Friendships and ghosting

[boilinthebag]

I need advice! I have recently had the unpleasant experience of being ghosted by my erstwhile best friend. It has been painful. I'm not a spring chicken! We had been besties for about 38 years, holidays with our same-age kids who are now in their twenties, phone calls several times a week, kept each other going during lockdown, trips together for walks/gardening/with our ageing mothers/just chilling together and sharing our thoughts and emotions. Early in the year (2023), I was in a deep depression due to family issues and I found her not very supportive and I made the mistake of saying so. After this - growing coldness. About 6 months ago she just blocked me on Whatsapp and stopped replying to my messages (which were not in the least about that issue as I had recovered and was back to my usual optimistic self. We had had lots of fun outings and chats in the interim.). So I emailed her today asking what had I said or done to be ghosted. And her reply was "Hi! If you would like to meet up for a light-hearted and cheerful chat then that's fine."
WTF?
She has blocked me and ghosted me and that is her answer. I am tempted to reply saying 'No thanks. Have a nice life.'
I can't believe that after all these years she cares so little. We knew each others' mothers. We went to each others' parents' funerals. We shared mutual parties for our kids. I listened on the phone every time she was in distress about her family and their attitudes towards her. She cried in my living room when she was dumped. I visited her in hospital when she was in for a breast cancer op. when her mum couldn't go.
I just can't believe it.
I suppose I'm best to leave it all alone now. But i do miss her and I feel lonely and rejected and sad.

So maybe just think of you have been intense and demanding in a way that she may have found a bit too much

I think this is probably true, but then it's also worth considering that sometimes, people find it 'too much' if you're 5 minutes late to meet them, or if you ate the last biscuit.

What she finds to be 'too much' isn't a comment on you, it's a comment on her, and where her boundaries are with regard to how much support she's willing to give. You felt that one level of support would be appropriate, and she felt that another level of support was appropriate. That doesn't mean that you did anything wrong; she is not the final judge on whether you are 'acceptable' or not. There are no rules about how much support we are 'supposed' to want/receive, so you can't get it wrong. The two of you didn't match, that's all. And then she decided to ghost you, which she must have felt was justified, and you didn't, so, again, it's a mismatch.

I think most people would be unhappy if a friend decided to solve a problem within the friendship by walking away without a word, so I can't understand why people are rationalising what she's done; they may be able to understand why she was upset, but walking away is generally an unhealthy relationship trait (unless there's abuse)

Unless you've got people walking out of your life on a regular basis, you can't really use this as something to judge yourself by. It's like deeming yourself to be crap at walking, just because one person pushed you, and you fell over.

Have a look at this, which includes this sentence

If the loved one rejects them or fails to respond to their needs, they might blame themselves or label themselves as not being worthy of love

https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/anxious-attachment/

Agree with the others. It sounds like she felt she was being supportive (and being with someone in a severe depression is very draining as inevitably the conversation is all about them and she would not be getting much back, regardless of what was going on in her life). But her attempt to help was met with criticism as not being ‘supportive’ enough.

That is the type of action that would lead many to distance themselves as why try and help when attempts to help are never good enough?

If you do value her friendship, then give it another chance, though only if you can accept that maybe she was trying and that should be appreciated and not rebuffed.

If you do value her friendship, then give it another chance

Aside from whether her negative response was justified, there is the other issue, that she chose to deal with an issue within the friendship by ghosting. Regardless of who is upset with who, and for what, that's not a person it's healthy to have a friendship with, and certainly, she would need to come to OP rather than the other way round. If someone gives you the silent treatment, you don't chase them.

Initially I was thinking how unfair this was on the OP, but the more I think about it, the more I think that I would not like to be criticised by a friend, even if I hadn't been around much, I have a lot of friends, a lot on my plate and my friendships seem to work best when there's a lot of ebb and flow- rather than have expectations about what ought to happen. Sometimes people are quiet for 6 months, sometimes someone steps forward a lot when there's a crisis, not all friends do all of those things, but to me, friendship is about having an easier time than in a relationship and being more accepting that we just choose to hang out. Once things like criticism enter the picture, it never ends well as friendships are chosen, they aren't something you entered into like a relationship or with vows! I apologise if I've been a bit rubbish, my friends apologise if they've been a bit rubbish, we all just muddle along. If you really want to carry on this friendship, I might think about saying sorry for calling you on not being supportive, I was just feeling frustrated and lashing out. Unless you are not sorry, in which case I'd leave it.

As @Watchkeys has said. It's about her. Her actions, she has hurt you and has done so with no regard for the consequences or pain caused.
I'm so sorry
It happened to me last year and I'm still grieving
I know I would never be able to do that to a friend. That standard of behaviour is very low.. I wonder how people live with themselves tbh.
Time is a healer. Better for you to be out of a dynamic with a person who is capable of doing this.
I wish you well xx

She sound like she's a fair weather friend. Either she's never needed to significantly support you before or this time she found it particularly hard. She also probably didn't appreciate being called out for being unsupportive. But in a long term friendship like that you should be able to say anything and work through it.

I had two long term 'best' friends. (30+ years) Ones mental health spiralled, myself and the other friend spent years supporting her, advising, trying to get her help. In the end we had to accept she didn't want to or couldn't help herself so we both (separately) took a step back. It affected our friendship as a group massively. About 6 years later we were still fairly close and my mh massively declined, first friend was incapable of supporting due to her mh and other friend obviously felt triggered and instantly backed away. I got a real sense of you know who your friends are. Our friendship never recovered after that. And even when I had a big trauma last year all I got was a phone call.

What I've learnt is that sometimes friendships are more superficial than you realise and only work based on a line not being crossed. I wouldn't want to pursue a friend who could so easily walk away from a long term friendship. I would message back and say thank you but you were actually just looking for some closure on why friend reacted the way she did.

She couldn't handle your depression or being told she wasn't supportive. Maybe it was tipping her off into depression. I think it's clear. She's kind of said it. I wouldn't throw it all away.