I just need to chat about this

[Apologynotaccepted]

Name changed but long term poster
Right, apologies if this long..

3 years ago I had a falling out with a friend. She had a long term mental health issue that I had supported her with over many years (20) she had lived with me at one point, her family were very grateful of the time I had looked after her etc etc
3 years ago, I had 3 life altering things happen to me in the space of 8 weeks which resulted in me having a breakdown. I considered suicide twice and was nearly hospitalised for my own safety (there wasn't a bed so I paid privately for intensive therapy)
I was in a state of near catatonia for some of it. I was then prescribed medication which gave me psychotic hallucinations and then I was hospitalised briefly.
During this time my lifelong friend just stopped talking to me, and was actually nasty , came to my house the day of a very close bereavement (one of the life altering events) and told me I wasn't a good friend etc
It was all unbelievable. Fast forward 2 years and much therapy and help and I am now mostly recovered. I wrote a letter to friend wholeheartedly apologising for being unwell and for the fact that our relationship had suffered. She didn't respond at all. 6 months ago we were at a mutual friends wedding and she literally ignored me. Wouldn't come near me, wouldn't make eye contact etc.
I have let it go for the most part but occasionally (like today) it niggles.
Anyone had a similar experience?
I don't need it rethinking or suggestions of how to reach out more or solutions, this is a hand hold thread if poss please.
Grateful for any uplifting ways to reframe it!

Your relationship with your friend was one-way only. Her family were probably grateful you took the selfish mare off their hands.

It’s hard, but move on. Don’t waste any of your valuable thinking time on her. It’s her loss.

It's for the best if this friendship quietly fades away Op, you feel guilty but you shouldn't, she's the one who let you down when you really needed a friend. I let someone go years ago because she was like your friend, it was all one sided, they were very needy and expected to take over all my time, when I'd had enough and pulled away she really didn't want to take no for an answer.
I think if you look back over all those years Op you'll see her more clearly, she wasn't a good friend, a proper friendship works for you both

It was 3 years ago. Best just get on with the here and now. 👍

shes not interested, just let her go.

Thank you. I definitely know this , but occasionally the feeling of grief and upset about it comes back

You were essentially her carer. Someone as psychologically unwell as this person is, is not able to offer genuine friendship. She needs nervous system scaffolding, and when the person whose nervous system she leans on can’t support her, she can’t regulate herself and becomes hostile and aggressive. It’s essentially a parasitic relationship rather than a friendship.

You may also need to consider whether genuinely mutual friendship is something you are currently capable of, or whether you tend to gravitate towards people for whom you fulfil a need.

From your post, it seems your friend’s not needing you anymore is almost more hurtful to you than her having lashed out when you were at your lowest point. You are apologising and trying to get back into that supportive role for her.

I hope you still have access to therapy to think through how you might change this dynamic.

Yes I am seeing this. Her lack of humanity when I was at my absolute lowest was staggering

Definitely have let her go but I think in a way I'm still processing it . I've found the recovery from breakdown very interesting. Things sort of come back in cycles

No sorry I think I mis represented myself here. My apology was just "sorry for my part, what a shame we couldn't communicate and save the friendship" I will NEVER have another friendship with that dynamic

Unless you have missed out significant information, I don't think you needed to apologise. She was the one that needed to apologise. You shouldn't have apoloised to her and doing so (sorry to say) makes her look like she was in the right.

Why did you write to her? Was it just because you felt you should and wanted to draw a line under a lose end or was it because you hoped to rekindle a friendship?

I think that when you are talking about such a lapse of time, if you are trying to rekindle a relationship you are taking a massive gamble because how it is received will depend on many things out of your control including the state of the recipients life and how that affects them. A lonely person may grab at it or may not want you to know how alone they are so not respond at all.

I once had someone write an apology to me years later after doing something bad to me. I didn't respond to it because at the point it was received I had gone through so much hurt from what they did and dealt with it, by the time the apology came after years I was 'over it'. I had grown hard skin over the wound and I just didn't want to know. I'd moved on, my life had moved on and I wasn't interested. I suppose if I am honest a tiny part of me felt like I had been proved right and they didn't deserve a response which maybe doesn't entirely fit with being 'over it' because maybe I wanted to cause a bit of reciprocal anxiety of the sort you are experiencing now. This wasn't my main driving feeling though.

[Edited to add my situation was totally different from yours because here you haven't done anything. You were in a crisis situation, very unwell and she abandoned you and was nasty to you.]

Sorry you are feeling like this. I think though she was out of line to be rude and ignore you if you happen to be in the same place. You can be civil to someone without forgiving or being a best friend.

She was probably terrified that she was going to have to manage without you, and fear makes people lash out.

Inexcusable but it exposed the fact that this wasn't really a friendship at all..Very hurtful to discover it at any time but that appears to be the hard fact of the situation..💐💐

You have lost a chunk of your identity along with the friendship, and it’s also now tied to a traumatic time in your life. I think it’s inevitable that some of the feelings of loss are going to resurface and be quite tangled, given how much you experienced at that time.

The good thing is, it’s over now. You are recovering, you no longer have her in your life and need have neither responsibility nor guilt about it. Concentrate on building positive things in your life right now, and let go of the old sadnesses as best you can.

A lot of my therapy was about closing things and moving on. The 'apology' was more for me than her. Definitely not a rekindling. I wasn't expecting a response back, but I was expecting she may say even a hello at the wedding but it was almost comical how much she avoided me.

I think it feels unjust as I really genuinely was not in the wrong.
The 3 traumatic events were of a type where there was no closure , just massive trauma with no foreseeable end/resolution so lots of my therapy was/is about marking those endings for myself if you see what I mean.
I definitely can see her true colours and how they were always there through the whole friendship

This is lovely thank you

Is part of your struggle around trusting yourself and your judgement? This person took huge advantage of you and then actively kicked you while you were down. You believed she was a friend. That's a huge betrayal. You must wonder on some level why you bothered with her at all - in therapy have you addressed that?

When a long friendship like this comes to the end it is like a breavement and there is a grieving process. In some ways its worse than death. Death robs you of a dear one and you have to acknowledge the finality of it. You will never see them or hear their voice again. Not in this life. When a friendship ends the other one is still walking in the wide and loveless world. But they are walking without you. And you do not understand why. Some little thing will happen. You hear a bit of news or a piece of music you both enjyed. You fleetingly think - I must tell X about that. Then you remember she is not your friend any more. When a friendship ends like this its unfinished business. You will move on in time. But the pain will still be there, buried deep inside. Mine is still there after 40 years ...

It's not still a struggle day to day. It's more a grief and trauma wave cycle. It goes months and months now without it coming up. Judgement not really an issue anywhere else in my life luckily

Yes, unfinished business is exactly right ! And the sense that this thing you had was not at all what you thought it was

My reframe would be that the friendship offered you both something, during the years it existed. She received your support and you received gratitude, and perhaps you enjoyed each others company as well.

But in your crisis she was unable to be supportive to you, unable to cope with you being unavailable to support her and unable to cope with seeing you socially, and the balance of the relationship fractured.

Oh OP I can totally relate. Nowhere near as full on as your situation but I had a very close friend go through multiple operations and I was very much there for her. A couple of years later I needed multiple operations and she deserted me...she just couldn't be the support instead of the main attraction. It was actually devastating at the time and still hurts now over 10 years later. I think it's because something fundamentally shifts when you realise you got it so very wrong. My sensible head would say you need to move on and rise above it but my emotional side just feels sad. I do honestly think though, it's their loss. Sending hugs 🫂

Is it grief at the loss of the friend or grief at the time you may have wasted?

I think it's a sense of massive injustice and complete betrayal. Like if a sister or brother turned you away

I understand why you wrote to her Op, it was closure, an end to something that still troubled you now and then, now you can put it in the past and move on. On a happier note you'll probably find you've learnt a lesson from all this, all the looking back and going over it all will give you a much clearer vision for the future. It's a hard way to learn a lesson but the upside is not falling into that situation again unless it's what you want, not because someone's taking advantage of you. Good luck @Apologynotaccepted , I hope you'll be happier now

I think she obviously wasn't a good friend. But you were to her so that's all you need to worry about. Just forget she exists. You know you did nothing wrong and you'll never know what went on in her head. So it's best to move on.

This is a good question.

I grieved a friend who badly let me down & I think there was also a layer of deep embarrassment on my part for being a fool, because she'd shown signs that she had the potential to be awful & I'd ignored them, or assumed she was exaggerating for dramatic effect. Nope.

OP, you had nothing to apologise for and it's natural to be left with a feeling of WTF happened there?! Because it's so, so far from how we think or would act - or any normal person for that matter, it rocks your perception of people.

But we learn, move forward and thank the loon in our past for the lesson.