Stop Seeking Reassurance.

*Self-harm and a lot of swearing near the end – sorry*

 

I don’t know where to start…. I don’t know how to put into words how messed up this week has been. I was originally going to write about ‘transference’, or basically having feelings for a MH professional…. I was going to write about the pain of that experience….. and then by Wednesday / Thursday I felt positive and was going to share that with you all… but now I’m completely broken, triggered and absolutely hate everyone at the Wellbeing Centre. I don’t want to go back there. I’ve been left triggered and in deep water with a weight around my ankle, left to drown for at least two weeks – and even if I then return, I can’t talk to anyone about any of this. They’ve messed up badly, repeated what the IAPT service did two years ago, so now I’m closing down…. I’ll resent MH services…. I won’t open up about anything…. I won’t engage positively with them as I had intended to in a couple of weeks…. it’ll all be for nothing. All they had to do was listen to me… to see that I recognised what would help me… if they could’ve done as I’d asked, I could’ve used the next couple of weeks positively and returned full of beans, focused on recovery and feeling happy and safe there. If they’d done what I suggested it would not only have solved the issue I’m currently having, but it would have healed the wounds of the past – the trauma caused by the IAPT service. But they chose to deepen the wound and further destroy my trust in MH services. I’m done.

 

Okay… I’ll try and start at the beginning of this week. I’ll try and be brief. I went to my group earlier in the week. I decided to say to X that I might not be coming back to the group, so wanted to thank him for all he was doing. I wanted to build him up and let him know he was doing a good job. I was dreading the three week break from the group. I said three weeks is a long time in my world, and anything could happen in that time. Part of me felt I might not survive the three weeks. Part of me felt it all depended on my discussion with Z the next day. I didn’t know what would come out of that discussion, and I might decide it best to not return. So I chose to ‘say my goodbye’ to X just in case.

 

Unfortunately during the group, before I had that chat with him at the end, there was mention of his partner…. I already knew he was off-limits. I knew about professional boundaries. I knew he could never be mine. I had actually begun to accept this and was trying to turn my romantic feelings towards him, into just being appreciative of him as a person. But hearing he has a girlfriend was the most sickening stab to the heart. And I had to sit there as if it didn’t affect me at all. When it came to the end and he said I’d wanted to have a quick chat with him, I felt like saying ‘no, actually it doesn’t matter’. It wasn’t like I was having the chat to try and seduce him or something… but the pain of discovering his relationship status just threw me, and I didn’t feel as appreciative of him all of a sudden. I also felt it really did mean goodbye. But I did talk to him for a couple of very awkward minutes. The things I wanted to say didn’t come out as smoothly as I’d intended. It was very forced. And I regretted it. But he seemed grateful for the positive feedback and hoped to see me come back to the group after the break. I said I’d see.

 

Wednesday I went to see someone at a different Wellbeing Centre, we’ll call her Z. This was to talk about the feelings I had, and the connection to my experience at the IAPT service. I won’t go into all the detail, but I discussed it at length with her – for almost two hours! She had said some helpful things…. She had said my feelings weren’t wrong to have. She just kept reinforcing the idea of the ‘boundaries’ and that it’s serious stuff, as ‘people can lose their jobs’ (which made me feel crap to be honest, as I already knew all that, and it seemed she cared more about their jobs than my distress). She said that MH professionals do care about their clients. They may not love them in that sense, but they think of them and want the best for them etc. She said he probably felt good that someone feels good things towards him. She said they agreed that I was brave / strong to share the truth with them. She said he wouldn’t judge me. She said he might feel hurt if I just stopped going to the group. She said all sorts of things…. I found it helpful at the time. It was overloading though…

 

So I went to the cathedral afterwards, lit a couple of candles for lost loved ones, and then sat in the Epiphany Chapel to quietly reflect. I’m not actually religious myself, but I asked for my heart and mind to be healed. I asked for the strength to get through this. I asked for help.

 

The next day I woke up and had a whole new outlook on the situation. I wanted to get the most out of the experience. I wanted to be positive, grateful and learn everything I could from X before I lose him. That way he’ll have made a difference in my life. That way there will be more to his presence in my life than the pain of losing him.

 

I had realised what would help me in order to move on and heal. Although she had said what he probably thought / felt, it wasn’t enough to convince me. They were only assumptions. I can’t be expected to base my beliefs on assumptions. The IAPT service never allowed me closure. I thought this place might be different. So I emailed Z and suggested that if I share a list of statements that would help me heal, could she share it with X and see if he’d agree with those statements, and then report back if he did. It was a pragmatic approach to the problem, that meant I didn’t have to speak to X again myself. And that I respected the boundaries, and would use her as a go-between.

 

The list included:

• Although he may not care about me, the way I care about him or wish he could care about me, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about me on some level – in a human way. Care doesn’t mean ‘feelings’. Care is care.
• Even if I feel a level of rejection from the whole situation, I’m not being rejected as a person. I’m still accepted and liked as a person and will be treated the same as usual.
• Even if I’m not valued personally by him, I’m still valued as a person.
• Maybe he does worry about me and wants the best for me – for me to stop hurting myself and to treat myself with more love and care than I do.
• Maybe he respects me and is proud of me for carrying on and trying to overcome this and everything else.
• He might even feel sad if I gave up and stopped coming to the group, because he wants to help people and wants to see me recover too. He doesn’t want me to give up.
• Maybe he appreciates the honesty, and appreciates being appreciated.
• He’s not disgusted with me.
• He doesn’t pity me.
• He doesn’t feel threatened by me or the feelings I have.
• He recognises I’m trying my best.
• Though a time will come where I will lose him and never see him again, he’ll know he made a difference in my life. And even if it’s only in the tiniest way I’ll have played a small part in his journey too, so I won’t be completely forgotten when it comes to an end.
• Even if I don’t matter to him like he does to me it doesn’t mean I’m ‘nothing’… (my friend who died last year, her partner got a tattoo with her initials and date of birth/death on his arm, with a quote saying “Every contact leaves a trace”… it feels like it’s all coming together and it’s a sign that even though I may lose people from my life, it doesn’t mean I never existed in their world. We all make a little difference to each others’ lives… feels like a message from beyond, that I can use now to deal with this situation).

 

These aren’t things that I DO believe. They are things that if I heard that he agreed with, would’ve allowed me to sit in a room with him again, comfortable that I’m cared for, appreciated, and that I matter, even if I’m still a ‘nobody’ in his world. I would’ve felt safe, supported and at peace, as I said to Z.

 

She didn’t respond, and I was concerned I might’ve gone into her spam folder, so I texted X to ask – and he also didn’t respond. He’s now off for two weeks. And she’s now off too. But she did reply to me last night….

 

Her response was that she saw X briefly and he assured her I’m a valued member of the group, he doesn’t feel anything negative towards me. She said as with all service users he wants me to succeed with my recovery and do well. So she successfully made me feel like a number. Like a nothing. A nobody. That was all she said on the matter. So after opening up and completely baring my soul and vulnerabilities to her, that was the extent of reassurance I got on everything. She clearly didn’t share my email with him or the sentiments in it. And then she said “I hope you can accept this and successfully manage your feelings without needing further reassurance” – WTF?!?

 

No, I cannot accept this and manage my feelings without further reassurance. I’m sorry that my need for reassurance is pissing you off and being a burden to you, but I actually fucking need it. So the moral of the story for me now is don’t seek reassurance from any of them. I feel I’m not allowed to speak to X anymore about any of this. I can’t seek his reassurance. She sure as hell isn’t going to reassure me, not anymore. She fucked that up. I don’t even want to hear from her ever again.

 

I’m now left feeling too demanding. But I knew in my heart what I needed to be able to move on. If I had properly been given that, then I could’ve used the next two weeks to get to a better place in my head, and everything would be fine when I go back. I’d never have needed to mention it again. Now I have two weeks of hating the guts of that place… I am splitting on them – and not just on Z, but on X too. It’s upsetting. I feel like they’re in it together, and he doesn’t want anything to do with me either. So I’m back to where I was on Tuesday – me, being in so much pain, whilst he’s out there with the woman in his life, happy as Larry, unaware of what Z has just done to me and my prospects of recovery.

 

When / if I go back, it will be more of the same I’m afraid. Any healing I could’ve done in this time off has gone down the toilet with that dismissive email. I now feel I’m on my own with it. I don’t want to talk to Z again. I feel I’m not allowed to talk to X anymore. Face to face Z had said I didn’t need to discuss this with X or his colleague again. I’ve been silenced. I sure as hell won’t bother opening up to anyone else at the Wellbeing Centre. So that’s it. It’s done. I either don’t go back and just live with the scars. Or I go back and don’t fully engage, because they fucked up. I’m trapped whatever happens.

 

If only Z could’ve accepted that I knew my own mind best, and what would help me. So often these bloody MH ‘experts’ ask their clients what help they need / want… I never know the answer – I always think ‘you’re the expert, you tell me!’ – but on this one occasion I knew it would’ve allowed me to accept that it could never be, but it would’ve probably healed the wounds that made me have the feelings for him in the first place. If I could’ve known he was proud of me, cared for me, appreciated me, and that I might’ve made a slight difference in his life (not personally, but just in some way that I wouldn’t be totally erased when it comes to losing him) – that would’ve made my time there and the impending loss a little easier. But fuck that. They don’t want what’s best for me. They want ‘boundaries’. They want to cover their own arses, no matter the cost to someone in distress. They want the power of being the professionals and knowing what’s best for me.

 

 

 

They’ve solidified the feeling of shame that came with being attracted to X. And Z has made me feel I can’t even talk to X anymore. So there’s even more shame. It feels like she’s holding me away from him, and denying me any sentiment that could help me. She is the obstacle to my healing. This is exactly why I didn’t want to see a fucking woman about this issue. Same happened at IAPT. So she’s triggered all that shit off too. I said I didn’t want to see a woman. That was for a reason. I was right. They didn’t listen. And she didn’t listen when I said what I needed. They don’t want to help me.

 

I now know my feelings ARE wrong. My NEEDS are wrong. They don’t deserve to be met. I therefore am nothing. I’m a statistic to them. So I might just turn up in a couple of weeks, as a statistic…. give my statistical feedback on mind-numbingly inane things that I’m not really struggling with… just to make them all comfortable with the situation… I’ll make up some things I’ve done well in this two week period. I’ll think of a minor struggle I can talk about…. I’ll lock my reality up inside my head and heart again, as though I never said anything – you know, I really wish I hadn’t said anything. Then I’d just have my feelings to deal with. Now I have my feelings, plus the trauma of IAPT opened up, and my trust in MH services completely yanked out of my system… and the negative feelings about them and about me, that this experience has left me with. I have to stuff ALL of that down inside me now, rather than just my stupid fucking feelings for a guy I can’t be with.

 

I never want to talk to Z again. Ever. Not allowed to talk to X. Now I’ve been burnt I won’t talk to anyone else. This is it. They blew the one fucking chance they had to help me. Just like the IAPT people did. Even back then I knew what I needed and they denied me it. The upset I felt at that – because I knew if they’d just listened to me and done what I knew my soul needed to heal, they could’ve stopped this situation ever happening again….. well now the Wellbeing Centre are just the same. They missed the chance. It’s too late to fix it. I don’t trust them anymore. They could’ve helped me change and heal. Now I will shove everything down and this will happen again in the future – only, I will probably never ask for help from MH services ever again as a result. I cannot afford to feel this way ever again in my life. I couldn’t afford to feel this way now. I was afraid to feel this way again. Now I do, I know I’ll never survive it happening again. Right now I’m not sure I’ll survive this.

 

Right now I’m angry. I may be crying, but I’m angry. When that anger dies down and the depression side kicks in, I’m screwed. I can survive with anger. I can’t survive the darkness and the hopelessness.

 

I feel very let down. This last week has been the worst, most intense rollercoaster, and I’ve ended up lower than I started. All it took were three / four days, to feel hope and to have it extinguished by the same person. I’m just done with recovery right now.

 

Yeah, honestly if I believed X wouldn’t want me to hurt myself, then it could’ve helped with my self-harm. As it is, I’m obviously just a number to him, so what I do doesn’t matter does it. Plus the way they’ve made me feel has only increased my urge to hurt myself. So fuck it. I won’t stop. I would’ve stopped for him. But as I’m that irrelevant, they won’t care if I don’t. I don’t exactly have any other way to cope with the shit they’ve left me in right now.

 

They might interpret it as ‘going to the group is making me worse’ – wrong. The way they’ve handled the situation is making me worse. Going to the group is fine. Feeling banned from talking to X makes me feel worse. Feeling watched makes me feel worse. Being told to stop seeking reassurance is making me feel worse. Being made to feel like a number, when I wanted to believe I mattered, is making me worse. That woman – Z is what is making me worse. But I bet they stop me going to the group, because they think that’s what is making me worse. Seeing X and everyone else has been the only thing keeping me alive this year. If they take that away from me I have nothing, and I’ll go. They’ll kill me. I just wish they could’ve handled it differently. I wish I never spoke to Z. I want to forget I ever did. I want to forget all of this. But it’s too late. It’s spiralled out of control, and now I resent them. If I resent them I can never make progress with them.

 

Maybe this will feel better when I’m not splitting on them like this. I’m aware that’s what’s happening. It doesn’t stop it happening though. I cannot see the good in them at all right now. I don’t even want to go to my course next week, which involves neither X nor Z, as I hate all of them in response to Z. But never mind. It is what it is. I have no choice but to tolerate all the negative thoughts and emotions that will be my existence this fortnight. My only hope might be the Samaritans again…. but given how I’m feeling about having opened up and had the response I’ve had, I’m reluctant to do it again, with anyone. Besides, I can’t talk… I feel too upset.

 

Time to hide it though, and pretend everything’s okay. Don’t want those around me to know about any of this. It will only add to the shame I already felt, and had confirmed by my encounter with Z. Silence is the way forward. This will be the only place I break that silence. Thank you to my followers who don’t judge me, and just allow me to air my feelings without making me feel shame. I appreciate you guys xxxx

Letter Of Self-Compassion.

Dear Me,

 

You got through Tuesday … well done. It was difficult. It was draining and emotional. But perhaps now you might feel better, knowing that someone believes you about the intensity of your illness… knowing that there is help out there for you. Maybe it’ll feel better now you understand why your mental health has deteriorated…

 

Having your medication increased before Grampa passed away was a mistake. Funnily enough it did what you wanted at the time – it numbed your emotions. It made you more subdued. It got you through the initial loss, more or less. But as it was pointed out to you in your assessment on Tuesday, numbing your emotions isn’t the answer…. it stopped you being able to grieve properly. For all the time until your body adjusted to the new dosage and the pills lost their effect, you didn’t experience your feelings fully…. you didn’t grieve. You already know you didn’t grieve – you were staying strong for other people. You didn’t know what grief felt like… it was your first experience of it. So in the initial aftermath when friends were there for you, you weren’t truly experiencing the full effects of grief. By the time the ‘benefit’ of the medication wore off and you felt the true and full effects of the loss, people weren’t there anymore. Life had returned to normal and it felt like everyone forgot you were grieving. It’s no wonder you’ve struggled all last year…. your medication wasn’t working, and nobody was there anymore, at a time you needed them more than they could have known. You needed them more last year than you did the previous year, when he passed away, because your grief was delayed.

 

So it isn’t right how you were treated last year. You didn’t deserve what happened. And hopefully in time she will regret hurting you. You needed care, compassion and support. And it’s perfectly understandable to be upset that at a time you needed that, you were met with silence and eventual hostility. It doesn’t matter what people had on. You can be understanding that others have their lives so can’t be there, and still feel upset that you were neglected. You don’t owe anyone an apology for being angry at how you were treated.

 

Your anger comes from a sense of injustice – knowing you didn’t deserve it, and from a place of frustration…. not being able to make her understand. Just being honest about your emotions and having that ignored and being made to feel like a burden, and being blamed for the state of the friendship… it’s okay to be as furious about that as you are.

 

You were the one with a serious mental illness…. you were the one experiencing paranoia and splitting – which you know are not rational patterns of thinking. She clearly doesn’t know this fact, so took things more personally than she should have. It became about her defending and explaining herself, when you just needed her reassurance and care. Her responses to your paranoia and splitting only confirmed the things you falsely thought. You needed people to not take it personally, to see it as a symptom of an illness… one which they could have helped with by proving those thoughts wrong – not through explanations but through love. She didn’t do this. Fact is, she was supposedly the ‘rational’ one of the two of you, therefore she was more able to communicate and to protect the relationship… if she’d wanted to. She was capable of reassuring you and forgiving you for your behaviours. She had the potential to be reasonable where you couldn’t. The bad things you felt about her were as a result of your illness, not a reflection of her… you made that clear… they were irrational thoughts… ones you didn’t want to have. The bad things she thought of you were her actual rational opinions, based on the symptoms of your illness that she did not recognise as such.

 

Yes you perhaps should not have blogged about your feelings…. it led to her being hurt. But you know how unintentional that was. You know the motive behind your own blog. You know how much she misconstrued what you were saying. You accept you could have worded a couple of things differently and you have as such apologised for the pain you caused. It’s more than she has done. You accept that sometimes when you’re in deep despair you don’t always make the right choices. It doesn’t make you a bad person. You need to forgive yourself – it wasn’t the crime of the century. A mistake perhaps, but not even that. The meaning was misinterpreted and you had a lot of things thrown in your face as a result of her misunderstandings… at a time you needed love and support.

 

I know why you’re so upset… You feel sad because none of this was your fault. This was suppressed grief worsening your mental health at a time when people couldn’t be there for you. This made you split and be paranoid, which you cannot help – you can’t just switch off paranoia with rational thought! Even today you still feel paranoid about some things. It’s hard second-guessing reality. Your mental health took a nosedive…. you couldn’t make the effort for her. You made it clear all year that you needed others to make the effort for you, as you were struggling. You explained your illness all year, and you said you felt like you didn’t have friends…. instead of being offended by that, you needed people to assess their behaviour and consider if they could do more to make you feel you had them as your friends. You needed reassurance. You needed effort, care and love. You didn’t get that.

 

You got distance. This may be for very legitimate reasons, not related to you at all… but she needs to accept that the splitting and paranoia surrounding her, which is off-the-scale now, contributes to your beliefs…. they may be irrational thoughts, but it’s what results from lack of reassurance and being attacked unfairly…. it solidified the split and made you doubt her intentions even more. So you are bound to think that everything she did was to upset you or have some emotional effect on you…. it’s okay to say that. If she thinks that makes you sound self-absorbed, selfish or it upsets her that you think these things about her, then that’s not your problem and illustrates perfectly what the problem is. She’s the one who needs to learn that paranoia and splitting is not within your control… that it may be irrational…. the things you think and say may be untrue …  but she is the ‘rational’ one – she has the power to dispel these beliefs… and she will only do that by being nice to you. By being reassuring, caring, kind and not holding it against you. She is not in that mindset currently. She had a chance to do that before, and she was simply defensive instead… she thought you were attacking her in that blog and went on a counter-attack as a result. Only time will teach her that you didn’t genuinely think bad things about her – her behaviour since may have changed that. You didn’t want the friendship to end. You were simply suffering with your illness and your grief, and felt powerless to get anyone to give a damn about you… you felt so alone. You just wanted her to understand and to show some level of concern or care for you. And every time she failed to do that, it compounded the irrational thoughts. And those irrational thoughts upset her, and pushed her away. She gave up on you. Because she thought you honestly felt that way about her. One day she’ll realise that wasn’t the case. One day she’ll understand how much she hurt you… what she did wrong… and she’ll know that she walked away from and gave up on someone who would never have given up on her. No matter what you may have said in the last year… the things that may have given her the impression you didn’t want her as a friend… you know and you wish she knew that those were the cries of a desperately isolated, helpless and paranoid person, quietly pleading for her friendship. You never gave up on the friendship…. you just felt she had. And her inaction proves it.

 

At this point you have given up on her. Because you’re not getting the care you need and deserve. Because she’s hurting you more than helping you. Because you’ve now done all you can.

 

You sent her and the family Christmas cards and presents. You wrote to her, to apologise, to explain, to show compassion and to make amends. You should never have had to put that effort in for her, when effort was the very thing you needed all year from her. When that compassion was what you needed. She should have been doing the running, not you. It’s always you. This has to stop now. Stop chasing after people and fighting for people who wouldn’t do the same for you. Grow some self-worth. That effort was wasted on her. Don’t ever do it again. It was not appreciated.

 

For the first time in over a decade you didn’t even get a Christmas card…. or a text to acknowledge you or to even thank you for what you sent. You were completely snubbed over Christmas and the New Year, and there’s been only silence since. No matter how hurt you felt and how much you didn’t want to hear from her, that is plain rude and disrespectful. It’s unforgivable and the final nail in the coffin. And it seems like it was done to punish you…. for that horrendous crime of writing about your feelings…. which she misinterpreted. She wanted you to feel bad… she wanted you to feel like you were the one in the wrong and didn’t deserve her. Don’t start to believe that. I know you thought it all year anyway – you don’t need people to make you feel that way… you naturally feel you don’t deserve anyone. That changes now. I know it made it look like you were the one in the wrong – there she was blanking you, pretending you were dead to her, whilst you went running after her, saying sorry and wanting to fix things… it makes it look like you were trying to make things up to her. Don’t worry what it looked like. You know the truth. You know that you sent what you did in the full knowledge of your innocence and knowing she had totally misunderstood you and hurt you as a result. You were being the bigger person. And you know what? You are. Because despite being the hurt party and being mentally ill and suffering as much as you were, you still made that effort for her. You took hours making those things for the kids. Days. You didn’t have to do what you did. But you did because you are not petty. Because you were willing to forgive her for her misunderstanding. Because you have a good heart. Because you thought you owed it to each other to not end things on terms like that last message you received. You deserve better than that. The message she sent you indicated she took no blame for the state of the friendship…. she didn’t like that you expected her to make amends with you (even though that was a misinterpretation of you what you said anyway)…. and she was worried people would think badly of her and would think she didn’t deserve you.

 

I’ll tell you who deserves you…. the person who questions if they do deserve you. The person who looks at their behaviour, can reflect on it, consider your emotions and do the right thing, without making you feel guilty for expecting it. You need to build yourself some boundaries young lady. Some standards, and stick to them like glue. You might lose people you’ve known all your life because of those standards you set…. let them go. The people, not the standards! You are not a doormat. You are allowed to use your voice and say when you feel you deserve better treatment. You may need to consider the way you go about voicing those feelings – as you well know you are not perfect and can always improve – you’re not so arrogant to think you are never wrong… in fact you’re frequently wrong and feel genuine remorse about it. You deserve people who show genuine remorse towards you too. People who would do anything to not lose you. You deserve that. People who are not too proud to admit their mistakes and apologise. People who remind you of the good in you when you cannot see it in yourself. People who tell you how they feel towards you…. without you having to put words in their mouth. They say it because they feel it and they mean it. You deserve relationships and friendships like that. You need it. Do not settle for less. I’ll kick your arse if you do.

 

Let her think what she does of you. What others believe about you is not your concern. Your concern is picking yourself back up…. gluing yourself back together… holding your head up high and carrying on with you life, with or without her.

 

You have to accept that it is highly likely this friendship is dead. No matter how much you don’t want it to be… if what you did (however misunderstood), upset her that much that she says nothing will ever be the same now, and punished you by snubbing you, then how long would it survive if resurrected? It would always be in your mind that she holds it against you, along with her interpretation that you gave her an ultimatum. It will haunt you that she saw the reality of your illness and said nothing will ever be the same now, because of one misunderstanding / ‘mistake’. That she gave up on you that easily. That she was that petty and that rude to snub you, when you had gone to a lot of effort for her…. How would that last? Think about it… seriously… I know you don’t want to lose her – the whole point of last year was because you were afraid of losing her. The reality is that she was not afraid of losing you. She must have let go of you a long time ago… you’re always the one left holding on long after others walk away. Don’t do this to yourself any longer than you have.

 

The simple fact is that you can’t go back and undo everything that’s happened. You have ‘trauma’ issues. Undiagnosed but possible I would think, that you have C-PTSD. And this means that you cannot let go of hurtful things that happen. Or rather they won’t let go of you. What has happened has scarred you…. in more ways than one. That damage is done. Equally you cannot go back and change what you have done. You cannot go back and unblog your feelings. You cannot change the words you said to make it clearer what you meant. You cannot go back in time and change how you reacted to the Hannah stuff. you cannot unwrite what you wrote back then… you cannot unbeg for her to consider your emotions. I don’t think you should to be honest. If someone won’t consider your emotions then sometimes they need to be told about them! But if you had known it would lead to accusations of ‘ultimatums’, then in hindsight you would not have approached it in that manner. You cannot undo that. And the past won’t go away.

 

People do overcome difficulties in relationships and friendships…. people do forgive and move on… but the difficulty here is her level of understanding, and your emotional needs do not seem to match anymore. Her actions or more importantly inactions demonstrate that she will not forgive you for what she thinks you did wrong, because she sees things less compassionately than your illness requires her to. Perhaps in her mind it is unforgivable and she can’t forget it. That alone is reason enough to call it a day. You don’t need to beg for forgiveness. You don’t need to suck up to her. Because you know the story. You have apologised. Do not make it all about what you did to her… that you wrote about things that involved her, without naming her. Because if you do that, it sweeps over the things she did to you. It absolves her of her sins. It makes it seem like you are a piece of crap on the floor, you don’t deserve anyone or anything, and you’ll grovel to anyone to keep them as your friend. You have already done more for her than she has for you in this situation. Stop giving. It is her turn to fight for you. To apologise to you. You have tried being compassionate and forgiving to someone who hasn’t sincerely apologised. And she appears to be unforgiving to someone who has apologised.

 

Reality is that the whole debacle was because you are mentally ill and struggling so much with it. It’s because you are grieving without support from friends. It’s because you were abandoned when you needed people the most. It’s because you felt you were misunderstood, judged, blamed and punished for the symptoms of your mental illness. That is purely wrong. It’s okay to say it is. Call out stigma where you see it. All people make mistakes… even her….  the bit that shows how redeemable someone is, and how fixable a relationship is, is willingness to admit those mistakes, apologise for them and show dedication to making up for them. I wouldn’t expect it from her. Not now. She is moving on… by the sounds of it she’ll be moving, probably far away from you now she doesn’t need to stick around for you anymore – what a way to find out you’re potentially being actually, physically abandoned by someone you care about – online. You used to be the first she’d tell about things. Now she hints about them (in your paranoid mind, to hurt you). It makes you feel excluded from her life. So she clearly doesn’t want you in it anymore. She’ll move on and like with Hannah, you will be painted as the villain.

 

Even this post would be used as ammunition. It would be all about what you did wrong here, rather than admitting that this is as a result of how she treated you…. that this is about self-compassion and fixing what she broke in you. That it’s not about her, it’s about you. It’ll always be about making you feel guilty and like you have to apologise for what you do, without her taking responsibility for how she’s made you feel. But you know what is true. And one day she will regret it. It is her loss. No matter how sad it makes you to lose her, the kids and a long history…. if she cannot see what she has done wrong, and won’t do what is needed to fix it, then you’re better off. Because one day you will recover from this mental illness. You may look back with regret at some things you said and did in the midst of your breakdown… but ‘you will still be you’, as Grampa always used to say. You’ll make it out the other side of this breakdown, and you will be the same person you were before you went into it…. you will be the same person you know you are right now. You know you’re still in there, and you needed your friends to look into your heart and recognise you as their friend. You’ll know that she let go of a loyal, caring, thoughtful and honest friend… someone who would never have given up on her. Time will reveal the truth to her. And she will one day regret losing you. But not right now…. right now she hates you. And that’s okay. She’s entitled to. She doesn’t know what you know.

 

Always hold on to who you are. Don’t ever let anyone make you doubt that you’re a good person. Don’t keep punishing yourself for mistakes you make… other people don’t punish themselves for their mistakes – they take it out on you instead!!! Put the anger and the blame where it belongs. Stop inflicting pain on yourself. Stop hitting yourself…. stop trying to break your hand and your arm…. stop cutting and bleeding for people who don’t even blink at the thought of hurting you or losing you. It’s crazy. Focus on your recovery. Focus on getting well again. And cherish the people who are around you, supporting you, loving you and who remind you of the good in you. The people who never give up on you, especially in your darkest time. Forget what you have lost, and focus on what you still have. You will get there. Just stop letting the opinions of others become your reality. Forgive yourself, focus on your health and one day this will all make sense on a higher level. Love yourself first. You’ve got this.

 

xxxx