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Sick with Anxiety!
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Hi,
So I’ve been struggling with this for awhile now and I feel that I’m at my breaking point and honestly don’t know what to do.
I have been helping some friends of mine care for their son and have been going over every few weeks for up to 3 days since he was about 5 days old.
Very early on they offered me a thank you present, in the form of an overseas holiday. I was very hesitant but accepted and life went on. Several months later, I was informed that they had invited someone else along without talking to me and was a bit putt off but again didn’t say anything (turns out that was a wonderful thing as we are now dating). A few weeks after that, they purchased tickets and it’s been an on going drama ever since.
They asked me after the tickets were bought if I was ok to pay for my own accomodation, something they originally offered to do. I agreed but a few months ago realised that I couldn’t actually afford this trip, asked if we could look at cheaper accomodation and subsequently found out that they had been expecting me, my now boyfriend and the other person coming to pay for one of their accomodation. There has been a lot of problems surrounding changing to cheaper accomodation and after heated discussions or angry words that leave me feeling like I’m a horrible person and that I don’t matter to them, in equal measure, they act like nothing has happened. I’ve also become aware that they are talking about things to do with or that concern me to my boyfriend, instead of to me. I called them both out on it and asked them to stop; one ignored me completely and continued doing it and the other claimed they didn’t know what I was talking about.
I’ve really been riddled with anxiety over this as our friendship is now incredibly strained, with them going periods without talking to me and in return I don’t really communicate with them. To worrying if I can actually afford this trip, to me being unwell and feeling even more so about this whole thing.
I want to go on this holiday, especially with my boyfriend as it will be our first overseas trip together and first holiday longer than 2 days but I can just imagine it being very uncomfortable for all involved and a waste of money if none of us enjoy it.
I honestly don’t know what to do or if I should go and as we are meant to be leaving early next year, I have little time to decide.
I’m completely overwhelmed.
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Dear Ahjlees~
I feel bad that you have had to go for so long without any reply, sadly the system here sometimes simply does not work . Please rest assured it is nothing to do wiht you, or the subject of your post.
I have read your posts from some time ago in:
Supporting family and friends with a mental health condition (carers) / Overwhelmed
during which you mentioned you had anxiety and depression. This current situation will not have helped in the least and left you worried over expense and grief and loss over a friendship that has become shaky.
Things started well and you helped out with the baby, something most mothers would realy appreciate, and your freinds tried to give you a gift as a result. Something you would enjoy.
That was fine, however it seems to have become a real burden, not a gift at all. It seems obvious now that your freinds have taken on more financially than they are capable of doing, a miscalculation on their part.
If they has talked the matter over prior to taking any action I would think you would have either opted for a much cheaper holiday to which you would have felt comfortable contributing to, or simply said no.
A holiday is a time of enjoyment, getting away from life's hassles and visiting new places. It sounds in this case you either go, and take the stress and financial hassles with you (and have to possibly deal with them on your return), or refuse and maybe invoke the ill will of your freinds.
Friendship can be a wonderful thing, however it is based upon not only enjoying another's company, but also care and respect for them. Frankly the ever increasing demands on you do not seem to show that care and respect.
Then again neither does talking behind your back, or allowing you to feel ill over the whole thing. It would seem what might have been started with the best of intentions has become a divisive monster.
I think the business of having a holiday with your BF is a side issue, I'm sure the two of you could arrange something more economical and less ambitious for yourselves.
So I guess you have to weigh up if the financial and other stress is worth putting up with for the sake of a shaky friendship, or if the whole thing is not really viable, with the effects on you doing more harm than good
Ask yourself if you do go if you think the friendship will be restored to its initial level after your return
Have you discussed this with your boyfriend? He may have suggestions.
I'd like to know what you think
Croix
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Hi,
Thank you so much for replying.
Im not going to lie it’s been a very hard month trying to deal with all of this. My boyfriend and I decided to go ahead with the trip but I Strongly regret that choice.
I’ve continued to be ignored and then things were temporarily ok but then deteriorated again. One of my friends just explodes about everything and I haven’t really felt like her friend in awhile.
I’m not sure our friendship is going to survive past this trip and to be perfectly honest I’m not sure I want it to.
My boyfriend is in agreement. He hates how we are being treated and hasn’t felt completely comfortable with our ‘friends’ in awhile either. They, however, don’t treat him quite as badly as they treat me.
Recently one of them accused me of ‘not giving a f*#k’ about their son because I have been busy and haven’t had time to go over. In addition when asked if I’d be over the night before his 1st birthday, I answered; maybe. When I subsequently didn’t go, one of our ‘friends’ ignored me and the other blew up at me.
There have also been issues regarding repaying people for accomodation, which resulted in her blowing up at me again and her Mum calling me. I declined the call.
I should be SO excited about this trip and though we leave in roughly a week, I’m sick about it and don’t want to go.
I hate myself for not backing out weeks or even months ago.
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Dear Ahjlees~
If things have deteriorated to the extent you decline calls I'm afraid that any friendship you may have had is not obvious at the moment. If you are sworn at, her temper is always there and even your BF is given a hard time then I'm not sure being cooped up with them for the duration of the holiday, plus all the other downsides, financial and otherwise - and aftermath - we have discussed before, is not going to do your mental health any good at all.
Not backing out earlier is not something to blame yourself about, you had no crystal ball to tell you what was going to happen, and hope to renew a friendship is a worthy objective. So is having a holiday with your BF.
Frankly if it was me I'd have a very long consultation with my psych (or GP) and discuss the probable effects on you, and how long they might last. Also the resources available to you while overseas should you feel the need if your anxiety becomes unmanageable.
It may well be that a clear look at the medical possibilities may solve your problem for you.
Croix
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Dear Croix,
Thank you again for taking the time to reply.
I may end up talking to my GP or a psychologist but at the moment just trying to decide if friendship is what we all still want.
Our trip was mostly amazing but not without its issues, which included them getting mad at us for nothing, not communicating with us, leaving hotels and moving on to the next city without us, yelling at each other and their son in public and screaming at other people.
They were not very communicative at the airport for our return home, had stopped allowing us much contact with their son and physically moved him whenever they noticed him looking at us on the plane.
We’ve spoken very little since and I’m almost positive our friendship is over but my boyfriend and I have decided to send a text to confirm before cutting ties.
We would probably have cut ties earlier but we adore their little boy, the good times with them were good, we have stuff at their house that we would like back and stuff of theirs we would like to return.
It’s incredibly messed up and has caused so much anxiety but we are aware of their toxicity and don’t take their crap.
I am hopeful that we can move on from all this drama, with or without them.
Thank you again,
Ahjlees
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Dear Ahjlees~
Well you survived the trip and I hope financially you are OK. I'd think one big plus is you and your BF are still close after the ordeal, that's a blessing.
I can quite understand the child acting as a break, sometimes a relationship stays just because of a child, love can be powerful.
How would you feel abut a simple pause, no return/retrieval of stuff, not a lot of contact, and see waht happens? No forcing matters to a head.
I've known occasions where it has been obvious the child wishes to see the other party, or the parent feels guilty at the lack of contact, and things have slowly warmed.
Good luck in any event
Croix
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Dear Croix,
We did and financially I’m all over the place. I’m in debt but surviving.
I feel that my boyfriend and I are suffering because of all of this on top of other things we are both dealing with and now because of quarantines and lockdowns we are unable to see each other.
Originally I would have considered it but I can’t deal with this anymore. It REALLY hurts my heart to walk away.
I’ve been an emotional wreck since before the trip and broke down multiple times while we where there; once due to an altercation between my boyfriend and I and several times because he was annoyed at me.
The last two times I was on the phone to him I got emotional. I broke down last night.
We are still dealing with all this as he works with one of them. Because of this, my boyfriend found out some unsettling news last Thursday, our ‘friend’ went to their boss and told him we are having issues and that the issues between them are because of me and our other ‘friend’.
We are both understandably upset and I want to talk to this ‘friend’ but my boyfriend said he wanted to talk to him first. He still hasn’t.
I want and need to walk away but he won’t as he wants to maintain a professional friendship with his colleague. We also have some stuff at their house.
I feel responsible for all of this and for the destruction of his friendship with our ‘friend’.
I love my boyfriend but a tiny little part of me wants to break up with him so I can have a clean break. I hate myself for that.
I constantly feel horrible, depressed, angry, upset, hurt, emotional. It’s wearing on me...
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Dear Ahjlees~
Wanting to break up 'a tiny bit' with your boyfriend is natural, as is feeling guilt over it, after all he is bound to the ex-friend by work. It makes it a lot more complicated and needing the whole mess to go away is very understandable.
One thing that might be worth bearing in mind is that you are in isolation at the moment, which means you do not have the comfort of each other's presence, and also when you want something done it is not simple and thus frustrating.
The isolation does end.
With the toxic ex-friends, it sounds like you have reached the end of the road, at least for now. Spreading rumors at work is not acceptable. As far as your possessions are concerned, if they cannot be just written off is there someone else who could go get them for you?
Croix
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Hi Croix,
I’m happy to write my stuff off but my boyfriend isn’t, which, as much as it annoys me, I understand.
We do have people who could pick it up for us but I fear the problem is more that we aren’t convinced we can get our ex-friends to communicate long enough to get it back.
One of them hasn’t spoken to us in a month and for the month before that it was bare minimum communication.
We have asked them about getting out stuff back so I guess we’ll see what happens.
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Hi Croix,
So I’m a bit all over the place again because we finally heard back from one of our ex-friends and she just blew up at us, blamed us for her almost breaking her phone, told us she wasn’t reading any of our texts for her mental health and to leave her and her husband alone. She also told us she hadn’t stopped us from coming over, we had chosen not to and that the last straw was my boyfriend and I not walking to a hotel with her and her Mum in Japan.
We replied to her response and explained that we had been trying to respect them by not coming over when they were sick and clearly didn’t want to talk to us. That we didn’t mean to not walk with them, we just happened to walk faster and she’d stopped to take a (weird) photo of us.
We said we would like to know what we did to upset them so much and that we deserved to know why they hated us and treated us the way they did.
Our ex-friend told us she didn’t care about my self righteousness, my essays or randomly, me writing responses on my boyfriends phone and again to leave her alone and then she left the chat and blocked us on Facebook.
I’m angry and incredibly hurt. After everything I’ve done for them they randomly turn on me and just start hating me and treating my boyfriend like crap because of me.
I really want to know what I did but they won’t tell me as our other ex-friend is now ignoring us too.
We are going to pick up our stuff when we can but we have no way of contacting that particular ex-friend so it’s still a huge mess.
I’m struggling to deal with this.