***THIS IS VERY LONG, SO YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ IT***

A few years ago, I fell into a very serious clinical depression, the first I’d ever had. I lost 26 pounds and was very ill. Suddenly, I was filled with all sorts of pain and shame and other terrible feelings, as well as bad memories from my past. I was also scared and confused because I did not understand what was happening to me. At the time, I had a couple of good friends and a few friendly acquaintances in my congregation, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell any of them what was happening to me. They had only known me as a happy person. I did not feel they would understand all the terrible thoughts and feelings that I was having. I did not feel like I could talk to them about my past abuse or any of the ugly stuff. Also, some of my problems at that time involved my marriage, and since most of our friendships were with other couples, my friends were friendly with my husband. I did not feel right about divulging my personal grievances about my husband to them. So I didn’t seek help from anyone. When people would ask how I was doing, I would smile and say “Fine, how are you?”

Three or four people initially showed concern for me, but when I didn’t open up to them, they backed off, along with the remainder of my acquaintances. I isolated myself and continued to spiral down.

Then, a woman I knew, but not well, reached out to me. She was 15 years older than me and very intelligent. She’d had a daughter who suffered with depression in the past and recognized it in me. She inivited me to come to her home once a week to talk about my feelings and problems with her. Though I'd avoided divulging anything to anyone else, something about her drew me to her. She made me feel safe and cared about. I could sense that she felt protective toward me. I opened up to her about everything, both in letters and in person. For the first time since my childhood, I risked being vulnerable and sharing with her all the confusion and pain I had inside me. Her concern and interest in helping me touched my heart. I became very attached to her, almost the way a child would with a parent.

For 5 years, we were close, and during all this time, I divulged to her my deepest thoughts and feelings and struggles, as well as what was going on in my therapy. I also talked with her about some spiritual questions/doubts that were troubling me. I felt so grateful to her for caring about me and bought her gifts, sent her cards and flowers, and shared my poetry with her. Looking back, I realize she never gave me cards or gifts, but the giving of her time felt like a huge gift to me. I didn’t even feel worthy of that.

For quite a long time, we seemed to have this very strong bond. I loved her like a mother, and she told me she loved me too. She also told me once that I felt like her soulmate. We talked about our hobbies sometimes, like my poetry or her mathematics, and about our religious beliefs. But mostly, it was a helping relationship. I’d never felt attached to anyone in this way before. Though I didn’t know anything about having a hurt inner child part of me, I realize now that I had trusted her with this part of me. I’d closed away all my pain since childhood and now for the first time, I was opening up this most painful and young part of me to her. Though I’d never felt abandonment fears with any of my friends before, I felt them with her. I constantly worried that she would reject me, and she would always reassure me, “I’m not going anywhere.” She also said, “One day, you will see and be able to believe, I am not going to abandon you.” In some way, it felt like she was somebody that I’d always needed in my life, and I just felt so grateful to have this relationship.

At one point during my depression, my husband and I were going through a particularly rough patch. I admit that I told my friend about all the negative things he’d done, and why I was upset with him. I also wrote a lot of letters and journaled my feelings. Because I did not want my husband to find my writings and feel bad, my friend offered to let me store my letters to her and journaling at her house. As time went on, I also wrote poems that I shared with her. We also stored these at her house, as she talked about helping me get published. Many of these were original poems. I did not keep a copy of them, as I figured I’d get all the stuff back from her later.

Over time, my friend came to the conclusion that my husband was the main source of my depression. I felt this way for awhile myself, and decided to take a temporary break from him, so I moved out of the house and stayed at a motel for 2 weeks. My friend was glad I’d done this and remarked, “I wondered why it took you so long.” During that 2-week period, my husband and I each met separately with our congregation elders and talked to them about our marital problems and my depression. My husband also agreed to start individual therapy. I decided to return home. I knew my friend didn’t agree with my decision, but she didn’t push the matter.

Afterwards, my friend and I continued to be friends, but over the next 1-1/2 years, she started putting distance between us. She would call and leave me short messages, but she stopped inviting me to her house to talk. The few times we did get together, it was because I asked her if we could set a day and time to do so. Occasionally, she agreed. But she seemed cooler toward me. Where she used to fix us hot tea and a small snack, she stopped offering that. When I would leave, she would no longer say “Oh please, stay for a little while longer.” When I would call her, she would always let me know that she was busy doing something. She did have a lot going on in her life, so I assumed she was telling me the truth. But underneath, I began to fear she was abandoning me. Where we’d been originally meeting together every week, we had only met together 3 times in that year.

Then one day, I had a meltdown and was hospitalized for suicidal thinking. I can’t say for sure what brought it on. My friend came to visit me while I was hospitalized. The psychiatrist there diagnosed me with BPD, and I shared that information with my friend. But she disagreed with the diagnosis. She was still convinced that my husband was causing my problems. After my release from the hospital, my friend continued acting cool toward me.

After being released from the hospital, my husband and I each continued in individual therapy, and we kept working on our marriage. My husband was diagnosed with bipolar disorder shortly afterward. I read up on bipolar disorder, and it shed a lot of light on his behavior. Though I wasn’t condoning some of the things he’d done, I understood that the bipolar disorder (particularly mania) was behind a lot of it, and that not everything he’d said and done was willfull. I shared this with my friend also.

Things were working out much better in my marriage, and I told my friend this. I said I regretted some of the things I’d written about my husband in my letters to her, so I asked her to destroy the letters and journaling that I’d stored at her house. She didn’t want to destroy them. She wanted me to re-read them and remember all the things that had made me upset and unhappy in my marriage. I told her that I didn’t want to re-read them. I just wanted to move on. Reluctantly, she agreed to destroy them, but did not follow through. So I finally agreed to re-read them. I told her that if we could set up a time, I’d come to her house and go through all my writing, decide what to keep, and what to throw out. She never invited me over to do it.

Soon afterward, during a phone conversation, she told me she had decided not to destroy the letters. She also refused to return them. She told me that she needed to keep the letters as “proof,” in case I killed myself. She said if that happened, my husband would blame her. My friend claimed my husband would sue her and try to take everything she had. So she needed the letters as proof that she had actually helped me. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe she wouldn’t return my writing. I was also shocked that she would think that, if I died, my husband would sue her, or that anyone would hold her responsible for my outcome. I told her that, as an adult, she wouldn’t have any responsibility for what I did. My husband and I agreed to sign and notarize a statement that we would not hold her responsible for anything that happened to me in exchange for my writing. She refused.

In the meantime, my friend heard some gossip about my husband and asked me if it was true. I knew for a fact that it was false, and I told her so. She acted like she did not believe me.

At that point, my friend stopped contacting me completely. Almost a month went by without my hearing anything from her. I knew she was angry with me, but I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong. I couldn’t understand her suddenly paranoid thinking, I was upset that she wouldn’t return my writing, and hurt that she wouldn’t accept that I’d made a decision to work things out with my husband. All my fears of rejection began coming up, but I remembered that she’d told me she would never abandon me. Still, I began feeling very scared.

At this point, I called my friend twice, and left a message on her answering machine. I told her that I knew she was upset with me, and that I really wanted us to get together to talk about it. I told her that I realized that I had contributed to things going wrong, and I was really sorry. I told her that her friendship meant a lot to me, and that I wanted to understand what I’d done wrong so that I didn’t repeat the same mistakes in other relationships. She wouldn’t return my calls.

The third time I called, my friend picked up the phone. When I told her I wanted to talk things over, she blasted me. She told me that I’d lied to her regarding the gossip she’d asked me about earlier. I told her I did not lie to her, I told the truth. But she said “three other people told me it was true, so I know you are lying.” All I can think of is that those 3 people just repeated the gossip they’d heard from somebody else, because I knew for a fact that the gossip was not true (I was there at the time.) But my friend would not believe me. She called me a liar, and told me she believes I’d been deceptive about other things too. She accused me of trying to weaken her faith in God and referred to a scripture that speaks of those who have departed from the faith and now walk as enemies of Christ’s torture stake. She also told me that if I started meeting my Christian obligations and took a stand against my husband, “everything will be good with us,” but if I did not, “you will never hear from me again.”

I was completely floored. I could not believe the things my friend was saying. I could not believe that’s what she thought of me. How could she say/do this? I was heartbroken, just sick. I couldn’t believe she was giving me an ultimatum. As much as it absolutely killed me, I knew that I could not submit to her ultimatum. I did not want to leave my husband, and I did not feel it was the right thing to do. Right then, I decided to change congregations. I was so hurt and felt so abandoned. I’ve never felt so incredibly hurt in my whole life. I’d trusted her and opened up my vulnerability to her. I’d been honest with her about everything. I loved her. And though she promised she never would, she abandoned me. I mailed her the few things I had at my house that belonged to her. She never returned my things. True to her word, I never heard from her again. I have seen her 2 or 3 times from a distance in her car, but that’s it. It has been 6 years, and I still cry when I talk about it.

Although I am in a new congregation now, it is still the same religious affiliation. Occasionally, we both attend a combined religious event. These have always been large events, with several hundred people, so it has been pretty easy to avoid running into her. However, to do so, I have to arrive at the last minute, and leave immediately afterward, and leave and have lunch alone to avoid the possibility of running into her. This makes it impossible for me to fellowship with anyone else either. After being hurt so very badly, I’m afraid to make friends, and don’t believe I can open up at all to anyone now. But having to avoid everyone, it makes me feel so alone.

There is a significant religious observance coming up in about 2 weeks, and I have learned that my current congregation will be meeting with my former congregation at this event. It will be a much smaller crowd: about 200 people in the same large room. I can choose to attend the event there, or observe it at a different location. I don’t know what to do. In some ways, I am tired of feeling like I have to hide to avoid my former friend. But the hurt is still so deep, I’m afraid that if I come face to face with her, I will fall apart. Even seeing her nearby will likely trigger me.

My therapist says that I am expending a whole lot of energy trying to avoid my former friend. She asked me, if I internalized her (my therapist’s) caring about me and pictured her with me, did I feel that I could attend the same event where my former friend will also be? I just don’t know. I seriously doubt my former friend would approach me. But even so, I don’t know if I can handle it. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry.