Would you have stopped talking to me due to this?

[InExile]

i've had severe anxiety and depression for the last 4 years which has made me mostly housebound, i think in this time for anything unnecessary i've left my house less than 15 times, as well as not really talking to people this isn't to curry favour or to get YANBU's its just to point out that my social skills may have somewhat eroded and thats why i may not realise i've done something so wrong.

well i am in a Whatsapp group with a few friends from before my anxiety and depression started from university. they live near each other and were talking about meeting someone else and going for a drink and talking about the person.

It bugged me because i don't know them and i at least like putting a face to a name if possible. Well i went onto FB onto my friends, friends list and searched for their name, there was one result so i took a screenshot and posted it onto the group and said is this them? well both friends kinda blew up and said it was out of order and an invasion of privacy and that they felt violated, and if it happened again then they'd leave. confused and kinda shocked by the reaction i said i would delete them from FB (it was more from a friend of a friend who became a friend so we aren't the closest anyway), just for their own piece of mind.

I thought that everything was OK they without any prompting said that was it, but they've not sent any messages or replied for two weeks so obviously they are / were still pissed off at me, i still don't think it was that bad so i'm just looking for others opinions.

I'm sorry. I only have mn

Hopefully you'll meet a nice friend.

I'm sorry In exile, that is rough. But you sound thoughtful and kind. You can and yiu will make proper friendd in time. Even if it doesn't feel like it, you are better off without these people.

Yeah it's a not a nice thing to realise and I'm quite sad to be honest. Growing up I wasn't the most popular and bullied a lot, sixth form and university I came into my own grew confidence and made friends, then my issues hit and it's just another thing it seems like it's contributed to me losing another thing. It ruined my last year at Uni and my final grade, my life since and my friends slowly eroded away. I'm not going to say it's the sole reason, honestly there had been times recently where I've realised mentally I was still reflecting on my friendships and relationships with people how they were years ago so I've been consciously assessing them such as I consider them as X but they are now doing Y and considering I'm likely to be Z to them for example for 1,2,3 reasons and being conscious that it's not my issues causing these thoughts because I'm having a bad day.

I had been considering if we would still be friends if we met today and I think it depends on the circumstances, we've all changed but I still think inherently good people and this is one thing that's upset me the most beforehand I was conscious my issues can make people back away so I didn't make it a focal point of our interactions but recently they had been encouraging me to share and supporting so that all seems a little messed up.

The bottom line is that you may never kkow what motivated their behaviour, but you don't need people like that in your life. Plenty of people value kindness and loyalty and therefore prove to be good friends through good and bad, these non-friends clearly don't.

Why would you want to hold on to these people, when they make you feel bad and uncertain about your self? Friendship should not be so hard. Surely it's about the quality, and not the quantity, of friendship?

Friendships change all the time. And this is fine, this is life. But when you are in that friendship, it should be make you feel inspired and good about your self. If it doesn't, and they make you feel the opposite, why are you hanging in there? In this case, is it not better to be alone, and start working on your for your self, learning to rely on your self and to know that you are good enough, instead of relying on others and their opinions of you?

You don't need to be popular to be happy. Start investing in your self emotionally, and that includes choosing the right people, the right friendships, to have in your life. Once you start changing your expectations for people in your life, you will probably start attracting different, kinder types.

Let these people go and put it down to life experience, and move forwards.

Can you join again op? And apologise to those that were offended? Privately?

They have over reacted, but it seems you've went into someone else's friends list, taken a snap shot of someone you don't know and posted it to the group, it wouldn't have bothered me, but clearly it did them.

The bigger issue is getting yourself mentally well again. Have you sought help and do you have a step by step plan to enable you to move forward? Life is short, focusing on recovery is important. This spat with friends is irrelevant in the big picture. 💐

Bluntness

I was getting help, I'm not on tablets because I've become very medically suggestable, I saw one of those medical dramas that had a few heart related issues and the next morning I woke up thinking I was having a heart attack, i had a bad headache googled and got all different diseases mentioned and started twitching, even If read side effects on the pills such as paracetamol I imagine I have itchy skin, so the possible side effects and the imagined ones I'd likely encounter put me off.

With counselling, I was getting some but you get 8 sessions and if you miss two then you're files closed. I missed one due to road closures not knowing the roads and horrendous traffic which whilst annoying I could understand that it had to be classed as me missing the session. The last session however they sent me the wrong date on the appointment email so the day my appointment really was the same day they wrote up a report saying my file was closed for not attending and sent to me and my GP. I go the next day and find out it's the not that day, come home to the report being delivered and it took a month of me chasing it up to be told well you were going to self refer back again anyway wait 8 weeks and we can start again. Thing is my doctor wanted to refer me for more psychological help and because of that letter the referral service declined it.

Regarding still being friends with them I still think they are good people, I still don't understand the bad reaction but I feel they are, so that probably makes me a bad person in their eyes. I do miss the group and can't add myself back in because when I talk about no friends I mean I have very little social interaction well none really now. It's my birthday in 2-3 weeks and i can already know I'll get a text from my childhood best friend but apart from that I could easily go into the new year without receiving any kind of social interaction not including my family. I do occasionally try with people that I was close to but they seem somewhat disinterested it's understandable as I said before I hold/held them still as close friends I just didn't see often due to my illness and for them it's been sometimes once a year, surrounded with new friends and life experiences and issues which have put me on the back burner.

I'm a carer for my disabled mum and dad also which has been challenging and taxing mentally, it finally looked like the appointments are stopping but due to an issue I've now got appointments and tests and other things to go to near daily for the next 3 weeks so I haven't got a break from that, and my family isn't the most sociable either. I've gone off on a random tangent sorry but I guess they were my last hint of social normalcy and I did mostly enjoy it. It's different wanting to be left alone and nobody seemingly wanting to be with you.