Getting over a best friend

[ralphie41]

Hi! So, long post coming up...
Around this time last year, I was slowly realising that I was in love with my best friend (both girls), let's call her T. In terms of sexuality this wasn't a massive issue for me - I am bi and had broken up with my boyfriend about 3 months previously. Fast forward through all the cute flirting and 'platonic' cuddling, and it turned out that she is in fact a lesbian, and had a crush on me too. So we got together in the summer, were happy for a while, and basically, we broke up 3 weeks ago. I was the one who technically broke up with her, but it's all gotten so complicated, and I am so crushed.

All of this is complicated by a number of circumstances (I think I might have posted on here when we'd just gotten together actually?). We were best friends throughout our first year of university, in which I had to move accommodation, broke up with first boyfriend, had drama relating to that, it was the first time I've lived away from home (5 hours away too), then our close mutual friends' cancer came back, so she had to drop out of uni, and she died last May. On top of this I suspect that I've been fighting mild depression for a few years... So T had been my closest friend through all of this. Fast forward to September and we are a couple, and moving into a houseshare together with our other friend, M, and another girl. We had hardly seen each other over the summer as our hometowns are pretty far apart.

I feel like I should say it was great from the beginning and gradually fell apart, but honestly the problems were there right from the beginning, but I loved her so much that I always put them down to me being messed up, or that I wasn't doing things well enough, or being understanding enough, or whatever. I am a much more social person than T, but I found myself feeling trapped as I felt I needed to either invite her out or stay in with her. She suffers from social anxiety so much more often than not, I would compromise and stay in rather than her compromising and going out.
There were lots of other issues that don't really need going into, but she's also a very non confrontational person, so instead of being a proper argument and making up, they would always turn into late night angsty crying sessions, where each of us ended up trying to comfort the other for things we felt were wrong with the relationship/ each other. At the time I thought it was healthy because we never properly fought, but now I'm starting to think differently.

So, since we came back to university from christmas things had been a bit harder than usual, but as usual I put this down to me rather than her. I've also been having health issues (which she's been less than supportive about) and we also do the same course at university, which has a lot of work. This was another issue- she is very perfectionist about work, and usually got better mark than me, but would resent me if I scored better than her in anything.

In the end she was trying to comfort me when I was having breakdowns, but wasn't able to because actually they were caused by here. I was in a really bad place emotionally, until one day I actually realised that I didn't have to do it anymore. I had known deep down that it wasn't working for a while, but all the things we shared (house, course, friends) were the only things keeping us together.

So I told her as much, and she said she felt the same, we broke up but agreed to be friends. She basically said that she couldn't deal with my depression, but in a lot of ways I think she couldn't deal with me, even though I spent so much time looking after her.
So, we spent 2 weeks being awkward/ uneasy friends, until one day I realised that I really missed her, and also that we needed to talk some things over and set some boundaries if we were going to be friends again. She completely blew me off. To the extent that (over text!!) she said that we shouldn't be friends anymore. I just completely broke down, because I think I had known that this was the truth for a while but just couldn't admit this to myself. I came home a week early from uni (missing quite a few important things in the process!) because I just couldn't face being around her.

I don't really even know why I've typed all this out, but I just don't know what to do. I've been home a week and I feel no better. Every time I think about going back to uni and seeing I her I feel so so panicky and anxious. I have tons of work I need to do but I can't focus at all. Even though I'm making plans to move in with my sister to finish the year off and I've been going running and I'm booked on to a counselling course, I just feel that nothing is going to get better. I don't think she even knows how much she hurt me, and I don't know what I can do. Everyone says that it will be better with time, but we broke up 3 weeks ago and if anything I feel worse. I have to go back to uni - I can't let her chase me out of something I worked so hard to get to, but the thought of seeing her makes me so panicky. I know that I'm better off out the relationship, and I don't think I've even loved her for a while, but if she even made contact with me at all I'd go running back in an instant. I feel like I meant nothing to her, that I was nothing more than wish fulfilment of a 'cool girlfriend' and now I've been left behind hurting whilst she's still able to carry on doing things, and keeping up with university etc.

I just need someone to help me see a way through this, and to work through what went wrong, seeing as she so obviously won't discuss it with me.

TL;DR, I fell in love with my best friend and now I've lost her, and myself in the process. HELP!


Thank youuu

[Stephanie]

Ralphie41: I'm really sorry to hear about how the relationship went / ended. Please know, while everyone is saying that you will get over it - and in time you will find a way to process everything, it doesn't help you in the place you are now. You should know, though, that everyone comes through processing the end of a relationship in their own way and in their own time - and whatever time you need, it's okay. Please know that we are here for you.

It sounds like you have a very supportive sister. It's good to hear that she's there to help you right now. I'm also happy to hear you recognize you needed help and signed up for counseling. That's a big step in healing.

While nothing can make how you're feeing just go away, can I ask what you're doing aside from running for you time? Often, we find that when we pamper ourselves when we aren't feeling our best it can give us even a temporary escape from the pressured and emotions of life. What could mean drawing or writing, crafting, singing, etc. Anything you life to do.

From what I'm hearing, some of these feelings seem to be stemming from the fact you feel like there's not closure. You aren't able to talk about things with her and that hard, right? Have you tried running conversations on your own? While it may seem funny, it is something that can help some people even if not to find answers, but simply to be able to talk about things as you would to that person- kind of get your thoughts out that you're keeping to yourself.

Per school, do you have a plan of when you would like to be back? I would say that's the first part, is setting when you're going back and making sure you find a way to keep that promise to yourself. Keep your focus on the fact that you're there because you have a goal of where you wan to be in life. It may help if/when you run into one another on campus. The first time may be very hard, as it happens more - and you work through therapy both with help ad personally, you'll find ways to care for yourself with those feelings better and better.

So my next question for you, what can we do to help you right now? Is there something we can do to help you talk through things?

[ralphie41]

Hi Stephanie, thanks for replying.
I have a colouring book which I find really helpful as distraction, so I've been doing quite a lot of that, and watching films, going for walks etc. Some of my friends should be here for their holidays soon so then I can meet up with them which I am looking forward to. I also have a lot of work to catch up on so I've been trying to go to the library and do that, but I'm finding it really really hard to focus.
You're also completely right about the lack of closure. The thing is, I try to avoid thinking about it because I am scared of the emotions that come out when I do, and I worry that I'm just going to send myself into a downward thought pattern without it being helpful, as there is nothing I can do now to change anything. I have a diary that I usually write stuff like that in but this past week I've been feeling like it's easier to distract myself than to think anything through, so I haven't written in there at all. I think that I'm worried about what I might realise?
I have to be back at university by the 11th April as that's when the next term starts, and I've just had a formal warning about my attendance (whoops...) so I can't afford to miss any of that. Also, I am going to temporarily move out of the house I currently share with T, and move in with my sister just until the end of this year.

The thing is, despite all these proactive plans I feel so down so much of the time - it's never been this bad before. If i have a good conversation or read a good book or something, it's a great distraction but as soon as it ends I get back to being sort of numb-sad. I want to talk things over about why we broke up, but as soon as I start blaming her for anything, or being bitter, I feel really guilty, and try to avoid thinking about it again :/

[Onionpie]

Hey Ralphie. It's really great that you have things in your life to keep you busy and that make you feel good -- I too love me a good distracting colouring book or movie. However, it's also really important to give ourselves the time and space to grieve. If we don't let ourselves have that, we end up just avoiding processing the feelings and then they may take a lot longer to go away, or might be a lot harder to process later down the line, they can interfere with our lives, etc. So, do you feel like you're really giving yourself time to process these feelings? You said that you've been avoiding writing in your journal because it feels easier to just distract yourself than to think anything through -- so it sounds to me like you may not be giving yourself that space.

One way of processing that could really help with your sense of a lack of closure is to write a letter to T saying everything you wish you could say and everything you're too scared to even think about saying. Write out every complicated mess of a feeling. Then you can either put it away at the bottom of a draw nicely, or destroy it some way. Tear it up into tiny pieces and flush it down the toilet. Set it on fire. Something like that! It's not for everyone, but I know when I struggle with a lack of closure, this sort of thing really helps.

We have a really excellent piece on the main site about breaking up and how to get through it, that I think you would find helpful:

Getting Through a Breakup Without Actually Breaking