Hi everyone. I didn’t know where to turn to because I’ve been so worried for my friend. I hope you guys may be able to enlighten me about what may have happened and how to approach this.
Early in April, I asked my friend if they wanted to do a bake session. She said sure! Sounds good for May 15. On May 13, I confirmed once more to see if she was good to go! She confirmed. On May 15, she wrote a text ,” Sorry but I can’t do this. Something came up. I’ll reach out to you soon, but I need some time.” I thought nothing of it but then one week became two, which became month.
This week on June 21, I reached out to see if my friend was ok via phone call and a text. No response. Given that my friend and I had discussed being straight forward and the importance of following up with me the next day at the latest, I thought she would follow through. And that, taking only 20 seconds out of the day (or week of 15,000 something minutes) to reply was agreeable. On June 22, I tried again to see if all was well. No response.
Now, I should indicate that we are in a healthcare program and we are doing rotations. It’s our 4th year. It is busy, but not so much that one can’t text back other people. We also do work as well on the weekends.
I should also note that this friend of mine is one who has gone with me through fire and back in really difficult coursework. I consider my friend to be my extra sister I’ve never had. During the pandemic, especially while I was in isolation, my friend offered to call to check in. I took up that offer, and said that should she need it, I would also reciprocate.
I’ve seen this situation once while living abroad where I was ghosted by some friends for a year, and wasn’t followed up with until after I left.
My friend did say she would be mindful of how not replying on time could be hurtful, and has generally been very responsive in the past (98% of the time).
I am starting to debate whether I am the factor. Has my friend given up on me? I considered if I’ve overstepped any boundaries, but previous texts indicate no hint of complaints or bad juju. Did I miss any important social cues? On some occasions early in the pandemic, I would often describe my personal problems, but then learned to dial it back. My friend made clear it was not awesome. So I stepped back, analyzed what she said, and informed her I would be mindful and adjust accordingly. And things were great aside from that being the only complaint.
I’ve only slept 2 hours yesterday.
Friends, would you be so kind to help me analyze my situation? I feel absolutely stuck and confused. Admittedly, I feel heartache. Thanks for your time you everyone. 🙇🏻♂️ 🙏
Also: please don’t say “Go find a new friend.” It’s not very helpful ><
(Update) : I spoke to a professional therapist who snuck me in at the last minute this morning. It was lighthearted, funny, also serious. But I’m relieved to learn that I’m not at fault. As a science major, the therapist pointed out I’d naturally have a tendency to overthink. When I mentioned that my friend was the one who gifted me the shirt that said, “Overthinking” on it, it was to poke fun at the fact that it’s my own worst enemy. At the end of the hour long session, we discussed how my friend had been 90% reliable, and that clinical rotations are the reason for their forgetfulness or irrational behavior. My friend explicitly laid out what I could expect. But she didn’t follow through twice, (out of a whole bunch of times) and that’s fine. When asked about whether I knew my friend to lie, I said no. So the conclusion was that my friend, perhaps in actual time of last minute haste, most likely experienced a huge event that snowballed from somewhere (could be a family member death, break up with a significant other, or reacted poorly to the millions of emails one gets from the school (and I know that latter part to be true because I experienced the immense pressure of being inundated). So when I asked if I should take it at face value, the therapist said to not read too much into it. If the friend is consistent, she will get back to me as she mostly has done every time. Though “soon” might mean 1-2 weeks for me, it can mean something different for my friend. So next time, it is something we can work on discussing when she reaches out.
The “clinginess” my therapist pointed out, was nothing more than the usual checking in with some brief texts with my friend each week, and there’s nothing unusual with it as I have other friends who also check in with me as well. I’ve come to a place where, at the end of the session, I can accept that people change, and that not all people behave rationally, despite my friend being a psychology major. Like the saying goes, doctors can be their worst patients.
If my worries over the past few days were like a 10/10, it definitely feels like a 1/10. Although I initially rejected the need for a therapy session, I was able to push past whatever and do what I needed for mental self care. You people are wonderful. Truly. Thank you for taking the time to craft such thoughtful answers. 🙇🏻♂️
Time for a nap!
11 comments
With only this to go on, she’s being very inconsiderate and needs to be straight with you about what’s going on, especially as it’s causing so much distress. It might be time to either confront her (gently) or leave her be. You’ve tried reaching out to no avail. The ball is in her court and there isn’t anything to be done about that.
She said she needed some time. I think that’s explanation enough.
I don’t think this necessarily means your friend has given up on you. Something big may have happened in her life that has put more on her plate and makes it more mentally draining to reply to messages. It wouldn’t hurt to send her another message asking about baking together sometime. I find that people are more likely to reply to a text about plans than a check-in text.
You might be the root issue, and pressing her for a response might be more effort than what she has available at the moment. Friends have high points and low points, so you might just need to take a break and allow a natural reset. If you’re friendship is meant to last she’ll come out of whatever she’s feeling and reach out to you. Until then you just live your own life.
You’re pretty focused on what you need from her. It might be best to flip it around and consider what she may need–which may be space, at the moment. Who knows what’s happening in her life right now, it could be death or terminal illness or some other thing that truly renders a person unable to function. The situation that came up could be colossal and have nothing to do with you. If you knew it wasn’t about you, would you still care? Is the emotional core of your concern self-focused, or are you concerned for your friend?
Reading through the lines it looks like maybe she did a bit more emotional labour than you did throughout your relationship. It is possible that she doesn’t think of you as someone who can ease her troubles, but rather as a friend who generally comes to her with emotional work. Work she does happily, generally, when she has spare gas, but if she’s overwhelmed she is only going to reach out to those who can put her first and see to her needs without needing to be trained how first.
Not to say this is what is happening, but it’s something I’ve had to do in the past. There are friends whom I love but who are generally unable to be there with me when I am in crisis in a way that calms be down instead of just making me even more concerned because now I’ve got to manage both myself and their emotions for them. When life becomes more than a person can handle there’s only room for people who will shoulder the burden rather than just keep making demands.
This would be a good thing to talk to a therapist with. This really boils down to conflicting needs from your friendships. If she needs extra time to respond occasionally, and you need faster responses for your emotional stability, there is a conflict there that will come to a tipping point. Someone will have to compromise there for long-term friendship. It’s not fair for you to feel hurt by your friends, and it’s not fair to your friends that they hurt you by needing time/space.
Just with the context of what you’ve posted, I see hints of dependency. I say this with no judgment because I’ve been there.
What I mean by that, you seem to depend on your friends to act a certain way, or you are hurt. This is not a good feeling on the other end of that. In a sense, you’ve burdened your friendships with social contracts that they might not always be able to uphold.
I can imagine many reasons why any one of my best friends would need space for a few months.
You should indeed try and find more friends, if only to spread your friendship needs across a few more people. Maybe you can find a friend that will mesh without conflicting needs.
I wouldn’t give up on this one yet though.
Another reasons for therapy is that you have someone to do emotionally dump on that is trained (and paid) to deal with it. It’s also a good person to run these kinds of situations by. They will have an easier time offering advice since they get a better context of who you are than your reddit post history.
I don’t want you to feel this is criticism. We all just need to do the best we can with what we currently know. All I know is that this person is unavailable until they say otherwise, and you need support from a trusted person.
gosh there’s a lot going on here. some thoughts:
– especially in work contexts, the bonding of going through hell and back together can sometimes be unstable and/or unsustainable.
– like, you develop these artificially close bonds real fast because you both need them to survive (hence her feeling like an extra sister to you.)
– and while you’re in the middle of the hellish stuff those bonds feel like a real friendship, because you’re tied as closely as friends would be, but the relationship can be so focused on the hellish stuff that you don’t form all the other structures that hold real friendships together.
– this can end up in a situation where when you think about the person, all you can see is the hellish stuff, and then one of you turns avoidant and it all falls apart.
– I’m not saying that’s definitely what’s happened here, but a lot of the language you’re using mirrors what I’ve seen and been through before. your colleagues aren’t your siblings. someone offering you support when you were in isolation doesn’t mean you get to override them needing space.
– with the one friendship I have that started like this and survived, what saved it was that we both got new jobs and left it a solid six months before we started hanging out again. by that time we weren’t carrying the job with us any more, and that gave us space to create a relationship with each other as people instead of fellow sufferers.
Please don’t take this hard, but that reply on time can be taken to an extent you may not be describing and it sounds like very clingy behavior. Then again, I have hella ADHD and I rarely reply to people on time unless it’s an emergency. Maybe they needed time to formulate their words and thoughts properly, then got distracted by something that was going on around them and forgot to finish writing the text. Happens to me all the time. Some people are very independent and don’t want or need someone on top of them like that and it can feel suffocating to have someone demand that you reply to them by a certain time or have some other obligation that makes you feel like you’re glued to someone, or that you owe someone something. It sounds like you need to learn how to provide your own company.
You shouldn’t impose your need for immediate responses on other people, you can’t control how or when they respond to you. Your emotional needs/distresses are your own and you are the only person responsible for them. I’m so sorry if this sounds harsh, but I wouldn’t respond to you either. A friendship with you sounds exhausting, take some of the pressure off your friends to meet your needs and try to meet them yourself instead.
Leaving aside the fact that your friend may have been dealing with something very serious or something she needs personal space and time away from you/others to process, I would advise you to seriously think about compatibility in your intimate friendships, for your own peace and wellness. Do your temperaments flow naturally, even during conflict? Do you both have the same kind of expectations from a friendship? Sometimes, it’s not about someone being too clingy or someone being too detached but rather someone being too clingy/warm for another and the latter being too detached/emotionally unavailable for the former. I know it hurts to think that someone we care about so much could be different in a way to not become a fulfilling, sustainable connection for us in the long haul but calming down, then gently distancing ourself from our feelings, and assessing the situation for what it is rather than what we want it to be can help bring in clarity and give you strength to leave what doesn’t serve you and go towards what does serve you.
The fact that you mentioned getting only two hours sleep gives away you are in distress. Please take care of yourself and reach out to any loved one or other person who can share some warmth with you. If anybody leaving you/distancing themself makes you instantly question your worth, then you might want to consider healing self worth wounds or trauma, but if it is just this singular instance where you are feeling this way because you got very involved with them and can’t understand their behavior, then please do reevaluate your compatibility with this person.
Sending you much love and hugs. ♥️ Please don’t question yourself.
Hey, we can be friends:)