My downward spiral: getting dumped, losing friends and more.

[alvinalisey]

Hello everyone. I'm Flo and I'm living hard times in my life right now.

I always had trouble being satisfied with my life in general, but right now it's been worse than ever.

In late february, my girlfriend dumped me, though honestly, my depression was already present before that. This is going to be very long and I apologize.

I've always had trouble making friends, I'm not a very warm person and I can act pretty weirdly and that can rub people the wrong way. That's why when I met my current group of friends 2-3 years ago, I was overjoyed. I had finally found people with common interests who actually respected and liked me, at least I thought so. Only a year and a half later, things started to get rough for me. I fell in love with a girl in the group, and it drove me absolutely crazy. I don't care a lot about people in general and I didn't understand this interest at first, though I did a really bad job at hiding it. Unfortunately, her best friend took this interest I had for her extremely badly. He was really jealous when we started dating, but not in a ''I wish I was the one dating her instead'' kind of way since he's gay, more in a ''I wish I was still her first priority'' kind of way. And it really sucks, because this guy was a really good friend of mine and he started to antagonise me because of that; I was really hurt and even after the breakup, I feel like it's worse than ever between us.

My ex's best friend (let's call him J) is a really huge influence in our group. He's pretty much the only extroverted, almost always cheerful and really good with manipulation (he confessed that much to me once, when we were closer). And I can't even get mad at him for taking actions that depressed me because all my other friends like him a lot and think I'm exagerating. My ex even confessed recently that she broke up with me because ''she felt like I made her chose between me and J'' which I actually never did? And the fact that she put the blame on me made me feel unecessary guilt and depressed me even more. Even some of my other friends say things passive-agressively to me sometimes and it angers me to ne ends because I feel like I can't trust them anymore.

A thing I should mention is that this group of friends was made up because of our interest in writing, especially fictional characters. We even made up accounts for out characters after a while, and the whole thing is frankly starting to look like cyberbullying to me. My characters are blatantly ignored or criticized. And just seeing theirs interacting online makes me anxious and angry. We also have a facebook group where we discuss about our characters and our forum and I had to turn off the notifications because it was driving me crazy. I can't stand seeing anyone of this friendgroup's activities in any social network site anymore, we also follow each other on tumblr and I hate seeing their urls appear. I feel like my friends only liked me for what I could provide them and now that I'm not interested in that anymore, I'm not worth anything to them, and that's only making me dislike them even more.

I think it's also worth mentionning my relationship with my ex. She's an extremely anxious, depressed and self-loathing girl. I was definitely healthier before I became close to her and it's partly due to her manipulative, jealous friend J and also due to her nature. She admitted to only dating me ''because that's what she felt I wanted'', which is really disgusting to me. She has no self-respect whatsoever. She plays the victim a lot and our other friends are always defending her when I try to explain to them that what she did was emotionally abusive. Her ''love'' for me was really weird: one day she loved me, the next she ignored me, and I lost so much time apologizing when I had done nothing wrong to her. I started to lose myself, I lived for her and only her, I hated my life so much because of how important she was to me. This relationship is toxic to me, it was already toxic when we were only friends, because I was always waiting for her to throw a bone at me and she took advantage of the fact I was head over heels for her to feel better about herself. I'm taking my friends' support of her as a betrayal.

Another fact that doesn't help my depression. These friends are the only close friends I have right now. And I can't stand their presence anymore. When you get dumped, you usually get better by hanging out with friends, but I can't in this case. All my other friends are not close enough to me to actually want to help me either, or use the annoying ''get over it.'' My mom is the only real support I've had.

I have no idea how to get out of this downward spiral and I'm going to college in a program that requires a lot of work this fall, I need to get better, I felt disgusting for like two years now, this needs to stop soon, I don't know how much I can take. Thank you if you took the time to read this.

[Ieris]

Hello Flo,

I'm glad that you see what these so called "close friends" are really like. Manipulative, jealous, self pitying, disrespectful... Why would you want friends like that? The fact that they annoy and upset you so much is a good enough reason to cut them off. I've not read anything positive about them, you said that you can't stand their presence and they're making your depression worse so they really are a problem. I know it's not easy to cut people off just like that especially if you're so used to them being around and may still have feelings for the girl but just have a think about how long you can put up with them? Will things change? It just seems like they have singled you out already and all working against you, so what is the point of sticking around people who treat you like that?

Frankly, I think you've outgrown them. You're not playing their silly games, and you've grown bored of the things they are interested in. I think it's a sign to move onto bigger and better things, don't hold yourself back just to hang around people from 2012. Move forward and you'll find new interests, new friends that are in your league. I think it's best to hang around people who bring out the best in you and help you grow, who you hang out with really has an influence of who you become. If they are negative then best to lose them sooner rather than later.

People will come and go in your life, these days it's very rare to make friends that will last a life time so try not to get so hung up on these relationships. Enjoy the good times and when its time to move on, look out for the next batch. You will find some gems and when someone is truly worthy of your time and love you'll know it. In the meantime focus on yourself - your education, self discovery, self development. If you want bigger and better then you need to be bigger and better too x