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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to be hurt by my friends

65 replies

mooglycrunch · 20/11/2018 20:02

I need advice on a telephone conversation I had with an old friend at the weekend that has left me feeling sad and uncomfortable - I can't get it out of my head.

We became friends 10 years ago after living in a house share, since then we have moved to the other sides of the country but still keep in contact. I have got married (she was a bridesmaid) I have had kids she is single, happily so and spends her time travelling and has just qualified as a yoga teacher.

I have 2 DS 2.5yrs and 10 weeks. I had hyperemesis in both and needed to be admitted to hospital. Cervical stitches for both, nearly lost DS 1 after that. Pre eclampsia for both that required long stays in hospital and Gestational Diabetes in the last one that needed to be controlled by insulin. In between I have also had another stay in hospital for something else.

When I called her at the weekend I had just come home after my youngest had spent a night on the Paediatric ward so was a bit all over the place. I started to explain that and she said she had to stop me.

Apparently I have "really changed into a negative person about health" and "it's now spreading to my children". In her view "you attract what you put out" that's why she always meets "spiritual people" when she travels and I am "sending out negative vibrations" that are now attracting "sickness to my children" and that's why my pregnancies were like that.

I could feel myself getting emotional about these comments but I changed the subject as she has a habit of dropping friendships if she feels they aren't "good for her" anymore - and we have been through a lot together. She has some pretty mad ideas (think internet Illuminati theories) but she and I have always been able to laugh at her slightly bonkers theories in the past and I've kind of admired her ability to stick to crazy theories through thick and thin!

It's suddenly not so funny when they are turned on you though. I realise that people's life and friendships change after kids but I thought we still had enough in common. I have always been careful to make sure I don't centre all conversations around my children, I am genuinely interested in her latest business venture or where she is visiting next or who she is dating but is she asks me what has been happening with me I'm going to answer truthfully.

AIBU unreasonable to feel sad, insulted and really hurt by her comments or do I just have to accept I've become a bloody health bore?

OP posts:
DanielRicciardosSmile · 20/11/2018 20:04

I think you need to accept your friend has become a weirdo.

CoolGirlsNeverGetAngry · 20/11/2018 20:05

I wouldn’t say you’re a health bore, I’d say you were a person who went through a really hard time recently who needs her friend.
She sounds charming.

BedHair · 20/11/2018 20:08

You’ve had a run of horrible health issues and she’s the kind of nasty anti-science loon who thinks that you get cervical cancer because you’ve got issues embracing your sexual side, or throat cancer because there’s some trauma you can’t talk about. She’s not harmlessly loony or funny, she sounds awful, and that was a cruel thing to say.

MorningsEleven · 20/11/2018 20:09

She's batshit and rude.

mybumpismostlypudding · 20/11/2018 20:11

One of my in-laws said something similar to me, I still get the rage thinking about it months later Angry bad things happen to good people all the time, nobody brings it on themselves with negative thinking Hmm

Maelstrop · 20/11/2018 20:11

She's loopy, sorry, OP. There's no hope for people like her. What she really means is that she can't be arsed to listen to any problems you have so she's turning her nutty beliefs around to shut you up. She's selfish.

ScrommidgeClaryAndSpunt · 20/11/2018 20:12

YANBU. Your health concerns are entirely justified, she's rude and weird, and also needs to stop filling her head up with nonsense.

ScrommidgeClaryAndSpunt · 20/11/2018 20:12

YANBU. Your health concerns are entirely justified, she's rude and weird, and also needs to stop filling her head up with nonsense.

ScrommidgeClaryAndSpunt · 20/11/2018 20:12

YANBU. Your health concerns are entirely justified, she's rude and weird, and also needs to stop filling her head up with nonsense.

ScrommidgeClaryAndSpunt · 20/11/2018 20:13

Posted 3 times for emphasis or something. Or the site's titting about.

RollerJed · 20/11/2018 20:15

Let her go OP. What sort of an arsehole says that to a friend? She is a classic case of a fairweather friend.

I hope you and your ds are ok Flowers

ShawshanksRedemption · 20/11/2018 20:16

She may have qualified as a yoga teacher but hasn't actually thought some of her ethos through. What she has done has put her negative thoughts about your stays in hospital on to you; maybe she can't deal with what it means (loss/grief/fear) and by saying what she did, she has pushed you away rather than deal with her own feelings on that.

In a nutshell, it isn't you, it's her.

Bluearsedfly36 · 20/11/2018 20:18

I think I'd be cutting ties with her op.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 20/11/2018 20:20

I think what she said was cruel, and you would be quite within your rights to decide you no longer want her as a friend.

In your place, I think I would send her a message saying something like this:

Dear friend,

When we spoke the other day, I was deeply hurt and upset by what you said to me. No matter what your beliefs are, you must know that, when someone is going through the sort of tough times that I have been through over the last 3 years or so, the LAST thing they need is to be coldly condemned by anyone, let alone someone they consider to be a friend.

I needed your support, and instead you chose to do your utmost to make me feel bad about myself and guilty about my own health and that of my children. This is not the act of a kind or empathetic person, and it is definitely not the action of a friend.

Unless you can see the damage you have done, acknowledge it, and apologise, I don’t think this friendship can survive.

@mooglycrunch.

AmericanEskimoDoge · 20/11/2018 20:20

Honestly, it doesn't sound like she's worth the effort. (And I say this as someone who has a horror of most "health talk".)

She sounds cuckoo-- and worse, mean. It was cruel to say that you somehow brought your health problems on yourself (and your children) through some sort of bizarre negative magic. She's bonkers.

AmIRightOrAMeringue · 20/11/2018 20:22

YANBU. Whilst it's nice to have friends with different viewpoints and it can make things interesting, this is a step too far. It can be scientifically proven to be incorrect (while there is a slight link between positive thinking and slightly better health, this does NOT mean on a personal level that illness is caused by negative thinking!) and I thought it was an unwritten rule that you don't really comment on other people's parenting anyway. She has accused you of making your kids ill - that's just so horrible and goes against what any parent would do. Lastly even if a friend has in a roundabout way brought the situation on themselves (chosen a career that is blatantly wrong for them and moaning about work, keeps choosing the wrong partner then moans about them etc) most people still wouldn't mention it - they would be sympathetic and supportive unless the friend asked them why they thought it was happening.

I'd drop her. You're not going to be able to talk freely about anything bad going on in your life and if you can't talk about shit times with your friends, what is the point of them!?

LucieMorningstar · 20/11/2018 20:25

DanielRicciardosSmile

I think you need to accept your friend has become a weirdo.

This ^^ 😂

AmIRightOrAMeringue · 20/11/2018 20:25

You have mentioned she has dropped people before - are you sure it wasn't the other way around? I can't imagine most people would put up with her!

CrookedMe · 20/11/2018 20:28

Urgh, she sounds like the yoga guru-type in my work who laughed when I was sick at my desk when pregnant because she 'didn't believe' in HG.

Five years later she's pregnant and guess what...

Fuck her selfish 21st-century solipsistic woo bollocks. She's not a good friend to you.

BedHair · 20/11/2018 20:28

Indeed, meringue,

thejustine · 20/11/2018 20:28

Now, I am super into energies and the type of thing she seems to be talking about. I do believe that negative energies can breed negative consequences but I'm also not as completely cut and dry bat shit as she seems to be.
I would never dare suggest that someone's health on the level of the things you have experienced is their fault, you sound like you've been dealt a really rough hand.

If I were you I'd tell her that her bullshit friend energies are bad for both you and your children, see how she likes it!

smallchanceofrain · 20/11/2018 20:35

YANBU. She sounds totally bat-shit. If she was a friend she'd support you, not reduce you to tears.
You could let the friendship die a natural death. Or you could tell her she's dropping too much negativity on you and it's impacting on your emotional health. Or you could tell her quite bluntly that she's bat-shit and you won't be phoning her again.

FFSFFSFFS · 20/11/2018 20:39

Well she can fuck off then.

Cripes. You don't need her negative vibes in your life!

PlinkPlink · 20/11/2018 20:42

So basically, is your fault you had pte-eclampsia and gestational diabetes. And now, your negative thinking has somehow, through some fucking ridiculous woo balance, affected your children?!

What a fucking tit she is!

YADNBU!! Tell her to stick her yoga up her fucking arse. She'll probably be able to manage it being all bendy and shit. This is an extreme world view (most yoga people are lovely).

I had gestational diabetes. I was told that most likely, no matter what I ate in my first 3 months, I would still have had it. They certainly didn't say 'negative thinking can also cause gestational diabetes' in the seminar I went to on how to test my blood 4 times a day and how to eat properly.

Oh no, she's not one of those who thinks that cancer is caused by negative thinking, is she? rolls eyes

She, dear OP, is on a high fucking horse, in a white ivory yoga fucking tower, and she thinks that she is better than you. She thinks that because she eats chickpeas on the regular, has green tea for her daily drink and spends hours contorting her body into crazy shapes, she is better than you on many, many levels.

She thinks that because she does these things she is untouchable. Little does she realise that her attitude is fucking awful and in the long run, things will happen to make her learn this lesson.

Cut her out and enjoy life without so much nuttiness 😊

missperegrinespeculiar · 20/11/2018 20:44

There is only one way from here: tell her to fuck off!

Offensive, idiotic crap, victim blaming and absolute bollocks to boot, get rid of her.