This may be a very long post so I apologise in advance but looking for some advice…
For background….this all started around September last year, my manager went on maternity leave and because of various reasons my work hadn’t found any cover for her…I was the most senior in the small department and basically stepped up to some extent whilst she was gone (they didn’t find cover until April this year) in November I found out I was pregnant and told my colleague who I was very close to (she had joined in the January and we became close very quickly…in hindsight a bit too quickly, age gap is over 20 years but we had a lot in common and just clicked really) she was really happy for me etc and that was that
Pregnancy progressed great but was always anxious at the back of my mind…first baby and there was a history of high BP and preeclampsia in my family as mum had it with first pregnancy and unfortunately ended up with placental abruption and stillbirth 😥 friend knew all of this, I worried more after we found out in feb we were having a girl as that was the same as mum mums first.
Fast forward to March, this is when things started going wrong between us. We had a big audit due that was unannounced and basically my responsibility to do, friend knew I was very stressed over this (I had in interim been promoted to a middle management position in a dept restructure so this was even more so my responsibility now), but friend said many times that she would be there for me and support etc. and that I shouldn’t rely on anyone else (my other colleague and her do not get on at all and several complaints had been put in against her by my friend for various reasons) The day the audit arrived she was nowhere to be seen, she was in the office but made no attempt to support and actually made my life so much worse those two days by withholding documents and giving us so much attitude I was genuinely concerned as to who she was (her personality did a completed 180 and it took my by surprise to say the least) my other colleague stepped up massively without asking and did so much to help. I was confused and hurt for several days until she then tells me she suspected she has cancer and that’s why she acted the way she did (she had had a cancer scare the year before and it didn’t effect her like this but perhaps she was putting on an act) I was supportive at the time and said I would help her speak to HR etc and messaged her a lot as to how she was getting on over that weekend, I was still upset with her though in the back of my mind as I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t just mentioned to me during the audit she wasn’t feeling herself and that she couldn’t support me etc I wouldn’t have minded that…I do get people process things very differently and would I have told someone else in that position? But we were very close to the point we told each other everything so it made sense for her to let me know. She didn’t want to tell HR or anyone in work at all and made me keep it all to myself, it became unbearable to the point I had to speak to HR and let them know as I knew they needed to know to be able to support her (they were already concerned based on her attitude the previous week) in the end a couple of days after I told them the friend told HR anyway 🙈
Will try and condense the rest…over the course of the next couple of months she put in another formal complaint against my other colleague claiming bullying (after a conversation a month before where she basically told HR and factory manager there was nothing wrong) I then get dragged into an investigation to give my views and told them the truth, colleague could be difficult but friend was holding grudges from previous year and that basically there wasn’t any bullying going on from the evidence I could see…friend was upset and she assumed that I would’ve taken her side and posted a few things on Facebook, I told her that I wasn’t going to lie for her and that basically I had to be impartial- at the end of the day work is work and you have to be professional I’d worked at that company for 8 years and my reputation was important to me. Didn’t take it well, she sent me horrible messages and then blocked me on Facebook following day she laughed it off and friended me again, she was going through a lot of mental health issues but I was so fed up with her childish behaviour, I was well into my third trimester by that point. She was becoming rude, erratic and thoughtless and wouldn’t say one word to me in work but became another person on messages and was overly nice and so over the top about wanting to be there for me and the baby I was genuinely concerned for my child (she implied she wanted us to borrow money off her when I said we weren’t going on holiday in the end as we had nursery furniture etc to pay for, wasn’t a big deal but she made it into one). She’d joked several times also about naming the baby after her (even after we said what her name was) and then moved to second name (told her that was going to be after my husband mum who had sadly passed away) and she still didn’t let up. She has also many several comments about me being her soulmate (she does have a long term partner and will be getting married to her)
the one day I had enough was when she became volatile to the point where she stood in the office and shouted at me for something I hadn’t done, I have a heart condition where stress makes my heart rate fast and I use a health ring to measure it ( I was shaking and HR was 140) I had to leave the office and get away from her…she was escorted off the premises and had paid time off for a week (she kept saying she was suicidal) a few weeks later I go into hospital for routine check and find BP is high and I’m put on medication, induction booked for following week as I would be 37 weeks then.
induction was 13 hours and baby was born unexpectedly in hospital bathroom in the middle of the night without my husband (didn’t expect it to be as quick as it was and he was on his last night shift of his rotation) I had started with preeclampsia a few hours before so thankfully it all turned out okay.
suffering with PND at the moment, not strongly but it’s definitely there. Friend keeps saying she’s going to come and see me but it’s been four months and I’m not really expecting it now, she’s been saying to collegue we’re so close and we message all the time etc but we really don’t so she’s lying to people and I don’t know why. She then comments on a random inspirational quote I posted on Facebook the other day and basically slams me for being a horrible friend. Am I? My mum says there’s probably jealousy going on somewhere as she doesn’t have children and possibly some possessive tendencies towards me and baby but I don’t want to believe that, I want to keep our friendship but I don’t think it will ever be the same, she’s the same person she was back in March, she went for treatment and cancer has gone but at the same time I just keep thinking why did she treat me the way she did when I was very pregnant and my hormones were all over the place, doing so many hours because of work and stressed because of becoming a new mum (they didn’t get my maternity cover until the week I left). I do know I probably should’ve messaged her more after the birth but I was a new mum and it was hell for the first couple of months, now she’s posted on Facebook what she has said I don’t want to be the one to reach out anymore, even our manager who came back from maternity leave in august was shocked to find out the person she had become…I’m very conflicted to be honest and don’t know if the person I knew was even who she really was?
thank you so much for reading all this if you made it this far!