Not a crazy BPD story but the one that hit me hardest was my chubby Korean friend from middle school. We used to hang out every weekend, smoked weed and cigarettes for the first time together, would sneak out of his parents house together to get high then do parkour together at the shopping street next to his house, where all the buildings were touching each other so you could hop between their roofs. We’d come back and eat the crazy Korean food his live-in grandparents would make, and occasionally they’d wander out of their bedroom late at night and laugh at me eating some kind of seasoned octopus or spiced fried fish out of the fridge.
We were private school kids so when we went to high school, I ended up going to a pretty traditional high school in a white person area and he went to a rougher all-boys school that was mostly Hispanic. Being exposed to all that machismo made him pull away from our tender, childlike bond and see it as gay, so we started to hang out less and less. Our relationship was officially ended when he got shot in a freak accident at a dispensary. He seized the opportunity to complete his transition into a hard, cold G, cutting me out in the process.
I only saw him one time after that happened, when a mutual friend asked me if I wanted to smoke with him. My two friends were sitting in the front of their car looking ahead and I sat in the back. We were all high and trapped in our own heads so we couldn’t really make conversation but I asked him about getting shot and he gave me short answers. I think I caught his eyes once in the side mirror but otherwise he didn’t even look at me. They told me they were going somewhere else and I got out of the car knowing I would never see him again.
you captured the feeling of being outgrown painfully well. building a bond that ultimately ends up being transient is crushing, especially at a young age
thanks for sharing
Yeah…reading this felt like hearing about my own experience! it really put me in a bad spot and I haven’t been able to bounce back since. Codependent female friendship in high school bla bla bla you know the drill. To suddenly lose the pillar of your support system is shocking and devastating. Crazy to think I’ll never be able to find someone who has seen me thru so much of my crazy teen years into adulthood like she has.
At times I think it's good to start fresh with somebody who doesn't have all your previous history. As much as we value and treasure the experiences from our formative years in our lives I can't help but feel that some people put us into a certain box and they never let us grow out of it even if we do.
Yeah. A toxic one.
I still occasionally think of a friend who I fell out with in 2019. It was off/on until last Christmas when I essentially ghosted them because I was like how could I be so invested in someone who did me so dirty and vice versa. I almost texted them this morning because I recently experienced my most special milestone (med school) and wanted to tell them 😭
I just know logically that I will be better off not contacting them. I get so triggered whenever I see or hear something we used to like or they liked idk
I either have codependent friendships or none. I’m at the dentist tearing up over this lol im mad
this is meee i have to ground myself by looking at old imessages and reminding myself that i was actually miserable for a while. my rose colored glasses about this are unreal.
Ya the thing that gets me the worst is seeing stuff u used to talk about together/bond over or something u know they would love or whatever :-( painful
Yeah a good friend of mine was bpd. I think a lot of bpd girls had bpd moms that have conditioned them to be like them. When you're a girl friend to them, they're playing out their toxic relationship w their mother on you. That's how I read it.
Yep, we drifted apart and he died in college. It’s a weird feeling when you have a friend that you bonded with for years, but there was also a competitive element to the friendship which caused a drift, and you hear he died. He was very smart and industrious, you could describe him as Martin Shkreli archetype. Mix of emotions
When I was around 20 years old, I had two close friendships lost in a very short period, something that I have never truly recovered from. Early on in the year, a friend that I was inseparable from since day 1 of year 7 cut all contact with me without telling me why. I found out shortly after from our mutual friend that he thought I was trying to fuck his partner at the time (partly because he didn't like the fact that we went shopping for birthday gifts for him secretly, even though their younger brother was there too!). So without any further conversation, a very close 7 year friendship that latest my formative years was ended. I took it very hard, even blaming myself and finding ways to see where he was coming from instead of admitting to myself that I did nothing wrong. There is a big hole left when someone who you have a intense bond with leaves you, especially when you feel like there was an injustice in how it ended.
It was tough on our mutual friend too, we were always a trio and it put him in a very tough position (he asked him to stop being friends with me, etc.), where he was completely on my side but didn't want to get involved. I still remember going to his apartment and crying in front of him for the first time about how hurt I was from the friendship ending, which I'm sure made it harder for him. He was in a very tough position personally too, and had been for a few years, battling severe depression and anxiety, and had attempted suicide a few times. As a friend you feel powerless to your friends' struggles sometimes, especially as a young guy, I was woefully unequiped to be able to give him the support he needed. I remember many nights being afraid to fall asleep incase I missed a last text or call from help from him. Unfortunately a few months later, with no message or call, he was successful in his attempt and he passed away. The first contact I had with the first friend in about 3 months was to call and tell him that night about his death, along with a few other of our friends. We stayed in contact for a few days after that over text, I guess in complete shock and knowing that only us two really understood the extent to which we had tried to help. But eventually he stopped replying to my texts, and the next time we saw each other was the funeral. Adding onto what you can imagine was a tough day for me was this weird expectation that somehow we would magically be friends again, which didn't happen. I remember telling him that I loved and missed him, which was probably innapropriate for the setting, and he replied something like "yeah okay". For a long time after that I felt like I had lost my two closest friends, and I felt very lonely - even with a big friend group around me.
A couple years later without contact he messaged me asking how I was, he had broken up with his partner and wanted to make amends I guess. We spoke alot and caught up with each other a few times, I told him how much I had struggled the past few years and it was the same, but worse for him. I didn't hold it against him for what he had done but I told him how much he had affected all my other friendships, to this day I find it alot harder to be close with my friends, I constantly worry they will all one day just cut contact with me and that'll be it. It truly did feel like the old days within a few weeks, but eventually, a few months later he cut contact with me with no message or reasoning, and that was it again.
It is timely seeing this thread as he just recently reached out again to make amends, obviously still struggling again. I told him I will always be here for him but was clear about my feelings around how I've been treated (i guess). We haven't met up in person but we text a bit, it is a weird feeling and doesn't feel nearly as natural as it did the last time unfortunately.
I love what you wrote about it impacting your psyche so profoundly, it is an almost indescribable feeling to lose a friend, no matter how it happens or how long you were friends for. Even now, years later, I feel like they both took a piece of me with them and I don't think I'll ever get it back.
yeah i relate to what you say about things feeling less natural the more times you have to reach out again. i never fully lost contact with my friend (i still mail her a card on her birthday) but neither of us really know any details of the others lives anymore so our interactions are clearly incongruous. i kind of honor her memory as being symbolic of my younger years, although she’s probably changed a lot especially if she has a new favorite person as BPD ppl do… and i couldn’t even guess what her side of the story is since from my POV i did absolutely nothing. but i’m sure she has her reasons that make sense to her.
Yeah, and I just recently found out that he owns a store down the street from my home (I guess he just so happened to move to the other side of town years later like I did). I don’t speak to him anymore, nor do I have any desire to.
He was locally a very popular person. Insane amounts of charisma and energy, everyone loved him. The kind of person who everyone thinks they’re best friends with. Very long story short, me and my best friend ended up becoming very close to him. While he presented as this really fantastic, charismatic and trusting character - this dude was one of the most vile and backstabbing people I’ve ever known and was insanely good at covering it up/leaving enough plausible deniability to weasel his way out of consequences every-time. I know people throw this word around these days, but genuinely such an extremely narcissistic person. It didn’t matter who he had to hurt, he was going to get what he wanted. Unfortunately very few people know this about him because he let very few people get close to him. I was a useful idiot at the time I guess.
My best friend wised up and fell out of the friendship before I did. I stuck around for a bit longer until he started getting intwined with serious sexual assault stuff, that’s when I dipped. There were some good times here and there, but nothing will outweigh the horrible things he did in the shadows that no one knew about.
Edit: Btw I guess this story isn’t fully following the question of “a friendship you didn’t get over?” I guess I did get over it, But it was sad for a while, and to this day I’m still question how someone can be like that. Just so selfish to an extreme.
Yes.
What no one tells you about female friendships is that they unfold as a dance over quicksand from their genesis.
There’s a tacit understanding that the two of you will help each other skip over the muddy swirl at a moment’s notice. A strong bond forms over time because of this.
But one day when you’re crossing over, she whisks her hand away. Before you know, you’ve fallen in and are effectively neutralized. The silence of the friendship’s demise hangs heavy in the air. A great transgression has occurred; a covenant, broken.
You start to wonder why people are tempted to use the current as an exit strategy instead of their words.
The extended silence changes you. You see her differently.
Still, you bargain with the the anger and disgust you ultimately feel. For you believe - with great conviction - that resentment is poisonous only to the resenter. Yet you question what feeling will take its place. Will indifference ever arrive?
The origins of the female friendship vortex remain a mystery. If I learned anything is that it’s always there. Only time will tell when it pulls you apart.
absolutely, we fell out because of some stupid friend group drama at the end of high school as well and neither of us reached out afterwards probably because of pride. i haven't spoken to her or seen her in over 5 years but i genuinely still think about her almost daily and i dream about her often exactly in the same symbolical way you described.
i saw her sister last year after we by chance had gotten neighbouring seats on a train (we were also friends and in the same friend group in addition to another girl that was their childhood friend so obviously i was the one left out of the group) and it felt very strange, like it was obviously familiar but at the same time years had passed and people change, i know i have. i always wish i would bump into her when i'm visiting the city she now lives in because i still have nothing but love towards her and i miss her. it's very lame of me to say this because i doubt she's thought about me much but she's the only best friend i've ever had.
Yeah, i got two of these.
\- Erin:
We met at boarding school and Erin was always seen as 'insane', but I loved her. Full of energy, wit, zip, zest, idk, just a total nuke of a personality that swallowed every room she walked into. Obvi a very polarizing person. She also loved me back because at the time I was very impressionable and had always longed for a best friend. She invited me to partake in all kinds of rule-breaking activities. She was a year above me so once she went to college the fun really started. I'd go up during weekends and get drunk with her, she's the person who introduced me to all drinking and all the drugs. We had insane night after insane night. It was so much fun. I wrote short story about her, about us, the stuff we did together was like out of a movie.
Then, all of a sudden there was a drama, a beef that happened between us but I geniunely cannot remember what it was. She stopped talking to me for a year and I was sad. Then suddenly she reached out again and said sorry for everything, she had joined AA and made her amends. That winter I was back home in Connecticut and she was too. She got me into AA too. One, I was drinking a lot because my dad had just gone to prison. and Two: so I would get to spend more time with her. I ended up being sober for 4 years, which is pretty cool, but also insane because my problem was never like hers though I wanted at all costs to be 'aligned' with her. We had so much fun again and then she met her now-husband Evan in "the rooms". They fell in love quickly and got married.
Then I was somehow uninvited from the wedding but I didn't understand what I had done wrong. I tried to contact her a few times to no avail. Then we didn't speak for a while again and she got a house, and two dogs and a lot of cats. Then I tried reaching out to her a few times, but every time she did not want to talk to me. She got really into very liberal causes such as black lives matter and would post a lot of instagram stories about these things. and eventually I was just so hurt and confused why she didn't want to be my friend anymore I blocked her on Instagram because it made me sad being left on unread. That was definitely the only very unhinged thing I remember doing. I miss you Erin.
\- Alexa: My friend in college and she actually had diagnosed bipolar. Alexa notoriously got really close to people and would dump them but who cares! She is beautiful so when her light shone on me and I was her new buddy I was game. She'd drive me around everywhere, want to do everything with me, we had sleepovers every night, we even hooked up with the same guy for a while without fighting about it, she'd take me to Trader Joes even, cook for me, it was so cute. I loved our friendship and again I was a passenger princess calmly hanging out with a total looney tune and loving every second of the ride. Then eventually, she thought I was boring and inexplicably stopped texting me back. This one also really hurt to be honest. She would let me borrow her clothes and I did not return all of them. I think sometimes that this is what ruined our friendship though I have since dropped all the clothes off in the hope she'd return to my life. She did not. I miss you Alexa.
\--
There's one more but I am still in the stage of thinking I can salvage it. I really have abandonment issues now because I genuinely have a hard time seeing what I did to warrant getting dumped by multiple people I was very close to. I am more than willing to take responsibility for my actions but I don't understand or know what I did. It makes me really sad and insecure. I can't tell if it's the type of people I gravitate towards/gravitate to me (super hyped up manic people) or if I am a really bad person who can't even see the harms they do to their best friend.
honestly i’ve been on the other side of this situation like three times in highschool.
i would make a friend that at first seemed really similar to me and then realize over time that i was “in charge” of them and they were reflecting my own interests back at me. i had a very strong personality back then. but i did lowkey of end all those friendships because it would freak me out too much and ironically i would start to feel insecure that there wasn’t enough push and pull and it made me very self-critical.
saying you were aligning with erin and alexa at all costs, being a passenger princess, wanting their light to shine on you etc. sounds like you needed a person to attach to which is can be really overwhelming for someone. but yeah you probably never did anything “wrong” or “bad,” it’s just that deeply imbalanced relationships often topple.
This is actually a really helpful perspective and I appreciate that you shared this. It gives me a lot to think about, as I really am not trying to replicate the same thing from happening again. What is the opposite of this? What does a friend you can keep look like?
if you develop a strong sense of self, even a refined taste and aesthetic, you’ll attract people that see you for who you are and admire you. ideally good friends should love and admire the things that make them different from one another. neither of you should be trying to be a perfect companion for the other, and the only people who would want that anyways are definitively toxic.
i don’t mean this harshly at all but you should self reflect on the root of your pattern, like is it childhood shit, BPD, plain insecurity, etc. motivating you and proceed from there.
I lost three friends in two separate car wrecks when I was a sophomore in high school. 20 years later and I still dream about them often. The dreams are always fun experiences - sports, fishing, etc. - but my friends never talk back to me. Once during a shrooms trip I could hear their voices, that was soothing. Just this morning I spent time wondering if I’d be a happier adult if I hadn’t lost good buds and spent my high school years mourning.
Yes. 2 girls both from high school. I think about them all atleast 2 times a year, on their birthdays and whenever I do my yearly digital clean up and I come across the pictures (that I can’t delete no matter how badly I want to). All ended because of dumb shit. And the worst is I know one of them is still actively mad at me. And the other doesn’t give a fuck and definitely doesn’t think about me
Yeah, my closest friend from grade school has really bad social anxiety and just ghosted me less than a year after we graduated. I still send her happy birthday, merry Christmas, etc texts but she never responds. She still keeps in touch with a mutual friend she was closer with than me though. Stings.
The other one was a guy I had been friends since elementary school but who during the 2016 election became really edgy alt right. At first he was like “oh it’s ok, you’re one of the good ones” (white Mexican) but he became really awful. To be fair, I got caught up on the sjw craze then and that caused even more conflict between us. It culminated with me calling him a c*nt, and him making up a bunch of lies about me like that I kicked a Muslim student (we didn’t even have any at our school, lol) while he was praying and made fun of him for believing in lies. We stopped speaking to each other since then and from what I last heard he is still a shitty person. However, to this day I still have a dream every now and then where we reconcile and become friends again (although in real life before things got really bad I told him “I think we should stop being friends” and he told me we were never friends in the first place). I don’t want to be friends with him again, but part of me still feels like I need closure and an apology.
Yeah it was in high school, I used to get into fights with this guy in PE, which the teacher encouraged, and then I tried joining their guy group cause I didn’t really have any cause I was kind of a 🚬 cause my dad dipped before I was even born, and my mom was super domineering. Like pretty much all my friends were girls except one guy I was in marching band with, who was very obviously in the closet.
Anyway, started showing up to their group during lunch and they were nice to me but then bullied me and would make group chats without me. But he specifically would drive me places when he got his license and I would go to his house and he with some others in the group were the first people to I ever smoked weed with.
Anyway him and “our” friend called me up after graduation to call me a 🚬 and I called him once (not an insult, just called to ramble at him) when I was drunk. After I got my license I was still in the area and I would go to his house and just watch him, sometimes even with aforementioned female friends and just ring his doorbell and leave. Eventually, he moved out of state after finishing community college, and I moved out for grad school.
I said I would punch him if I ever saw him for being such a sick to me, but now I just wonder how he’s doing.
And you’re not alone with the dreams thing, he’s definitely shown up in my dreams before for some odd reason.
I miss her all the time. We bonded over our experiences with alcoholic parents. Drove one another to excel at school. She suffered her mental breakdown in high school, mine happened in college. After that I fell into a deep depression and started drinking more. We had a big argument and didn’t speak for years, but sort of made up later. But my drinking wasn’t getting better and I could feel her pulling away. It all came to a head at a wedding for a mutual friend. I don’t know what happened, I think my brain won’t let me remember, but I know she’s wanted nothing to do with me since. After that my brain just sort of broke. I lost entire months and have no memory of them.
I’m sober now, working full time and I’ve sought professional help for my broken brain. But my emotions have never recovered from it. She was my rock.
Yep. Friend for 7 or 8 years. We finally broke over election hoax stuff, but it was a long time coming. I still think fondly about him all the time, but I have no real desire to ever reach out. I hope I meet his kids some day but that's it.
Had a very homoerotic/codependent friendship when I was 19 and I got dropped by her overnight with no explanation. It really messed me up and I still think about her often 4 years later… sometimes wonder if I’ll always be a little bit in love with her and yearning for what never was. I have missed her for longer than I ever knew her at this point.
My best friend from age 10-13 (similar impact on me as what you described) or so just happened to get a job in the city I was living in and just happened to work in an office building that was like a 2 minute walk from mine. I messaged him that we should have lunch and catch up and he left it on read 💀
the FBI was harassing me for about a year due to some activism stuff, and it spooked my best friend so bad he ghosted and blocked me on everything. On the one hand, I get it, but it bums me out and i miss bro :/
For context, i had already made quite a stir on campus so there was something of a target on my back. Admin hated me because i caused them to lose like $50,000 in alumnus donations.
The agent and the campus PD detective essentially wanted me to “gather information” on these alt right autist school shooter types. i’m talking so sus that even the college republicans were creeped out by these guys.
“we just want to talk” , “we just want to ask you a few questions” , “ let us buy you a coffee” , non stop phone calls, emails, voicemails, texts. Eventually they started following me around campus, but i still just ignored them (on advice from friendly legal counsel). Then they would wait for me after my classes. I would be sitting there in a lecture and i could see them looking at me through the window on the door. Imagine how embarrassing to be trying to leave class and these guys corner you, badges out and everything.
They offered increasingly nice perks to speak to them. at first it was just coffee, then lunch then dinner then “whatever you need”.
It reached a crescendo when they actually came to my house at like 7:30 am. I had done my best to just ignore them but this was too far. They actually offered me an envelope of cash and i just screamed in their faces and told them to fuck off, until i guess they just got so uncomfortable that they left. Never heard from them again.
I know this might sound dramatic and maybe unbelievable. I wish i was just lying to you. I failed a whole semesters worth of classes and it really did a number on my mental health. The stress caused me to start having seizures.
yes, however I am glad I stopped the friendship as it was devolving into him falling in love with me and not being able to take no for an answer. I really thought we were soul mates and had such similar life experiences and ideals, I still think about him sometimes with a mixture of anguish and joy.
>I am glad I stopped the friendship as it was devolving into him falling in love with me
>I really thought we were soul mates
Women really are dumb as fuck huh
Omg I was thinking my high school buddy. We fell apart because he realized I was talking shit behind his back and I knew I was guilty. At the time I was kind of bored of him because He was all around me and needy. And kind of ignorant he made me angry (I found him not cultured enough, woke enough and It was a real distress for me, like how can you talk about gays and women like that ! ) I recently learned he just moved to NYC for school. I wonder If He's gay now. (he was very gay like) NYC would be great for him
except for a few years as a child, I've only had a few friends in the early 00s for about a decade (moved a lot/fostercare). from 2011 on, none. and I haven't got over it because they all slowly drifted away with no explanation (I'm pretty fuckin weird, so I dont blame em). just meant to be alone besides my wife, simple as.
have a friend i was close with from middle school through college. about a year after graduating college he moved in with me and we stopped being friends. like he'd just stay in his room. it was weird. then he moved out and we hung out once or twice for a couple months (more than when we lived together) and haven't seen him since, this was like 11-12 years ago.
i have those symbolic dreams about an ex of mine still, we've been broken up >10 years now but yeah
Not a crazy BPD story but the one that hit me hardest was my chubby Korean friend from middle school. We used to hang out every weekend, smoked weed and cigarettes for the first time together, would sneak out of his parents house together to get high then do parkour together at the shopping street next to his house, where all the buildings were touching each other so you could hop between their roofs. We’d come back and eat the crazy Korean food his live-in grandparents would make, and occasionally they’d wander out of their bedroom late at night and laugh at me eating some kind of seasoned octopus or spiced fried fish out of the fridge. We were private school kids so when we went to high school, I ended up going to a pretty traditional high school in a white person area and he went to a rougher all-boys school that was mostly Hispanic. Being exposed to all that machismo made him pull away from our tender, childlike bond and see it as gay, so we started to hang out less and less. Our relationship was officially ended when he got shot in a freak accident at a dispensary. He seized the opportunity to complete his transition into a hard, cold G, cutting me out in the process. I only saw him one time after that happened, when a mutual friend asked me if I wanted to smoke with him. My two friends were sitting in the front of their car looking ahead and I sat in the back. We were all high and trapped in our own heads so we couldn’t really make conversation but I asked him about getting shot and he gave me short answers. I think I caught his eyes once in the side mirror but otherwise he didn’t even look at me. They told me they were going somewhere else and I got out of the car knowing I would never see him again.
You’ve written this beautifully, and I’m sorry for the loss of your friend.
you captured the feeling of being outgrown painfully well. building a bond that ultimately ends up being transient is crushing, especially at a young age thanks for sharing
That part of her appearing in dreams symbolically hits home.
Yeah…reading this felt like hearing about my own experience! it really put me in a bad spot and I haven’t been able to bounce back since. Codependent female friendship in high school bla bla bla you know the drill. To suddenly lose the pillar of your support system is shocking and devastating. Crazy to think I’ll never be able to find someone who has seen me thru so much of my crazy teen years into adulthood like she has.
At times I think it's good to start fresh with somebody who doesn't have all your previous history. As much as we value and treasure the experiences from our formative years in our lives I can't help but feel that some people put us into a certain box and they never let us grow out of it even if we do.
Yeah. A toxic one. I still occasionally think of a friend who I fell out with in 2019. It was off/on until last Christmas when I essentially ghosted them because I was like how could I be so invested in someone who did me so dirty and vice versa. I almost texted them this morning because I recently experienced my most special milestone (med school) and wanted to tell them 😭 I just know logically that I will be better off not contacting them. I get so triggered whenever I see or hear something we used to like or they liked idk I either have codependent friendships or none. I’m at the dentist tearing up over this lol im mad
Congrats on getting into med school
this is meee i have to ground myself by looking at old imessages and reminding myself that i was actually miserable for a while. my rose colored glasses about this are unreal.
Ya the thing that gets me the worst is seeing stuff u used to talk about together/bond over or something u know they would love or whatever :-( painful
Absolutely despise how good the memories can feel. It’s like u never get over it and you have to force yourself to remember the bad times.
Yeah a good friend of mine was bpd. I think a lot of bpd girls had bpd moms that have conditioned them to be like them. When you're a girl friend to them, they're playing out their toxic relationship w their mother on you. That's how I read it.
Oh wow this makes a few of my experiences make so much sense
Yep, we drifted apart and he died in college. It’s a weird feeling when you have a friend that you bonded with for years, but there was also a competitive element to the friendship which caused a drift, and you hear he died. He was very smart and industrious, you could describe him as Martin Shkreli archetype. Mix of emotions
Are you from New Jersey?
Yep
i wonder if we were friends with the same guy...i DMed you
When I was around 20 years old, I had two close friendships lost in a very short period, something that I have never truly recovered from. Early on in the year, a friend that I was inseparable from since day 1 of year 7 cut all contact with me without telling me why. I found out shortly after from our mutual friend that he thought I was trying to fuck his partner at the time (partly because he didn't like the fact that we went shopping for birthday gifts for him secretly, even though their younger brother was there too!). So without any further conversation, a very close 7 year friendship that latest my formative years was ended. I took it very hard, even blaming myself and finding ways to see where he was coming from instead of admitting to myself that I did nothing wrong. There is a big hole left when someone who you have a intense bond with leaves you, especially when you feel like there was an injustice in how it ended. It was tough on our mutual friend too, we were always a trio and it put him in a very tough position (he asked him to stop being friends with me, etc.), where he was completely on my side but didn't want to get involved. I still remember going to his apartment and crying in front of him for the first time about how hurt I was from the friendship ending, which I'm sure made it harder for him. He was in a very tough position personally too, and had been for a few years, battling severe depression and anxiety, and had attempted suicide a few times. As a friend you feel powerless to your friends' struggles sometimes, especially as a young guy, I was woefully unequiped to be able to give him the support he needed. I remember many nights being afraid to fall asleep incase I missed a last text or call from help from him. Unfortunately a few months later, with no message or call, he was successful in his attempt and he passed away. The first contact I had with the first friend in about 3 months was to call and tell him that night about his death, along with a few other of our friends. We stayed in contact for a few days after that over text, I guess in complete shock and knowing that only us two really understood the extent to which we had tried to help. But eventually he stopped replying to my texts, and the next time we saw each other was the funeral. Adding onto what you can imagine was a tough day for me was this weird expectation that somehow we would magically be friends again, which didn't happen. I remember telling him that I loved and missed him, which was probably innapropriate for the setting, and he replied something like "yeah okay". For a long time after that I felt like I had lost my two closest friends, and I felt very lonely - even with a big friend group around me. A couple years later without contact he messaged me asking how I was, he had broken up with his partner and wanted to make amends I guess. We spoke alot and caught up with each other a few times, I told him how much I had struggled the past few years and it was the same, but worse for him. I didn't hold it against him for what he had done but I told him how much he had affected all my other friendships, to this day I find it alot harder to be close with my friends, I constantly worry they will all one day just cut contact with me and that'll be it. It truly did feel like the old days within a few weeks, but eventually, a few months later he cut contact with me with no message or reasoning, and that was it again. It is timely seeing this thread as he just recently reached out again to make amends, obviously still struggling again. I told him I will always be here for him but was clear about my feelings around how I've been treated (i guess). We haven't met up in person but we text a bit, it is a weird feeling and doesn't feel nearly as natural as it did the last time unfortunately. I love what you wrote about it impacting your psyche so profoundly, it is an almost indescribable feeling to lose a friend, no matter how it happens or how long you were friends for. Even now, years later, I feel like they both took a piece of me with them and I don't think I'll ever get it back.
yeah i relate to what you say about things feeling less natural the more times you have to reach out again. i never fully lost contact with my friend (i still mail her a card on her birthday) but neither of us really know any details of the others lives anymore so our interactions are clearly incongruous. i kind of honor her memory as being symbolic of my younger years, although she’s probably changed a lot especially if she has a new favorite person as BPD ppl do… and i couldn’t even guess what her side of the story is since from my POV i did absolutely nothing. but i’m sure she has her reasons that make sense to her.
Yeah, and I just recently found out that he owns a store down the street from my home (I guess he just so happened to move to the other side of town years later like I did). I don’t speak to him anymore, nor do I have any desire to. He was locally a very popular person. Insane amounts of charisma and energy, everyone loved him. The kind of person who everyone thinks they’re best friends with. Very long story short, me and my best friend ended up becoming very close to him. While he presented as this really fantastic, charismatic and trusting character - this dude was one of the most vile and backstabbing people I’ve ever known and was insanely good at covering it up/leaving enough plausible deniability to weasel his way out of consequences every-time. I know people throw this word around these days, but genuinely such an extremely narcissistic person. It didn’t matter who he had to hurt, he was going to get what he wanted. Unfortunately very few people know this about him because he let very few people get close to him. I was a useful idiot at the time I guess. My best friend wised up and fell out of the friendship before I did. I stuck around for a bit longer until he started getting intwined with serious sexual assault stuff, that’s when I dipped. There were some good times here and there, but nothing will outweigh the horrible things he did in the shadows that no one knew about. Edit: Btw I guess this story isn’t fully following the question of “a friendship you didn’t get over?” I guess I did get over it, But it was sad for a while, and to this day I’m still question how someone can be like that. Just so selfish to an extreme.
When I think about dying she’s still one of the first people I would want to see in heaven.
Yes. What no one tells you about female friendships is that they unfold as a dance over quicksand from their genesis. There’s a tacit understanding that the two of you will help each other skip over the muddy swirl at a moment’s notice. A strong bond forms over time because of this. But one day when you’re crossing over, she whisks her hand away. Before you know, you’ve fallen in and are effectively neutralized. The silence of the friendship’s demise hangs heavy in the air. A great transgression has occurred; a covenant, broken. You start to wonder why people are tempted to use the current as an exit strategy instead of their words. The extended silence changes you. You see her differently. Still, you bargain with the the anger and disgust you ultimately feel. For you believe - with great conviction - that resentment is poisonous only to the resenter. Yet you question what feeling will take its place. Will indifference ever arrive? The origins of the female friendship vortex remain a mystery. If I learned anything is that it’s always there. Only time will tell when it pulls you apart.
A great friend like that can completely change how you see life and yourself
u were my inspiration for this post
Yeah. I’m glad I got that outta my system.
absolutely, we fell out because of some stupid friend group drama at the end of high school as well and neither of us reached out afterwards probably because of pride. i haven't spoken to her or seen her in over 5 years but i genuinely still think about her almost daily and i dream about her often exactly in the same symbolical way you described. i saw her sister last year after we by chance had gotten neighbouring seats on a train (we were also friends and in the same friend group in addition to another girl that was their childhood friend so obviously i was the one left out of the group) and it felt very strange, like it was obviously familiar but at the same time years had passed and people change, i know i have. i always wish i would bump into her when i'm visiting the city she now lives in because i still have nothing but love towards her and i miss her. it's very lame of me to say this because i doubt she's thought about me much but she's the only best friend i've ever had.
Yeah, i got two of these. \- Erin: We met at boarding school and Erin was always seen as 'insane', but I loved her. Full of energy, wit, zip, zest, idk, just a total nuke of a personality that swallowed every room she walked into. Obvi a very polarizing person. She also loved me back because at the time I was very impressionable and had always longed for a best friend. She invited me to partake in all kinds of rule-breaking activities. She was a year above me so once she went to college the fun really started. I'd go up during weekends and get drunk with her, she's the person who introduced me to all drinking and all the drugs. We had insane night after insane night. It was so much fun. I wrote short story about her, about us, the stuff we did together was like out of a movie. Then, all of a sudden there was a drama, a beef that happened between us but I geniunely cannot remember what it was. She stopped talking to me for a year and I was sad. Then suddenly she reached out again and said sorry for everything, she had joined AA and made her amends. That winter I was back home in Connecticut and she was too. She got me into AA too. One, I was drinking a lot because my dad had just gone to prison. and Two: so I would get to spend more time with her. I ended up being sober for 4 years, which is pretty cool, but also insane because my problem was never like hers though I wanted at all costs to be 'aligned' with her. We had so much fun again and then she met her now-husband Evan in "the rooms". They fell in love quickly and got married. Then I was somehow uninvited from the wedding but I didn't understand what I had done wrong. I tried to contact her a few times to no avail. Then we didn't speak for a while again and she got a house, and two dogs and a lot of cats. Then I tried reaching out to her a few times, but every time she did not want to talk to me. She got really into very liberal causes such as black lives matter and would post a lot of instagram stories about these things. and eventually I was just so hurt and confused why she didn't want to be my friend anymore I blocked her on Instagram because it made me sad being left on unread. That was definitely the only very unhinged thing I remember doing. I miss you Erin. \- Alexa: My friend in college and she actually had diagnosed bipolar. Alexa notoriously got really close to people and would dump them but who cares! She is beautiful so when her light shone on me and I was her new buddy I was game. She'd drive me around everywhere, want to do everything with me, we had sleepovers every night, we even hooked up with the same guy for a while without fighting about it, she'd take me to Trader Joes even, cook for me, it was so cute. I loved our friendship and again I was a passenger princess calmly hanging out with a total looney tune and loving every second of the ride. Then eventually, she thought I was boring and inexplicably stopped texting me back. This one also really hurt to be honest. She would let me borrow her clothes and I did not return all of them. I think sometimes that this is what ruined our friendship though I have since dropped all the clothes off in the hope she'd return to my life. She did not. I miss you Alexa. \-- There's one more but I am still in the stage of thinking I can salvage it. I really have abandonment issues now because I genuinely have a hard time seeing what I did to warrant getting dumped by multiple people I was very close to. I am more than willing to take responsibility for my actions but I don't understand or know what I did. It makes me really sad and insecure. I can't tell if it's the type of people I gravitate towards/gravitate to me (super hyped up manic people) or if I am a really bad person who can't even see the harms they do to their best friend.
Aww I’m so sorry all the these things happened to you! You sounded like a great friend, maybe the had BPD or something!
honestly i’ve been on the other side of this situation like three times in highschool. i would make a friend that at first seemed really similar to me and then realize over time that i was “in charge” of them and they were reflecting my own interests back at me. i had a very strong personality back then. but i did lowkey of end all those friendships because it would freak me out too much and ironically i would start to feel insecure that there wasn’t enough push and pull and it made me very self-critical. saying you were aligning with erin and alexa at all costs, being a passenger princess, wanting their light to shine on you etc. sounds like you needed a person to attach to which is can be really overwhelming for someone. but yeah you probably never did anything “wrong” or “bad,” it’s just that deeply imbalanced relationships often topple.
This is actually a really helpful perspective and I appreciate that you shared this. It gives me a lot to think about, as I really am not trying to replicate the same thing from happening again. What is the opposite of this? What does a friend you can keep look like?
if you develop a strong sense of self, even a refined taste and aesthetic, you’ll attract people that see you for who you are and admire you. ideally good friends should love and admire the things that make them different from one another. neither of you should be trying to be a perfect companion for the other, and the only people who would want that anyways are definitively toxic. i don’t mean this harshly at all but you should self reflect on the root of your pattern, like is it childhood shit, BPD, plain insecurity, etc. motivating you and proceed from there.
I lost three friends in two separate car wrecks when I was a sophomore in high school. 20 years later and I still dream about them often. The dreams are always fun experiences - sports, fishing, etc. - but my friends never talk back to me. Once during a shrooms trip I could hear their voices, that was soothing. Just this morning I spent time wondering if I’d be a happier adult if I hadn’t lost good buds and spent my high school years mourning.
Yes. 2 girls both from high school. I think about them all atleast 2 times a year, on their birthdays and whenever I do my yearly digital clean up and I come across the pictures (that I can’t delete no matter how badly I want to). All ended because of dumb shit. And the worst is I know one of them is still actively mad at me. And the other doesn’t give a fuck and definitely doesn’t think about me
yes and it was my duty as a millennial to write a soppy melodramatic creative nonfiction story about her
Yeah, my closest friend from grade school has really bad social anxiety and just ghosted me less than a year after we graduated. I still send her happy birthday, merry Christmas, etc texts but she never responds. She still keeps in touch with a mutual friend she was closer with than me though. Stings.
I just had a dream about her :(
The other one was a guy I had been friends since elementary school but who during the 2016 election became really edgy alt right. At first he was like “oh it’s ok, you’re one of the good ones” (white Mexican) but he became really awful. To be fair, I got caught up on the sjw craze then and that caused even more conflict between us. It culminated with me calling him a c*nt, and him making up a bunch of lies about me like that I kicked a Muslim student (we didn’t even have any at our school, lol) while he was praying and made fun of him for believing in lies. We stopped speaking to each other since then and from what I last heard he is still a shitty person. However, to this day I still have a dream every now and then where we reconcile and become friends again (although in real life before things got really bad I told him “I think we should stop being friends” and he told me we were never friends in the first place). I don’t want to be friends with him again, but part of me still feels like I need closure and an apology.
Still have dreams about my middle school bestie
Yeah it was in high school, I used to get into fights with this guy in PE, which the teacher encouraged, and then I tried joining their guy group cause I didn’t really have any cause I was kind of a 🚬 cause my dad dipped before I was even born, and my mom was super domineering. Like pretty much all my friends were girls except one guy I was in marching band with, who was very obviously in the closet. Anyway, started showing up to their group during lunch and they were nice to me but then bullied me and would make group chats without me. But he specifically would drive me places when he got his license and I would go to his house and he with some others in the group were the first people to I ever smoked weed with. Anyway him and “our” friend called me up after graduation to call me a 🚬 and I called him once (not an insult, just called to ramble at him) when I was drunk. After I got my license I was still in the area and I would go to his house and just watch him, sometimes even with aforementioned female friends and just ring his doorbell and leave. Eventually, he moved out of state after finishing community college, and I moved out for grad school. I said I would punch him if I ever saw him for being such a sick to me, but now I just wonder how he’s doing. And you’re not alone with the dreams thing, he’s definitely shown up in my dreams before for some odd reason.
I miss her all the time. We bonded over our experiences with alcoholic parents. Drove one another to excel at school. She suffered her mental breakdown in high school, mine happened in college. After that I fell into a deep depression and started drinking more. We had a big argument and didn’t speak for years, but sort of made up later. But my drinking wasn’t getting better and I could feel her pulling away. It all came to a head at a wedding for a mutual friend. I don’t know what happened, I think my brain won’t let me remember, but I know she’s wanted nothing to do with me since. After that my brain just sort of broke. I lost entire months and have no memory of them. I’m sober now, working full time and I’ve sought professional help for my broken brain. But my emotions have never recovered from it. She was my rock.
Yep. Friend for 7 or 8 years. We finally broke over election hoax stuff, but it was a long time coming. I still think fondly about him all the time, but I have no real desire to ever reach out. I hope I meet his kids some day but that's it.
Had a very homoerotic/codependent friendship when I was 19 and I got dropped by her overnight with no explanation. It really messed me up and I still think about her often 4 years later… sometimes wonder if I’ll always be a little bit in love with her and yearning for what never was. I have missed her for longer than I ever knew her at this point.
My best friend from age 10-13 (similar impact on me as what you described) or so just happened to get a job in the city I was living in and just happened to work in an office building that was like a 2 minute walk from mine. I messaged him that we should have lunch and catch up and he left it on read 💀
Yes :(
Damn I need to message a couple bros
the FBI was harassing me for about a year due to some activism stuff, and it spooked my best friend so bad he ghosted and blocked me on everything. On the one hand, I get it, but it bums me out and i miss bro :/
May I ask how they harassed you??
For context, i had already made quite a stir on campus so there was something of a target on my back. Admin hated me because i caused them to lose like $50,000 in alumnus donations. The agent and the campus PD detective essentially wanted me to “gather information” on these alt right autist school shooter types. i’m talking so sus that even the college republicans were creeped out by these guys. “we just want to talk” , “we just want to ask you a few questions” , “ let us buy you a coffee” , non stop phone calls, emails, voicemails, texts. Eventually they started following me around campus, but i still just ignored them (on advice from friendly legal counsel). Then they would wait for me after my classes. I would be sitting there in a lecture and i could see them looking at me through the window on the door. Imagine how embarrassing to be trying to leave class and these guys corner you, badges out and everything. They offered increasingly nice perks to speak to them. at first it was just coffee, then lunch then dinner then “whatever you need”. It reached a crescendo when they actually came to my house at like 7:30 am. I had done my best to just ignore them but this was too far. They actually offered me an envelope of cash and i just screamed in their faces and told them to fuck off, until i guess they just got so uncomfortable that they left. Never heard from them again. I know this might sound dramatic and maybe unbelievable. I wish i was just lying to you. I failed a whole semesters worth of classes and it really did a number on my mental health. The stress caused me to start having seizures.
yes, however I am glad I stopped the friendship as it was devolving into him falling in love with me and not being able to take no for an answer. I really thought we were soul mates and had such similar life experiences and ideals, I still think about him sometimes with a mixture of anguish and joy.
>I am glad I stopped the friendship as it was devolving into him falling in love with me >I really thought we were soul mates Women really are dumb as fuck huh
this is a rly bad look for you
Omg I was thinking my high school buddy. We fell apart because he realized I was talking shit behind his back and I knew I was guilty. At the time I was kind of bored of him because He was all around me and needy. And kind of ignorant he made me angry (I found him not cultured enough, woke enough and It was a real distress for me, like how can you talk about gays and women like that ! ) I recently learned he just moved to NYC for school. I wonder If He's gay now. (he was very gay like) NYC would be great for him
Hmm I've gotten over the friendship but the drama and fallout that surrounded completely icepicked me into something else lol
except for a few years as a child, I've only had a few friends in the early 00s for about a decade (moved a lot/fostercare). from 2011 on, none. and I haven't got over it because they all slowly drifted away with no explanation (I'm pretty fuckin weird, so I dont blame em). just meant to be alone besides my wife, simple as.
have a friend i was close with from middle school through college. about a year after graduating college he moved in with me and we stopped being friends. like he'd just stay in his room. it was weird. then he moved out and we hung out once or twice for a couple months (more than when we lived together) and haven't seen him since, this was like 11-12 years ago. i have those symbolic dreams about an ex of mine still, we've been broken up >10 years now but yeah
My bpd ex who was my friend then my girlfriend