Out of the blue angry contact from the past

[Hardtobelieve123]

So, this has been a difficult issue in my adult life. A childhood friend of mine has just sent me an email full of anger and resentment and a list of everything I apparently did wrong.

We stopped being friends when we became adults because she became so self absorbed and did not behave like a friend at all, putting me down, only talking about herself, demanding attention and frankly I had enough of it. The friendship fizzled out quite naturally although we never actually cut contact.

She must be having a retrospective right now because I’ve really been savaged by a missive with all the things I did wrong. She takes literally no responsibility for anything.

We live in the same town, have friends in common, see each other in the supermarket etc.

How do I go forward from here. Cutting contact isn’t an option.

I understand now how she seriously cannot see anything from anyone other than her perspective. She is angry with the world and me but me especially for letting her down, not supporting her etc etc. Now she is very communicative about all the difficulties in her life. No acknowledgment that other people have had difficulties too. She has rewritten her life narrative so that she is entirely the victim.

How to handle it?

Imagine how King Charles feels. I'd follow his lead and ignore.

There is nothing you can say or do that will change things. She has unresolved issues that she needs to deal with alone.

If she tries to engage you either ignore or bluntly say that nothing you will say or do will provide resolution so you aren't prepared to engage and walk off / disengage.

She may send the mutual friends at you. Again it's about attention seeking and being a victim. Don't feed it. Make the point to those friends that youve been down this path before, and friend is an emotional vampire who sucked the life out of you and you aren't prepared to put yourself through that again. If she has problems she needs to see a therapist rather than continue to harass you and you are unable to give her the closure she seeks. It's about her self esteem not your apparent wrong doing and until she grasps that she's going to be miserable. You feel you've nothing to apologise for so won't be engaging with her attempts to bully you into one.

Definitely ignore it. You were friends as children/teens, you didn't have to be a perfect friend and neither did she. If she's still so angry now there's more to it, and she's probably got other issues to work through. If you reply, she gets what she wants, if you leave it you have the power.

Definitely ignore

Hi @Hardtobelieve123 this happened to me. It was a letter posted through my door, a massive rant and reams of accusations. This person sent the same letter to myself and 2 others.

Out of the three recipients, I was the only one who did not engage. I could clearly see that the writer had issues, that she needed to send this letter as some sort of "vindication" for herself. But I did not respond.

We live very close to each other, see each other occasionally and I just smile and pass on. I hope she got the help she needed at the time.

It absolutely hasn't affected my life. Once I got over my initial shock and anger I just let it go.

If you were to reply, my suggestion would be something along the lines of this- "I have read your email and am sorry that you feel that way. I have reflected on what you said and believe we have completely different perspectives on the events you describe."

Nothing further. No explanation or justification.
But if she were to come back at you, unless she was genuinely interested in understanding your thoughts, then I would delete/ block etc.

I have no idea about the"not a cult" thing, but I was thinking it sounds like something an "agony aunt" or even a not-trained-so-called- therapist would tell someone to do, to "get rid of their anger".

OP should ignore.

Ignore ignore ignore

She WANTS you to react, she WANTS the drama

Don't give her what she wants!

This 💯

🙏🏻

At the most I’d reply ‘Thanks for this. All the best’
Or ignore.

Sounds like untreated cluster B. I'd not take the bait. She wants a reaction.

Like everyone else - ignore.
I know some threads can be annoying where 300 posters pile on and say the same thing eg. "cancel the cheque" but sometimes I think it's good as the OP can see that so many people would do the same thing.
There is no point in engaging with this. She's spoken her truth and nothing you can say will make any difference.

I had a similar experience. I put the e-mail into a folder and ignored it. The person in question has a number of issues and a history of treating family and friends like this. The person then sent several more e-mails over the next year or so and I filed each one carefully and ignored them. I had them to hand if needed (at one stage I was considering getting police involved due to harrassment) but also it meant that if I ever felt sorry for the person and felt amenable to any atempts at reconciliation (which did comefrom her about 10 years later) I could re-read what she had sent me and this served to show me that this person was not one I wanted in my life.

I think you probably should ignore it but I'd be tempted to write: Feel better? I'd do the same and list all the things you did wrong but I think you would benefit from working it out for yourself. You are very self absorbed and I think gaining a little perspective would do you the world of good.

It's not your issue. Ignore.