Keep dreaming of my ex friend and it’s annoying me

[Tallulahe]

I was friends with this person for 16 years. Very close friendship, we saw each other 3/4 times a week and had holidays together several times a year. Spoke everyday and were close to each others family.

Anyway, last year friend got this new boyfriend who was horrible to her from the get go. Drug dealer, previous convictions and an absolute wrongun. It was surprising as friend was whiter than white usually and had never dated someone like this. He immediately started asking her for money which she didn’t have.

Then around 3 months into their relationship she tells me that she is going to lose her house as she needs to repay a loan she had borrowed against her house years before and that loan sharks and bailiffs were coming. I did find this weird as she hadn’t had money issues before. She asks to borrow £10,000 which was my whole savings. She was hysterical and desperate and I agreed. To be fair, we had always been good at paying each other back over the years. We agreed she would pay me back £200 a month over text.

Anyway, within 3 months she stopped repaying and I found out through mutual friends that the money had been used on a motorbike for her boyfriend. My life savings. I was furious and after I spoke to her she admitted it but wasn’t sorry. Told me to go fuck myself and that I wouldn’t be getting the money back. Really out of character but on the phone so knew it was her. I was then blocked by her family on social media after years of knowing them (was only her mums bridesmaid the year before) so god knows what she told them.

She blocked me on everything and we haven’t spoken again in over a year. I did in my anger put a claim through small claims which she did respond to and is now paying me back £50 a month.

My issue is, there is no turning back now and obviously we won’t be friends again but I keep having this pit feeling of sadness in my tummy and every night without fail she is in my dreams in some format. I’m waking up emotional and it’s effecting my day.

I don’t really know how to make this feeling go away, I was hoping at the year point I would’ve started to move past it.

I really feel for you. That’s a horrible experience to have. And losing a friend is just awful.
I’m sorry to say it will probably take you sometime longer to get over it. 💐

Can you have some hypnotherapy or EDMR therapy? You have the whole thing “stuck” in your head and need the matter moving on/m. I would probably also write to the friends mother with your side of the story. Might help you feel heard.

I regularly dream about my childhood best friend, with whom I fell out in my late thirties.

There’s one particularly disturbing recurring dream I have about her that puts me in a funny mood for a good hour after I wake up.

Losing a friend is traumatic, even if it’s for the best.

I wish I had an answer for you OP. I often dream about my abusive ex and two people who were friends but the relationships broke down. I don’t think about them much during the day so I’m not sure why. I wish there was a way to erase them from my dreams.

@Tallulahe - have you sought counselling? That was an incredible betrayal by her which also involved stealing your savings from you (because in truth that’s what she did). You’ve lost someone who was of central importance in your life and been shut out by her family whom you must also have been close to, since you were her mum’s bridesmaid.

The fact that you’re dreaming about her so much suggests that your feelings about this need to be more actively processed.

So sorry this happened to you, OP. You sound like a terrific friend.

I’ve been a bit of a serial monogamist in my life. Whenever I’ve had dreams with a partner in them, it’s frequently been the previous partner, rather than the current one. I think that people take up a slot in your brain for various relationships, and then they hold these positions for years in your dreams, regardless of whether they holds those positions still in your life.

I'm so sorry this happened to you and what a horrid way to lose a friend.

I had to cut ties with my best friend of over 25 years a few months ago (long story) and I still think about her most days and can't shift the feeling of loss and sadness. I keep telling myself it's okay to grieve and if they really valued our friendship then they wouldn't have behaved in the way they did. Maybe time will be the best healer .

You did the right thing though to pursue getting your money back.

I’ve been through this, I’m so sorry. It still hurts me and it was 2016 when a month after being her bridesmaid and whilst she was helping me through a rape court case by being my court advocate she stole £7500 on my credit card and racked up a £9500 Amigo loan I guaranteed.
Luckily I got the loan removed from my responsibility (after lots of research and court attendances etc).
However she got away with never paying me back the credit card debt.

My experience is it was a very deep wound, and will take some years to get over.
I did lots of energetic cord cutting, (there’s guides and meditations out there).
It’s simply imagining you’re pulling back your power and severing all energetic and emotional ties with each other.
I’d keep doing this.
Talk to someone about it.
Write about it.
Scream and shout and cry about it, punch a pillow etc. Car is also good for screaming in!
understand that this is about her, not you.
But also that there’s a huge lesson there for you.
Oh and the H’Oponono:
I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you.

And know that Karma is a bitch!!

A few years after the ‘friend’ stole the money she was on TV, went on day time tv etc about something unrelated - she tried to milk some fame and sympathy and in doing so, lied and got caught out on TV and had articles written about her about other activities she’d been up to! She also looked dreadful.
It made me feel better anyway, that the money certainly hadn’t brought her peace and happiness!

Just wanted to say that I agree losing a friend is very traumatic. I lost a friend a few years ago due to a falling out between out children and now friend is popping up on tv sometimes! Long story. But it is disconcerting when I see them and I turn over the channel quickly. And it often leads to dreams about them which are disturbing. It's hard to know where to 'put' the experience of the friendship and where the friendship should 'go' if that makes sense. Hard to not care about someone you used to care so much about and all of that.

I feel for you op. I wonder whether your friend has got into drugs or something with her boyfriend? And has had a personality change? You were very kind to lend her the money and for her to do that to you is violating, I would also suggest some form of therapy to get over it.

Not sure what else to add other than to say losing a close friend is utterly heartbreaking and that is all!

That's terrible, maybe you could get counselling to help you deal with your feelings. I have a 'friend' who I worked with, gave lifts to and from work and went on long walks several times a week. The friendship was nowhere near as intense as yours but she occasionally borrowed the odd £10/20 but always paid it back within a couple of days. She then started going out with a new bf, much younger than her, smokes cannibas, drinks continuously, takes other drugs etc and she lost her job. She struggled to get full time work and she told me she had cancer. About twice a week she'd contact me to say she'd been to hospital and needed a taxi home ( no late buses here) and could she borrow £20, always insisting she'd pay me back. Fast forward a few months, she now has a permanent full time job and she hasn't paid me any of the £340 she owes me. I know it's not as much as you lost but I work part time on a zero hours contract and am on uc. I still see her occasionally but I'd never trust her again. I do feel like I've lost a friend even if she was a bad one!

Would also suggest EMDR therapy. It will help to process this. Wish you luck OP, you have been treated awfully 💐

It's a really horrible feeling when a friend treats you with such disregard like that. Mine was more like my sister and then she met someone new, denied there was anything going on and was lying to me, her ex and even her own kids.
I couldn't get over how she could lie so blatantly to my face, to the point I nearly believed her and when I had it out with her she shrugged it off as if it was no big deal. I would never be able to trust her again as like I told her, I would be forever questioning if she was telling me the truth so I had to cut all ties. It still hurts now, especially when memories pop up on FB.

@Mrsgus off topic but you can change your settings to block certain people coming up in Facebook memories

'Never a borrower or a lender be"
I know that's no help to you, I have no advice , this would grate on me for a long long time, you were a kind friend, she'll need you before you need her, when relationship goes tits up x

OP your poor brain is trying to process this and because it doesn’t make sense as it goes against previous patterns with this friend, your brain is then trying to make sense of it in your sleep.
I agree with PP about EMDR. It’s a brilliant treatment for trauma - and trauma doesn’t have to be a kidnapping or a major road accident, but an event which is disturbing that your brain needs help with.
I am so sorry about how you have been treated. Your friend has met this idiot and has fallen into his patterns by losing her morals and being aggressive.
Well done for formalising repayments even though they are low.
As for her family I’m surprised none of them have approached you and are concerned about her.
Leave them to it.
Sadly, these situations never have a happy ending, but it’s not your bad fairytale to manage.
If this friend ever rears her head again even if it’s a dire request, don’t engage.
Wherever she is in life she’s probably very unhappy. But she’s made a choice she wasn’t a naive teenager.
Get some treatment and get back to your own life knowing you tried to help, you’ve been a good friend, and those qualities are much valued by good people.