Making Amends...

I was, for some reason (perhaps a mixed sleeping schedule, or impending anxiety about the new school year) motivated to make amends to two people that I treated terribly during my unmedicated phases. During undergraduate, I had a friend who was also Bipolar and had some PD features. Her and I had on/off feelings for each other and prior to DBT and medication I would take everything personally. She was going through stuff too, but I took it personally that she wasn't there for me when I was at my lowest and I ended my friendship with her in a very spiteful way. I have a tendency to make apparent all of a person's weaknesses and throw it back at them and it's very traumatizing.

I also was in a brief relationship with another person back in college that I treated terribly. I was immature and unmedicated then. So I sent e-mails making amends to both of them. The former accepted my apology and reiterated that she still cared for me and didn't know how she hurt me so much. I told her it was more about me as a person than what she may have done. The latter person didn't even bother responding.

There's serenity to making amends but it also makes you truly realize what a POS you were and it makes me afraid of whether or not I will ever change. I still have moments, though it's not like before. I usually put up with a lot of crap from people now and being afraid to speak up and draw lines, I eventually blow up on them for their behavior and tell them off in a very earth-shattering and hurtful way, often reopening all their wounds in the process. And a lot of it is my fault because I don't talk about it early on to people who's behavior bothers me. They assume I'm alright with it.

Gosh. Anyone else know what I'm talking about?

I can relate. I can especially relate to the part you wrote about not saying anything early on when things are bothering you and the, later at some point, exploding on others and ripping them apart... at least verbally. I'm also seeing, through therapy, that my parents were both verbally abusive and weren't consistent with emotional closeness. What I mean is that when I did what they wanted me to do, they were very emotionally supportive. When I didn't they were emotionally distant and extremely verbally critical. It isn't so much that I was clueless they did this, because I definitely wasn't. It's more an issue of splitting and I told myself how loving my parents always were because, hey, they never beat me, so I didn't grow up in an abusive home, right?

I was sexually abused, as a youngster and teenager, by my step grandfather, and, for some reason, it was easier to admit that he abused me than to admit to myself that what my parents did was also abusive.

Sorry for the verbal diarrhea but I felt I needed to say that to explain where I'm coming from. I'm learning that a lot of my current behaviors (i.e. withholding my true thoughts and feelings and then using those same feelings as weapons against others when I feel mistreated as well as my verbal abuse of others when I DO explode in a fit of rage) stem from both the way I learned to treat others from the way I was raised and the fact that I learned, when I was a teenager, to be a chameleon and then, when I was hurting, to push people away. I also learned how to wound others badly so they'd leave me alone and , as cold as it sounds, it was a defense mechanism I learned and it used to work. It is sadistic, in ways, but it also comes from that abused, scared little girl inside who never quite emotionally matured and is still trying to grow up. Now, I have years of emotional baggage to work through and the tendency is to bring all that baggage with me wherever I go and includes in arguments.

Again, this is just my experience and my "cross to bear", if you will. Lol. I'm getting better at it, though. I still make amends and not everyone forgives me, but they have that right. They don't have to. I make amends for myself, really, to feel less guilt over being a POS in my past. I did, however, gain my dad's support, which I honestly thought would never happen. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and OCD a few years back. I think his realizing he, too, is MI has gone a long way for us burying the hatchet and patching up our relationship.

If you've read this far, thank you for your patience, but I really just wanted to say I can relate.

I'm definitely feeling like this today. It sort of hit me that someone I really cared about was driven away by my insanity, and I feel like if I'd been how I am now (better) back then, maybe things would have been different and I never would have lost him. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry today, say that I know what I mess I was and that I didn't have an excuse, and I want to fix it. But at the same time, I know I can't. Trying to communicate would probably make things worse for both of us.

I guess in a way I'm kind of jealous that you were able to get that kind of closer from at least one of them... I never got that, and probably never will. Good for you for being able to do something like that, I think I'm far too scared to try.

Your post is much appreciated. What is great though is looking back at who we were then and how far we've come, despite whatever issues we have and baggage.

You know, I just realized today, after reflecting on why those amends didn't work. An update: the girl who accepted my apology ended up turning it around on me and making me feel horrible. She still has the same tendencies she had that led to our friendship ending.

She caused so much drama for me in college. She was engaged to her best friend of five years and cheated on him with three people. She got two of those people to fight each other. She strung along another guy and had him white knight for her. She got too close to me and her fiance got mad and gave me dirty looks of jealousy and anger. At that point I told her I need to cut her off because I don't want drama. Who knows what she told her fiance about me at the time that got him angry at me, I was only her platonic friend. For a whole year she spread rumors about me and hated me for laying down a boundary with her. People I didn't even know gave me dirty looks. For refusing to be sucked into her drama and circle of lovers. When we made up junior year, she had already cheated on him and led to plenty of drama between her lovers. She divulged info to me that she had a history in high school and suffered from issues.

One of her ex's friends is one of my friends and he warned me about her. He told me how she would manipulate her ex to apologizing for things he didn't even do. And how she would cheat on him left and right. He told me she's crazy, and I trusted his word so I kept boundaries with this girl. But she told me so much intimate info and I eventually opened up to her about my own issues and she and I got closer. Then one of the guys who got into a fight over her came to me and told me he's very hurt and wants to "teach her a lesson". I warned her to avoid him, told her what he told me, and told her to keep her friends with her. She didn't listen, in fact she took it non-chalantly. He ended up stalking her, breaking into her room and getting aggressive. By this time she had broken up with her fiance, or so she told everyone.

She finally a week later went to campus police and asked me and another guy to come with her and fill out witness forms. I was not a witness, so I didn't fill one out but me and the other guy talked to the officer. The officer told us that she has a boyfriend and that his advice is for both of us to keep a distance. So we did, but the girl asked me to stay at the police station with her until her mom picked her up. So I did. I told her she's too nice and needs to lay boundaries or people will hurt her and that she almost got raped. She didn't listen to any of that, instead focused on "you're too nice" and thought I was hitting on her. She started getting flirty. At this point I was almost throwing up in my mouth.

Her mother came and she asked me to tell her mother what happened. I did- told her that some guy who was obsessed with her broke into her room and got violent, that she could have gotten abused or raped. The mother looked at both of us, let out a really bizarre laugh and rolled her eyes at her daughter. I was shocked at how wrong all this was. I ended my friendship with her a couple weeks later because of this.

Fast forward, senior year. I had bottomed out in my depression and tried to commit suicide. Ended up in the hospital miraculously resuscitated. I made amends who whoever I hurt because I just got a second chance at life. I talked to her and told her what happened. Her and I ended up going out that summer, we made out (I know, this is a cluster****). A month later she was up to her usual hot and cold, manipulative shenanigans and I was coming off a medication and feeling extremely depressed and delusional. I wanted someone to help, and I reached out to her and she was up to her usual ********. I was disgusted and felt used, that I had been there for her through all her drama and here she is ignoring me when I needed her. So I send her the most vitriolic friendship ending text ever and told her I knew how crazy she was in high school and how she had hurt me so much during college and that I'm sure she's got a personality disorder. I then blocked her because I don't want to hear her ****, I knew she'd flip it around on me somehow and I'd be on my knees apologizing. Pathetic.

4 years later, this week, I tried to make amends and she flipped it around telling me that I ended my friendship with her and she cared for me and didn't do anything to warrant it. She was upset that I didn't remember much of what had happened at first and that I insinuated that we both played a part in it. She is oblivious to the drama she causes and people she hurts, and when people get back at her, she acts like they were the ones with the problem.

I have problems, I know. But sometimes it's best to not even try to make amends with some people. I've come a long way from who I was in college and this girl still seems to have the same issues.

Damn Cross, that was one hell of a college experience.

You're moving past this issue and she's still flipping about it. It's probably best to leave it to a time where she will realize herself.

Here's a bear *hug*

Thanks.

She was just pure drama and I had a masochistic moment. Some of us can relate... where you feel guilty as a person and split yourself black and try to apologize to people who you think you treated terribly, and in the process because of your splitting you forget how terribly they treated you. Some cases, amends are silly. This girl hasn't grown up yet and still plays the same guilt-tripping, manipulative ******** she did many years ago. I decided to just stop with the amends process, I realized I was having a moment and inviting chaos into my life to sabotage my school performance. Anyone relate? Going back for an emotional beating to sabotage yourself as you embark upon success?

IMHO it takes a lot of courage to make amends. Thanks for the inspiration.