Burying resurfaced feelings of hurt at platonic relationship?

[alpenguin]

Tl;dr resurfacing feelings of hurt at loss of a platonic friendship after seeing nostalgic photos posted online. How do you completely get rid of those feelings?

I was recently invited to join a group reminiscing about a local social scene from my youth. It was really nice seeing all these people I once knew as older adults and seeing how many of them have stayed in touch over the decades. One thing that really hit me is how my memory of back then seems to be so different from the photo evidence. I’m not in any of the photos and people I thought were quite good friends don’t remember me. In almost all of the photos was my then best friend. We had been through high school together and I had got her interested in this particular scene. For the first couple of years we had great fun. We were like sisters and spent every waking (and sleeping) moment together. Really like the kind of friendships tv shows are made about.

Then we weren’t close, then we weren’t even friends. Nothing in particular happened and I know people grow apart as they grow up but it wasn’t really like that. I just wasn’t cool in how I looked or dressed and she craved popularity. She used me to climb socially and binned me when she reached the top. She was stunning and all the boys fancied her and I was the ugly squirt of a pal no one wanted around, It didn’t do her credibility any good.

It took me a long time to get over the loss of a such dear friend that I loved (platonically) very much. In time I made other sort of friends and had many, many more fun nights out but none were quite like those years, nobody was that close and none of them lasted longer than a year or so before they too moved on. Seeing all the photos of back then where I’m just not included in them and seeing her face in all of them just brings back the hurt I felt at being binned so unceremoniously. I’m reminded of how miserable I was and how lonely I was. I didn’t understand why it had to be all or nothing or why we couldn’t remain distantly pleasant. Within a year she didn’t even acknowledge me in passing. This was over 25 years ago

It was all in the past, forgotten about. I’d moved on... or so I thought.

I guess I was surprised by my reaction to it all, the resurfacing of that hurt. Half of me would love to know she’s well and happy and the other half still feels bitter about they way I was treated.

How do others bury away these feelings of hurt and loss? I’ve had boyfriends I loved that I had less sadness at losing. I thought it was long gone. I don’t want to leave the group as the other memories are nice but this just lingers.

Must be the only one

I think we're not taught to grieve friendships like we are romantic relationships and that makes it even harder.

I was bullied by a girl I brought into my friend group (our moms are from the same place and her family moved to my area, I introduced her to all my friends and she took them all!) and a few years ago she was putting up pics from high school saying 'omg look how young we are, so cute!' etc etc.

I had to hold myself back from commenting 'yeah you were absolutely horrible to me that nught' because it was 15 yes ago - what's the point!

I'm sorry you feel sad about this, but this is where social media just doesn't help us. Cute memories to some are the worst moments to others. I don't have any solutions for you apart from not dwelling on social media - I've been trying to read more books and watch more films lately - focusing on the present and not the past

@Cpl415642 I generally don’t dwell on social media or even on the events of the past. I hadn’t thought about my ex-friend or the social activity for over a decade. It was so nice seeing so many familiar and youthful faces doing the activity we all did together but there were just lots of reminders of hurt too and that was unexpected.

You’re right about being taught not to grieve friendships ending which is odd given we often put so much trust and love into them.

@alpenguin do you think that maybe it was the 'surprise' of feeling sad that makes it hit harder? Like you've looked back and expected to feel happiness and maybe a bit of bittersweet nostalgia, and instead were hit with the unexpected feelings of your friend acting in that way? Sometimes I think we don't always process the things we went through when we were younger so when they bubble up as adults it hits hard

Yes I think maybe it was the rushing back of all the crap feelings over the warm and fuzzy nostalgia. Even thinking about said friend in the past I hadn’t felt bad and just remembered the good times but seeing the photos reminded me that there weren’t that many good times and I’d glossed over them.

So many of these threads about the past resurfacing and hitting hard...
It's especially hard to live in the present when we're all forced to spend so much time in our own head. Reminiscing easily becomes ruminating and that's unhealthy. (100% guilty of that by the way)