I feel really trapped all the time about a lot of things and I get overwhelmed easily and I feel all the time like I am never going to get myself together bc I’m going on 2 years feeling like shit all the time. It is always job and relationship or friendship related and I managed to be better for 2 or 3 months, but I had uncharacteristic horrible hormonal induced depression at the beginning of 2020 and even tho it went away overall I am back to feeling trapped, overwhelmed, worthless, and hopeless a lot and this is the latest thing.
I have had 4 different friends tell me I need to listen to my feelings. When I feel a certain way it is okay to make that known. That I can’t bottle things up and ignore stuff just because I don’t want to upset anyone else. I admit I often I ignore my feelings bc I would rather just have harmony than make my feelings known and potentially have a fight or have things be uncomfortable.
In the last few months, three of these friends either bottled up their feelings about me for months before finally expressing them, or gave me the silent treatment. This never happened before and I have known each for many, many years.
One silent treatment is happening now. She expressed to a mutual friend upset that I didn’t tell her a mutual friend and I weren’t talking bc of something I did. She was hurt bc she thought I didn’t trust her. I hadnt told her bc I didn’t know how to bring it up and only saw her in person once in the last year and I didn’t want to ruin our day by putting my garbage into her already stressful life. The mutual friend told me, I messaged her saying I was sorry I made her feel that way, it is not the case I do not trust her, I didn’t bring it up bc I felt it wasn’t the time or place, but if she wanted to talk about it, I certainly would.
I didn’t hear from her, and I asked out mutual friend about it. She reminded me this friend doesn’t respond to any of our direct messages normally, but that she has said she sees them and knows we’re there. So I kept messaging her here and there about different stuff just to say hi.
She announced on social media that I have taken a break from that she’d be coming to my city (where multiple mutual friends live). My mutual friend told me. I messaged her and said I heard through the mutual friend bc I hadn’t been using social media. I asked her what she’d like to do here. I messaged her 3x. She made plans to stay w/ the friend who doesn’t talk to me (which is fine and it is that friends right not to talk to me) and plans to see our other mutual friend.
She never reached out or responded to me. She has just ghosted me basically and I saw her talking about her trip for weeks and saying how excited she was to see this one and that one and not me.
This is one of the friends who had told me to communicate. This has never happened before w/ her. I am really fucking upset bc I fucked up and lost another friend and I feel so worthless like I got ghosted bc obviously my friendship was not worth discussing whatever the problem was. When another friend ignored me it was for a few weeks and through her thinking I was passively aggressively tweeting at her (I wasn’t) I reached out to correct that and we started talking and I understood why she was upset and apologized but she also recognized I was having a really bad time and was stressed on how to help me. She communicated things to me tho so now I’m more thoughtful on my behavior on the couple specific points she made and she promised to be upfront with me if I did something that upset her. I never told her I was upset that she’d just ignore me or she thought I’d be so petty if subtweet (she recognized that she thought that bc she was hurting and other people have acted like that to her)
Am I just not understanding what it’s like to be hurt and need space from someone? I know if I have an issue w/ someone I cannot let it sit, i need to talk and resolve it immediately and it has been hard to give ppl space but I’ve done it. I saw the current silent treatment friend in October. And she hasn’t really interacted with me since and then just like…shes allowed to talk about whatever she wants on social media but it’s like she keeps talking about being here, knows she’s ignoring me, and that I am also on social media.
I ask because I honestly have no idea how to tell if my feelings are selfish/I’m being an asshole, or if I’m justified in feeling how I feel. Not every feeling is valid and I’m aware of that. My friend is obviously upset with me and maybe she doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with it right now but I honestly don’t think it’s fair to not speak to me for months and months to tell me what the problem is when she has specifically told me to speak up about my feelings.
I’m really fucking hurt and angry and maybe I don’t get needing space but I fucking feel like what the fuck else does this say except 10 years of friendship is literally not worth it? I think when people explain to me how I have hurt them, I do my best to listen, I thank them for sharing this with me and I say I am grateful to know they’re feeling this way bc I didn’t realize and I’m sorry I behaved like that and I make an effort not to do it again.
Maybe I am wrong and I don’t do a good job listening and changing and that’s why no one wants to tell me? Am I being selfish in wanting someone to talk to me, in the only fight we’ve ever had in 10 years, about what I did that they are upset about, so I can understand and apologize like they deserve and do better like they deserve? Am I wrong to feel like this sends the message that my company isn’t worth the discomfort of talking about the problems? Am I thinking too much about how hurt I am and not the hurt I caused in the first place?
I’m really honestly asking bc everyone says to trust my feelings and express them but feelings have done me wrong before and I literally have no fucking idea when I am supposed to listen to them and when I’m not. All this does it just make me confused and want to keep my stupid fucking mouth shut bc when I open it I do nothing but fuck things up
Help, thank you
