An open letter to my internet friend. I finally remembered how to feel happy without you.

(I'm sharing this on here in case someone is in a similar situation, but I also just wanted to throw it out into the universe.)

Dear friend,

I did it. I finally found why I feel so anxious and sad all the time when you're not around. It took me a while, but I realized that I relied on you to feel and be happy. Before I met you, I used to work out every day because it made me happy and it made me feel good. But when I would talk to you and have you around, I found that you became the source of my happiness and I clung to that so dearly that it was unhealthy for me emotionally. I stopped working out and used you as my sole source of happiness, which at the time, I thought was a good idea. Until you went back to school...

I got so used to having you around and talking to you that when you weren't available to talk to me or couldn't respond right away, I often blamed myself. I somehow came up with the idea that it was my fault and that you didn't want to speak to me anymore, that I was a burden and an annoyance in your life and you were just too nice to say it. Which is so untrue, as you have told me before that you don't think this way of me.

I spiraled into my own anxiety for such a long time and I found myself depressed after I asked to take a break from talking to you. I took steps to get better but the one thing that I wanted to feel better was to talk to you again, so I came back after just 5 days. I thought I was better and that my problems were over, but they weren't because I still relied on you to feel happy and feel good about myself.

I made a post on a subreddit specifically looking for friends, I was lonely and wanted to test the waters of finding other people to talk to when you weren't there. I ended up with about 30 or so replies from people willing to be my friend and I found it overwhelming and scary. But from the bunch, I was able to find one other person in the same situation as me and we would often talk about how sad and alone were without our internet friends. Last night, we were talking about how we felt when our internet friends aren't there to talk to us as readily as we had hoped or created in our minds and we eventually came to the conclusion that we rely on our internet friends to feel happy and that when they're not there, we get upset. He suggested that getting more friends might be the solution to feeling less sad and alone, but I don't quite think he hit the nail on the head.

This morning I googled: "I rely on my friend to feel happy." I scrolled down a little and found a post on Reddit written 2 years ago. The title of the post was: "How do I stop relying on one person for my happiness?" I read their story and found myself in a similar mindset and then quickly turned to the comments to see what advice they had been given and I found one that really opened my eyes to my behavior and what I needed to do to fix it. I needed to learn how to invest in myself and that I am the person that I should depend on to feel happy, not others. I need to find ways to put myself first and find something that makes me happy. The only person who will be constant in my life is me, so why not put myself first?

I thought for a moment about this and I finally realized what I was doing wrong. When I would talk to you every day for the entire day for almost the year that we've known each other, this allowed for you to slowly become my sole source of happiness and so I gave up other things that made me happy in favor of you because I thought that I didn't need them anymore, I thought that because you made me happy and made me feel good about myself that I could just lean on you. This unhealthy mindset is what caused this whole mess with my anxiety and now I know how to feel better.

I need to learn again how to be happy without you, I need to learn again how to find things that make me happy before I go looking for it in other people. I need to take care of me.

I hope you don't feel this way, but I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like you had to talk to me, maybe you realized what was happening with me before I did. I'm sorry that I blame myself and sometimes blame you, you've been nothing but be an amazing friend to me that I do not deserve. I'm sorry for being a selfish idiot and I'm sorry for being a bad friend.

Remember when I said that living the years before I met you felt so lonely? I meant that. But it also made me realize that I forgot how to take care of myself. But I know what I need to do now so that I can stop feeling bad for myself and actually be happy. I'm going to work out more, I'm going to spend time with my family, I'm going to walk my dogs, I'm going to hang out with my friends etc.

I need to take care of me before anyone else and I forgot that, but I remember now. I know it's not even close to being January yet, but my new year's resolution will be that I want to find ways to create sources of happiness for myself before looking for it in others. I need to remember that even though I'm happy to have you in my life now, I need to keep in mind that I was fine before I knew you existed as well. I feel freer than I ever have in a long time.

Thank you for being so supportive of me and for reassuring me of a lot of things. You're the best.

Love,

purplesloth