Dear Fuck Up: Should I Keep Trying to Reconcile With a Friend?

Surely one rash decision shouldn't end a 25-year relationship

Dear Fuck Up,

I had a falling out with a childhood friend during the pandemic, and I can’t quit the nagging feeling that there is something I can do to repair our 25-year relationship.

Some context: I was having a Bad Mental Health Time during the pandemic, like many people were. I was also doing some hard work in therapy to try to confront past trauma and end my cycles of self-sabotage and self-loathing.

Growing up, I learned to make myself small and not take up any emotional space in relationships because that was what was required of me at home. I was given the message that my feelings were too much, that I was sensitive and overreacted to everything. My family members regularly met my emotions with shared “here she goes again” eyerolls, and so I learned to hide my true feelings from them and from others, including my closest friends.

Fast forward to 2021. After living in different cities for years, my childhood friend and her partner move to the city where my husband and I live. Amazing! Just like old times! My friend and I are both underemployed and spend a lot of time together and commiserate about how fucked up and crazy-making the world is during Covid. She is the only friend I see consistently, and I feel very grateful to have her in my life.

One night at home, I have a major panic attack. I write my friend a long text (a huge mistake in retrospect) trying to explain that the version of “me” that she knows from childhood is actually not my authentic self, because when we became friends, I was already steeped in the belief that being my authentic self and having needs around others was unacceptable. I said all of this, in my mind, not to attack her, but to open up space for a possible future where we could have an even more intimate friendship.

My friend interpreted my message as a direct attack on her. She told me that contrary to my belief, I was taking up all the oxygen in our friendship, and she couldn’t handle it anymore. She bluntly said she did not want to talk to me or see me anymore.

I was gutted and confused. I apologized profusely for anything I said through sobs. I tried to make it clear that nothing I said was meant as an attack on her, and that I was trying to share more of myself with her. I pleaded with her to work through this conflict with me, to not give up on our friendship so easily. I was shocked that a single text could seemingly undo decades of trust and love built between us. I blamed myself entirely and could not believe I had acted so rashly, risking a relationship I cared so deeply about.

With the benefit of hindsight, I realize I crossed a third rail: I told my friend that she seemed depressed and suggested she may benefit from therapy. I was also in therapy and on medication for depression at the time, and still am. My friend lashed out at the suggestion. “I’ve learned to live with my depression,” was something she said that has stuck with me. The idea of her seeking therapy was not just out of the question, but in her mind, represented a total breach of her trust in me. Exasperated, she responded by saying that I was unstable and erratic and that my new behavior was impossible to deal with. “It sounds like you think I should be institutionalized,” I said in frustration at one point. “Maybe you should be,” she responded.

It has been over two years since we last spoke. I tried reaching out to her once after waiting a year, and was told she still did not want me to speak to her. I’ve seen her in public since our falling out and it feels horrible. I worry she is going to think I’m stalking her. The truth is we tend to go to the same places because we are still very similar people. She played a big role in shaping who I am today, and I miss her.

I’m pregnant now. When we were in school, I imagined a day when we would have kids of our own and raise them together. I don’t want to give up on our friendship yet. The grief of losing her is still so painful, more painful than any breakup I’ve been through. I still want to try to work through our conflict if it’s possible. I would like her to be a part of my child’s life.

Is it worth trying to reach out to her again, or is it time for me to accept this friendship is gone and not coming back? And if the answer is the latter, how could I have fucked up so irredeemably?

Sincerely,

Closing The Door

Dear Closing,

I’ve tried my hand at a bunch of different ways of writing over the years, from academic essays to mortifying adolescent poetry to blogs, but the genre which remains a personal favorite is the overlong and emotionally off-kilter text message. The only thing to rival writing one of those is writing the follow-up, even longer message, in which I use more and better words to explain all the ways the first one was misapprehended. As someone who clings to the belief that there is no problem I have written myself into that I cannot write myself out of, you have my sincere sympathy. 

The thing is, while this belief has been proven incorrect in the case of fleeting romances, it has often been true with friends. That is, I think, the whole point of friendship. Emerson describes a friend as “a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.” I would add to that, “a friend is one to whom I may send something slightly insane, without being considered an insane person.” Which is not to say that the content of your message was particularly insane (maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, I don’t know) just that, as you’ve realized, a late-night dispatch wherein you also diagnose your friend and recommend she seek help was probably not the best format for starting this conversation. 

Ill-considered, sure, but I think you’re justified in feeling shocked at the response. Another way to define friendship: They are the relationships we choose to suffuse with grace. To be denied this after a spontaneous outpouring of feeling is precisely what you have feared the most. It would appear to prove that everything you thought about yourself — that your emotions are a burden to others, that they are too much for anyone to bear — was true after all. No wonder this still feels so painful two years later. I’m sure you do truly miss this person, but how free are you, really, from those old cycles of self-sabotage and self-loathing if you want to sink into the earth every time you see her in public? How much do you want to convince her you are worth loving and how much are you still trying to convince yourself?

Besides, the problem with trying to assure someone you’re not too needy or too emotional or too sensitive is that there is absolutely no way to do it without sounding needy and emotional and sensitive. It’s the Chinese finger trap of rhetorical positions. And even if you could, wouldn’t you be right back where you started, worrying that any true feeling you share is melodramatic and unwanted? That’s hardly the ground on which anything can be rebuilt. Perhaps someday she will approach you, but unfortunately I think it’s time for you to set down both the self-recriminations and the idea that there’s something you could say to fix this. 

By your own admission you’ve spent a lot of energy working through your past, and I think it’s time to focus on the future. Your former friend claimed you took up all the oxygen in your relationship. Maybe you can take that as something other than an accusation — a reminder that intimacy should be close but never stifling. Treasure the people who let you breathe; raise your baby to fill up their lungs. 

Love,

A Fuck Up

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