Losing Friends

@littleStrawberries1840

10 years is such a significant time to put into a relationship. i am so sorry your friend turned out to be toxic and although in the long run it will be a relief i understand how agonizing it is. i hope you're able to heal and new people come into your life. you may just find connections here too! i am wishing for the best for you!

@littleStrawberries1840 that sounds terrible, im so sorry that you guys arnt friends anymore. I feel like friendship breakups are so much harder then actual breakups. But it sounds like maybe she wasnt the best friend so maybe its good that you guys "broke up".

I lost my best friend due to a ton of stuff. I still miss her everyday and i hope that if i ever text her shell write back. It is super isolating. But I think im starting to find new people it just takes time.

@littleStrawberries1840

11 years of friendship. He was my best friend for that long. We did almost everything together. Until like a year ago when it started gradually to slowly fall apart. He changed, I didn't. He became really toxic towards things and when I felt depressed he'd say it wasn't a real thing. He chose others over me, and I didn't feel 'myself' around him anymore - Today, we don't speak anymore.

@littleStrawberries1840

I'm so sorry for the way your friendship ended. I know how it is to feel friendless, it really sucks. 10 years is a significant amount. I truly understand that it must of felt very agonizing for you. If you need to chat more about this you can just reply to this, I'm a fast responder and a great listener. I truly wish you the best.

@littleStrawberries1840

Mine's still a bit rocky, but to be honest I don't think there's much of a future for this friendship. We've been friends for 8 years. I really thought we were good friends, but I had some concerns about the friendship feeling unbalanced, like I was putting all the work in and she didn't really care. I brought these concerns up to her, and I thought we had a good conversation. But in the end she decided she wanted space and didn't want me to contact her unless she did first. She said it would be a month, max. She promised she would get back to me soon. It's been three months so far, and nothing. Absolutely nothing. I feel so forgotten and it just feels like she confirmed all the anxieties I've had for years that I'm annoying and just someone to be put up with because even pushing me away isn't worth the energy. I don't know what to do. If I contact her again and ask her why she's been silent, then I'll be going against what I said in terms of not contacting her unless she did first. But if I don't, then I'm just left to wonder. For who knows how long. 

@littleStrawberries1840

I am sorry for you, and honestly kind of grateful now that I’ve never had a long friendship. I’ve had some really meaningful ones, but because my elementary school was private, I was surrounded and limited to only a few classmates. This made me struggle because my best friend and I (at the time) were mainly friends because we were both left out. 

After sixth grade (I’m now in 8th), I switched schools and I still miss my friend from fourth grade who was wise beyond her years. I always took our parting so deep because I felt so (platonically) connected to her. She was the only friend who gave me the cold, hard, truth, wonderful advice, and was always there for me.

She’s not far from me now, only a state away, where my dad lives. We almost connected again last year, we were even in touch for a bit, but she saw me more as a previous friend, and I realized I was way more emotionally connected to her than she ever was to me.

Her advice from those about one and a half years of friendship honestly still stands with me to this day. I had almost nothing in the friendship for her (I was going through a traumatic time then) but she helped me grow and I’ve learned to be extremely grateful for that.

I’m not sure which is better, a meaningful friendship, or a longer one, but at least we learn something from each one (usually).

I wish you luck on your journey to find more friends. Last year and this year my goal was to make more friends until I changed it to make more meaningful friends and I think that change in perspective has also really helped.

Take care ☻︎

@littleStrawberries1840

my friend I am so sorry. It sounds very similar to something i went through when I was around 11. I had a friend who started bullying me out of nowhere. We were little, so I don't want to blame her, but sometimes I still do. She would run away from me at recess and tell other people I was trying to hurt her, k-l her, and she would say I was a monster. She would tell this to all my friends, and I was so confused because she was my best friend, I'd loved more than anyone, and was never an aggressive kid. Then the next day she would act like nothing happened, say she was never mad or upset, and that we were friends (baby's first gaslighting experience!).  This continued on a loop for a little over a year. Things came to a head when other girls we were friends with tried to mediate at recess. I got so angry because she would say things that were not true about me, that I shook the playground equipment we were on. Not kind of me I know, but after a year of pent up hurt and anger, little me decided to put it somewhere. She fell off the equipment, and that only confirmed to others what she was saying about me, that I was bad and violent, and afterwards I had no friends for years. She moved away immediately after that school year, with no apology or consequence. Since then, most of my friendships have been shallow or haven't lasted long. I am very very hesitant to trust. I developed depression and anxiety symptoms, and my parents sent me to a lot of childhood therapy. 

I am 25 now, and still think about this. How maybe it was all in my head, maybe I was a horrible monster, how I can barely remember if I try, but still know exactly how it felt. 

Just this week I lost the friends I currently have for other reasons. It hurts, but this time I made the decision to leave. It doesn't go away unfortunately -people are foolish people no matter where you go or how old you are. It just changes, and you get brave enough to decide when people are worth your time or not. Some people are good, I know that must be true. The one thing I've learned is that it is never worth keeping a friend who disrespects you unapologetically.  I've definitely become socially anxious, but I am learning to be braver. Learning and knowing my values and what makes my own life happy has been what helped the most. 

@littleStrawberries1840

Sorry that you had to go through that. Hi. 

I have lost friendships naturally as people usually do over the course of life. So, never did I imagine a friendship falling apart to hurt until well, it did for me, not once but twice, in these past two years. 

#1 A 'no matter what' best friend, a companion, called A, whose feelings I could not reciprocate and we had to cut off contact to let go of the attachment for the good as it had no future to it like he wanted. A 10-year-long friendship, that too of that level of closeness, you would think that it will hurt, but when it didn't, as I went through my days experiencing no loss, is when I knew that it was in fact for the good of both of us. Except that it only could be realized a year later how that 'void' came to affect me in the most surprising ways that I never could even consciously realize. In the year that followed after we stopped talking, I found myself unknowingly filling that void of a 'no matter what' person whom I unconditionally cared for, with another person, K, whom I met and became friends with shortly after I stopped contact with A. 

#2 K became my person, who got showered with all my care that had no other place to go to. But K, being K, could not meet me with the reciprocation of the same. The imbalance in our feelings and treatment to each other ate me up over the next many months. Finally, as we moved to different cities, we just stopped talking one day, without any notice or any conversation to serve as a closure. Then, months went by where I felt confused, rejected, hurt and above all, sad beyond my comprehension. The imbalance remains still, earlier in the care we had for each other, and not in the hurt we felt, as I am miserable in all these months now, more than I have ever been in life, while he is unaffected because this is just another loss of friendship people experience naturally as they go through life as they lose contact.

I could not reciprocate A's love, and K could not reciprocate mine. 

I have been at both the giving and receiving end of this heartbreak now, if I can call it that, as I still try to figure out every day even after months of no contact with K, and years with A, that what it is that I am experiencing. 

This is pretty much what has brought me here on 7 cups. I hope to feel comfort and provide comfort to others. I believe everyone deserves some peace after all.