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Strained/ tension on longer relationships

User Profile: energeticFarm4649
energeticFarm4649 December 12th, 2017

It seems like some of my oldest friendships have been really strained. Some of them due to politics.

One of my closest college friends is going through a divorce after being together for 13 years with two kids.

But last week something really bothered me. One college friend who has had emotional/ mental instability, and I have been there to support her. I've known her for 20 years. She was engaged once - though it wasn't a healthy relationship. But he dropped her with no explanation, and she had no closure and acted a little crazy. Went by his place etc. But the group just listened to his excuses and put all the blame on her. It grew to a totally toxic level, and she spent several years in counseling afterward to heal from that. I moved to Seattle for a year and she came the year after me, when I left. I spent hours on the phone listening to her spin in circles about the emotional scars from this situation. She is now happily married with a son who is 5 or 6. But her mental health isn't always there in responding to things in healthy ways. I think she's always been fragile and just needs to be accepted.
So this topic was about how nice Trump voters were, and I got the feeling that she just wanted to fit in with people she thought would be nice. But here I am thinking about the situation happening now where women are breaking the silence of situations like the one she experienced. Where the narrative men create is just believed and the women are blamed, and this is done in abuse of power. Like what she experienced. She thinks these people she knows now who appear so nice to her and accept her would have behaved differently in those circumstances, and I know she's wrong. But she started lashing out at me just for trying to talk to her about the logic. I didn't bring up the past situation. She was just lashing out at anyone who questioned her new friends. So it got to the point where she told me her husband told her I was not mentally healthy?? Really? After the hours of emotional support I spent not abandoning her in a dark time. But she thinks that these new friends are nicer, even though they are supporting a group trying to prevent women from being able to complain and speeak up about male power abuse... JUST LIKE WHAT CAUSED HER ALL OF THIS EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS!!

Like the fact that I've known her for 20 years means nothing. That new friends who would have abandoned her if they had been there when she went through that are more valuable?? That she needs to protect them and lash out at anyone just so she can feel accepted? Even though I have always accepted her, in highs and lows.

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User Profile: NormanTChavez
NormanTChavez December 14th, 2017

@energeticFarm4649 I am so sorry that you are facing all these things.