Friend turned on me - really hurt me and I don't know why.

[shouldaknownbetter]

I have a friend, lives in another city. I was travelling nearby last week so arranged to go and stay with her for a couple of days.

We went out the first night and had some drinks, sat up chatting until quite late. Everything was going ok, she started telling me how she had not got any confidence as she'd not worked for a few years (due to a physical disability). I was trying to be supportive, giving her advice like maybe try some voluntary work, look at the things she'd done with her hobbies (she does puppetry), just trying to help. Everything was met with a no, the conversation was getting circular to everything I said she just replied she did not have the confidence. Then she started saying she didn't want to talk about it. So I changed the subject but she kept coming back to it. And then things got nasty, every time I opened my mouth she shouted at me to shut up. Said that I was going on about it - even though I had no stake in going on about it -it was not my issue - she was the one who kept bringing it up.

By now she was really shouting at me and this woke up her husband and school age daughter, her husband then started shouting at me that I'd woken him up, and told me to go to bed. I never even raised my voice! She started crying on his shoulder like I'm the bad guy.

So I went to bed all the time thinking 'I need to get out of here' but at 2 in the morning your options are limited.

Come the morning I thought I don't want to stay here and it's not fair on her daughter who by now was giving me a really bad vibe that she wanted me out. So I told her husband I'd go to a hotel that night, but we could still hang out if she wanted to see me and talk, just I didn't want to sleep there.

He tried to downplay it a bit, but I'd made my mind up. Anyway I told my friend, who was still in bed, that this is what I was planning and then all hell broke loose. She came out of the room and shouted at me- first to stop making a fuss over nothing, then when it became clear I wasn't going to back down, shouted at me repeatedly to fuck off and that I was selfish and to get the fuck out.

So I packed up my stuff and then she physically shoved me out the door all the time shouting fuck off fuck off at me. I've never seen rage like it.

I really don't understand what happened here. I sent her a message saying no one talks to me like that and we are not friends any more, she followed up with abusive replies and said I'd driven her to it. I said she'd passed the point of no return now.

We've been friends around 3 years and something like this (but not as bad) happened a couple of years ago, and I gave her a second chance then.

I guess I am still reeling a bit and feeling a bit shell shocked that she could turn on me like this. It's like -she could say whatever she liked but when I said anything she told me to shut up/fuck off and then blamed me for everything and made herself out to be the victim. And that's emotionally abusive isn't it.

But I can't help wondering why she's done this to me... I know I need to move on but it's left me feeling really strange.

Oh yea I'M the aggressive one 😉

You are!

The problem is hers not yours.

Let it go. Nothing can be done. It is only three years, I would move on and forget about her. You did not deserve to be treated like that. MAYBE you did hit on a raw nerve accidentally or were too solution based, but that hardly warrants such terrible behaviour.

OP - I think you were a bit rude off to WellThisIsShit who took the time to write a long post about how your friend might have been feeling.

That said, I think your friend behaved appallingly.

point taken Aridane. I guess I was seeing that post as justifying my friends behaviour possibly on the basis of her disability but maybe I was being over touchy. Anyway I know Wellthisisshit wrote it intending well.

I think if all that happened to me I would really be quite shakey. I don't know whether I would have just buggered off at 2am or whether I would have your restraint to wait until daytime and sort myself out

I can't believe people are criticising you for being upset, or trying to make it out to be somehow your fault.

I've plenty of experience of other people not understanding my disability and it absolutely sucks.

But nothing justifies this behaviour unless you'd taken a swing at her. If things were getting too difficult then she should have made her excuses and gone to bed. To keep bringing it up and then telling you to shut up was setting you up. To then put the blame on you when she kept bringing it up was crazy.

Her behaviour the morning after can't have been that surprising by then but it was utterly unacceptable. If she was that unhappy with you, she could have said so politely.

I think that it's worth considering stopping giving advice if someone doesn't seem inclined to take it, it really is, but most of all I think the thing here is that next time someone starts shouting at you like that - don't give them a second chance unless it seems genuinely out of character and they apologise unreservedly. Just now and then people do act out of character after a death or something.

other than that, get home, have a stiff gin and thank your lucky stars you don't need to have anything else to do with her. Her husband and child aren't so lucky.

Thanks seaeagle I was beginning to wonder from some PP whether it had been partly my fault for not being sympathetic enough to her.

I was feeling sad earlier remembering the good times we'd had and should I try and patch it up but then I realised no - can't tolerate this behaviour, not without some sort of heartfelt apology and even then it is too late I think. And I already gave her a second chance when something similar happened about 1. 5 years ago.

With long distance friends the stakes are higher as you only see them every now and then so any conflict or bad feelings means its kind of not worth it.

yep there are million other ways she could have dealt with it, even the morning after she could have said ' i'm sorry stay and we'll sort it out, please don't go' and I probably would have, but by saying I was making a fuss over nothing then shouting at me more it kind of cemented my decision. I think the more she tried to make out I was making a fuss over nothing the more I wanted to leave to show her it was serious.

I came from a violent home with a PD mother and there are a lot of similarities with my mother - the rage, the denial, the blame. So I'm hypersensitive to that kind of thing. I've had to tolerate my mother for years but friends at least you have a choice.

Seconding it's mental health difficulties - not your fault

I had an (ex) friend like this. Her rages were driven by depression, caused by drinking way too much alcohol. When she was sober, she was so lovely, but when she was drunk, after hours of drinking; she would rage and then cry. It was a nightmare for me as I'm teetotal. So had to absorb all the dramatics, sober.

She didn't seem to understand the correlation between her behaviour & alcohol. Some people just cannot handle drink.

The years, I spent, listening to her repeated drunken woe-is-me.

Of course, I had the chance, multiple times, to tell her to f*ck off, but I generally felt sorry for her because she was drinking because she was depressed and depressed because she was drinking

Sorry, op, bit of a tangent there

That sounds more like she was raging at the world than at you in particular Risen?

I’m sorry you read my post to you as some kind of justification of your ‘friends’ treatment of you. It’s a shame all you got out of it was that I was attempting to be ‘victim blamey’.

It was however bloody long so I’m going to repost the bit at the end, which was a summary and something I’d tried to explain and illustrate in different ways on my post:

“
I’d walk away from this ‘friendship’ / situation and chalk it up to experience.

Of course she behaved terribly.
Honestly, it sounded like a tinder box situation to spark and unfold in this way.
You were just the spark. She obviously has a huge amount of highly flammable ‘baggage’ that she needs to sort out. That’s not your fault. Your spark would have just been a spark in an empty box.
But if you do want to learn anything from this, you could try and understand how to be a little gentler and more empathetic towards people with disabilities”.

And I stand by that, this thread has kind of made that last point stronger for me. I get you want to ‘fix’ everything and you only come at thing from a ‘solutions’ point of view. But sometimes in rushing in to fix the problem you see, you end up exacerbating the problem you don’t see.

And that’s when you get into these frustrating dialogues where you’re met with negativity and refusals, and the other person, well, they don’t feel so great either.

You feel irritated about why this person is refusing to take your advice, why she’s refusing to agree you’ve solved the problem you think she has.

And she’s probably feeling upset that you aren’t hearing the problems she’s trying to convey.

By changing them into smaller and practical steps that have clear solutions to them, she’s not finding that helpful, she’s finding it minimising. Although you meant it helpfully, at least at the beginning.

I’m not saying that this classic dialogue is your fault or her fault, I’m just trying to describe a pattern of communication barrier that I’ve seen and heard before. That’s all.

As one of life’s ‘fixers’ I thought you might be interested.

And as the person I am, I find it really interesting returning to this thread and finding that you’ve felt the need to return and address what happened and debate it again and again... it seems you’ve got something out of that.

Which is, I think, a normal way to work things out, particularly if you’re feeling a bit stung or emotionally effected by it all.

And I also wonder if now, thinking about it, you might find a new perspective on why your ‘friend’ might have kept bringing up something she felt deeply about, was a big deal about in her life and also in her heart, again and again?

Especially as you seemed very keen to offer solutions, perhaps she was, in a strange sort of way hoping either that with enough repetition you’d ‘get’ her point of view, or even better, you might actually have that golden bullet of a solution to her understanding of her problem?!

Anyway, I’m glad you had a nice evening with other friends so your weekend away wasn’t a complete wash out.

Woah! What a psycho!
You're lucky to be rid of her xxx

Op whilst her reaction was awful, you're a fix it person who doesn't want to hear other people's solutions to your problems. So you've done on here to rant and have your woes validated by MN but in the same way as your friend argued against everyone's suggestions to this problem.

So you expect people to listen to your solutions and action on them but don't do the same when tables are turned.

I have taken something from the thread Cricrichan not fair at all to say I've not wanted to hear other people's solutions but I have the right to disagree with some of them surely? Just because I am the OP doesn't mean I have to say yes to all the suggestions.

Wellthisisshit I get what you're saying, I guess it's hard to just listen to someone being negative without wanting to go to solution mode but I think I've covered that before.

Whatever my part in it, I don't think there is any excuse for how she reacted shouting and screaming at me, particularly when I'd repeatedly tried to move things on, no matter what some posters say. I do think some posters have laid the blame for that at my feet, which is unfair. Its up to her how to manage her emotions and even if angry, not express it violently.

I think your friend probably just wanted to vent but given that you are friends she should have known her audience. Thats on her. I have fix it friends and i know to say i just want a moan or not to go to them at times.

I think she got frustrated then decided to use you as an outlet for all her negativity by picking a fight. Thats on her too and her husband who frankly is an arse for yelling at you too. What guest would want to stay?

Did he apologise in the morning or expect it brushed over too OP? Then she got abusive again so again thats on her.

But you might want to look at your audience too op. Did she ask for your advice and opinion or did you offer it? Maybe wait to be asked and if you feel like its getting me me me (been there with self absorbed ex friend) then ask if she wants your advice and if not try and change the subject. If you still cant then leave.

It would have better in hindsight to see how they were in the morning. If there were apologies, more nastiness or if there was brushing under the table. Then go on the defensive rather than the offensive. But everything in hindsight...

That sounds more like she was raging at the world than at you in particular Risen?

Yes, it was raging at the world via me; although the last time she did it, she walked out the house, took me off fb, and hasn't spoken to me since

Hi Pilates.

Thanks for your balanced and reasoned response!

I think the issue with me going in the morning is that there was a child in the house who clearly wasn't happy with me being there -she'd woken in the night at all the shouting and got upset, so I felt very very uncomfortable. Maybe with no child involved it would have been different.

No he did not apologise in the morning, why would he, nothing is ever their fault (I know this from bitter experience) it is always mine.

I get that maybe I could have tried to see if advice was really wanted, I think I assumed it was. Remember I did try to change the subject - several times - but she kept bringing it back. At one point she got upset and I said look let's leave it it doesn't matter. I think things were getting out of control at this point though and she was almost looking to pick a fight as an outlet for her frustration.

A similar thing happened two years ago and it was very much brushed over and I was made to feel like I was making a fuss over nothing, to the point that they'd then make a joke of the incident and bring this up regularly.

I guess when you feel you can't say what you want to, for fear of being shut down, you show your feelings through your actions - well I do anyway. So part of the I'm going to a hotel thing was to try to get them to take it seriously. If they'd said at that point, please don't go we'll have a cuppa and a chat and sort it out - i probably wouldn't have. Instead I got told to f off! So it possibly backfired but at least let me know their true intentions.

I have pretty high standards for how I'm treated and due to growing up with an EA mother I'm quite sensitive to any breaches of these.... I don't think that's a bad thing but it does mean that I need to be choosy over who I hang out with as I don't have much tolerance for BS. I can work with conflict if the other person is willing to work with it too, but in this situation that was never going to be an option.

Sounds like you're well rid, Risen!

'I want to go back to work but I don't have the confidence' what would you say?

From all I’ve read of yours shoulda you sound very much like someone I distanced myself from last year.

She’s very practical, analytical and unemotional. She’s ececellent at coming out with plans and assessing risks etc.

However I had a serious accident and her brusk manner with a clear attitude of ‘just get on and go it’ merely highlighted all the things I couldn’t do and made me feel even more inadequate because it raised them all at once and gave me nothing I could do to improve things so I was actually going backwards despite her best intentions!

So in answer to the question in bold above, my answer is that you ask about feelings, not suggest practicalities at that stage. People without confidence are mostly VERY capable but there’s the emotional link of belief missing. So the way forwards is to break it right down into small elements to be tackled in order of importance and identify a measurable way to assess progress.

It’s actuslly very damaging to address the whole picture as it’s overwhelming. Most important to to first listen and empathize.

Yes, her reaction was extreme but I have a feeling that this I think maybe I am quite anti the 'victim mentality' and she was clearly coming from a victim mentality place so maybe that was the root of the conflict. is the whole entire problem.

You really have no idea what it is like to be a person who is considered ‘disabled’ by society and all of the horrible shit that goes with that every time you need to interact with the world. It’s not a ‘victim mentality’.

It is very hard to have confidence when you are defined by others based on what you can’t do and have to go into every job application thinking about telling people all the things you can’t do rather than what you can.

When you aren’t labelled as ‘disabled’ and you think someone who is just has a ‘victim mentality’ (rather than is facing massive structural inequality) then you continue to offer advice then yes it is going to come across as arrogant.

It might have gone differently if you had acknowledged the structural inequality and listened to why she was finding it hard.

And yes, she might be also being held back by her own feelings but you are really insensitive if you don’t understand why people, especially those who have acquired disability, don’t feel completely thrown on the scrap heap, like ‘useless eaters’ etc etc when they are labelled ‘disabled’ and when their whole lives are lived relative to what they cannot do as decided by and large by other people.

*why people feel thrown on the scrapheap

@Offred are you saying that the OP is to blame for the aggressive outburst? Because yes, that would be victim blaming. Her behaviour was disgraceful, end of story.

The OP kept trying to change the subject, her 'friend' kept coming back to it. She was basically frustrated, understandably, and took it out on the OP. I've agreed that fixers can be annoying (I'm low contact with my DM because of it) but I would never lash out like that.

I've also noted that the OP has a mother who is EA, so this plays a part in how she relates to people.