Back in February I wrote a post called How To Get Rid Of Toxic Friends & Alienate Bitches which was basically a big old rant from me with a bit of clever quipping and over caffeinated potty mouth but it was still a good post. Well yesterday while I was wishing I was here and procrastinating studying for finals I was checking my email and received a comment on this post from way back in the days of Valentines and snark.

I really enjoyed reading your article. I have a friend who is really affecting me in a negative way right now. She has been going though a bad time in the past year, things are better for her. I’ve tried reaching out to her a # of times all of which were completely ignored. It hurts me i don’t know what i did wrong. Every time i try to talk to her about how i feel she brushes it off makes me feel like a baby, how it’s all about me. Our friendship now is filled with a lot of animosity. how do you move on from this?

-Sam

First off let me say I enjoy comments in general, always respond to them, and really love getting to know my readers. Also questions are always wonderful because sometimes it is the only thing that will lead to some creative energy on a post, like this one did. While still in procrastination mode I thought a lot about how I wanted to answer this question and decided here was the best place to do so, and since I am not a specialist in relationships and friendships the best I can offer you is what I have learned in my experiences.

Sam, I have totally been in your shoes and while this type of negative impact in your friendship may have nothing to do with body image it does have to do with your sense of self and your security in the friendship so it is just as important that it be nipped in the bud. I had a very similar issue happen with a life long friend of mine over the last couple of years as well and I figure now is as good as time as any to share the experience.

My friend and I had been close since around the 6th grade, we didn’t go to school together but we met during some afterschool activities and we had a lot in common. We both were involved in music, were boy crazy (or at least I was pretending to be) and we were both curvy girls. She was the first friend I had that really understood what it felt like to be in my skin and I think that was a big part of why our friendship was so powerful and so important. We remained close  through Jr High and the beginnings of High School. It was around our Junior year that things started to change. I’m not really sure whose fault it was that we began to drift, it could have been because my whole life, and personality changed after the death of my father that summer or it could have been a million other reasons but that was also when a lot of her problems began and basically our friendship became a very low priority for both of us. Even though we drifted apart and had very different lives we still could manage to pull our friendship together in the necessary moments and always were in each other corners until about 2 years ago.

My friend was going through a very rough time, she had a bit of trouble with the law, was facing difficulties with completing school and things were not to great on the job and man front. She was very depressed and spent a lot of time isolating herself from the world.  She was retreating to a shell she had never had before and unfortunately at the same time I was in the process of finding myself, coming out of the closet, getting divorced, and falling in love with Nightrider. While it was a hard time for me there was a silver lining to look forward to and for her I believe she felt there was no hope in sight in her situations.  Needless to say we were both so tied up in our own shit we really didn’t have the time or energy to take care of each other. I did try a few times to be there for her especially after she spent sometime in the hospital after a suicide attempt  but she seemed very uninterested in my friendship or letting me in and after numerous attempts to be there for her my heart couldn’t take it anymore. I let this turn to animosity and alot of hurt and with my defensive nature I reacted with a mentality that basically was along the lines of “screw her, she hasn’t been there for me through probably the hardest year of my life, and she won’t let me be there for her so whats the point”. At that point it was a time for me to evaluate our friendship and that evaluation came up pretty bleak.

It sounds like you and your friend have been through a lot as well and maybe something similar. It is hard when our friends are in a constant state of woe and we can’t do anything to change it. It makes it even harder when they push us away and can’t find their way out of their own sadness to even let us get anywhere near them. From the sounds of it your friend must have been at that level. I am glad to hear that her life is getting better again and that she is working her way out of it. Now that your friendship is out of survival mode it may be a good time for an evaluation of the friendship. If you really feel your friend is impacting your life negatively and she won’t acknowledge it then there is no way to really repair your feelings. Part of her ignorance of the problem and playing it off, or as you said treating you like you are being a self-absorbed baby, could be a defense mechanism for her. It was probably one of the hardest times of her life and she may just not want to admit to it, or admit to being wrong about how she handled it when she pushed you away. It could also be something that she mentally needs to shut out of her memory completely in order to get over it and move on with her life now, but none the less whatever her reason it doesn’t change the fact that it hurt you.

I made the same strides when my friend and I began to mend our friendship about 6 months back, I wanted to talk about it, to talk about how she hurt me, how I wanted to be there for her, how I didn’t want our friendship to be like that and so on and while she did apologize it was apparent that she didn’t want to have the long heart to heart about it much like your friend. She could provide reasons why it had happened, what her problems were but couldn’t provide me with much to work with as far as my feelings were concerned or on how to prevent the same thing from happening in the future. 

 It was at this point that I had to re- evaluate again. I could push her to talk about these things, to re-live the hard times and possibly create even more of a rift in our friendship or I could let it go and push my feelings to the side and decide that our friendship repairing was more important than my feelings in this instance. In the long run I decided to forgive, to let the hurt and animosity go and move on with our friendship but to do so with a more protected heart then I had in the past.  If you decide to take this same route it can only work if she is willing to let it go completely too, if she wants to talk negatively about the experience or place blame on you this wont work. It will only work if you are both willing to forgive and forget.

The other option is basically to keep pushing it, maybe write her a letter (wow i’m oldschool) or an email and get out all of your feelings in the most delicate way possible. This can’t be a big rant about how shitty she makes you feel but it does need to have honesty and not be overly sugar-coated.  If you write her a letter it will give her sometime to marinade over it and choose her words and really consider your feelings rather than shooting back in defensiveness as if you were face to face. There is a chance that this might make things worse but then it is really the point where this friendship is having a serious negative effect on your life and it may just be time for it to end. I’m not saying you have to “break up” with her so to speak but maybe just bow out casually and move on with both of your lives.

Since I have made the choice to forgive and move on our friendship has certainly improved, we aren’t back to where we used to be but I think it is a place we will get again someday. I love her and despite the series of unfortunate events we have had take its toll on our friendship over the last few years, I know she loves me too and that is what is important to me. Sometimes the best things we can do for other people is show grace in the midst of arguments and put the other persons feelings above our own, it all really depends on the situation. While it is not ok to let our friends make us feel bad about ourselves or to have a negative impact on our lives sometimes it can be better for us in the long run to forgive and let others forget about their moments where they weren’t the best versions of themselves and move on to something different.

I hope this was helpful for you and that you and your friend work out your problems and have a positive friendship to work towards in the future.  I also wanted to thank you for asking this question as writing this post was actually really theraputic for me and has me ready to work on rebuilding my friendship with a bit of a lighter heart as well.

Xoxo

Stiletto