We were roommates and worked together as well as being best friends for many years. I began realizing that most of my bad habits, negativity, and everything I was trying to change about myself to improve my life was being made a thousand times worse by being around this person constantly who was dealing with all the same issues and even worse than me (I was negative...this person was more negative...I was gaining weight, this person was significantly overweight, I was drinking too much...this person was drinking even more...etc). I didn't want to kill the friendship, but I did want to start minimizing our contact.

I asked this person to move out. We were sharing a tiny apartment, and aside from the enabling all of my bad habits, I was getting increasingly annoyed by how messy they were, how late the rent always was, how disrupting it was to my life to have them there. So, I asked that they move out and told them the space was too small to share and I needed to get my space back. I offered to help the person look for a new apartment and help in whatever way I could so that they could find another place and get moved. I did this to save the friendship, not end it. I knew that if we continued living together the friendship would be over in months.

I thought I handled the situation the best I could, but it didn't work. This person got angry and didn't want my help moving or finding a new place. We basically stopped talking, but still worked together. Several months passed, and I noticed this person was getting increasingly friendly with some other people who worked in the same place who had a lot of power over what went on there. We are involved in the arts, so it's kind of difficult to describe because it's not a typical office environment, but the general way things work aren't terribly different from a "normal" job...just a bit untraditional so hard to describe well. At any rate, it was obvious to me that 1) this person was slacking off and not taking their work seriously anymore 2) talking behind my back to these people in power and I have often suspected I was being blamed for this person's laziness. Somehow, I was let go from this workplace along with two others who were responsible and doing their job. And yet, this person (my old friend and now enemy) was not being let go, AND two of this person's friends got hired. To me, and the others who were let go, the whole thing looked very shady. I felt responsible for getting these other people fired by association...they didn't blame me, but I was probably to blame (though it was obviously not my intent).

This was three years ago and we haven't spoken since but have mutual friends and acquaintances. And, since we are involved in the arts which tends to involve much freelance work I feel like I am still "battling" this person who I know still talks negatively about me to this day (because others have told me about this).

So, there was no big accident or death or anything that I would associate with "trauma" which is why I don't know if the term PTSD fits or not. But, I do feel like our friendship ending led to my loss of work and continues to make it harder for me to work in some instances as well as the feelings I mentioned before about not wanting to go certain places, do certain things, see certain people in fear of running into each other.

I know there are always two sides to every story, and maybe this person is still angry about the apartment issue....I have no idea. But, I feel like I've been suffering for three years because of something I did which really was not only for my own best interests, but for this person's as well since I thought it would be best for us both to be around each other less. I sometimes think about contacting the person just to tell them this, but I really no longer want to have anything to do with this person, and renewing the friendship isn't something I want to have happen. It's just unfortunate that we couldn't have gone our separate ways on better terms. I suspect I have suffered much more from this than the other person ever did and all I was trying to do was help us both.

Of course, I should talk to a therapist about this, but can't at the moment and I guess I'm just curious if PTSD is a proper name for it or if it's just another part of my depression and anxiety, since knowing what it is might help me search for strategies to help me with it.