Friendship Rejection

This seems insane to me that it's hurting me, given the circumstances, I need help coming to terms. I am 28 years old, have a 2 year old daughter and family now. Back 17 years ago when I started 6th grade, I met a group of new friends that quickly became my best friends. One of them in particular was my absolute best friend. I never felt such a strong bond with a person, even to this day. My relationships with all of those friends ended about a year later. My family/home life basically flipped upside down, my parents split up, we went bankrupt, everything in my life turned chaotic. I had little parental supervision at this time and was doing things like sneaking out of the house to meet boys, wearing short-shorts, buying thongs.. The parents of my friends started to catch on and see me as a bad influence and probably forbid them from hanging out with me. I stopped getting invited to things, stopped getting notes passed to me in class, ended up hiding in the art room during lunch because I no longer had friends. That's just the beginning of a rocky story of my young adulthood. Anyway, all these years later, I can't stop looking back on all of it, thinking about that friendship, wondering why I wasn't worthy of it, why I lost something so special to me. She still follows me on social media, as I do her, I look at her photos and cry, seeing how happy her life was for all the years I wasn't in it, how better off she was without me. And it really bugs me that she still follows me, but never messages me, never likes a photo of mine, like why don't you just cut the final string and make me disappear completely since I'm nothing to you?! The other girls from the group and her are all still friends and keep in touch, but those girls have all deleted me from social media. I was the only one unworthy of the group when my life fell apart. There was never any conversation, any closure, I was completely ditched with no explanation. I felt so rejected and worthless, and I spent over a decade ignoring it and pretending I didn't care, I can't ignore it anymore, I can't get it off my mind. I should also add, I probably have never felt so close to anyone since because I put quite an effort into hiding my rocky past from everyone in fear of being judged or rejected like that again.

I think there is far far more to this than this non-friendship and it is deeply enmeshed in what happened back then, beginning with what you were going through with your family that threw your life into chaos. It has caused a deep and ongoing depression that is sparked off by seeing her photos. In my mind, you need to be seeing a therapist to try to unravel your regrets from the past and your need to spend your thought living in that past. This will also help you to accept that that you are this person now, and no longer that person. What made you you is the past and by living in regret we hold back on being the people we are. And, the best way to stop the fear of being judged, is to stop judging yourself.

You cannot change what happened back then, it is gone. All you can do is focus on making things right from now. Just because they may have been banned from you then, does not mean that they feel the same way now. That she is connected to you on social media might suggest she doesn't hold the same negative value in the past that you do. I have plenty of people on my social media accounts who I don't and have never messaged or similar. They are people from my past and from time to time I do like seeing what they are up to.

Have you tried contacting her? And not so much to begin the friendship again, but to set the record straight in your own mind and help you to get over this.

I agree with the above poster, this regression is not about seeing someone from the past but from old wounds being brought back up and needing to heal properly.

Your life at the time was in chaos, you weren't being taken care of properly, the stress of losing your family and security caused you to lash out and in turn, lost friends.

This is about so much more than just one girl.

But all these years later, you're still not healed and you need to get help for it. Your worth and self esteem and self confidence is taking a beating because of it.

I sincerely hope you can find therapy that works for you and finally brings you out of this dark place. You don't deserve to be a prisoner to it anymore.

Do you have a husband and friends today? Why is it so important what these mean girls from the 6th grade think of you? You should concentrate on what you have now. If you want to message the one girl who has friended you on Facebook, you can ask her if she wants to get a cup of coffee with you and talk about old times. Otherwise, most people don't have friends from the 6th grade. So maybe you're spending too much time dwelling on this. If you're feeling depressed, maybe you should talk to a professional about it.

How is your relationship/home life? How is your relationship with your family/parents now? You can't change the past but you can get help for feeling depressed or ruminating about an unhappy past or whatever unhappy life events you feel you've had.

Of course this has nothing to do with grade school friends from when you were 10 y/o. That is only a symptom of whatever untreated, unaddressed things are going on in your life now.

I am 28 years old, have a 2 year old daughter and family now. My family/home life basically flipped upside down, my parents split up, we went bankrupt, everything in my life turned chaotic. The parents of my friends started to catch on and see me as a bad influence and probably forbid them from hanging out with me.

It seems like you have a skewed perception of what happened in the 6th grade. You are viewing it from the eyes of an adult instead of the eyes of a 11-12 year old girl.

You were a kid... you had no control over your life at home. Your parents turned your life upside down and you reacted to it... inappropriately yes, but if you were never taught to react appropriately then what else could you do?

Her parents forbid her from hanging out with you. This is a step many parents take when they are afraid of their child getting hurt. It's not very empathetic or compassionate, but it's definitely understandable.

As an adult you expected compassion from this friend... as a kid, she was unable to have it because your behaviors were getting in the way. It's too much to expect that she would have been able to overlook all of that on her own to get to the root of your pain.

I do think you need to stop looking at this from the role of being a victim, and take control of your life... reach out to her, let her know you are thinking about her, would like to reconnect. She probably really wants to but isn't sure how or whether you would welcome it.

I am just letting you know that I hear you and feel for you.

It's clearly weighing you down. Maybe you can reach out to her when you feel ready to. If things don't progress, then at least you know you tried and then you can move forward. You can also just unfollow her and/or close social media for a while and do what you want to do. Eventually you'll meet more compatible people.

I deactivated my social media and it will remain that way for a quite some time because it triggers my depression too easily, especially if I am not doing enough things that I feel proud of. If I know that someone isn't genuinely interested in me, I would just block them then unblock them so it would have them unfollow me. I've been focusing on myself more lately and here and there I reach out to people. It's so much more peaceful now that I'm off FB and instagram.

I know friendships come and go. As our lives progress, some friends fall out of your life and other friends are added. Some friends are more compatible than others as life changes. Also some people just don't know how to be there for people and some people just don't care.