So upset but am I being selfish?

[Hcisab]

This is a long and slightly complicated one but I'll try not to ramble too much.

Just for context, me and best friend are super close, always there for eachother and have always spent a lot of time together.

So recently my best friend broke up with her manipulative, narcissistic and abusive DP. He was awful to her and she knew it but it took her a while to actually break up with him, they were only together a year. She was so happy to finally be rid and have a bit of freedom- which she took full advantage of. A month later I had my first DC, she was amazing through my pregnancy and was so excited for me. I'm the first in my group to have a baby so was always worried I would lose a lot of friends but I knew my bf wouldn't be one of them.

A week after my dc was born, bf's exDP had an accident and lost his life. She was understandably distraught however, she then started acting like they had never broke up and was posting all over social media about how much she loved him, all the things they had planned together and how she would never be able to cope without him. She couldn't leave the house
at first so I took my newborn to see her, comforted her and listened to her.

It has been months now and her life is a mess, she's taking drugs, spending time with(and sleeping with) criminals and not looking after herself. I have tried to go after her as much as possible whilst getting used to life with a newborn and almost going into PND, but she rarely gets back to me. She has come to see me once since my dc was born and the other few times I have seen her it's been me making the effort- fine. Over the last couple of weeks though we have arranged plans and she has either cancelled or not turned up meaning I have wasted my time.

I have no idea how she must feel but I have been through some of the hardest parts of my life and she doesn't even know. I just feel like she is using this as a plea for attention and is messing around a lot of friends in the process. I don't want to come across as horrible person and it's all about me because I can't imagine what she's feeling but she has been going out and seeing people everyday, just not me and I don't understand why. Today her and another friend have gone out together for lunch and didn't think to invite me which I think has just got to me.

It's seriously getting me down, I feel like I must've done something to her and I've lost my best friend but I don't know if I'm just being selfish and this is all normal grieving. Thanks for listening, sorry if it's a bit jumbled.

Wow. She's clearly hurting to get so funked up. People don't choose to be like that for attention - her recent ex bf died! Just because she was happy to split, doesn't mean she didn't love him. One of my exes was an abusive asshole but I still loved him - I would've crumbled had I found put he had died shortly after we split.

Cut her some slack and be there for her.

Yeah I know she hurting and I'm being there for her as much as I can, it was the many many social media posts that I felt were for attention but you're right maybe I'm being to harsh. I don't express any of this to her btw, I honestly just try and be there for her.

She’s grieving. And she might not feel able to spend a lot of time with you as by comparison she may feel it’s too painful as your life seems to be going so well (new baby, presumably a happy relationship etc.). She might also struggle to spend time with you if you were one of her closest friends while she was with her ex, as she knows you know his downsides and it could feel difficult to grieve in the way she wants to if she’s aware you’re thinking ‘but you weren’t together, and he was a dick’. That’s no fault of yours btw, just that grief is a complex and difficult thing.

I don’t think you can expect too much from her right now, keep it light, stay in touch with a message every couple weeks with an open ended suggestion to meet, and give her some space while you focus on your baby and other friends. If you’re as close as you say you are you’ll both find your way back to each other.

You mention having been through some of the most difficult times of your life recently, do you mean in terms of becoming a parent? Or has something awful happened to you? With the greatest respect, I don’t think it helps to get into the ‘but it’s been hard for me too’ mentality: she can only give what she can give, and grieving someone you love/d isn’t the same level of pain as adjusting to being a new parent. In many respects her grief is likely to be more complex due to how things ended with him before he died, it’s not a ‘straightforward’ kinda loss, she’ll also have regrets about how she wasn’t with him for his last month, about the pain she feels she may have caused by breaking up with him, find it hard to know how to feel because she’s devastated but know she wasn’t his partner at the time. You don’t need to bother yourself analysing all of this but I detected a tone of ‘she’s exaggerating how she feels’ from what you’ve said and judging how she’s grieving, and it’s not your place to decide that.

I would just give her some space, while keeping in touch by text to check on her. You can't do much about her cancelling plans and it sounds like you're doing your best to be a friend. You have a newborn baby and that is your priority. Hopefully she will come out of this self-destruct mode in her own time but I would focus on your own life while letting her know you'll always be there for her. She is an adult after all.

She is clearly grieving, and you really unable to see that?

@CrystalShark thank you because your post made a lot of sense, especially the part about her not feeling she can grieve how she wants around me- I'm sure that's probably true. I was referring to the PND but you're right, it's no comparison.

@FuckFacePlatapus I said I can't imagine what she's going through and have posted in the hopes of being able to maybe understand it better.

Thanks for all the replies, I realise I have made this too much about myself. I truly love her more than anything and only want the best for her which is why I'm finding this hard but this isn't about me so I will try to just be there for her as much as possible while focusing on my life aswell.

You sound like a good friend OP and a mature, thoughtful person. Long meaningful friendships rarely evaporate when life gets tough, they evolve but it may take some time.

Thank you, she's my soul sister and I know that things will be okay in the end, this middle bit is just tricky.