This is going to be a bit more of a vulnerable post and is something that’s been on my mind for awhile. I do a lot of self reflection on myself and am very aware of my many flaws, things that I think have stemmed from trauma and become behavioral patterns. I am so thankful I found the spiritual path that I am on because it has allowed me to become very conscious and introspective of these things so I can work towards healing them and becoming a better person.
Lately I’ve been reflecting on myself and my own presentation to others, but also a bit deeper into who I am as a person and where a lot of who I am today stems from. I see myself as a bit hard, brutally honest to a fault, very transparent with my feelings in the sense that if something puts me off you’ll definitely be able to tell, a bit confrontational and direct, and all of this together really paints me to be someone who can be very intimidating and unlikable. I think most people generally try to avoid conflict and confrontations, so most people likely try to avoid people like me who are comfortable with it when I feel like it’s necessary or if something’s really on my mind. Uncoincidentally, I don’t really have any actual friends outside of my family members. Acquaintances, sure. I have people I talk to online who I’d consider more close acquaintances, but when it comes to me being comfortable with someone to let down my walls, be weird, and really be myself around, I don’t have anyone other then my husband and my mother. I suppose that’s all I really need, but I’ve always desired having one close girl friend, which is something I haven’t had since high school, which is where the root of my traumas really begin when it comes to people and having difficulty building real friendships.
The Old Friends and the Fallouts.
I used to have a pretty good sized friend group just before high school and the beginning of high school. I had two best girl friends and 3-4 best guy friends and we’d all hang out together. I was pretty weird back then, but I had a group of friends that accepted my weird and we were all pretty weird together. These were some of the very best years of my childhood and was around the time I was just starting to get interested in boys. I started dating one of the guys in my friend group whom I had known since I was really little. We were all home schooled and decided we wanted to attend high school together. A couple of the guys and one of the girls in our friend group wouldn’t go to our high school due to not living close enough, but myself, my boyfriend, my closest girl friend, and one of our other guy friends all decided to go together. My boyfriend and I broke up very early on in high school and it wasn’t a very peaceful break up. I think that was the first crack with me in our friend group that all just went downhill from there, but in the beginning it was just that and didn’t really affect too much. A couple months after, I started dating another boy in one of my classes. I blamed myself a lot for this later, but I was so infatuated with him at the time that I neglected my relationship with my other friends and my best girl friend. He really became my full focus for awhile.
Later on, I really wanted to reconnect with my friend group and with my best girl friend, but things were never the same. Once you sort of leave a friend group it’s not so easy to get back in. I remember I was invited to a group outing with them, never given a day or place, they said they’d fill me in on it later. They never did fill me in and I later found out they all went and hung out together without me. This absolutely broke my heart, and as an immature teenager up in my hurt and angry feelings, I took to social media and put them on blast where they would see it. No surprise, this split us further apart and after that, trust was broken on all sides that never fully recovered. My other best girl friend (the one who didn’t go to high school with us) sided with my former best girl friend, and understandably as what I had done was extremely hurtful, probably more hurtful than how they had hurt me. I mourned the loss of my friend group for a long time. We gradually made small amends, started talking a bit, but things would never be the same. I desperately wanted my best friend back and we would talk online from time to time. One day I told her something really personal and trusted her in confidence not to tell anyone. She was the only person I told about it, aside from my boyfriend whom was also sworn to secrecy. A week or two later, I came to find out what I told my best friend in confidence was the subject of gossip amongst our friend group. I later found out from someone else she let it slip, and my heart was broken a second time. We ended up making up, and eventually being on friendly terms again, but this really broke something inside of me that did not heal for a very long time. After being burned so many times, the last one being a devastating blow, it created some real trauma that has never really gone away when it comes to people and forming friendships. All friendships that followed had been failures and making friends is something I still struggle with to this day and I’m not entirely sure how to overcome it.
These feelings, this trauma, it ate away inside me for years. I was never at peace, it was something I thought about often, even almost a decade later. It was a weight I was carrying that I just couldn’t let go of no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t move on from it. A few years ago I made the decision to message my old best friend and talk to her about how I was feeling. To my relief she was extremely understanding and civil about me approaching her and talking with her lifted such a big weight off my chest. There was a part of me that felt finally at peace with everything that had happened between us all those years ago, and I am so thankful for that. However, although the weight has been lifted, the scars from that trauma remain in myself being so guarded with who I allow to get that close and invest a lot of time into. I have tried a few times to have close girl friends since then, but something I had observed was that I chose people who were extremely toxic for me.
The Friends Who Use You For Their Gain.
One girl was a coworker who I’d go out with from time to time (She’s a lesbian – context for later). I’m generally more introverted now, and she was more extroverted so it was kind of the perfect pair up in that sense as extroverts really get me out of my shell. She had a crush on another female coworker (who was straight), and I would listen to her talk about her and occasionally go out with both of them. Her and this other female coworker were extremely close, best friends which kind of made me feel more like a third wheel – I was likely just being used as a buffer for her to get close to the other coworker.
I invited my coworker out once for Christmas shopping. Me, her, and the coworker she had a crush on had all planned to do a gift exchange for the holidays with each other. During that outing it felt like she didn’t really want to be out with me. She was on her phone texting the whole time to the point I felt I couldn’t really talk to her while we were out as it consumed the majority of her attention and if I talked to her I felt like I was interrupting her. Anyhow, I got them both their gifts, and come the holidays I gave them both their gifts, and in return… nothing. It seemed like it was a one sided gift exchange where I gave them both things and received nothing in return. It hurt, but I might have let it go if the friendship continued, but after the holidays, we never went out or did anything, they discontinued inviting me to hang out so I was on my own again. I felt neglected and used. I thought about it a lot though and how hurt it made me feel. I decided to talk to her about it. I was really civil about it, but I was honest that it hurt me. She took it really well I think and wasn’t angry about the confrontation. Her and the other coworker ended up getting me a gift to make up for it a couple months later for my birthday. They said they got the gift around Christmas time and had just forgotten to give it to me, but after two months, I really don’t believe it was forgetfulness. I feel like they just felt bad and decided to get something out of guilt for not following through at Christmas. Anyways, that was the end of that friendship.
The Flaky Friends Who Never Show.
I tried online platonic friendship apps for awhile, and met a girl who ironically had the same name as me and we had so much in common. I really felt like we could have been close, but the couple times I attempted to meet and hang out with her in person, she ditched last minute. Maybe she just had really bad social anxiety, but I just wanted someone I could have a real friendship with. I feel like making plans to do something with someone and bailing last minute isn’t really setting a solid foundation for anything real. Online friendships can be really great, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like unless someone equally invests time into developing a real friendship, it’s just going to stay surface level and staying surface level was not what I was looking for. We both lived in the same town and eventually it only made sense to get together and start doing things in person. It just felt like another let down and more time wasted on someone I could never really get close to.
The Toxic Friends Who Never Have Your Back.
Covid plandemic rolls around and I start attending freedom rallies as restrictions kept increasing and more of our charter of rights and freedoms were being gradually eroded away. I met many people at rallies, and one lady in particular I got along really well with. She’s much older than me and really likes to talk A LOT, very extroverted. We started getting together, going out for coffee and chatting outside of rallies and it was great for awhile. She has a couple of dogs, and I have a dog, so we started to have dog dates at the park regularly as well. I really liked her but found she really drained my energy. The red flags starting popping up slowly for me but got worse over time.
The first red flag was a conflict I had with one of the freedom rally organizers, which would not have even come about if it weren’t for my friend. My friend had replied to a post addressing some of the negative behavior at rallies and I agreed with her. So I decided to message one of the rally organizers asking if she’d be okay if I made a post discussing with the group about coming up with more ways to make the protest more approachable where strangers could more comfortably approach, ask questions, get more information, etc. At the time, the rallies were very emotional, a lot of anger and yelling, and I didn’t feel like our message and what we were trying to get across was actually being heard, which were the same feelings my friend had expressed in her reply. In our private messages, the rally organizer agreed with me and encouraged me to go ahead and post about it in the Facebook group we had for the rally, so the next day I did. I told the group the points I had discussed with the rally organizer, and the rally organizer did a 180 and went against me in the comments of that post, revealing her two faced nature. Instead of defending the things I had brought up to her which she agreed with me in private, in front of the group, she went against me. She stirred up drama in that post that would not have had drama otherwise as other members of the group were in agreement the rallies needed to be more calm and approachable. I am not sure what that organizer had against me. Part of me feels like she was jealous as she had taken time off from protests for awhile and I stepped up and tried to help the other rally organizer with various things. It’s possible she might have felt jealous of that and wanted to push me out of that inner circle when she got back, which I don’t understand. What I did was not for attention, but to help because I really believed in what we stood for, and I had nothing else. But part of me feels like she did what she did for attention, and maybe that was the difference, and she didn’t want to share that attention when she returned. I think in her eyes, I took her place when she left and that was her way of reclaiming her place. Myself and that rally organizer were never on good terms after that, but the thing that really stood out to me is that my friend didn’t have my back when I had hers. I agreed with her and supported her when she brought it up to others, yet, she didn’t comment on my post and stick by me the way I had done with her previously. That aside though, I showed her the messages between myself and that rally organizer where she agreed with me in private and went against me in the group, and my friend agreed with me it was very two faced. On another occasion, she told me despite everything that organizer had done, she liked this rally organizer, which after how that organizer treated me, it felt a bit like a betrayal and further like she didn’t have my back when I was wronged.
Other circumstances happened with this particular friend that brought up more red flags. I was part of an acquaintance group outside of the rally I wanted to introduce her to. This group was really guarded, because at the time, anyone who didn’t get the covid shot was highly discriminated against and they just wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page before letting others into their inner circle. I vouched for my friend, but they wanted to meet her in person first and my friend did not respond well at all to that. In fact, she threw a major fit about it and was very verbally abusive to one of the members of the acquaintance group who had asked to meet with her.
I felt really embarrassed for vouching for her after that, because her behavior was extremely unwarranted, but also her behavior reflected really poorly on me that I would even invite someone who would behave like that. That was the first time I ever witnessed one of her outbursts and wasn’t really sure what to make of it at the time. I was really lonely though, and my friend was the only person I had that I was becoming close to and given my history with people and making friendships, despite the red flags I didn’t want to give up on her.
The last straw was when I watched her tear another acquaintance group apart that was associated with the rallies. We were all part of a Telegram group that her daughter used to run. Her daughter would organize fun events where we’d get together and just have fun, like potlucks, Secret Santa, and other various recreational social gatherings/activites, because again at the time, unvaccinated folks were highly discriminated against. We were blocked from many establishments and recreational events, so being mostly excluded from society, we only had each other. Anyhow, her daughter was taking a course online so she stepped back from hosting events to focus on her education and passed on the responsibility of managing the group to a couple other members she trusted. There came a point where these two group members had issues with my friend (whom is the mother of the original owner of the group), that my friend was causing a lot of drama and they didn’t want her in the group anymore. My friend was furious at this, as well as her daughter, and while I understand the new organizer’s reasoning for wanting to kick her out (because I knew first hand my friend caused drama and would have outbursts), I don’t feel like it was their place to do that as the group was originally created by my friend’s daughter. Her daughter intended to create a brand new group without the two new organizers, and I offered to help her with her new group if she needed it. Meanwhile in the other group, they all started fighting about it, and I attempted to opt for conflict resolution as I didn’t want to see the group break apart. Another part of me felt that if the situation of our discrimination got worse in society that we would need to totally rely on each other, we absolutely would not last if we could not weather any storms together and resolve petty conflicts. I attempted to try and calm the situation and later was on a call with my friend telling her what I was trying to do, and she got very upset with me that I would do that. I think to her she probably felt like that was a betrayal, that I wouldn’t go against them and stick by her. In my mind, all I could think was “where were you when I needed you to have my back?”. I always had her back, and even in this situation, it wasn’t that I didn’t have her back, it was more that I didn’t want this situation to break apart our group and that practicing conflict resolution, in the long term, was in all of our best interests if we were to really get by with the rising discrimination against us. It was a survival mindset, because at that time, we came very close to being banned from even shopping at grocery stores, an essential business for survival, being able to feed ourselves. There was actually one local market that had intended to do just that, but ended up going back on it only because both vaccinated and unvaccinated were planning to band together and have a massive protest at their market to fight it and to be honest, it probably would have gotten ugly because people are not going to accept being banned from being able to buy food to feed their loved ones. I think it was the first thing both unvaccinated and vaccinated folks united on in a long time during the plandemic. Restrictions were being taken way too far and this was the last straw for a lot of people. This was a time in history that a lot of folks lost their humanity and sense, but thankfully, not everyone did. But that was the point society was at, and thinking about those things, it really was in our best interests to try and work out our differences and stick together in our groups. Anyways, that entire situation did not end well and myself and my friend have never been the same since. I had also said some words to her that were hurtful in my frustration addressing her current and past behavior, and I know she never forgot it.
We never officially ended our friendship at that point, but it as clear that distance was created between us after that. I ended our friendship this year as I was fed up and just had enough. I had a small business where I sold some things that I made. It wasn’t anything big, just handcrafted goods. My mother would comment on my work a lot, be really supportive, and I would always thank her for her feedback. I addressed her as my mother in posts. I don’t have a big business, I’m an individual artist and I’m not ashamed of my mother supporting me, I feel really thankful for it. Anyhow, my friend messaged me and suggested my mother not address me as her daughter or me address her as my mother on my posts because it wasn’t professional. And I can understand where she was coming from if I was a big retail business, but I’m not. I’m an individual artist just selling some handmade crafts, and her saying that to me made me feel like I should be ashamed of my mother commenting on my work and being proud of it. I wasn’t really sure how to respond to her, and I told her that I really didn’t have a response for that and I wished her well. I blocked and unfriended her after that. In reflection that probably really wasn’t something to unfriend someone for, but after the series of things that had happened between us, the times I felt like she didn’t have my back when I had hers, the times that she exploded on other people and verbally abused people without good reason, and all the drama that seemed to follow her everywhere, I just felt really fed up. I felt like she was just a really toxic friend to have in my life and I didn’t want to deal with it anymore, so I removed myself from the friendship.
Now I am at a place where I don’t even know if it’s worth bothering with making real friendships. There’s still a part of me that really wants just one close girl friend, but I feel like I just don’t have the energy to invest in any more people who are just going to hurt me, or be toxic, because it seems like that’s where it always ends up. And I’ve considered that maybe I attract these kinds of people because of something deeper and unresolved within myself that stemmed from the hurt and pain the originated from high school. But I also think the experiences I’ve had the last few years with people and the rallies, and just the entire plandemic situation with how highly discriminated against we were, it made me a lot harder, it made me a lot bolder, more confrontational, more unfiltered, and the situation ignited a fighting spirit in me that has not entirely settled. And I think in part, that’s why I’ve noticed in my own behavior I sometimes seek out drama, I sometimes become that toxic person, I seek to have my voice heard, especially on controversial things because now I know what it’s like to not have a voice, to be silenced, censored, what it’s like when the world turns against you for having a perception that’s different. People saw a deadly virus and listened to mainstream narratives. I saw the common cold/flu rebranded and listened to doctors and scientists who were brave enough to show statistics, explain the science, and be honest that we were not being given the full story and there were many things that were not adding up, and instead of mainstream narratives addressing their statistics, questions, and concerns, these doctors who challenged the mainstream narrative were silenced, censored, discredited and buried. And I think part of me has this fear that it’s not over. Not the plandemic, but that it was just one in a series of far worse things to come when it comes to abuses of power from our government and healthcare system, and I need to always be on my guard and keep that fighting spirit alive, keep being brave, keep being bold, keep fighting, because one day soon I might need to be strong again so I can’t let myself weaken. That it’s better to stand alone than to stand in a crowd that’s going the wrong way. But what I have learned about myself, is that I am not only afraid, but I am deeply unhealed. I think someone who is healed would approach these things and these fears in a very different way, and I’m just not there yet.
I’m not really sure where to even begin healing these things. I feel like the first step is acknowledging my flaws and understanding the root causes of those things, which at the very least, I do understand that about myself and recognize it, which maybe I don’t give enough credit to myself for. It’s not an easy thing to look at the ugliness within yourself, or face your past and the things that deeply hurt you, and recognize the roots of deeper issues. So at the very least, I’m past step one. How to get to step two and progress further, I’m still trying to figure out so hopefully spirit will guide me along in healing this as it has done with some other things. I have had a lot of dreams lately of me facing my fears and coming out on top, which, I think subconsciously may be progress as in the past I used to run and hide from things that scared me in dreams. At least I don’t do that anymore. When I face my fears in my dreams, the fears disappear.
Anyhow, that is where I’m currently at. I hope I can eventually progress with this, and when I do, I’ll create another log. Hopefully one day I can make another girl bestie who I can actually drop my walls around, be totally myself and feel comfortable, and hopefully she will be genuine and not the toxicity I currently seem to attract. But first I need to figure out how to heal myself, get on that higher frequency so I can attract others who are also on that frequency.
