I have never felt like this before, it’s like I go from 0 to 100 at godspeed. In May 2021, I started wanting my college best friends to care about me. We were together for 2 years, but I have walls built up and find it difficult to let people in. Two years later I figured it’s time to let them in. It went really badly, when I started caring about them, I immediately got this tremendous fear of abandonment, “I’m not good enough, they hate me, they will abandon me,…” those ideas came from nowhere and it made me do horrible things to my friends.
Everything is too long to explain but I can TL;DR everything in the following points:
* I created a fake drama about being hurt by them not caring about me after I told them that I did badly on an exam question, I then disappeared for 5 days just to see if they will call me or care about me. They did but not “fast enough for me” so I guilt trapped them by saying I could have died, I had a “kidney stone operation”, blamed them on how they can abandon me like that…
* In September, nature cursed me with the gift of a brain tumor (more specifically a cyst) that was applying pressure on my left cerebellum and needing immediate surgical removal (brain surgery in short, my head was cut and it was extracted. I was incapacitated for about a month). During that time you’d think I’d be scared for my life, but no. All I could think about was my friends talking to me, showing me care and attention, … But it wasn’t enough, I started getting paranoid of them abandoning me, considering me dead and move on like I meant nothing, we were during Covid so hospital visits where impossible for non-family members but it hurt me they didn’t even suggest visiting me,
* I told my friends my cousin has breast cancer and will die soon just so they wouldn’t abandon me and stay with me,
* I blamed and hurt a dear friend to me by blaming him about a situation he was not guilty at all with. I got angry for no reason and jumped from anger to vengeful to sad, to regretful, to “omg what have I done” in less than 2 hours,
* I lied many times to my friends by telling them that I fear a common friend in our group will abandon me because “he got distant and hasn’t responded to me in days”, even though the “days” were barely “hours” or sometimes even “minutes”, they figured out the problems because of that and now they hate me,
* I told my friends my uncle attempted suicide because I felt they were getting distant, just so they wouldn’t abandon me, I then saw on our friends group that they planned a “game night” the same day I told them that. So I blocked them and told them they are horrible people, “how can you play when I tell you that my life went upside down, you people are insane”. After that happened, I couldn’t follow through with my anger because of the fear of abandonment so I apologized and manipulated them,
* I faked being dumb and fragile to get attention and care and not be abandoned by my friends,
* I told my friends my cousin with cancer has died after a huge argument with them in hopes it would make them pity me and I’d be able to get them back,
* I don’t know if I started having feelings for one of my friends or got obsessed with them, sometimes it felt too real and other times it felt like nothing major at all.
There’s a lot more but those are the main points. It is important to note that none of these actions were premeditated, it all happens on the spot: I feel like my friends are distant, I get that horrible feeling like I’m going to die (almost like a panic attack), I HAVE to say or do something for that feeling to go away, if I don’t I’m going to die; I invent a completely fake situation to get my friend’s attention. When I see I got them back, I feel super guilty and am like “Oh no what have I done”, which causes more fear of abandonment and the cycle goes on.
Edit: I am very well aware that my behavior is toxic, abnormal, manipulative,… I am seeking professional help.