Dear MPF,
I have honestly been so emotional since you texted me. Initially, I wasn’t sure why I was so affected by you doing something as simple as unfollowing someone but as the day came and went I played out the events in my head... I have realized a lot.
I can honestly summarize this down to one word...validation.
For the last three years I have spent so much time combing over the events in my head as to how a friendship with someone I was so close to, someone that said I “saved her life”, could end so quickly. I was trying to grasp the reality that someone I cared about and would have done anything for, could toss me away like a used towel.
Even more maddening was not understanding the backlash (or so it felt) of an incident that I didn’t feel was my fault. For the past three years I have stood on the outside of a circle that I helped create, a circle I had protected with fierce loyalty. All the sudden I became a stranger in my own life as I watched my friends carry on without me because I had been branded as “dramatic” because I stood up for myself and spoke about the deep pain caused by her betrayal. It was an alone I had never experienced before. I second guessed my actions and tried to understand what I had done wrong. I mean, I must have done something if nobody was willing to stand beside me and “stick up for me”. For three years I was an outcast and nobody was validating my side of the story. Sure, people said they knew I wasn’t wrong but the actions of everyone around me didn’t match what they were saying.
I FELT CRAZY.
In attempt to get things back to the way they used to be, I swallowed my pride and apologized as if I was the one wearing the blood stained dress even though she was 100% in the wrong. Nothing changed except for the fact that I felt more insane.
After months and months of silencing myself so we could all “move on”, I was still getting pushed aside. A new, even braver me, started emerging. At the risk of continuing to be labeled dramatic, I started vocalizing my boundaries...standing up for myself and justifying myself. As much as I thought this would make me feel better, this too caused me pain because the words “it’s always something” and “you've had a lot of pain in your life and that's why you are so angry” and “we can't take your abuse anymore for our own sanity“ kept playing over and over in my head. It’s a record that has been on repeat for years and ultimately I kept feeling like maybe I was this person...maybe it was my fault.
Further down the insanity rabbit hole I fell.
One thing I knew for sure, I would NEVER ask anyone to fight for me or to pick a side. For the most part because that’s not who I am, but I also didn’t want anyone to resent me or feel like I was forcing them to do something that they clearly didn’t believe in. So I stood there...alone...fighting, angry, hurt, ego bruised, mind fucked, heart broken and losing hope everyday.
After the Kato and Pierre stuff...I was resigned to the fact that I had lost. I succumbed to the reality that my feelings were insignificant, her status in the world superseded the need for her to be decent and people would, without regard to the greater good, choose her. The next step was for me to start cutting people out of my life no matter how badly it hurt. It was a lose, lose for me and I simply had to choose the option that hurt less, which was always person specific, because I had to try to save myself.
Honestly, I have never had the strength to unfollow her because I was scared of “creating more drama” pushing me further out of the circle that was already so far off in the distance. And if I am being brutally honest, I was also hopeful that one day we would be able to mend things but I never wanted to say that out loud because what person is so sick in the head they would want to be friends with someone who treated them so poorly?? But I was tired of feeling alone and there was a part of me that was so desperate to be back in the circle because I felt like that was the only solution to make it all go away. I had already been alone for three years, fighting, and I wanted it to be done.
So now here we.....Today was the first day in nearly three years that I do not feel alone.
For the first time I do not feel crazy.
For the first time I feel validated.
For the first time I feel like I finally matter and that the friendship I offer is finally worth fighting for.
I may never be able to fully articulate what this means to me, but you clicking “unfollow” feels like YOU SAVED MY LIFE.
I love you so much!!! I would literally do anything in the world for you!! I am so humbled to call you my best fucking friend in the world!!
Thank you a gazillion times over for standing by my side.
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