couldn’t see them if I didn’t see her. I need to take time to grieve for that loss. No other kids will ever be as special to me as they were… only my own if I’m ever lucky enough to have any. Even then, they’ll always be so important to me. They taught me a lot about myself and made me so proud to watch them grow. I hope they turn into lovely people. I’ll miss them so much. I wanted to be there forever. I never saw things ending like this….
This is a very difficult time. I find myself feeling similar to how I did a year ago… but I have to try and remind myself that’s in the past. Yes I’ve lost this friendship, but it doesn’t mean other people don’t care. And I’m going to start branching out soon hopefully too. All I can do is have faith and hope that things won’t feel this awful forever.
I’m trying my best to battle on… trying to return to volunteering again… physical illness seems intent on holding me back, but I have to try and push through. I am doing better than a few months ago. Heck I even managed to go to a concert on my own a few days ago – had to take a sedative to do it, as my anxiety was through the roof, but I actually enjoyed it and had a good night…. I then had a better feeling week… I even managed eight days without harming myself in any way. Yeah I’m annoyed that that’s all I managed at this point, but I’ll aim for nine days without it next time. Progress is progress. And I’m trying my best. That’s all I can do.
Nobody will ever know how hard the last year has been for me. It’s a miracle I’m still here, breathing. I guess pain means I’m winning… that I’m still alive and fighting… Trying to frame things more positively. It’s a work in progress!
Hope everyone’s well, and I hope to get back to blogging more soon… this one was about breaking out of the shell I was forced into, and assessing my feelings. I know it will have offended at least one person should they read it. But it’s helped me start to make sense of something that’s messed my head up entirely. It helps to let it out. I don’t ever want to let someone silence my voice again. It’s dangerous to stuff it down. I should know… it’s what I do best.
All the best to you all,
xxxx
More Harm Than Good 
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