Posted by Penny on August 8, 2003, at 14:47:29
I really really am feeling better today, but am also worried about the weekend. Actually had fairly cheerful conversations with my boss and the chair of my department. My boss told me that now that I'm in my new office I needed to bring some things from home to personalize it and make it look like I'm staying a while. I take it that means they aren't thinking of firing me anytime soon!
My roommate is pissed off at me again. Yesterday was a really bad day for me, after laying awake half the night Wed. night and thinking about suicide then coming to work on Thursday late because I didn't get any sleep on Wed night. I just wasn't feeling very chipper - and considering that I've been in the throes of depression lately, I guess it's no surprise. Anyway, my roommate has been looking for a new job and sent me an email saying to wish her luck with her new job possibility and I sent a brief email back saying "Good Luck." And she didn't like that one bit. She sent me an email back saying that maybe I didn't care about her job opportunity or maybe she was just losing her best friend and how she doesn't even know how I'm doing since I've been out of the hospital because I haven't been telling her. Well, in my frame of mind when I got the first email my initial reaction was "how come everything always works out for her and not for me?" And yes, I know it's not a contest. But that was my initial reaction. So I probably should have sent her a longer email asking about the job, etc., as a supposed best friend would have done, but I didn't feel up to it. I was feeling jealous, not so much of the job opportunity but more of the fact that things seem to be working out so well for her while I feel like I'm in hell.
Anyway, I responded to her second email by totally overreacting. As I said, I was in a really bad place, major suicidal thoughts even though I was at work, and the second email put me in tears. I responded by telling her that obviously I am a terrible person and a terrible friend and I obviously keep hurting her as she is always reminding me, so she would just be better off without me. Then I told her about Wed. night and the suicidal thoughts and how terrible I've been feeling and how my financial situation is a mess and I don't even know how I'm going to pay my car payment next month, and so on. And she replied that she doesn't always remind me of how I've hurt her (but it sure feels like it to me) and that I sometimes think I've hurt her when I haven't, and that my two-word response to her good news didn't hurt her, and that I could have always come to her room Wed night when I was feeling so bad and that I haven't been talking to her and finished up by saying that if I wanted her to sit down with me and help me look at my finances she would.
But what upsets me is that she says my two-word response didn't hurt her, yet her response to that email was that she felt like she was losing her best friend and that maybe I didn't care about it because I am so unhappy with my job, etc. Am I completely off base in feeling like she was saying that I had hurt her, without actually using the words?
Did I intend to hurt her? Probably a little bit, which makes me ashamed. When I feel so bad, it's really hard for me to watch others feel good and not feel jealous. Childish, yes, I know! I told her that - that it is hard for me to watch life going on around me and not feel like I can participate in it. And I told her that she doesn't understand (the depression), to which her response was "Yes I do!"
Yet, I get home last night, after therapy, and she doesn't say two words to me, and doesn't even look at me. Obviously pissed off. And it all started because I didn't respond to her in the way she wanted me to.
I don't know, y'all, but she does this fairly often - will take something I say and read entirely too much into it, get extremely defensive, then pissed off, then I get the silent treatment. And, yes, I will admit, I too get extremely defensive and pissed off, but I hate the silent treatment. I don't know what to say to her, am always feeling like I have to censor my words. She says I can be honest with her, that she wants to know things, but when I am honest with her she gets pissed off, or whatever - she would say she's not pissed off.
I love her dearly. We've been friends a long time, but when I dread going home because I'm going to have to live in a house with tension so thick you could cut it with a knife...it just really frustrates me and makes me unhappy. I don't know why she takes everything I say to heart. She says she doesn't remind me all the time, yet she says to me: "Perhaps too much is going on in your world for you to notice the important things to me anymore." and "maybe you dont really care cause you are so unhappy with your job situation."
All from a two word email??????? Am I completely overreacting here?
Just talked to my therapist and I realize that this is a losing battle. No matter how I explain it, what I say to her about it now, she's going to turn it around on me. She says all the time that she doesn't have many 'true' friends, because people keep doing her wrong. But I don't know that I've ever heard her take responsibility for any part of the failing of the relationships.
I know I shouldn't have been snippy. I know that I shouldn't have overreacted to her email. But I was so frustrated and her telling me that she feels like she's losing me and that maybe I don't care really hurts. And I guess I wanted to hurt her too, though I don't think it had that effect. Instead, she turned it around on me again. I feel like it's always my fault. And I know part of that is my own insecurity and low self-esteem, but, though she tells me she loves me and calls me her best friend, I don't feel like she thinks I am a good friend to her most of the time. I don't blame her for this. I certainly was being hurtful in my own right, but I do think she played a part, and she would never admit that.
Anyway, so my therapist said I should just tell her that I appreciate that she cares and I appreciate her offer to help me and leave it at that. If she is bothered by my not wanting her help, that is her problem. I just don't have the energy to deal with it now.
Gosh, why does everything have to be so friggin' dramatic?????
poster:Penny
thread:249354
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030808/msgs/249354.html