Kaboom!

I just had a blow out fight with a friend. She and I are both loud mouthed extroverts who call it as they see it. We disagreed on something in a group chat that I have going on FB with all our friends. It started out not too bad and finished with us swearing at each other and me booting her from the group. Then I blocked her on FB and my phone because I require time and space to breathe when I'm angry.

Her spouse is a friend of mine too and he tried to deescalate the fight, but to no avail. We are 2 stubborn women. I plan to message her later on to apologize. Nobody that has seen the conversation thinks I am in the wrong. It doesn't matter. I just need to cool down and then I will approach her to amend things.

Tell me, how do you deal with friendship blow outs? I mean after the fact. I'm a feisty person who loves feisty people. It's going to happen from time to time.

I usually lose friends over it

I sure wish I was good at friendships. I tend to pull away from friends after a conflict and that’s not the best thing. I’ve lost good friends due to either not speaking up soon enough or pulling away abruptly when I’m fed up. I think once you cool down it’s a great idea to reach out and apologize. It might be a few days or weeks until your friend reciprocates but maybe she will just need some space. I think if the friendship is a good one then it’s worth keeping the connection.

That's such a shame. All relationships have their ups and downs. All friends disagree on some things.

And yet, I'm never availed more than a few friends, and frequently travel amongst all my compadres in large crowds of one.
I think the problem is me.
But anyway, back to your situation.... I think it's going to mellow and blow over. You're effing awesome

I dont think the problem is you at all. Maybe you just havent met the right people.

I'm sure she and I will be fine. We share a circle of friends so we basically have no choice but to make up. Lol.

I rarely give up on anyone. It's not my nature. I will always try to save relationships. The only time I let go is if it is a toxic situation and even that is hard for me to do because I care about them.

You’re a good friend

I do basically the same as you, or I just lose them. Depends on if I think they're worth keeping around. Arguments tend to stress me out a lot so if it's common I don't want to deal with that.

But not all friendships involve blowout rows in front of other friends.

You seem to know what you are doing and I wish you well. Still, from what you described, I can’t help but wonder whether a bit more self-control would save you, and those around you, some grief.

I can’t say i am familiar with blowout rows between people. I mean I know they exist but I think they can be avoided. I often see th kind of rows between teens as they don’t always know to regulate their emotions. Are you seeing a therapist? I wonder if there are some strategies that could be employed to avoid explosive conflicts

You are 100% correct. We both could have exercised more self control. At our ages we should be mature enough to walk away. However she is a very intense person, as am I. Its what I love about her. Our mutual friends laughed it off as us both being pig headed. Simple as that I suppose. However I could definitely look at my approach when angry, but I suspect I'll still have the odd blow out in my retirement home. I'll be the one catapulting mashed potatoes with my spoon.

Yes I am seeing a therapist. I have borderline personality disorder, also called emotional regulation disorder in the UK. Basically I feel everything intensely. I'm actually not typically prone to anger, but I'm human and it happens. I am a work in progress, as we all are. I fully, 100% accept my responsibility here.

I am emotionally charged and out spoken. I can get carried away. The positive side is I love fiercely and I can say that I am sorry. I am striving to better myself, while also allowing myself to make mistakes along the journey.

I understand as I tend to feel very strongly and am blunt myself and you are doing great job reflecting. I am impressed. It’s not easy to reflect

It is a matter of what you and your friends find acceptable. It’s fine to speak your mind, but there is a line to be crossed. That line is to be drawn between you and the other person, wherever it may fall. In general, one can speak their mind to the point of offending others. That’s the line in general. When you are seen as a toxic person who constantly crosses other’s boundaries, they will get rid of you as a friend.

I just permanently ended a life long friendship with a toxic friend. She said things to me that were unforgivable, and she said things about me to a mutual friend that were lies. There was so much she said and did that I tolerated that normally I would not have from any one else. To have seen the text and learned how she talked about me with lies behind my back was confirmation that I did the right thing in getting rid of this evil, viscous devil. It is shocking how someone posing as my life long bff was a malicious enemy in disguise. Very traumatic!

I dont want to go on the defensive here, so I'm trying not to. The fact is that she came at me aggressively accusing me of something that is not true (and I can prove it). Her husband was standing next to me at the moment it all went down along with another couple friends in the chat. Even he said she was in the wrong.

Am I a toxic friend because I wont let people crap on me.....maybe. I sent an apology and she can make that decision for herself.

In retrospect I should have just booted her from the chat without engaging until she calmed down. I dont think shes a bad friend because of one stupid fight and I hope she feels the same about me.

I am like a gremlin. Cute and fuzzy until you feed me after midnight (provoke me). My parents were abusive and I didnt have a voice as a child to make it stop. Now I defend myself.

I always try to remember that we all have stories. A reason we react to things the way we do. I am extremely forgiving I think because I know I'm not perfect and people love me anyways. I have made a lot of progress since I started DBT therapy last year. That said, I dont always get it right.

I am still a teenager but I have stopped feeling anger due to my delusions... and yeah while I did use to have fights with friends, it was just typical high school maturity level fights, like 'you run I chase' type of fights. Here high school ends at 10th grade so I was like fifteen when I graduated high school. Had a fight with friends whom I gave all my love to and didn't receive a bit back. As I never hung out with 'em (a massive thanks to my parents) they never really classified me as someone special even though I did.

Now I am a bachelor's degree student (B.Sc 1st, age 17) and I still don't have many friends and still haven't hung outside of the campus with anyone. My life's a failure in every aspect due to my super, super crazy mother. I wanted to own a Royal Enfield or at least a bike like this one. Hang out with friends and hit on girls, all that typical teenage stuff. Perhaps be even in teenage drama like friend's breakup or mob attacks over girls. Nope, you're not that lucky, despite being a brilliant science student.

I am brilliant, brilliant as a cognition patient can be. But years of sitting home in an abusive environment really took toll on my intelligence. Now I can no longer be a doctor, or an engineer, or a scientist. Had interest in all of 'em fields.

Thank you for your response. It was a reminder that I am fortunate in many aspects.

Why can you not be anything you want? If it's not too personal of a question. You are young. I come from an abusive back ground and I still see myself as successful.

Your friend rudely attacked you and you have every right to defend yourself by telling them they are wrong. Your friend is probably the kind of person who must have the last word (like my former friend), so she probably came back with a further attack at you. The most mature thing for you to do then is to no further engage with her and boot her from the online conversation, maybe block her so she can’t further antagonize you.

When you keep engaging by stooping to her level, you end up having to apologize to her for your bad behavior, which isn’t what you should have to do when she was in the wrong to attack you in the first place. It should be her apologizing to you. Had you not engaged with her, she would either calm down and apologize to you or stop being your friend, and you would only be out one bad friend who attacks you and wont apologize.

There are a lot of problems, like I do not understand what others are saying as I am too stressed when I go outside. Take today for example, to write down all the roll numbers of students who were present in our today's physical chemistry class, our professor asked me to tear a page from my notebook and start the attendance record by first writing my role number and signing a few cms after it. It took me a whole minute to understand what he was trying to say and another minute to ask the guy sitting next to me to ask him to tear the page properly because I was scared I may fk up tearing a page.

Now, it's due to all the abuse, all the isolation and all the crap I took up growing. And still do. As a PhD aspirant I am not supposed to be like this, heck I wasn't even supposed to be good at studies, all I was supposed to do is hit on girls, ride geared bikes wearing jacket and sunglasses with jeans, and attending lab work... but I am not fortunate enough for that.

I was supposed to be a normal person, in short. I am not.

It depends on the person, the nature of the blowup & the degree to which I'm conscious of/believe where culpability lies in the events.

Different folks act in different ways, so I have to make adjustments in how I treat them & how I expect to be treated. Recovery from a core breach situation, usually requires enough time/space for sufficient cool down, but eventually some action to prevent permanent scarring. Sometimes, it's worth exploring the causes with the other person - other times less so - again, it depends on the friend & the blowup.

(But it pays to always keep a spoon & some vegetable projectiles handy, in case of future core breaches...)