When Friendship Hurts: Recognizing the Quiet Exit from Something Once Beautiful
We are living in dark times. In times like these, we need allies and true friends to help us stay sane.
I shared a post by the fabulous Megan Walrod about her Glow-Up and her friend's reaction. (Link at the end of this post)
Megan asked me: “I’m curious how you handled the situation with the friend who couldn’t handle your glow-up?”
Here is my answer:
(—This post discusses topics such as depression and suicidal thoughts. If you find these topics triggering, you may want to stop reading.—)
She was my best friend, but she often criticized me. Sadly, we ultimately fell apart. And it was not about my glow-up. It was all about me.
I always took her constant criticism as a form of teasing.
When I was suffering from depression, she gave me the book The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious by Paul Watzlawick, which I initially took as a kind gesture—after all, she was my best friend.
When we met, she said, "You don’t even look sick." That should have set off my alarm bells, but it didn’t.
When I was misdiagnosed and mistreated in the hospital, she visited me at first. But she stopped coming when I had to stay for three months—she was too busy with other things.
A few months later, my hair started falling out due to a strong medication. I went to the hairdresser and cut my long hair short because the bald patches looked awful. When she saw me again, she said, "Oh yeah, all women who have just become mothers end up cutting their hair short." I told her the real reason, but she wasn’t interested.
One day, I was in a dark place. I was in constant, excruciating chronic pain, and at home, I was going mad because I was living with someone who constantly manipulated and gaslit me (though I didn’t know the term at the time). I called her at work to talk for a moment—I was on the verge of ending my life. I even apologized for disturbing her, and after a few minutes, we bid each other goodbye.
Sometime later, everything escalated over something trivial. I had misspelled her boyfriend’s name in an email for a joke. I wrote ‘Doni’ instead of ‘Toni,’ which was meant affectionately, with no ill intent.
She was furious and said, "That’s not funny!" I explained that it was a joke, but she didn’t care. I even wrote an apology to her boyfriend.
Three days later, I called her again. I guess I wasn’t calm and composed anymore at that point. So I asked her, "So, have you calmed down?"
That was not a good question to start a peaceful conversation.
It spilled out of her:
"You, with your worldly ways. I have needs, too, even if I’m not seriously ill."
Since I had always made sure not to burden her and usually asked about her life during our calls, her remark was absurd. Besides, I knew I rarely talked about my illness—I didn’t talk about it with anyone.
I was too traumatized. In conversations, I always tried to find topics that had nothing to do with me. Some of my closest friends who lived farther away only found out years later how sick I had been at the time.
"You!" she shouted into the phone, "even disturbed me at work!"
She was referring to that one time—the time I had already been holding a bottle of sleeping pills in my hand. That was the moment I exploded.
And that was the last conversation we ever had.
We are living in dark times. In times like these, we need allies and true friends to help us stay sane. Tolerance and understanding have their limits. And it’s okay to let people go when tolerance turns into a one-way street.
➔ Have you experienced something similar? I would love it if you could share it here under this post.
Cheers,
Silke Kristin❁
✳ be bold. take charge. embrace life. by Silke Kristin Juelich❁
Thank you.