Dear Mary:

Good morning! I am reading your recent post part by part, responding to one before reading the next part.

“Amanda proceeded to tell me that I make her feel annoying, overwhelming… I don’t make her feel loved, supported, or encouraged. I make her feel like garbage” – wait, wait, wait… you make her feel all these things. Is it that whatever she feels is a result of being made to feel this way or that way by a person on the outside? No connection between what she feels and her prior life experience, her childhood, her thoughts? Is she a passive agent, a vacuum that is filled by feelings others give her?

“I told her I appreciate her honesty and that I’m sorry my boundaries created these feelings within her” – but it’s not your boundaries that created these feelings within her, at least not in isolation. Her prior life experience and her thoughts created these feelings within her much, much more than anything you said and did.

“I apologized that I created this problem because I made myself too available and accessible from the start of our friendship, so I take some of the blame for why she’s been feeling this way once I started creating space” – you are apologizing unnecessarily, agreeing with her that you are guilty of something that you are not guilty of. People are not supposed to be stuck in rigid roles. Just because you were very available to her before, does not mean that you are supposed to be very available to her forever more. It is not a realistic expectation because our lives are changing, so a lot has to keep changing. We need to adjust to changes instead of demanding of ourselves and of others to… remain rigidly same!

“Her response to that was “Ok, I’m toxic now. Cool. Cool. I wish you the best.” I didn’t respond to that, but a few hours later she sent another text stating she forgives me… ” – sincerely, Mary, I don’t care anymore what she says. She needs quality psychotherapy so to take responsibility for how she feels and to perceive herself as an active agent in her own life, not a passive agent.

“With all that said, the point of me reaching out to you again Anita is because her comments upset me. I feel guilty and feel like I was in the wrong. Was I actually toxic and perhaps gaslighting her too?” – I just read Helcat’s reply of 4 minutes ago and I agree (I thought something like this myself earlier) that “toxic” is an inflammatory word, an overused word, often used incorrectly, and therefore it should be avoided. But I still stand by what I wrote above, in this post. So, without using the overused word, I think that it is a bad idea for you to have any further communication with her because she needs serious therapy before she can have a healthy relationship with anyone, including with her husband and kids. It is very sad to think that she is probably blaming her own kids for how she feels!

That you feel guilty is an indication that your own prior life experience, particularly in childhood, fostered a tendency to feel guilty whenever someone you care about is displeased with you. Amanda and you are like a match made in hell: she has a strong tendency to blame, and you have a strong tendency to accept blame.

“She claims (in the last message she sent) that she respected me and my boundaries and allowed me to be my true self” – she has no idea what boundaries are: she perceives herself to be a passive agent in her own life, one who passively receives feelings from another person, having no boundaries.

“I just need some guidance if I went about this all wrong and sabotaged this friendship…  Amanda really made me feel like I wasn’t being my best self. I’m curious to hear your thoughts” – I think that it is time to figure out when and how you took on the tendency to automatically feel guilty when others you care about are displeased with you.

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by .

Dear Mary:

I am glad that you deleted each other’s contact information, that “the friendship ceases to exist“, and that you do not plan on opening the door for additional communication with her!

“I always find myself saying sorry to someone who is feeling bad about something or someone. You’re right though, this habit stems from my childhood” – through more insight into your childhood and a new practice, you can form new habits, such as evaluating whether you are responsible for X and apologizing only if you are responsible.

“I was always disappointing to my parents” – if your experience in childhood is similar just a bit to mine, then better say: you didn’t really disappoint them- they felt disappointed and blamed you for making them feel this way. Similar to what Amanda did.

“And went out of my way constantly to try and please them” – same behavior as with Amanda.

“I still find myself trying to please others too much in my adult life, especially at work” – a childhood habitual behavior extended into adulthood.

“I appreciate your insight into my fault in this situation, especially with using the term “toxic” because maybe I did use it incorrectly or maybe it just should have been avoided” – because I used to feel intensely guilty, when I made mistakes due to carelessness/ inattentiveness, I felt so terrible that I wasn’t able to learn from my mistakes and improve my overall behavior. Fast forward to the present, I really do understand that everyone makes careless mistakes, that there is no way to live mistakes-free, and that the best any of us can do is to make fewer mistakes. When I realize that I made a mistake, I am calm enough to make a mental note to myself to not say this or do that, in similar circumstances in the future.

“She seems to have a great relationship with her husband and kids” – I don’t think that you observed her with her husband and kids in their home long-enough, if at all, did you?

“I’m her only problem” – if she focused on you as Her Problem (aka her scapegoat, The One to blame), then unless she finds another scape goat, she is likely to reach out to you sooner than later.

Coming to think about it, if you feel very guilty about her in the future, you are likely to reach out to her. I hope it doesn’t happen.

“I’m not sure how she acts with them or what life is really like behind closed doors” – I didn’t read this sentence until this moment, as I continue to respond to one part of your post before reading the next.

“I also agree that I have a strong tendency to accept blame, which I think falls under my self-esteem issues” – if and when you feel like sharing more about this, you are welcome to do so.

Congratulations for deleting her contact information and I hope that there will indeed be no more contact with her!

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by .

Dear Mary:

You are welcome and congratulations for the big step that you achieved!!!

“My dad… would come down hard on us anytime we didn’t do great in school or were experiencing social problems… he would always start with “what did you do/say to them to make them do that to you?” So, I always felt like I was the reason for everything that goes wrong” –

– His repeated message to you was that when something goes wrong- you are at fault. His message became your core belief: when something goes wrong- I am at fault. This core belief led to another: there’s something wrong about who I am.

“I’d like to learn from it and find better ways to build the self-esteem I never had” – every time something goes wrong, take a moment and ask yourself: is this my doing? Let’s take the example you gave: your boyfriend didn’t sleep well. Ask yourself: did I cause him to not sleep well (was I noisy when he was trying to sleep, did I start a conversation with him when he was trying to relax and prepare to sleep, etc.).

If the answer is: no, then resist your compulsion to apologize. Every time the guilt returns, repeat to yourself: I didn’t cause this, I didn’t make it happen!

anita

Dear Mary:

I read your new thread, but I don’t want yet to reply to you there, because I am hoping that other members will reply first (better chance of that happening when it shows that no one yet replied to your thread, although it’s been slow here!). I will reply in your new thread in a day or two.

anita