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ispyamoose · 4 years

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I am overwhelmed.

I have lots of family on Facebook, so I generally don’t post stuff like this there. On my Twitter, I occasionally share short-form woes, but didn’t really want to put this there.

There is so much going on in the world. In addition, there’s so much going on in my life. So much feels like it’s piling on. And, before anyone might ask, YES, I’m seeking therapy. I’ve recently had to switch therapists and am still waiting on an appointment. But I AM seeking real help. I just need a place to shout into the void, and I’ve got some H E A V Y shit to share.

My mom has been in increasingly poor health. She has COPD, has had dozens of hospital trips in the past year, and has been on oxygen since September. That came out of nowhere. She hadn’t been hospitalized in something like 15 years for her COPD, and then WHAM, so much deterioration happened at once.

She receives palliative care, which is basically a step below hospice care, for those who don’t know. Palliative care is when you have a serious medical illness, and a nurse comes by a few times a week to check vitals, give you a basic examination, and is able to advocate for you more easily. If they suspect an infection, they can call your doctor for you and get antibiotics ordered without needing to go to the doctor’s office. It is designed to save you hospital trips, because your immune system is at risk of ANYTHING you come across.

My mom was told, last week, that she is in the end stage of her COPD. We were preparing for this, it was suspected, but it was different to be told that for sure by the doctor. Home hospice care was recommended for her, despite her already having palliative care. This is probably because palliative care still has more hoops to jump through to gain access to higher strength pain management medication, etc.

She also recently developed 4 compression fractures in her spine. T4, T5, T6, and T8. She has osteoporosis and RA. She has a brace for this so her spine can heal. She has a hunch now because of the fractures, and the hunch is permanent.

This hit me like a TON OF BRICKS. Anyone who knows me, knows my mom is my best friend on this entire planet. Yes, my dearly departed best friend Toni, and my Rachel Squared bestie are my best friends. But, I am SO incredibly close with my mom. I tell her everything, even the uncomfortable stuff that people often don’t share with their parents. Losing her would be unfathomable to me. And, yet, I have to start accepting that it may happen sooner, rather than later. Yes, she could live a very long time in the end stage. That doesn’t have to define her. Some people still live 10-20 years. But the vagueness of the situation is what eats at me. Could she live another 10 years? Of course. But would it be a surprise to any doctor if she passed in a few months? Not at all. And that’s what eats at me. I don’t want to live every day thinking that this is going to be the day I lose her, but my anxiety takes over and I do think that.

She just went back to the hospital the other day, for what we thought was a bowel obstruction. She hadn’t gone since she got home from the hospital last week. Nope. Not an obstruction. Good, right? Well...she had a HOLE in her INTESTINE. Part of her intestine is just paralyzed and not working, likely because of this perforation. So she had to have emergency surgery. It was successful, but recovery could take 6+ months, and she has an ostomy bag for at least a few months.

I’m glad she’s okay. I talked to her this morning. But, of all people these things happen to, it shouldn’t be her. My poor mom has been through hell and back. And, somehow, she’s still positive and SUCH a trooper. And it makes me sob. I love her so much and would bear all the pain for her if I could.

Besides my mom’s struggles, my son has a developmental delay, isn’t saying words, (but makes noises and single syllable sounds) and will be 2 this month. He’s being referred for autism screening. I love my son, he’s ADORABLE and is such a good kid. But the hard times with him are HARD, and it’s becoming harder and harder to manage on my own. (COVID still has things closed, and his Early Intervention visits are all teletherapy currently) He’s also got partial hearing loss, that we’re unsure is permanent or not. COVID has prevented him from seeing ENT until the end of July. All we have to go on right now is from the audiologist. He doesn’t hear until 35 decibels, and that’s a whisper for him. He has Sensory Integration Dysfunction, and seeks out sensory input he’s not getting. This results in him pushing over heavy furniture, which appears to be destructive behavior, but is him trying to participate in heavy play so his senses are stimulated. Reid is the light of my life, but it is exhausting. I will love him no less if he’s autistic, but I grew up with developmental delays myself, and it’s not a life I necessarily wanted for him. I don’t want things to always be harder for him. I want things to be easier for him than they were for me.

And, I’m filing bankruptcy due to massive medical bills from 2018. Basically, I worked at Cigna, and while I was pregnant, I had medical problems that didn’t affect Reid, but affected me, leaving me out of work. I had short-term disability from December through the middle of February. From February through May, I was supposed to have FMLA, and then from May-September was supposed to be maternity leave. I ended up leaving in September because I couldn’t afford to work and pay for childcare. Because I left, it caused a catalyst. FMLA retroactively denied, which caused my maternity leave to deny, because FMLA needs to be approved for maternity leave to approve. Because none of this approved, my health insurance from February-September essentially went retroactively unpaid. Because that happened, my insurance coverage terminated all the way back to February. Cigna recouped all the payments they made for ALL my health issues, and Reid’s birth, etc. So 6 months of insurance premiums AND every single doctor charge was on me. AND, to make matters worse, too much time had passed for Medicaid to pick up any of these bills. (You can only submit bills that are within 3 months.) So, I’ve been saddled with an insane amount of medical bills I just cannot pay.

I have multiple medical issues that require surgery. I require bladder surgery, and hip/pelvic surgery to correct dysplasia. My doctors won’t do it until I’m done having kids...all because I want one more in a few years. The pain and dysplasia with my hip/pelvis/low back prevent me from doing a lot of bending, walking, and lifting. This prevents me from doing much around the house. I feel miserable, like I’m useless and not enough of a person for my partner, because I’m not contributing as much as I feel like I should. If I clean the house, I can’t do anything else for the whole day. If I walk through a Sam’s Club, I’m done for a day or two. It’s a bad mental space to be in.

Sooooo, that’s my life right now. Then, add in touch deprivation because of the pandemic depriving me of the people I love. Add in my dread because of the state of the world. (#BlackLivesMatter, kiss my ass if you disagree) Aaaaand, I’m a million degrees of overwhelmed.

#overwhelmed #illness #depression

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ispyamoose · 4 years

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I had a disturbing dream last night, and it’s not for the faint of heart. (TW; death)

TRIGGER WARNING/Disclaimer: This dream deals with death, and very, very abstract ideas and some disturbing themes regarding death and causes. Don’t read further if these are topics that are triggering.

As some of you might know, my best friend died 3 days after a debilitating car accident in 2014. Her name was Antoinette R. Tobia. Her accident was March 31st, 2014, and her date of death was April 3rd, 2014. She was living in North Carolina, with her then-fiancé, and his two daughters. She’d recently gotten out of the Army, where she’d served four years as 86W Medic. I hadn’t seen her since I visited her at the end of January in 2013, but we talked often. I always regretted that I wasn’t able to see her in the hospital before she passed, but I’d just started a new job and did not have the money to drive down. These details become important later.

In my dream, I was really missing Toni. I was listening to depressing music and crying. I was saying over and over, “I miss you so much. I wish you were still here. I wish I’d been able to say goodbye. Please forgive me.” After a few minutes, I finished my...grieving session, I guess you could call it, and continued about my business for the day. Everywhere I looked, I kept seeing the face of this guy who resembled a love child of Wilford Brimley and Dr. Phil. It freaked me out. Finally, after several more times of seeing this ominous face, I was alone in a room in a house, (I don’t recognize it as my parents’ house or my apartment) and this guy appears. He tells me, “I heard your pleas. I may be able to help.”

I was confused; I had no idea what he was referring to. He said that he was talking about my friend Toni, and confirmed that I couldn’t be there when she died. I asked him what he was doing in this room, and what he wanted with me. I also asked him what he was getting at, because he was bringing up sensitive information. He said he had a proposition, but that it’s not for the weak-willed. I asked him what it was. He said, “I can give you the closure you seek. I can make it so you get to say goodbye to your friend. I cannot save her. That is not possible. However, I can’t keep your timeline the same to make this happen, and simply superimpose you into the hospital to say goodbye.

What I can do, however, is have her repeat her last seven days on this Earth, and you will get to spend every day with her. How she dies will be different, and you won’t know the cause until it’s happening. You won’t be able to stop it. The events from her last seven days will also be different, since you will be with her. The universe will naturally try to throw wrenches into this, because this is altering timelines. You will have five chances to make the change a success. If you succeed, at the end, you won’t remember how she died originally, and you will be sent back to present-day. However, you’ll have to accept all changes of your timeline, because this will surely alter your life. If you fail, you’ll not only return to present-day, but you’l retain the memories of her original death, AND what you attempted to do.

Do you accept these terms?”

In my dream, I spent some time mulling this over, because it was a LOT to take in. In the end, I accepted the terms. Immediately, I was brought back in time almost 6 years, and in front of me was my best friend. It took all I had not to burst into tears and fall to my feet right there. My beautiful best friend was standing in front of me, alive. Still, knowing what would happen in 7 days weighed over me. I was determined to make her last seven days on Earth so meaningful and phenomenal, but weird things happened instead.

She sued someone, and got mad at me because she thought I was trying to interfere. I don’t remember much about this part, because it was weird AF. She was trying to buy a new car, (even though she already had a car IRL) and offered way below what the car was worth. The guy denied her offer, so she sued him in an attempt to make a deal. The logic isn’t there, but this is a dream, after all. She thought I was trying to intervene and went OFF THE RAILS at me. We patched it up but it felt...very different from the Toni I remembered. We went to a concert, we got tattoos, we caught each other up on our lives. As quickly as I’d made the deal with who I came to think was the Devil, (even though I don’t actually believe in the Devil...lol, it’s complicated) the fateful day came.

I had no idea what was in store, because the way she died was going to be completely different. I didn’t know if I’d witness it or not, and how I would cope with that. Wanting to be able to say goodbye sure came with many caveats, and even more therapy I’d need to seek...

Anyway, we went on a road trip. We went exploring old and abandoned places/landmarks. It was a ton of fun, and actually something I want to do IRL once I get into better shape. We were in an SUV, and we left an abandoned shack on the beach to clean up at the gym nearby. We were going to do a workout, shower there, and figure out what we wanted to do next. We did work out, we did shower. The gym had an Olympic-sized pool we wanted to take a dip in, but we made a wrong turn out of the locker room and found an old, abandoned, dark area of the gym and wanted to explore. Toni was the one who really wanted to explore it. I couldn’t see anything, (I’m night blind- my ophthalmologist suspects that my eyes just don’t adjust quickly enough to the dark for me to see anything) and my phone was dead. Toni was able to see somewhat in the dark, and we navigate through a huge, pitch black room.

In this pitch black room, I’m holding my arms out, stepping slowly, trying to feel for anything so I could navigate. Toni just charged on ahead, like she always did, and she ended up tripping over a blunt object in flip-flops. She might have broken or sprained her leg or ankle, I don’t know. My dream brain didn’t think that far. She yelled in pain, and I heard her hit her head against something. I suspect her leg injury caused her to stumble, maybe hit her head on another object or wall) and then I heard a large splash of water. (Toni loved sunning on the beach and being by the pool, but was never much for swimming. I’m not entirely sure she was the strongest swimmer, actually. There were a couple times she came into the ocean with me when it was hot enough, and I needed to hold her to prevent her from drifting with the current.)

I heard a frantic voice waver in volume, pleading, “Help! I’m hurt, I can’t keep myself afloat, I’m drowning, help me!”

Something that’s important to note...remember those “five tries” I was told about? I made it to this point with all those tries intact. Despite being told she couldn’t be saved, I went into savior mode. I attempted to save my friend. But, it felt impossible, because I was blind! I couldn’t see where she was, I wouldn’t have been able to see if I jumped into this water (I suspect she fell into an old, unused pool. Also, EW) and I could’ve hit her. I sobbed, I cried, because the last thing I wanted was for my best friend to drown while being unable to save her.

I did everything I could with my lack of eyesight, but I failed. Before she took her last breath, I deliberately took actions that would cause the “universe” to intervene and use one of my chances. I went into my second chance, and realized I retained all memory of my “first try”. I used this to my advantage. I went about that last day more carefully trying to plan my last steps, but I realized what we did each day was fixed. We were going to be back in that dark room again. This new way she died was going to happen. But I made up my mind that I was going to save her.

Chances 2-4 happened identically. Finally, I was on the last chance. I managed to save a little battery on my cell phone this time. I used the last of my battery to use the flashlight and find a light switch in the room. I found one, and turned on the light. It was dim, but I was able to see Toni. I was able to get to her. I pulled her out of the pool, dressed her wounds, and she was saved. Then, her appearance changed. If anyone has played Bioshock Infinite, she looked like the way the people looked when you went into tears into a different “reality”. That flashing feeling? Looking half dead, half alive, with your body kinda flashing between the timelines? That’s how she looked. The guy appears again, and puts time on hold. He looked at me seriously. He said, “You remember what I said. She cannot be saved.”

In that moment, it didn’t matter. I fell to my knees, begged and pleaded for him to let me save her. She didn’t deserve to die. She needed to live. Please, just let her live. I said that I would do anything, even if it meant I had to die in her place.

He looked defeated and crushed. After a few moments, he stared into my soul, and said, “Okay. I lied before. It can be done. She can live. However, it comes at a high price. Someone else must die in her place.”

I asked if I’d know who was chosen, and he said, “The stakes are high. In order for a favor so large to be fulfilled, we can’t just choose some stranger. If you want your best friend to live, you have to choose a member of your family to die instead.”

I thought this over very seriously. My FAMILY? Those stakes seemed really, really high. I was unsure if I could do that, just choose someone who was going to die. I apparently thought of someone, and asked, “Could I choose someone who’s dead in present-day, but was alive at this point in time?” He said I could. I chose that person, and then I woke up.

I have NO FREAKING IDEA what this dream means. But it’s kinda fucked me up all day. It’s Valentine’s Day 2020 currently, and it’s actually been a great day for me. But that dream...was a lot. I don’t know what to make of it.

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ispyamoose · 4 years

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Last year, I let go of one of my best friends of 18 years.

This requires some backstory. So, here’s the tl;dr: this friend had lied to me on multiple occasions, betrayed my trust by revealing secrets I confided in private to others, lied about me to her family, used me unfairly as her therapist, treated me like I was her mother, (to a very, very unhealthy degree) and used her depression and anxiety as a front to be a terrible person to others. This wasn’t all at once, but rather over the course of our 18 years.

To clarify before I jump in: I have a combination of c-PTSD and “regular” PTSD, OCPD, anxiety, and depression myself. This goes beyond her having bad days. This is literally her treating people like shit 24/7. Again, this was an 18-year friendship.

We met in middle school, in 6th grade. For those who don’t know, I grew up developmentally delayed, and was in Special Education from Pre-K through the end of 4th grade. I went through testing to be de-classified, as the school challenged my father’s reasoning for wanting me pulled from the system. My father declined the transitional year I could have had, and I was in a completely different school district in 5th grade. My delays were blatantly noticeable to anyone who wasn’t me. I still had issues I needed help with. Most of them were socially. This didn’t really abate until college, though it lessened a bit in my 2nd half of high school. This information is relevant because my friend, we’ll call her J, and I originally didn’t like each other. I thought she was uptight and rude, and she thought I was childish and poking fun at her, because I’d occasionally prod her backpack and talk to her when she wanted to be left alone.

I don’t really know what changed, but in the 2nd half of the year, we struck up a real conversation one morning. We were hanging outside the school, before we were able to go inside and get to homeroom. Turns out we had a fair amount in common, and we became friends. We both had obscure home lives, although her parents were still married and mine were divorced. We both had varying degrees of childhood trauma, and neither of us judged the other for their idiosyncrasies. At least, not back then.

The bulk of our arguments in middle school were petty and dumb. We lacked girl code, and boys that we “dated” for like 2 weeks or a month, or boys that we liked, were considered free game once you were done with them, or if they were unclaimed. I never really dated anyone that girls in my friend circle dated first, but they always seemed to “date” boys that I had been with and I was supposed to be okay with it. (By date, I mean calling each other on the phone, talking on AIM, occasional group outings to movies and school dances. It was not much of anything, if I’m thinking about it.) This lack of girl code led to many a disagreement. The rest of them were for what we thought was backstabbing or flatleaving. Basically, being ditched for other friends, and petty rumors being spread among our circle.

My mom came out to me in between 8th and 9th grade. J didn’t hide anything from her family, and told them. At the time, they were quite homophobic. They still let her hang out with me, but always had some stupid judgments to make about my mom, without ever really meeting her and knowing her. This put a bit of a strain on J and me, because I was privy to the crap they were saying behind my back, or in voices low enough they thought I couldn’t hear. If I’m being honest, I think I took out some of this frustration on J, because she never spoke up to them about it. But, at 14/15 years old, I understand why she didn’t.

J moved to a different area of our state in sophomore year of high school, right before Christmas. I was also going through my goth phase. J and her family were Roman Catholic, and went to church every Sunday. (at least, until they moved) Because of this, J was concerned about my goth phase. She thought I was changing in a negative way, and made fun of me for how I dressed and some of the music I was listening to. (Fallen by Evanescence and Hybrid Theory by Linkin Park were two of my favorite albums at that time.) When J moved, we still talked on AIM all the time, and we visited each other every month or so.

At her 17th birthday that April, our other mutual best friend, M, and I both went to her house for a sleepover. The next day, her party was outside, and it was warm out. She had 2 of her new friends over, we’ll call them J2 and N, and her new boyfriend, A. J, M, J2, N, A, and I were all getting along. J had the idea to fill up water balloons as anchors for the blanket we were sitting on outside. She also wanted to throw one at her bf A, because it was hot out and he apparently volunteered at a fire station. (I don’t remember the tagline here, she just thought it would be funny to catch him off guard.) Her mom said not to throw any, but we were still allowed to use them as anchors.

When A came, J decided she still wanted to throw a couple at him. She had M throw the first one. She missed completely and it hit the grass. J threw the second one, and it hit A square on his shirt. It wasn’t a big one. It was maybe the size of a baseball. A laughed hysterically, and said it cooled him down on this unusually hot day. We laughed and continued to listen to music. On our way back home, I noticed her parents were a bit curt, but they were often like that, so I thought nothing of it. A week went by, and I hadn’t heard from J.

Then, I got an email from her, saying that she was no longer allowed to be friends with me after what I did at her party, and that I was a bad influence. Mind you, I hadn’t even DONE anything! So I sent one back reminding her of that, but she said my lies weren’t going to work this time, and that was it. About 2 weeks later, in the middle of May, she sent a message to me on AIM, apologizing and saying that her parents frequently read her email, that she had to say that, and that she wanted to be secret friends until she could sweet-talk her parents into letting her be friends with me again.

I was a pushover for a long time. I disagreed with this, because I hadn’t done anything. I said this, but when she persisted, I let it go, because secret friends was better than nothing imo. This continued for about 4 months. I would ask every couple weeks if she’d talked to her parents yet, and she kept saying it wasn’t the right time. Finally, in the beginning of October, I’d decided I’d had enough. I went through a lot of trauma in the past 2 years by that point (sexual assault(s)) and was cutting as a cry for help. Nobody noticed, and anybody who did, didn’t question it. But I confided the truth in her, and she called me disgusting, asking how I could ever do that to myself, that I was gross and should be ashamed of myself, that I was warped. So I told her to fuck off, that I was done being her “secret” friend. She wasn’t a friend at all. She’d just become a holier-than-thou bitch, is what I thought at 16. So we didn’t talk for about 6 months, maybe closer to a year.

After all those months went by, I went on my LiveJournal, (yep, really dating myself here, lol) and noticed I still had her as a friend on there. I was curious and looked at her journal. I saw posts about her grandmother passing away, and her cat. I commented and told her I was sorry for her losses. She messaged me on AIM, and somehow we became friends again. I told her I couldn’t be secret, that she had to talk to her parents. I also found out during this time, that the reason they thought I ruined her party was because she lied and told them I threw the balloon. She had never told them the truth. I told her a stipulation was that she had to come clean. She said she would. Her parents must’ve let her be friends with me again, because we were talking, and during the spring in our senior year, she came to visit me. She never invited me to any parties or anything, but we talked regularly again. I figured things were fine.

When we first became friends back in 6th grade, she revealed to me that she had depression, and was on medication for it. She probably told me that because she didn’t want me to think she was weird. I didn’t. In 8th grade, she told me she had panic and anxiety disorder. She would occasionally have panic attacks, and took medication for them to calm her down. Everyone has their problems, so I never judged. This will become relevant later.

During the summer between graduating high school and starting college, I lost my virginity, and stupidly had a pregnancy scare. Nothing came of it, it was just that I was being too careless with the guy I was with, and my periods were always irregular, so I had to check up on it. I confided that in her, and said I didn’t know for sure, and that it was probably negative, but had to wait to test. I told her she couldn’t tell a SOUL. She was also the ONLY person I told. A week later, I hung out with a friend of mine that she had also been friendly with. We’ll call her A2. I was driving us around, on our way to the mall or movies or something, and out of nowhere, A2 said, “Hey, I don’t want to sound insensitive or anything, but I heard you were pregnant?” And I asked her where she heard that. “Oh, K told me J told her.” (K is another mutual friend. We hadn’t talked a ton in senior year, but apparently J and K still kept in touch after J moved.) I was LIVID. #1, there was only a possibility, and #2, I SWORE HER TO SECRECY! By this point, my testing had been negative, so I was able to add that it turned out negative, I was just ruling it out. So not only did J break my trust, but she instead told people I was pregnant, rather than I was taking a test to be sure.

I went on AIM and laid into her. I was FURIOUS. She swore she didn’t tell anyone, but I knew she was lying because she was the ONLY person I’d told. I said that to her. And also that K had said she got the information STRAIGHT from J. I told her I had the proof, explained my proof, and told her to quit while she was behind. I told her how hurt I was that she LIED behind my back, and completely broke my trust. She begged me not to cut her out. I said fine, because by that point, we’d been friends 6 years, and how could I just cut out someone I knew for 6 years? (lol, whoops) I told her she’d need to earn my trust back, but that I’d still be friends with her. This is when I stopped considering her my best friend. My trust was shattered, and no matter how much she earned it back, that was a very hurtful betrayal I didn’t think I could come fully back from.

I still drove to visit her every few months, we would hang out for the day, and continued to be friends. In 2008 or 2009, I found out she was having a birthday party after several years of not doing anything, and was excited. I really wanted to redeem myself. I’d done a LOT of growing up, and most of my social issues were at bay. I was a completely different person. I thought her mom was finally starting to warm up to me, but wondered about her dad. I always wondered why they still didn’t seem to really like me, but never really asked about it. Then J told me the party was canceled because not enough people were able to come. I was disappointed, but told her I’d see her the week after and we’d go to the movies.

I forget how the next conversation came about, but we were talking on AIM. I think I caught her in a lie about her party. She’d told me it was canceled, but she mentioned something about her party. I’d asked, and she said, “Well, I wanted to invite you but my dad gave a hard no, after how you ruined my last party and he didn’t want you to start trouble” I got my confirmation that he still didn’t like me. That was enough right there. But then I thought, wait, what the hell does she mean I ruined her party? I made her swear to tell them the truth! So I called her out on it. I said, “Wait...I thought you told them the truth. You promised me you did, swore up and down you did. YOU KNOW I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” She got really quiet. So I asked her, “Do you mean to tell me that not ONLY did you lie to me about the party being canceled, you never told your parents the truth about the party? Is that why they still hate me? All this time I thought they didn’t like me because my mom was gay!” She said, “Well, up until recently they weren’t a fan of that, but...no. I never told them. I chickened out. I didn’t want them to be disappointed in me!” I was so angry, and asked her how I could be friends with someone who never told me the truth, and made me out to be this terrible person when I’m not. I thought it was completely unfair that her parents were refusing to get to know me as a person for things I never did.

I forget why I didn’t cut her out right then and there, but yet again, all I thought of was that I couldn’t cut loose a strong friendship of 8-9 years, and kept her as a friend. The next year, though, she asked me to sleep over. She said she’d gotten approval from her parents. I was coming to see her about monthly, and her parents had finally warmed up to me a bit, it seemed. I was getting closer to her mom, who saw how I was being treated at home by my dad and stepmom. The sleepover went without a hitch, as we were watching movies all night and playing with makeup. 2010 went by without much incident in our friendship. The most that happened was that she would occasionally come to visit me for sleepovers, but would get panic attacks and have to drive back home. I was being treated worse and worse at home, so I was confiding in her and her family more. 2011, I was given the boot by my dad, and moved to PA, in with my mom. J was excited because I was about 30 minutes closer to her than I was in NJ. I had more sleepovers at her place. I invited her to stay with me, but every time she would come, she would have a panic attack after we ate somewhere and would either leave to go back home, or ask me to bring her home if I drove.

I never questioned her anytime she had to leave. It inconvenienced me, but I didn’t know what it was like to live inside her head, so I didn’t judge. At the end of 2011, I noticed J had gotten really, really skinny. She was always thin, (it was just her build) but she looked sick. She always had a lot of food allergies, but this was even worse. She confided that a lot of her current anxieties stemmed from food, because she struggled with really bad digestive issues, and anytime she would have a bad episode, it would give her panic attacks. She didn’t know what was next that she couldn’t digest. I told her I was concerned about her weight. She told me she was seeing a therapist, that it was fine. But, she kept coming to me with more and more issues that I felt she should see a therapist for. I somehow knew her inner workings really, really well, (I’m an empath and have always had a knack for this) and could pinpoint her emotions even if I didn’t have the same struggles. It came to a point where I felt she was relying on me for professional help I thought she should get. She told me she’d seen her doctor, who diagnosed her as anorexic, and she couldn’t believe it. She said there was no way she was anorexic, because she wasn’t trying to lose weight. Yet, she wasn’t eating. She barely ate because of the anxiety of what would set her body off. She sometimes went days without eating. Despite the reasons being different, it’s still anorexia. I told her this, and she wasn’t happy with that, she thought I was ganging up on her.

I tried explaining, (delicately, based on her condition) that there’s a chance that because she barely ate, that by the time she ate again, she was possibly eating too much in one meal, and that the body is going to go through hurdles when it gets used to food again. She just had to make it through the hump of her body getting used to eating again, and then the issues would probably get better, at the very least. But she couldn’t see past that and kept going. In 2012, this was still a constant issue, and it was affecting her mental health even worse. Her panic meds weren’t working as effectively, and neither were her depression meds. Anytime I tried suggesting bringing it up with her doctor and having them reevaluate her, she said she would but never did. I suspect there’s some closet OCD or OCPD that led to panic at the thought of anything disrupting the routine she’d come to know, even if she derailed from that routine due to the mental illness.

One day, we were talking, and I mentioned something about how I wished her parents liked me, because I was such a different person. She said they did, and that they really appreciated how good a friend I was to J, and how responsible I was. I said that was a total 180 from just a couple years ago, and J said she finally came clean to them about her party from all those years ago, in 2004. She finally admitted to them I didn’t do anything, that she did it all and that it was her idea. Her parents were pretty angry that J let them have a skewed opinion of me for so many years. (though really, over water balloons? That’s the hill you were gonna die on? Seriously?) I was pleasantly surprised, because FINALLY I was vindicated!

J’s mom’s health was rapidly declining. She had COPD from years of smoking 3 packs a day, even though she’d quit several years before all the issues hit. She was using her rescue inhaler multiple times a day, using a daily breathing medication, giving herself 4-5 breathing treatments with her nebulizer a day, AND was on oxygen. She could walk but wasn’t terribly mobile out of the house, because she’d immediately become winded. J’s weight was still an uncontrolled issue. She would get a new PCP, go to an appointment, didn’t like when they wanted to reevaluate her to see if she needed new medication, didn’t like when they mentioned her anorexia and suggested treatment options, would fire them, and get a new one. I was still her therapist, though it weighed heavily on me because I was not a professional, (though I wanted to be one, still do) and didn’t want to steer her wrong. I made suggestions that I knew would cause no harm if they didn’t work for her. But then she’d blame me when they didn’t work. In fact, anytime she was in a foul mood, she would fly off the handle on me. I was her punching bag. I mean it when I say there would be no reason. She’d ask me for help cheering her up, or help bringing her out of a panic attack, and I tried my best. If I didn’t help, she’d get really, really mad at me. I excused it for years, saying she had mental illness issues, and I shouldn’t judge.

We watched a lot of YouTube, and mutually watched a particular vlog and LP channel. We saw that they went to PAX East and what was then PAX Prime, (Now called PAX West) via the vlogs, and wanted to go ourselves. J snagged us badges for 2013. I drove us to Boston, and we had a great time for a weekend. J had gotten herself on a pretty healthy routine before we traveled, and didn’t have an issue with anywhere we ate. It was a ton of fun. Later in the year, her uncle decided he was moving back into the house they were renting from him, and they had to move. They moved to PA, about 30 minutes closer to me. I helped them clean up their house, (Which they hadn’t cleaned in at LEAST 5 years by that point. It smelled awful, had inches thick layers of dust on their carpeting, and had animal excrement in areas. Bathrooms weren’t cleaned, stuff was packed with animal hair and dirt caked on them, but they somehow didn’t notice) and helped move into their new one.

2014 came, and my best friend passed away. J knew her, and felt awful. I tried helping J through her continuing deteriorating mental health, while going through the worst grief of my entire life. I didn’t visit J as much because I didn’t have money, and had no motivation to go anywhere. I was descending further into my own issues with mental illness, and had no motivation to help myself. J kept telling me to snap out of it, that she wasn’t coming back and I needed to move on. It was hurtful. She was my best friend. You don’t just get over that.

2015 came, and we went back to PAX. But things were different. J barely ate again. In fact, she barely let ME stop to get food, and I am a reactive hypoglycemic, which she knew. I was prone to passing out, and needed to stay fueled. I only needed 3 meals, and a couple snacks on me, but she only let me eat once, after taking public transpo to the convention center, and walking all around the convention center. She had me pay for BOTH of our badges for the whole weekend, and gas to drive from PA to Boston. She didn’t have the money but still wanted to go. I’d had a boyfriend for a little over a year at this point. After one day in Boston, she woke me up early the next morning and said she was having a panic attack and that I had to take her home. She’d done this often when we hung out, if we went to a restaurant that was new to her, or somewhere she thought she couldn’t vet the food. She would need me to bring her home, because I was the frequent driver. But, Boston was a 5 hour drive from where she lived. I still had plans for the weekend. I didn’t want to leave, especially when I’d shelled out all the money for us to go!

Not even an hour after she sprung that on me, my boyfriend called me, surprising me and telling me he was also at PAX. This was a big deal, because he was away at culinary school and we were in a long-distance relationship. I hadn’t seen him in a month. J was livid. She screamed at my boyfriend, we’ll call him M2. She said that if she knew he was going, she would have never gone in the first place. All this AFTER she demanded I pay for everything, and STILL demanded we leave. She agreed to let us go to the panel we wanted to attend, and then we left. She didn’t understand why I was upset. She said that I was being an asshole because I just “didn’t get her anxiety” and wasn’t being considerate of her. I felt I’d been considerate of her illness for YEARS, walking on eggshells even, bending over backwards to help her out when I could, but thought I was rightfully upset. I wasn’t upset that her illness got in the way. I was upset by how it was handled. She was unwilling to have an emergency call with her therapist, she was unwilling to call her mom for creature comforts, or to try ANY of the coping mechanisms (that worked) that she learned in therapy. She said she thought she was going to have bathroom issues and that she needed to be home for it. (Even though we were staying at her aunt’s house.) I understand the creature comforts of home, but she was demanding I drive several states, at no notice, to take her home, and just be okay with it. I didn’t think that was fair.

We didn’t talk for a couple months after that. We needed to cool off. I visited her occasionally, but not much. I couldn’t bring myself to spend the night anytime I’d visit, because I didn’t want to be stuck, and her place was honestly too dirty for my health at that time. Through the rest of 2015, and leading into 2016, she really only talked to me if she needed something. No questions of how I was, didn’t really care what was going on at my end. She would need me to talk her down from something, help her resolve her anger, help her with her eating disorder, her panic attacks, her bathroom habits. Stuff her mom was doing.

Then, in the beginning of 2016, in the span of a month, I was in a terrible car accident, and then her mom died. I’d debated cutting her off before this, because of how one-sided I thought the friendship felt. I’d occasionally try to broach the subject, but she would always accuse me of not being sensitive to her needs, and just being selfish. So I’d drop it. After her mom died, things changed even worse for J. I felt awful for her and her family, and was there for them as much as I could be. I had months-long recovery from my accident, so there wasn’t a ton I could do for awhile. We would talk online, and it was all the same, except now I was being asked to resolve her grief for her too. On top of it, she started treating me like her mother. She started asking me questions if she suspected something off about her health, that she really should’ve asked a doctor. So not only was I expected to keep her a functioning person, she also treated me like her mother, and our friendship became even more unhealthy. I found reasons not to talk to her, because I just couldn’t handle the responsibilities she saddled me with. Anytime I mentioned it again, she would say the same things. She would talk about how depressed she was, that she had no other friends, and I felt sorry for her, so I would continue to talk to her. But I didn’t like her anymore. She treated me and everyone else in her life like shit. I couldn’t take it.

In 2017, I found out I was pregnant. After that, things took a turn. I couldn’t really pinpoint what exactly was weirding me out about her actions, until my boyfriend and best friend said that they felt J was trying to live vicariously through me. I was hitting milestones in my life that she wanted to hit. She was crossing lines while I was pregnant, that made me really uncomfortable. She would ask me multiple times a day about the pregnancy, which would be fine but it felt like she was up my uterus with the intimate questions she was asking. And she kept referring to my pregnancy as “our” pregnancy. I turned into “we”.

On top of being up my uterus, J was still expecting me to act like her mom. I still was asked to coach her through being in the bathroom, that she would normally have her mom come in the bathroom with her to help her with. On top of having a very complicated pregnancy already, (I was high risk) having these responsibilities that I didn’t ask for was just getting to be really stressful. After I delivered in June 2018, she wanted to come visit right away and babysit, which was nice, but I tried explaining I needed to bond with the baby and recover from childbirth, and she was really butthurt.

Mind you, she knew nothing about babies. I would’ve had to teach her everything, while I’m trying to learn how to be a parent too. I don’t mind showing her the ropes, but I’m not going to leave her alone with my baby when she hasn’t even learned how to hold one yet, is my point. She and her dad came to visit me when my son was a few weeks old. J appointed her dad “grandpa” without even talking to me about it first. Mind you, my dad and I had patched up a bunch of our issues by this point, and he was involved, as well as my boyfriend’s father. My son already had his two biological grandfathers heavily involved. I had a good rapport with J’s family by this point, but I by no means considered her father like my own. I never really got over the decade of harsh judgments he made against me without really knowing me. This made things incredibly awkward for me, because then she grew to expect me to schlep my son to her place, (which wasn’t clean, and I don’t mean messy, but legit dirty) to see “his grandpa”, while he was a newborn.

I tried talking to her less and less. I had finally reached my breaking point. I’d tried multiple times to talk to her over the years about the way she treated me, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. All she would ever say was that I didn’t understand mental illness, and was being unfair, and too judgmental. Imo, I think I took a lot from her over the years. Now that I had a child, I didn’t want him to think these behaviors were okay. I tried talking to her about it again. Nothing further got through to her. So, after talking to my mom, my two stepmothers, my boyfriend, and best friend about the guilt I felt from wanting to cut her off, I finally did. I explained that I couldn’t handle being her mother anymore. I couldn’t handle being her therapist. I didn’t like the person she became. I told her I tried for years to wait out changes that never came. I told her I harbored no ill will, but I just couldn’t be friends with her anymore. It’s unfair to someone to remain friends with them because you know they don’t really have many other friends IRL. I was no longer comfortable associating with her. She insisted we could work on it, but I told her I tried for years and I was out of straws. All she saw was that I was throwing away 18 years. She blocked me on all social media after she got confirmation that I didn’t want to be her friend at all anymore. This was November 2018.

For about a month, I cried all the time, because I felt so guilty. I didn’t want her to do anything rash. I was afraid for her, I felt guilty that I let go of 18 years. But, in the end, there wasn’t much left for me to hold onto. I’ve told very few people about this situation. Half thought I should’ve given another chance, and half thought I did the right thing. It gets dicey when mental illness is involved. But, more than a year later, I don’t regret it. My own mental health, while still on shaky ground, is immensely improved since making that decision. I struggle with co-dependent tendencies that I’m working on, and her friendship only perpetuated it. I was a pushover and allowed behaviors that I would normally never tolerate. I want to be a better example for my son, who’s now almost 18 months old.

To clarify: I’m not saying I’m perfect here. I had my own mental illness. I’m sure there were times I fell short as a friend. Maybe I was unfairly upset about the PAX issue, who knows. I’m not going to put myself up on a pedestal. All I know is, I couldn’t work to better myself with her still in my life. It wasn’t working. I was spiraling farther and farther down. She was bringing me down with her, and I couldn’t continue to do it.

#best friends #friendship #mental illness #codependency #childhood #trauma #ex-best friends #toxic #toxic friends

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