In my early twenties I was confident, outgoing and pretty happy in my own skin. I loved going out and making new friends and although I wouldn't have said I was popular in the American high school sense of the word, I felt that I had a good network of friends who I believed I was close with and had no problem chatting to new people in social situations.
When I was about 23 I had a devastating argument with my best friend. She was going through a tough time in her personal life and she said some cruel things to me which hurt my feelings. Rather than turning the other cheek and making allowances for the fact that she was really suffering I was equally cruel in return and said some awful things to her that completely mortify me now. I know I hurt her very deeply. If I could go back now I would take everything I said back and would have been so much more understanding of her situation. Immediately after it happened we stopped speaking completely and, as she was the "Queen Bee" of our social circle she cut me off from all of our friends and apparently forbade them from seeing me again. I am obviously able to appreciate now that true friends wouldn't have stopped talking to me just because one person said so, but at 22-23 we were much younger and it felt like the end of the world at the time.
For the past decade it feels like this one event has been eroding my self-confidence and stopping me from forming meaningful relationships with other people. Because I'm so full of regret and shame at the things I said to her, I now walk on eggshells around other people in constant fear of ever saying anything that might offend or hurt them or make them think badly of me. I can manage polite small talk but that's the extent of my ability to engage with others. I never really connect with people anymore as I'm terrified that they won't like the person I am and I struggle to turn acquaintances into friends. My world consists of my husband, my family and the three friends I have left from university, who I only get to see every couple of months.
I'm painfully lonely and full of loathing for the person I've become. When I talk to people I'm constantly worrying that I'm saying something that they won't like, or boring them, or coming across as cold or stupid or unlikeable. In my professional life I'm unable to receive any kind of criticism or negativity without dwelling on it for weeks afterwards and feeling a wave of horror come over me whenever I think about it. I don't feel able to gauge appropriate levels of intimacy, so I either give away too much about myself and come across as desperate for friendship (which, who am I kidding, I am!) or too little and come across as prim and uppity. I wear generic clothing so as not to attract attention to myself and I feel incapable of being anything other than polite with people in case I say something they might misinterpret negatively. All my interactions with people are superficial.
I know something needs to change. Please, has anyone out there ever experienced this and found a way to come back from it? I just want to feel comfortable in my own skin and engage with people in a natural way without constantly worrying what others think. I would so love one day to have real friends I felt I could trust and who could trust me. Any advice or insight would be so welcome. It terrifies me to know that one day I might not have my husband and family and then I will be completely alone in the world. I know how self-pitying I sound and I imagine lots of people might think it's a really silly problem so I'm sorry if I'm being self-indulgent. I "function" with my loneliness (I'm quite successful in work, I take an interest in the world and volunteer in my free time) but the reality of having no meaningful friendships is heartbreaking. Please, what would you do?
NB. In case anyone was going to suggest that I need to make up with my ex-friend and find closure, I wanted to add that we have already met up and exchanged our apologies, but we both feel we are very different people now and not really compatible as friends anymore.