Still with me?
Meanwhile, I started having health issues. Well, OK, I have always had health issues, but recently I think I have figured out I may have Celiac Disease, which may have something to do with feeling cucky all the time. I was worried, and would try to talk to my friends about the situation. Lisa, I always felt, would blow me off, belittle my concerns, and then change the subject. One day when I got that treatment from her, I kind of blew up. I told her that I felt like she didn't want me to be sicker than her, so she was trying to blow off my possible health issues. She answered by telling me that I am a hypochondriac. Whenever she feels sick, she cannot go online and try to diagnose herself, because then she will overreact and think she has every disease she reads about. So she felt I was dumb to go online to try to figure out what is going on with me. I said, OK, so we are different. I won't belittle you for being different from me, and you don't belittle me for being different from you. She said Ok. Then, I had to leave to go to a doctor's appointment, and she said, don't die on the way there. Which pissed me off, and made me say, fine I guess you just don't get it. Tiff said she felt bad after I left, but I didn't see it. Tiff texted me when I was at the doc and asked me to come by her house when I was done, because Lisa felt bad and wanted to apologize. I blew it off, but some part of me just shut down, and just tried not to rock the boat after that.
It was because of that conversation that, even as I started to feel abused and/or ignored by her, I didn't say anything. I tried to let things slide off my back, blaming her lack of experience in friendships and lack of self esteem for the way she treated me. I blame myself for this, too. I waited too long to say something, and when these feelings came out of me, they exploded out in a harmful way. And I justified it by saying that she didn't care that she hurt me when she called me a hypochondriac, so why would she care that she was continuing to hurt me. I told myself I was just not rocking the boat by not saying anything... but really the hurt was bottled up inside me getting ready to explode.
I can't say I didn't feel the explosion coming. It was starting to escalate. I felt like maybe part of it was that a three way friendship is just difficult logistically, so I started to make the effort to include Erin in our plans, and she came into the friendship. When that didn't work, I started to vent to Tiffany about how I was feeling. I was putting band-aids on the problem hoping to hold off on that explosion. It didn't work.
When I overreacted so badly to the toilet paper incident, I wondered why. I realized that if I had known from the beginning that Tiff was the mastermind instead of Lisa, I probably would have just laughed. I wouldn't have felt like I was the butt of a joke done to humiliate me. And I realized my dislike for Lisa had morphed out of control.
Part of the reason I wanted to write all of this down was a question I began to ask myself on the way home from work today. I started to wonder if I just dislike Lisa, and am looking for things to blame her for so I can justify ending the friendship with her. I hope not. That is not the person I want to be.
But here's the thing. After the blowup yesterday, I tried to reach out. I reached out to Erin, she came to my house, and I told her I felt and why I overreacted. In the end, we kissed and hugged and made up, and were friends again. Then, I texted Tiff to see if she would talk to me. At first, she responded with all of the stuff she had said already, basically her side of the story. I texted back and told her that I knew why I reacted badly, I wanted to explain to her why, and would she give me a few minutes to do so. She said Ok. I called her and explained, and we kissed and hugged and made up, and were friends again.
I reached out to Lisa, and told her we needed to sit down and talk, and that I wanted to do so with Tiff and Erin there too (which I discussed with both of them already), and she responded to me by being a bitch. She basically told me the drama wasn't worth it. I told her if she wanted to remain friends with me, she would sit down and let me say my piece. I asked if, after we got the kids to school this morning, we could schedule a time to meet and talk. She said she had to work. I said I only wanted 5 minutes to come up with a time we could all meet. She said Ok. This morning, I asked her if we could sit and talk. Her response was, this is ridiculous. I said, I guess not, and walked away and drove to work. On the way, I called Tiff and apologized to her for leaving her there, too. Lisa was yelling in the background saying, why doesn't she just talk to me?? Tiff asked if I wanted to talk to her, and I said, no, I want to sit down and try to calmly discuss things, and that won't happen if we talk now. Tiff said she told her boss she would be an hour late to work so we could talk this morning, and I wanted to know where she got the impression we were going to talk this morning when I had only asked for 5 minutes of her time. I certainly can't take time off from a job that I just went back to 5 weeks ago to deal with personal stuff like this.
It makes me wonder, does she intentionally misunderstand things like that so she can try to make me the bad guy? How could she possibly have misunderstood me asking for 5 minutes this morning the way she did? To me, it is obvious that I can't take off from work for something like this, and maybe to her that was not so obvious, so I could understand the confusion, if I had not asked her for 5 minutes. (And I have to also mention - she took an afternoon off work last week because Tiff and I were taking the kids apple/pumpkin picking and she did not want to miss it. I had the day off because the kids had a half day at school and my arrangement when I started my old job again was that I get off on the days the kids are off or have half days, so I do not have to get back up childcare. Tiff and I decided to go picking, and Lisa took the afternoon off to join us, because she didn't want to miss it. But at the same time, she complains about money all the time. To me, this is hypocritical!)
Another thing I wonder about is this. Both Tiff and Erin told me that she was crying all day, because she thought she was losing me as a friend. But I never got anything but snarkiness and bitchiness from her. Is she trying to protect herself, or is she putting on an act for our other friends to, again, make me look like the bad guy.
And even if I am totally off base in all my accusations of her... what do I do now? I obviously do not like her much as a person, and oh, the stories I can tell about things she has done to get me to this point... but none of that is relevant right now. Can I keep being friends with her if I think so badly of her? Can I truly be objective of her? Of the way she treats me? And if I cannot forgive her and repair my friendship with her, what happens to my friendships with Erin and Tiff? Honestly, right now I am willing to walk away from all three of them. Because that would hurt for awhile, but eventually I would get over it. And if I keep on trying to be friends with Lisa without some effort from her to make me not feel excluded all the time, the hurt will just continue with no end in sight. So to me that choice is obvious.
Right now I feel our relationship is toxic to me. So tonight we have our meeting scheduled. If she won't hear me out, I am ending the friendship. If she doesn't respect what I say, I am ending the friendship. And if she cannot make the effort to treat me as a true friend should, I am ending the friendship. I feel a little guilty basically saying, it is my way or the highway, but I need to do this for my own mental health.
My biggest concern right now is, what if she does start to treat me the way I want to be treated, and I still can't forgive her? What if I continue to put blame on her and jump to the conclusion that she is trying to hurt me, even when she has made an effort to prove that is not the case? Can I forgive her for the hurt she has caused me? And if I can't, am I really the person I always thought I was? Am I the person I think I am? Where do I go from here?
It was because of that conversation that, even as I started to feel abused and/or ignored by her, I didn't say anything. I tried to let things slide off my back, blaming her lack of experience in friendships and lack of self esteem for the way she treated me. I blame myself for this, too. I waited too long to say something, and when these feelings came out of me, they exploded out in a harmful way. And I justified it by saying that she didn't care that she hurt me when she called me a hypochondriac, so why would she care that she was continuing to hurt me. I told myself I was just not rocking the boat by not saying anything... but really the hurt was bottled up inside me getting ready to explode.
I can't say I didn't feel the explosion coming. It was starting to escalate. I felt like maybe part of it was that a three way friendship is just difficult logistically, so I started to make the effort to include Erin in our plans, and she came into the friendship. When that didn't work, I started to vent to Tiffany about how I was feeling. I was putting band-aids on the problem hoping to hold off on that explosion. It didn't work.
When I overreacted so badly to the toilet paper incident, I wondered why. I realized that if I had known from the beginning that Tiff was the mastermind instead of Lisa, I probably would have just laughed. I wouldn't have felt like I was the butt of a joke done to humiliate me. And I realized my dislike for Lisa had morphed out of control.
Part of the reason I wanted to write all of this down was a question I began to ask myself on the way home from work today. I started to wonder if I just dislike Lisa, and am looking for things to blame her for so I can justify ending the friendship with her. I hope not. That is not the person I want to be.
But here's the thing. After the blowup yesterday, I tried to reach out. I reached out to Erin, she came to my house, and I told her I felt and why I overreacted. In the end, we kissed and hugged and made up, and were friends again. Then, I texted Tiff to see if she would talk to me. At first, she responded with all of the stuff she had said already, basically her side of the story. I texted back and told her that I knew why I reacted badly, I wanted to explain to her why, and would she give me a few minutes to do so. She said Ok. I called her and explained, and we kissed and hugged and made up, and were friends again.
I reached out to Lisa, and told her we needed to sit down and talk, and that I wanted to do so with Tiff and Erin there too (which I discussed with both of them already), and she responded to me by being a bitch. She basically told me the drama wasn't worth it. I told her if she wanted to remain friends with me, she would sit down and let me say my piece. I asked if, after we got the kids to school this morning, we could schedule a time to meet and talk. She said she had to work. I said I only wanted 5 minutes to come up with a time we could all meet. She said Ok. This morning, I asked her if we could sit and talk. Her response was, this is ridiculous. I said, I guess not, and walked away and drove to work. On the way, I called Tiff and apologized to her for leaving her there, too. Lisa was yelling in the background saying, why doesn't she just talk to me?? Tiff asked if I wanted to talk to her, and I said, no, I want to sit down and try to calmly discuss things, and that won't happen if we talk now. Tiff said she told her boss she would be an hour late to work so we could talk this morning, and I wanted to know where she got the impression we were going to talk this morning when I had only asked for 5 minutes of her time. I certainly can't take time off from a job that I just went back to 5 weeks ago to deal with personal stuff like this.
It makes me wonder, does she intentionally misunderstand things like that so she can try to make me the bad guy? How could she possibly have misunderstood me asking for 5 minutes this morning the way she did? To me, it is obvious that I can't take off from work for something like this, and maybe to her that was not so obvious, so I could understand the confusion, if I had not asked her for 5 minutes. (And I have to also mention - she took an afternoon off work last week because Tiff and I were taking the kids apple/pumpkin picking and she did not want to miss it. I had the day off because the kids had a half day at school and my arrangement when I started my old job again was that I get off on the days the kids are off or have half days, so I do not have to get back up childcare. Tiff and I decided to go picking, and Lisa took the afternoon off to join us, because she didn't want to miss it. But at the same time, she complains about money all the time. To me, this is hypocritical!)
Another thing I wonder about is this. Both Tiff and Erin told me that she was crying all day, because she thought she was losing me as a friend. But I never got anything but snarkiness and bitchiness from her. Is she trying to protect herself, or is she putting on an act for our other friends to, again, make me look like the bad guy.
And even if I am totally off base in all my accusations of her... what do I do now? I obviously do not like her much as a person, and oh, the stories I can tell about things she has done to get me to this point... but none of that is relevant right now. Can I keep being friends with her if I think so badly of her? Can I truly be objective of her? Of the way she treats me? And if I cannot forgive her and repair my friendship with her, what happens to my friendships with Erin and Tiff? Honestly, right now I am willing to walk away from all three of them. Because that would hurt for awhile, but eventually I would get over it. And if I keep on trying to be friends with Lisa without some effort from her to make me not feel excluded all the time, the hurt will just continue with no end in sight. So to me that choice is obvious.
Right now I feel our relationship is toxic to me. So tonight we have our meeting scheduled. If she won't hear me out, I am ending the friendship. If she doesn't respect what I say, I am ending the friendship. And if she cannot make the effort to treat me as a true friend should, I am ending the friendship. I feel a little guilty basically saying, it is my way or the highway, but I need to do this for my own mental health.
My biggest concern right now is, what if she does start to treat me the way I want to be treated, and I still can't forgive her? What if I continue to put blame on her and jump to the conclusion that she is trying to hurt me, even when she has made an effort to prove that is not the case? Can I forgive her for the hurt she has caused me? And if I can't, am I really the person I always thought I was? Am I the person I think I am? Where do I go from here?