Letting go of a friend

[Rainydaze]

I don't know if I expect too much, if I'm over-sensitive or whether it's the opposite entirely and I'm growing a bit more of a backbone. Basically I feel quite discarded by a 'friend' and have done so for a while. If I text her then it can be up to a week before she will respond, throughout which time she will have been messaging other people, going out with all her other friends and using Facebook. She's a massive extrovert. So on that front I'm pretty much just low down on her list of importance. It's got worse over the last few months and I don't really see much point in bothering with someone who blatantly can't be that bothered with me. I'm not perfect and can take a while to respond to a message if I'm feeling particularly low so I've been very tolerant, however this is tolerance framed by the understanding of how mental health can make a person disconnect. I can only have so much tolerance and benefit of the doubt and realistically I know she's just using me.

The big thing (or at least it feels big to me) and something that really upset me was her completely forgetting my birthday and not even realising until a few days later. Our birthdays are close together with hers being at the beginning of November and mine towards the end. Even though I was really struggling with anxiety I made the effort to go to her party where there were a lot of people I didn't know (my anxiety is social and this was really triggering for me), spent a long time and a fair bit of money picking out gifts for her and wrapping them nicely and spent more money and time preparing some party food to bring along. I didn't expect her to go to all that effort for me because I didn't have a party or anything like that, but she couldn't be bothered to even give me a late birthday card.

So I've been debating whether there's any point maintaining any illusion of 'friendship' or to bother making any more effort with someone who I've started to feel has really given me little reason to care anymore and the answer is no. I'm feeling so done with it. It's very similar to the feeling I had when I couldn't take any more contact with uNF, like both my brain and heart get on to the same page and say no to allowing anyone to take advantage of me. It's good in a way because I'm starting to see more of my worth and not hold on to the wrong people just for fear of being alone. I don't think I'm being unreasonable, am I? That's the thing, this is so new to me and I've always been such a people pleaser.

Just felt like I needed to get this off my chest, it's been on my mind so much! My brother's also massively distanced himself from me and barely bothers to contact me either. On the one hand it's hard not to blame and shame myself and assume all the responsibility (the old mindset I guess), but on the other I know I'm a kind, good-hearted person and don't deserve to feel like that.

[Kizzie]

I'm a kind, good-hearted person

Just my two cents Blues but I think you deserve others who are just like you and treat you like you treat them 

[Blueberry]

I don't know if I expect too much, if I'm over-sensitive or whether it's the opposite entirely and I'm growing a bit more of a backbone.

ime it's the latter, or at least beginning to set boundaries and limit contact with people who don't do me much good, beginning to notice who those people are.

I've written about this on my own threads. As others have too. You're certainly not alone in this. It seems to be part of healing. Over-sensitive? I don't know that that even exists except physically (some people have eyes that are over-sensitive to light e.g.) but that's not what people mean when they call us over-sensitive. They mean things like they want to keep behaving like a bull in a china shop or just plain going over our boundaries without being called out on it.

I agree with Kizzie, you deserve others who are kind and good-hearted like yourself. 

[Kizzie]

    

[Rainydaze]

Thank you both so much.   

Yes, I think I've been considering other people's needs and abandoning my own for far too long and the more I consider it the less I think I'm just being too sensitive. I think with this particular person too I'd been pretending to be something that I'm not just to feel some kind of acceptance. It's the first time I've really started to look at what's best for me and my personality. I'd kind of known for a while that she had really been taking me for granted and been quite shallow about it, but I assumed that this was better than losing another person in my life. Turns out that it's not particularly better though as I feel that a shallow connection uses up such valuable energy that would be better spent elsewhere. I don't think she's a bad person and we're simply very different people, so the idea of boundaries in this situation has been a long time coming. Weeks have gone by since I last saw her and neither of us have felt compelled to text the other, so I think that says it all really!

The word "no", boundaries and reflecting on my own needs seems to be becoming way more of a thing for me nowadays, in some ways there is a sadness at letting go of what no longer feels right but also a feeling that it's the natural course. 

[Kizzie]

 Good for you Blues               

[Boatsetsailrose]

Hi blues
I really relate and am in a similar position right now ...
I feel quite sure it's her stuff and I can't do it anymore ...I'm drained and done .
How did it go in your situation ?