Mourning the Loss of a Friendship

Well, at least I thought I was her best friend. One of the very first people I met after we moved to Missouri, outside of my husband's co-workers turned out to be one of the biggest emotional roller coasters I have ever endured in my entire life. This girl was loud, funny, caring, full of life, and kind hearted. Granted, she did not always have her head on her shoulders right but she had had a rough time growing up and her other qualities made up for what she was lacking in the area of common sense and good judgement. On more than one occasion I opened my home to this girl when she needed a place to lay her head. I tried my best to pick up the pieces of her life when she was having a hard go at it. Once, this even meant having to separate myself from her to give her time to realize that I couldn't help her if she wouldn't heed my advice. More than once I was put in situation which made me uncomfortable and proved that she had been talking about me and my family behind our back. Of course, I forgave and those times I even allowed myself to forget more than I ever would have for anyone else. For three years I gave her so much of my time, energy, a huge place in my mind, and an even bigger place in my heart. All until one day she allowed me to be written out of her life completely. 

The trouble all began when she met the man should would end up marrying. At first I was so happy for her because she really truly deserved to be happy. However, once I got to know this guy I realized that he was not a good person. He constantly put her down, calling her fat, lazy, stupid, worthless, disgusting, ect. He slowly began to isolate her from friends and the little family that she did have. On the extremely rare occasion she was allowed to leave the house to see friends without him he either A. Called her constantly or B. Sent his son along with her. This insured that she never had a chance to vent about their relationship. We did of course find little ways around it. I was watching my best friend go from this super happy, spunky girl to a miserable shell of who she once was. All the while, I was pretending to like him so that he wouldn't push me out of her life too. Finally enough was enough. I couldn't allow this to keep happening. I spoke with a counselor and she told me that the worst thing I could do was keep someone else's secrets for them. I told my friend that I loved her and would always be there for her no matter what but that I couldn't continue with the charade any longer. Of course she was upset with me but something had to be said because they had been asking to take my son out of town with them. It was completely against my better judgement to allow him to be around a man who treats women like garbage and throws around racial slurs like they're meaningless. Furthermore, his 10 year old son even has derogatory names he uses for people of other races. There was no way that I wanted my child picking that up. So that is when shit hit the fan. Our relationship now consisted of secret messages when he wasn't around and secret phone calls on her way to work or school. It sucked but I was willing to deal with it because I needed her to understand that I was there for her regardless. Anytime, any day, I would be there. Then one day all communication stopped. Both me and my husband were blocked from her Facebook, she stopped calling, it was as if she basically disappeared. This wasn't the first time that had happened. There was one other time where she had deleted me before he had the chance to look through her Facebook friends so he wouldn't be mad but she added me back the next day. So I figured I would give it time. Days went by, then weeks and nothing at all. 

I went through all sorts of emotions. I was all over the spectrum from being hurt, angry, heart broken, to down right furious with her. Then I realized that maybe I needed to step back and reevaluate the situation. They always say that hindsight is 20/20 so maybe it was time to get a better view of what was really happening and learn from it. 

What I realized was that I never meant as much to her as she always told me that I had. When you tell someone that you love them, more than just a friend and that they mean that much to you, there is no way you would allow them to be written out of your life. The question remains though, was it 100% her choice or did she allow him to make it for her? Either way she had a choice. There were many times that my husband told me to give up on her because I was letting her drag me down. He said I was wasting too much of my time and energy trying to help someone who wasn't ready or willing to be helped. I did not listen though because I loved her and I needed to know that she was okay and happy. I could not just let her fall out of my life because if something was to happen to her I would never be able to forgive myself. These thoughts consumed my mind almost all of the time. I was so worried about where she was, if he had done something to her. Was today one of the good days where he was nice, or was she crying all alone with no one to talk to since he wouldn't allow me to be that person for her. Finally I came to the conclusion that the loss wasn't fresh and recent. It had slowly been happening right before my eyes but I was too blind to see it. 

That happy go lucky girl hadn't been happy in a very long time. She wasn't so kind hearted anymore either. Many times on the phone I overheard her husband talking trash about her friends and family while she just laughed and joined in. He used derogatory words to describe her friend's husband and their children because he found their interracial relationship disgusting. She didn't even speak up when he called her sister 'trash'. I am sure that when I wasn't around or on the phone I was the focus of his hate. This realization made it easier for me to let her go. Would I still be there for her if she needed me? Absolutely. Is there a small part of me that wishes she would bang on the door, in her obnoxious way even though she knows she can walk in, and say "I left him, can I stay here?" Most definitely. Would our relationship ever be the same? Absolutely not. I will always love her because I do not love easily and when I do it is hard for me to let it go but I would never be able to trust her again. Who knows, maybe this is the end of our friendship forever because soon we will be leaving Missouri and I will no longer be close enough for her to run to. Maybe I will never hear from her again but I do hope that I do. There is something empty without her around, I miss her, even if our relationship would never be the same.

Battling an Invisible Force with the Capability of Ruining Your Life

For years I have been silently living with anxiety and depression. I now realize that a person cannot go through the things that I have lived through in my life and not experience some repercussions to their mental well-being. What I did not realize is that it is okay to ask for help. I thought that I was just crazy and I'll be damned if I was going to let some therapist who has never lived my life tell me that I had a problem. I mean, I thought I was doing pretty good for someone who had lost so many important people in their life in such a short time. Granted I jumped on a downward spiral for a couple years following the death of my mom and my granny, the two most important people in the world to me but I had moved past that. Or so I thought. On the outside I was totally capable of creating the illusion of normalcy but on the inside I was a mess. I had become a master at faking it to make it on my better days and a master of excuses on days that I simply could not bear to leave the house because I just did not have the energy to deal with people. I couldn't bear the thought of another panic attack; that feeling of your chest tightening up, getting dizzy, unable to breathe and feeling like you're going to pass out. It was awful! 

All of my thoughts were consumed by what others were thinking of me. Running to the store which should a simple task would sometimes end in a horrible panic attack at the check out line because I just could not handle being around so many people. Part of it was easy to explain because I knew I had issues with my self image. I felt like people were looking at me and judging me based on my weight or the fact that I went out in jeans and a hoodie or tshirt rather than a cute blouse or sweater. The little everyday things in life had become a huge time consuming production that took all of the energy that I could possibly muster. It was awful and it was time to admit that something was wrong. Now, getting help was a fight in and of itself. After one visit with the women in behavioral health I never went back. I told my doctor that she was crazy because she wanted me to take deep breaths and count pretty numbers to reel myself back in during a panic attack. Clearly she had never been there before. What I didn't see was that she was just starting at the basics and trying to help me. In the end  she helped me tremendously. 

What she made me realize in the end was that I had a problem. She showed me that anxiety is real. It manifests itself at the worst possible times and can make life miserable. I wasn't sleeping at night because my brain would not shut up. A simple sentence could make my brain spin so far out of control. I would have a plan for every scenario and an alternate plan for any possible changes in the scenario. I am a catastrophiser and I doubt that anything will ever change that. I see the worst possible outcome in every situation that comes my way. There is nothing that anyone can do about that. What I can do though, is stop giving myself and my energy to things that do not matter. She taught me that I had to live for me and my family. I had to let go of all the crap around me that was slowly drowning me. I had to stop taking on everyone else's problems and trying to fix their lives when they were content in being miserable. 

This woman taught me that even though I cannot make the panic attacks go away, I can decrease them by lessening the unnecessary stress in my life. By filtering out the negativity I can focus on me and the little things in my life which are absolutely amazing. Anxiety no longer has the control over my life that it once had. It is still there and I am sure it always will be but it doesn't have the hold it once did. My only regret is not talking to someone sooner because I could have spent a lot less time feeling miserable. 

A little about me...

Generally I am an insanely private person. I have been so for many years because past experience has shown me time and time again that people who you believe you can trust simply cannot be trusted. Or worse, the people who you thought would be there for you no matter what, fail you when you need them the most. For this reason, I usually keep everything bottled up. In doing so, I have allowed myself to expend far too much energy trying to please the people around me and be what they needed. I have allowed my own health to take the brunt of the strain which this has caused. Instead of allowing myself to be open about what it really going on and risking losing the people around me, I tuck myself away into a hollow shell of what is socially acceptable.

From now on, I have decided that opinions be damned, I am going to be honest about who I am and what I feel because my most recent experience with who I thought was my best friend has shown me that the people who really matter will always be there I have learned that if the people who say they love you can so easily write you out of their life when the going gets tough, they never really loved you to begin with.

For anyone who really knows me, you know my contempt for therapists. So this will be my therapy. If no one reads this, I am at least lifting the weight of these burdens off of my weighed down shoulders and allowing myself to enjoy the wonderful life that surrounds me every day.