1. I never went to see Drew that night, and only went to see him when he requested. I heard it from someone in the group of friends. She was new-ish to the group and didn’t know all the things that were going on. She lived down the hall from Drew, her 3 roommates and her saw the guy with the bat and asked him what was up. She came to me a while later and told me about the bat incident. She eventually left the group as well.

2. The fighting usually had to do a lot with the alcohol. Yes, I know it didn’t help in hind sight. Usually when we hung out in the group together, we would start the night keeping our distance. The drunker we got, the more the subconscious feelings arose and that’s when the fights happened. We really didn’t mean to fight, but the alcohol seemingly took over our emotions. Sometimes the fighting would happen when I tried to help him with his issues. He felt comfortable talking with me, but I know that I wasn’t the best person to help him in this situation. I would try to listen, but if I didn’t give him the answers her wanted, we would fight.

3. It was college, with a large group of friends throwing parties 4 out of 7 nights a week. I drank like a college student before the break-up, and drank much more during and after. I drank, Drew drank, everyone was always drinking, which of course didn’t leave much room for rational thought.

I’ve been working through this some more, and I think I’ve made some good progress. In yesterday’s love challenge, I wrote down all of the things that I contributed to the picture: the drinking, the fighting, the “letting my emotions run my life, not my brain”. I then started to write down what I thought they were responsible for contributing. I deleted that part, because I could tell that was stirring up the anger in me. Then I made a list of things I could’ve done different. Hind sight is 20/20, but I honestly felt that I did the best I could with everything going on. I thought, yes I made some mistakes, but I’m human and I can forgive myself. Then I thought, they were human too, and they probably did the best they could given the circumstances. Maybe I don’t agree with what they did, but maybe they don’t agree with what I did either. I think this is the “rational” that I was looking for, and with some time, I know that I can forgive them someday.

Thank you Anita for all of your support, questions and help. I appreciate the commradary you provided to help me get through this challenging time. Best wishes!

Anita,

Thanks for you response! I have been working on my forgiveness of those I have felt wronged me so that I can release myself from being the victim. I forgave my ex-boyfriend 2 years ago, because I felt that the reason he hurt me was because he was hurting so much himself. He ended up in a psychiatric ward, so I learned later that there was much more affecting him, and I felt that he wasn’t in a rational mind when he hurt me. I didn’t forget his actions, but I did forgive him.

When it comes to the friends, the only place I see them is sometimes on facebook (through mutual friends). When I see pictures of them, I get so angry and just want them to suffer like they made me suffer. After they kicked me out of the group, I found other friends and tried to get over it. But the group of ex-friends was large and prominent in our college culture. If we ran into each other on campus (which was very small), they would say nasty things to me, wouldn’t come near me, and some even tried to fight me. A few nights after the whole “wall” incident, one even camped outside my ex’s door with a bat to defend him in case I came to talk. It was truly ridiculous and I know that, but it didn’t make it any easier for me. It didn’t matter how much I tried to get away from it, we always crossed paths.

I could understand a bit that they thought my ex was hurt more and that they would try to support him. But I don’t understand why they treated me the way that they did. Why they continued to be nasty to me even after my ex left the school. With others I have forgiven, I could rationalize their motives and that helped. With this group of people, I keep trying to tell myself that it made me stronger, and pushed me to find better friends and boyfriends in my life. But every time I think about it, it still makes me so angry.