Apologizing to a friend

Quite a while ago, I met a friend here. We would chat and send each other goofy memes and whatnot.

Almost three years ago, my dad died and was not doing well. I was doing poorly before that because I had lost my soulmate a few years before that.

She was also going through hell but I didn't have the energy to talk and that lasted a very long time. I still don't today, but am a little better.

I know I am a worthless person and sorry excuse for a friend. She is unlikely to ever want to talk again but I would like to apologize to her but don't know what to say.

I don't deserve her forgiveness but I think about her worry every day. Each day that I don't talk to her just makes it harder to reach out. The odds that she would even bother to read it are pretty low but that is okay. Maybe I should leave it alone and she is better off without talking to me?

I am not sure I can be of help to you in this situation.

I think it sometimes helps in these situations to have the reason for an apology clearly in mind. A "clean" apology is one with no ulterior motives; no strings attached. Before one can express this though, one must own it in one's very self. If one wants something for oneself in the apology or even wishes for something, then it is often not the right time to make an apology. I guess what I am saying is that the apology must be 'clean' in one's mind first. That is the really hard part.

It is difficult to not want something in return for something given. And it is easy to fool ourselves in this. It may sound easy but it is actually quite difficult. I don't know of course but I wonder whether the apology you wish to make has a sort of trap door in it, in that you at least wish that the outcome of the apology will be a restoration of the friendship? Am I wrong?

An apology is a kind of gift. And a real gift should not have any strings attached.

If one feels that one has wronged a person, hurt a person; there is a difference between feeling that one is sorry because it has caused one to have a lower image of oneself, there is a difference between this and wishing to offer something to someone who one has hurt.

The first intention is restoring one's self esteem and focuses on the self. The second type of apology is totally focused on the other so the self almost disappears. A good apology is one where one kind of says: I am sorry for what I did to you and I have no further expectations beyond that. That, I think, is a kind of "clean" apology.

Why is this often difficult?

The more one loves oneself, the less one needs to "import" love from others. If one loves oneself say at 99%, one is not that needy and is not really desperate for love. If one is unable to love oneself as a result of childhood experiences and upbringing then one's inner needs are too strong to allow one to really give love. If one loves oneself 10%, and can only love oneself 10% then one can't really spare any love except perhaps needy love. The most one can hope for is often just a relationship of selfishness-for-two.

If you feel you can offer a real, sincere apology, then I would say: go for it. Go for it, but expect nothing in return.

Of course I could be wrong. I am often wrong about things. But that is my fallible opinion.

Best of luck!!!

Just write to her. Apologize, get it out. You are not worthless for that. You behaved rather badly but it does not make you a worthless person. Especially if you think of her every day, write to her and say that. The longer you wait, the harder it will become. Get it done.

Tell her what you said in your opening post. Then the ball is in her court.

This way also, at least you know you tried.

I don't think I gave you good advice. I think that the advice of others here is good though. I want to wish you good luck and sorry my advice wasn't helpful.

I’d just like to say I think it says a lot about you that you want to apologise to her. People do what you’ve done a lot here in my experience, and most of them don’t apologise.

Whether your friend accepts the apology or not you will have tried to make amends and that’s all anyone can do.

I think, @qwerty68, in your heart you know the answer to this question, and I would say the answer is to connect with this person and explain your thoughts.

It won’t be a wasted effort, even if they don’t respond, or respond negatively. The important thing will be to make sure you don’t feel sad by a lack of response, or despondent, but rather accept that you have attempted to repair something that you felt was broken - and this is a really positive thing and something to feel proud of. You are a good person for wanting to do this, so follow through and do it.

Thank you for all of your responses, they were all very helpful.

I will try to write something to her and see how it goes. She might just want to be left alone, especially if she is struggling - which seems to be a near constant. That is awful. She is a really good person, doesn't deserve any of it, and I don't want to make her life more difficult. She certainly deserves a better friend than a loser like me.

What I didn't mention was that two days before my dad died, my ex-fiance contacted me to tell me that she was on the roof of her high-rise apartment and would jump. I didn't know for three months that she didn't jump. She is the love of my life that - in typical fashion - I failed at. She lives overseas and I have many posts on this board about her.

It is telling that no one here thought that my friend ignoring me was wrong. We were both hurting and neither of us was reaching out to the other. That gives me more pause about how I should proceed. Her not messaging me was not wrong, she is more important than I am. It is abundantly clear that I am nothing.

I just wanted to try to make her smile in my own pathetic and awkward way. I failed. It is hard to hurt oneself when they are smiling.

Hopefully, a heartfelt, but light message will not make her day worse and perhaps make her smile. She was my last friend, which makes my (in)actions even worse.

Thanks again, everyone.

Loser, failure, nothing, pathetic are some of the words with which you describe yourself. There are clearly bigger issues here than apologizing to your friend and I hope you will find support for those issues on these boards.

I remember your posts about this woman from across the globe, the one that kept ghosting you. I am shocked to see you are referring to her as “fiancée”, you never mentioned being officially engaged to her at all. No engagement was ever mentioned. All of a sudden she’s a love if your life and a soul mate yet you essentially don’t know her, mer her once and she was communicating to you online on and off. Supposedly she also got married without telling you.

Your judgement of the situation is concerning. You are in danger to fall for another scam if you don’t accept reality

I think you were under a spell of limerence over this online woman at the time that clouded your judgement about reality and it effected your ability to maintain friendship with this new woman friend on this forum (from what I understood you are referring to someone you’ve met on this forum?) . In addition to it, your father passed so stopping communication in online forum is understandable. If this woman (on this forum) was concerned what happened to you, she could contact you. She didn’t. So I am not sure you should beat yourself up over it and worry about apologizing

Same as a previous poster I am concerned you are putting yourself down in somewhat extreme fashion, calling yourself all kind of names and blaming yourself for things you didn’t cause.

At this point maybe you could focus on accepting yourself and honoring your good qualities and stop beating yourself up. It seems that you once again are preoccupying yourself with people online-there seems to be a pattern. How well do you know this person on the forum? You sent each other memes? Was there a promise of friendship or relationship? Is she still on this forum? Why are you saying she’s more important than you and you are nothing? That’s concerning. Somebody you don’t even know means more to you than you mean to yourself? It shouldn’t be the case.

You have value. Shift your focus please.

I saw you post about ketamine injections and learned that you are a veteran who is out of options for chronic dysthymia. So it seems that all that self-chastising and self-loathing you expressed was your dysthymia speaking. You also mentioned never ending psychotic depression and I wonder if these illusory relationships in which you invest real energy are just manifestations of low grade psychosis, meaning that your grasp and hold on reality is tenuous at best. I just wonder and offer to you this option of looking at your life through this lens. Not sure this will help soften the feelings of pain for you but maybe if you see that the painful feelings are your dysthymia and psychosis speaking, you can gain some distance from them?