About six months ago, I wrote an article describing an abrupt and unexpected fallout with my oldest and closest friend. It definitely wasn’t a dissolution I wanted, so it’s safe to call the rupture one-sided. I’ve spent months racking my brain trying to figure out where I went wrong and torturing myself with self blame. When I obsessively ruminate, I know it’s simply my brain wrestling with the bleak reality that I can’t control what she feels about me or how she behaves, and I somehow need to accept that.
One day recently, I was a bit more tormented than normal (I also partially blame PMS-related mood swings) and decided to reach out for the first time in six months asking why she handled things how she did. When she didn’t reply for nearly a day, my protest behavior kicked in and I sent a longer form message airing out my feelings because I could no longer hold in what I had been trying to suppress for months. I knew it was unlikely that she would respond, but speaking my mind was the only tool I had in my toolkit to throw at the situation when everything else felt out of my control. Even though my family and support systems were kindly reminding me that she obviously wanted space, I felt betrayed and tossed aside, and I didn’t want to go down without standing up for myself in whatever way I felt I could.
I spent the next 48 hours in shock that she was truly not responding after nearly three decades of close friendship. I was crying every hour or two and was confused as to why these strong emotions were flaring up so intensely six months later. The two-day crying bender felt like it came out of nowhere, yet hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m bummed about the situation but still distracting myself with travel plans and laughter in whatever way I can find it. Then, one day, out of the blue, I’m destabilized and sobbing?
As someone who has been fortunate enough to have made it 33 years without experiencing deep grief related to losing a loved one, I’ve been asking myself a series of questions ever since. Is this what people talk about when they say grief isn’t linear? Am I allowed to even call this grief when she’s still alive? For six months, I still had hope that we would come back together in time for a conversation like she suggested when she was exiting the dynamic, although she didn’t clarify what she meant when I asked follow-up questions that day. Since I had known her since we were in kindergarten, I told myself that she would never say that if she didn’t intend to follow through. I suppose I was in denial and my denial finally broke.
While it’s technically always possible that, in more time, she may come around, I have lost a lot of hope in very little time recently that she will keep her word. Feeling betrayed on top of feeling abandoned is a shock to the system, and I had hoped that I’d be much more healed this long after the initial rupture than I actually am at this point.
Having lost a best friend that you believed (and still believe) is a great person feels like a personal failure and a statement about your own character. I can try to give myself grace for my mental state during the time our friendship imploded due to a failed toxic relationship exacerbating my anxiety and trust issues around that time. In her own words, it was the most toxic man she’d ever witnessed me dating throughout our friendship and she was deeply concerned about my self abandonment tendencies throughout. Even though I know I was doing the best I could with the headspace I was in at the time, it’s still nearly impossible to feel like this wasn’t all my fault. If I had only been less needy or less intense, I wouldn’t be sitting in this. If I had only shut up and given her more space when she was going through her own issues too, there may have been hope. If I can’t keep someone as understanding, kind, patient and loyal as her around, how bad of a person does that make me?
Her absence is a dull ache. Things happen in my life, and I want to update her but can’t. I remember some of our inside jokes that now feel sour and painful to the mental touch. I recently saw she’s in a new relationship now and, as much as I want to be happy for her, trying to be happy for her hurts right now. I know deep down I’ll always want the best for her, but being left to stew in my own self doubt puts a damper on those well wishes for the time being. Perhaps this is the anger stage of grief. As uncomfortable as it is to admit that I am struggling to genuinely be happy for someone I called my closest friend, perhaps going through an angry stage may shift my focus from self blame to beginning to believe I actually didn‘t deserve feeling tossed aside like this no matter how annoying I can be at times.
