AIBU to attend a friend’s party when another friend was excluded?

[Ricecrispiesatsix]

I have a group of friends from a mutual hobby. We live locally to each other so share lifts to hobby nights and over the years have become close.

Friend A (let’s call her Clara) is now devastated at friend B (let’s call her Steph) for not inviting her to her birthday party and is furious at me for going to the party.

For context, Clara is not someone who finds life easy. She’s been diagnosed with autism, adhd, borderline personality disorder and depression. She has a dysfunctional family and is basically no contact with her parents, struggles to hold down a job, and struggles to sleep/feed herself properly. She also has a heart of a gold, is one of my best friends, godmother to my daughter and when I broke my foot last year she was absolutely there for us in a very practical way. Still now she’ll often pick up our kids from school and have dinner with us (mutually beneficial as it gets her out the house and eating something nutritious!).

Clara went through a break up last year and for about a year things got really bad. She barely left her house, when she did come to hobby nights she’d cry outside the room while we took it in turns to sit with her. During these months, social occasions would often be dominated by her crying, sometimes until 1 or 2 in the morning. We’d have the same conversations with her over and over again, literally hundreds of times and it was quite emotionally draining.

She can also be quite argumentative, sees the world in black and white and has had a few autistic meltdowns when things haven’t gone her way. These look like her shouting, swearing and storming off. Often directed at Steph who has a very different approach to life than Clara. Steph is the kind of person who dances through life. She’s super bubbly and friendly, successful in her career, has loooads of friends and generally has rock solid boundaries around protecting her free time and her peace.

Steph is basically done. She values having a drama free life and has decided to only spend time with people who bring her joy. She has stopped inviting Clara to her events. Clara is understandably hurt and confused by this and feels excluded.

Last weekend was Steph’s birthday and she had a small party in her garden. On Friday Clara asked in the group chat whether anyone wanted to hang out at the weekend. None of us mentioned Steph’s party, we just gave the times we were free to do something with Clara. Clara then asked me directly “is Steph having a party for her birthday?” and I answered her truthfully. I figured it’d be worse if she found out afterwards that we were all there without her.

Clara spent the entire weekend and next 3 days at home crying. Which is probably an over reaction but Clara has lots of trauma from previous friendships that ended badly and I feel terrible. Should I not have gone to Steph’s party out of solidarity for Clara? And going forward can I be friends with both of them? Steph has clearly said she’s done with Clara’s drama, and Clara thinks Steph is a selfish fuck. I can see both sides. But now Clara is quitting the hobby that she loves because Steph is there and it’s all very sad and difficult.

Sorry it’s long. Hard to strike the right balance between brevity and not drip feeding!

You weren’t in the wrong for going. You can be friends with both.
Steph isn’t in the wrong either especially as Clara seems to have done a fair bit of shouting at her here and there. I’d not be entertaining that level of dramatics at my party either.
Clara sounds like hard work - people like that are exhausting and if Steph just wants a drama free life, she’s entitled to back away.

This is a great explanation of the autism part of it.

Add to this the borderline personality aspect, and there may also be a feeling that crying for hours and hours at someone else’s social event should elicit nothing but love and sympathy from other people, and that anyone who doesn’t drop everything to attend to your distress, every time it happens, must be cruel and sadistic.

And also, if someone doesn’t manage to comfort you the right way / make the crying stop / make you feel loved and supported and safe, that person is abandoning or rejecting you.

There is little sense of other people as separate beings in their own right rather than potential sources of infinite emotional support.

Team Steph 🙋‍♀️

Thank you for staying friends with Clara and recognising the value she brings when she can.

It‘s still ok to go to Steph‘s party. Maybe take the tack you’re friends with them both. If you can, affirm to Clara what you love about her (she sounds kind and helpful despite her difficulties). Clara could maybe use some affirmation.

Imagine taking the view that a woman who doesn’t want her party ruined by the inevitable screaming, shouting and dominating of an unstable person who regularly lashes out at her is a “mean girl”.

Personally I wouldn’t mind Clara crying, but I can understand why it might bother some people.

That’s my impression from the posts, but I don’t personally know the people involved - no one on this thread except OP does. So, respectfully, I can conjecture without hurting Steph’s feelings. I’m all about not hurting people’s feelings.

I think it would be a pretty rare person who was happy for their small birthday party in their garden to be dominated by someone crying for hours, needing to be babysat and have her repetitive monologues listened to by one of the other guests, punctuated only by the possibility of a meltdown which would involve her shouting, swearing and storming out.

I am two decades on from you and finally had to take myself out of my ‘Clara’s’ life.
It was exhausting and affecting my own health.
It might be difficult to be friends with both but you can if that’s what you wish.
It sounds like Clara is happiest with your family any way. I do feel for her, she is probably lonely, but shouting and screaming at people is hard.

That’s what I think as well - Clara is feeling excluded because she has literally been excluded from a party. If OP reminds Clara that she and Clara are still friends, Clara still has a friend. It would have been kinder for Steph to explain to Clara rather than leaving it to OP.

So Clara and Steph have repeatedly clashed, and Steph no longer wants to continue a friendship that brings constant drama to her literal doorstep. Clara isn’t entitled to treat Steph poorly because of her neurodivergence, and she isn’t entitled to Steph’s friendship.

It doesn’t sound like Steph has treated Clara badly here either, she’s just withdrawn herself. It isn’t reasonable of Clara to expect you take sides, or cut off Steph over something that has nothing to do with you.

It sounds like bullshit to me, virtue signalling and #bekind nonsense.

So why leave it until a few days before for someone else to communicate the decision to exclude Clara? Steph knows when her birthday is and could have given Clara plenty of notice. After all, Steph has strong boundaries.

I would t want Clara around my kids for a start. Imagine her kicking off like this at a family gathering. She needs help. Not invited to parties.

She didn't invite Clara. That's all that she needed to communicate. She's not obliged to tell Clara she's not invited!

I have several autistic relatives, so I don’t see Clara’s behaviour as manipulative. If that makes me seem virtuous, so be it.

I have a long term friend of 15 years who has EUPD/BPD.

I have spent 15 years answering 3am calls, going with them to a&e when they’ve slashed their arms up, comforted them when they’ve been suicidal, been there through screaming, storming out, throwing things, huge meltdowns.

I have now completely stepped back from the friendship and only now agree to meet them for coffee or dinner in public places and when they’ve not been drinking.

It was ruining and taking over my own life. I developed an anxiety order over their issues. I’m done.

Ive told them I will support them with accessing DBT or trauma therapy, but I will no longer be their therapist. I’ll meet up as chilled friends once a month but no more.

They now want nothing to do with me which I’m not surprised by, following the same pattern of all their other friends. It’s very sad, but I’m no longer willing to give up my own sanity to support them.

How do you communicate to someone that they’re not invited without telling them?

Clara is understandably hurt and confused by this and feels excluded.

I can understand why she's hurt but I cannot understand why she's 'confused'??

She literally turns up at hobby clubs and social events just to spend that time crying, and taking everyone away from the hobby/event.

And she's confused as to why she's been excluded you say?

You don't, it's not necessary.

That’s a fair boundary which you have clearly communicated rather than ghosting your friend. If she wants to withdraw, that’s her choice.

Clara doesn’t care about hurting people’s feelings which is one of the reasons this whole scenario has come about. She thinks she can lash out at people, ruin their hobby time and dictate which parties they’re allowed to go to and still insist the people she’s hurt are friends with her.

Is Clara meant to sense by some sort of intuition that she’s not invited?

100% who hasn’t had that friend, the total drama queen who makes everything about them.

It's fine to exclude people, though. In this case it's entirely sensible and understandable. Steph has clearly dealt with a lot of Clara's failure to manage her own poor MH down the years, including being the target of many of the meltdowns.

She reached her limit. She doesn't need to give an exit interview to someone whose solipsism extends to not understanding why crying till the early hours at social occasions or needing to be babysat in the hall at hobby evenings are not things most people want to be around.

We have all dealt with mentally ill friends or family at some point. My best friend of almost 30 years is severely anorexic, and I have spent more time than I can count watching her waste away in front of her horrified children, grow fur on her skeletal limbs, phone me from the edge of a cliff in another country, and being hospitalised because her organs are shutting down. Dealing in her 40s with health stuff normally associated with women in their 70s. The difference is that she takes responsibility for it, has put all her considerable will and intelligence into therapy and coping mechanisms, and recognises the toll it takes on those who love her.

Clara is clearly too ill to take any responsibility for her own life, and for mitigating the negative impact her illness has on other people.