[Alishia88]

I never have spoken about this to anyone, really, it´s just one of the things that happened in the last 3 years that really crushed me and I felt, in therapy, that other and more powerfull or recent events needed to be discussed.

Today, I noticed though how much I am distached from losing my best friend about 1 and a half year ago.
I got the idea, that maybe, if I could see that it really wasn´t my fault or my PTSD´s or my not coping well with my mental difficulties or my drawing inwards, emotionally,
but maybe, something that was noone´s fault and would have happened anway, even if I was doing well, only maybe not as rapidly.

I think there are some very wise people here with more life experience and I thought I could share here, even if it´s not directly PTSD related.

I feel that relieving myself of the "guilt" of being responsible would help me feel better about myself.

Well, after my main traumatic event, I started to focus very much on success and I also became anorexic and basically cut off my feelings for myself or anyone. I moved to another city and I moved back in the year afterwards. I still had my friend then and she expressed worry about me and I remember that really touching me.
Still, I couldn´t talk to her about my trouble, because I couldn´t talk to anyone, I didn´t even realize myself what was going on. I was that much cut off from myself.
It was only another year later, that things started to change between us, a lot more.
She went away for a while in a student exchange programm and made new and other friends, which is natural of course, but another friend of me and her visited her and said she had changed a little in that she had picked up smoking and sort of didn´t much care about her, while she was visiting only about her "new" friends.
I said then, that she had always been very much eager to fit in and to
adapt to her social surrounding and we´d see how it would turn out when she got back.
That year, I started to study at college and she started an apprenticeship in a firm, I feel that changed her very much too.
I felt us growing more and more apart. Me feeling more and more miserable about my own troubles (unresolved grief, anorexia, my mother and siblings etc)
and she becoming more and more adapted to a certain hapitus this job seemed to require, or I don´t know.

I don´t know if it´s me. But she seemed to me to get more shallow and patronizing. Sort of "fake" and not really honest with herself or me.
I didn´t feel a connection anymore.
I don´t know if it´s because of my lack of emotional openness at that time or her adapting or becoming the person she just meant to be? I don´t know.
I also felt neglected because she started to spend more time with friends from work than with me, which would have been ok, I guess, but I also just didn´t feel like our friendship meant much to her anymore.

It was especially shattering for me when she "couldn´t make time" for my birthday, which had always been important to her the last 20 years we knew eachother (we got friends as children).

Somehow the warmth I sensed from her, a certain gentleness or compassion before were exchanged for shallowness.

After the thing with my birthday I finally realized, also having wanted to try talking about my mother´s alcoholism and having her not really react to it, that she had changed and that she had grown into a different person, that maybe, this was good for her, finding the place in the world she wanted to be in, but it wasn´t good for me, because I needed something else from the people around me.

I decided to break our friendship off then.

She was very offended by it, also because I had done it in writing because I couldn´t bring myself to say these things in person.
I wasn´t angry or offensive in my writing.

Still, also the fact that she just responded in a "fine by me" fashion, not calling and wanting to make up or something, crushed me a little.

I still feel pain writing about this.

Well, this has been the longest post, if you´ve read this far, thank you for your attention.

I just wanted to ask you guys, what do you think? Don´t you think this could have happened either way, even if I´d been doing fine psychologically and so it really wasn´t so much my fault?
Maybe only then I´d not have needed to cut her off at once (so I wouldn´t hurt so much from it anymore and start healing and grieving her loss).

[optimize990h]

It is difficult to determine whether things would be different if you "had taken the other path". Mindfulness is important sometimes. I find myself wasting time thinking about the past that can not be changed. The future, is not now, and is not easily predictable. Energy could be wasted if I thought too much into the future.

What am I left with? Today, now that's what. You must try make it the best you can for that is why today is called the "present".

[ajmich]

It can hurt deeply but this is Life. Absolutely nothing to be gained by blaming yourself (or her for that matter). Friends often grow apart, they change, they find something that probably takes the place of whatever they got from you, maybe without conscious awareness. I am hearing a very deep sensitivity, and deeply sensitive souls will find Life is a double edged sword. You can care very strongly and maybe feel that it is coming back at you, but when things change like this, that extra caring bites you hard. Please learn to stop blaming yourself, there is no "fault" in this.

As a child of alcoholic(s) you're likely aware of the effect that often has on your self esteem and many other factors. Al-Anon could be of great help to you in that area. Taking responsibility for your own actions and your own happiness can make all the difference in developing a new, healthy friendship with someone. You are loved and you are no less loved just because this friendship ended, whether you can believe that right now or not. But as one who has suffered low self worth all my life, I think I can recognize a fellow sufferer! We cannot and should not look to others for our value. When we do not do that as much (preferably not at all), then things fall into perspective and are not so debilitating... we begin to be responsible towards our own needs, feeling ever less dependent upon the approval of another. Hope this makes sense. Peace... Alex.

[Open Eyes]

((Alisha))),

Sometimes friends grow apart for a while, it isn't anyone's fault either, it can just happen when someone is finding themselves and meet new people and make new friends in their lives. I am sorry you were hurt when she didn't recognize your birthday. Most likely she had been simply drifting in a new direction and wanted to disconnect from her "old self" so to speak which meant old friends too. Some people do that and it is "their life path, their internal challenge" that could have nothing to do with others.

I agree with ajmich too, you should not be blaming yourself at all for this either. I really think that no matter what you did or didn't do, she was already going in a different direction in her life and was not really thinking about anyone else. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes after a while of drifting apart, friends can also reconnect. Often friends just need some space for a while to feel they are more on their own with no one to answer to so they can grow more openly without anyone's opinions or questions asking "why the change" you know?

Let this go and don't self blame, work on your own healing, that is more important for now.

(((Hugs))))

[Alishia88]

Thank you guys for your replies.

"they are more on their own with no one to answer to so they can grow more openly without anyone's opinions or questions asking "why the change""

I can understand this very well and can even connect this to my own experiences, you are right.

"You are loved and you are no less loved just because this friendship ended,"

"We cannot and should not look to others for our value. When we do not do that as much (preferably not at all), then things fall into perspective and are not so debilitating... we begin to be responsible towards our own needs, feeling ever less dependent upon the approval of another. "

Thank you for that. You are right I am very much dependent on the approval of others. And I know this doesn´t do my self-esteem and freedom well, it´s something I´m trying to change.