Well, for most or at least the friends who readily come to mind, they were around when I had a major psychological collapse that involved what, looking back on it, was weeks of a mixed episode of beyond-severe depression and hypomania combined with unbearable anxiety. I couldn't really help myself in regards to not talking about what was going on in my mind. Sometimes, I'd write these absolutely incoherent and apoplectic emails or continuously focus on intrusive anxiety-provoking thoughts regarding infinite regresses and tell them about it. This was in 2011. Virtually all who walked away did so in ghost fashion after a couple of months.

Nearly the same thing happened in 2016. If the 2011 experience was a 10, the 2016 experience was a 9.0-9.5 that had been building since the summer of 2014. The few friends I made between 2011 and 2016 walked away too. But, I suppose one difference is that my then best friend, the person that I'd hung out with 4+ hours nearly every day of the week for years told me why she was walking away. It was because, in a very dark hour, I was desperate for help, in absolute despair, but there really wasn't anything that could be done so being just really, ineffably distraught I wanted to just talk. So, I unloaded all of my despair into a message and sent it to her. That was too much for her and she broke down crying. The next morning, she said our friendship was no longer conducive and it was time to part ways. (I understand that. I have to understand it. That was inappropriate of me to want or need to "confess" my inner turmoil to her in an attempt to find relief. There really was no one else I was comfortable talking with about it, but it was wrong of me to ask for her to listen to that type of darkness.) This makes me an awful person.

I did keep in touch with a couple of friends from 2011, but when things got bad in 2016 they vacated. I suppose one time as enough for them. I have to understand this too. People, especially your inner circle of people, don't leave you unless you've done something horrible. Another of my close friends who I met in 2012 kind of disappeared too, but with them I never really talked about anything regarding my mental health. So, I don't really know why I no longer exist to them.

So, pretty much all of my friends who knew of my psychological collapse ghosted or literally just the one, explained why they had to walk away. When people who were so close to you just disappear without notice and regard you as persona non grata, all I can presume is that I must really be an awful person.

None of this really matters I suppose. I continuously let trivial things bother me.