Recovering From a Friendship Breakup REDUX: Recent Toxicity

Time to cut ties with the recent past and not write about it for a long, long time:

The hardest part of letting a longtime pal fall away has, for me, been the struggle to end my long obsession with the other person’s wrongdoings. If someone I really like and respect screws up badly enough, I’ll cut off all communication with them until I have thoroughly processed recent events, which can take months or even years.  The majority of the time, the person from whom I’m gaining distance is needy;
...maybe they’re a narcissist or deeply ashamed of themselves to the point of unintentional secrecy, or maybe they were transformed by a hard childhood into someone who struggled over the years of our acquaintance to see me as a decent person and worthy pal when they also may have made me the personification of things they felt cheated out of. I completely understand being messed up by cruel experiences, but expecting someone you hang out with to feel guilty for having a warm, supportive family and healthy self-esteem just because you don't?  That's self-centered. We need to study for school, go to our grandmothers' birthday parties, pursue our passions, hang out with our other pals, and try to budget better to save more money. That's not something to feel guilty about. We all have pros and cons to our lives and should be accepting of each other. A pal should have the attitude that you have high value and deserve to grow.

I wrote my previous Recovering post because I had a twelve-year friendship die in a most grisly murder. No way was I faultless in the friendship's problems, of course, because in trying to get her to finally trust me, I developed a character around her instead of being myself, thus being as manipulative as she was, but in the summer of 2013, I made changes to my attitude about my goals and career, shedding self-sabotage in favor of my old work ethic and somewhat positive energy. I decided to start an attempt at freelance writing and take a dance class that led to a performance in an arts festival, rolling around on a muddy stage to a Florence and the Machine song. Afterward, I ate a huge, tasty burrito paid for by one of my insecure friend L’s chosen enemies, the guy I'd been seeing for a month or so: my ex-boyfriend. Reconnecting with the ex had quickly turned into something wonderful and mutually beneficial by then. It was a pocket of happiness just like my family and friendships and brief time spent writing fiction about a redheaded stripper. Almost everyone in my life chose to support me. Rachel, on the other hand, was now facing one of her fears. She was the first person  told when I decided I should officially get back together with the ex, and Rachel spat out every insult she could think of, using our history as a weapon. It was verbal abuse, made worse by her lack of awareness about the fact. She refused to understand that it was very, very okay for our lives to go down different paths, for us to reach milestones of youth and adulthood at different times.  Why wouldn't your story differ from that of the people around you when, after all, you're not just like them? We each have our own needs and tastes that deserve to be met. I was never supposed to be the alternate universe version of Rachel.
 It says right on my birth certificate "Shannon O'Mara", not "Exhibit (Insert Number Here) of Everything Rachel Nicolosi Doesn't Have"!
Besides, a lot of people are capable of learning from past mistakes and doing better from then on, but there was no proving it to her. One's character is not defined by every single one of their decisions, but one cannot force another person to see that. Weeks after I broke the news that I was involved with someone again, Rachel went into attack mode. 
This asshole appeared to be planning to continue the abuse indefinitely. She was blasting so much bitterness at me that I realized there was no end in sight. Rachel believed that because of what she’d gone through in her life up to that point, she deserved to create a decent life for herself ASAP, and that I deserved to have one eventually, only having adulthood or a healthy social life or a boyfriend after she’d gotten hers. Ultimately, she despised my guy simply because I had a guy at all. 

It's been just three months since I blocked her number on my cell and we ceased all communication. 

Time has taught me that you can be in a really close platonic friendship for a while and, out of what appears to be nowhere, have your heart broken. In my dating life, I spot and avoid troubled, self-involved guys with accuracy, but in friendships with girls over the years, I have sought out these traits. If you’ve been in my position, I’m sure loved ones have told you that it’s because you have a “big heart”, but when those relationships explode, I get angry with myself and call it “being an idiot”. 
I don’t know how I would’ve learned about self-preservation if not for Rachel and a few other other girls who make up their own category of definitely-ex-friends. They forced me to strengthen my intuition, be more aware of red flags, and have a sort of plan B for when those flags come up. 

                 Since August of 2013, I’ve been able to go through almost the full circle of getting past the drama with Rachel to see that for six years, we both made mistakes that we didn't know were huge. I also let her get away with making regular rude comments about my boyfriend, when really, her disrespect about my choice of romantic partner had  now-obvious implications about a lack of respect for me. I didn’t put a healthy distance between us, and should have, but didn't know how. I was young and human and didn’t have a degree in psychotherapy! There was only so much I could do on my own! Even today, I don’t have the skills with which to be masterful about having a friend rather like Rachel, and I wish she had recognized that being so stressed, so insecure about a friendship was abnormal and a bad sign. Maybe the creepy stuff between us never would have happened if I had thought of her as a friend instead of a close one. 

                   She deserves good fortune, to move forward, since she's wonderful and generous to the people she respects, but I deserve that too. We absolutely deserve to have the people we call pals celebrate life with us, not get jealous and oppressive. I have some fantastic memories of our friendship that no one (including me) can take away, but obviously, things were said that can't be undone or made up for. I'm currently still in a position where I don't want to know if she's even still alive. We have to be careful with our words.

                    We “big-hearted” people are trying too hard to be patient and sympathetic. We shouldn't open ourselves up completely to every buddy with whom we have a lot in common. Sometimes that realization comes after years of sharing everything with that one pal. It ends up not being fair to anyone. As much as it really, deeply hurts to break away, it’s the only way to take care of oneself. Anything else would erode your individuality and that’s a painful waste of time.


Correction: 2019

Edited for proofreading and...maybe pettiness, I guess? No longer taking the "You're So Vain" or "You Oughta Know" approach with this post, despite my having moved on.