YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

So my friend of 14 years seems to have abandoned our friendship. We were originally living in the same area when we met, but then they moved away about 6 years ago to another state. We've kept in touch regularly through email since then, and I even visited them a few times when vacationing in their state. But in recent months, their emails have become increasingly bland, never responding to questions I would ask in my emails to them, instead talking about things like the weather. And in the last few weeks, they stopped writing back to me altogether.

I'm not sure how I feel about all this yet, still trying to process this, but I thought maybe other people here have had similar experiences with lost friendships.

To speak truthfully, I'm not even sure I'll miss this friend. If it's that easy for them to abandon me after all these years, then it's probably for the best that they're not in my life anymore.

And part of me is glad that it's over because my friendship with that person started during a very unpleasant time in my life that I want to forget, and this person was the last relationship in my life connected to that time.

What bums me out about this, is this isn't the first time a long-time friend in my life just suddenly vanished from my life without explanation. It makes me feel like there's something fundamentally about me that makes me "easy to abandon" to others. I only have one other friend in my life, which has been great, but part of me fears one day they'll just abandon me on a whim as well.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

Thanks for listening,
Dan

DecafDan wrote: ↑January 25th, 2022, 4:55 am What bums me out about this, is this isn't the first time a long-time friend in my life just suddenly vanished from my life without explanation. It makes me feel like there's something fundamentally about me that makes me "easy to abandon" to others.

I have a similar problem, I have in the past thrown away friendships during times of depression. It pains me to admit that.

I don't have any advice beyond the old saying "if you want a friend, then be a friend". Sometimes I find myself to be quite lonely.

No human being deserves to be "easy to abandon", so I wish you all the best. Please feel free to use this little forum as a resource. Take care.

I’ve certainly lost contact with most of my friends. Sometimes it’s because they’ve asked too much (or too little) of me. Or they said something that crossed a line. Or I knew that if I was the one who stopped reaching out to them that the friendship would evaporate; so I did stop. Some friends I felt like an audience to their lives, but not a participant. Some, our circumstances randomly changed and we no longer shared much in common.

In other cases, I recognized that I didn’t bring a lot to the friendship. Or my expectations were unreasonable. Or I relied on my social status to justify the connection with them, which was simply not enough.

Or they triggered my dysfunctions or trapped me in them.

I also recognized that I am problematic; certainly not to myself, but probably to people I’ve known and people in my life now. I accept that, learn about it and rely on other peoples’ help with it.

I guess there are lots of reasons friendships end. I do know friendships have life-cycles. They rarely if ever last indefinitely.

As I age, and with therapy, I’m now more interested in making friendships that mean something and that don’t necessarily last. Maybe ones where you don’t have to do anything but you sort of want to, where you can speak plainly, are good at scheduling time together, and can have a lot of fun with little. And where you can let go.

That really stinks, DecafDan. I'm sorry it happened to you.

You know this isn't your fault, right? The other person is going through some kind of changes in their life. It doesn't make it right for them to ghost you all of the sudden, but that's what's really going on.

I hope you will continue talking to us on this forum. There are some great people here.

Thanks for everyone's feedback. It helps a lot to hear other people's similar experiences.

I too have had some friendships that I ruined during the worst period of my mental health issues. Even though that was a long time ago, and I feel like I've come a long way in my personal development since then, I sometimes can't help but feel like I'm "getting a taste of my own medicine" now when friends in the present day shut me out of their lives on a whim.

In a weird way, I took a lot of pride in maintaining this friendship with this newly-lost friend for as long as I did. It felt like some kind of personal accomplishment for me that, after years of ruining friendships with my toxic behaviors, I had managed to make a new friend and maintain that friendship for over 10 years. It made me feel like it was evidence that I had really grown as a person and shed away my past toxic tendencies. It bums me out that that friendship ended, but I take solace in knowing it didn't end for any wrongdoing on my part (as far as I know). I was a good, caring friend to that person, and I guess I just have to accept that, for reasons I'll never know, they just don't want me in their life anymore.

Beany Boo wrote: ↑January 25th, 2022, 5:38 pm I guess there are lots of reasons friendships end. I do know friendships have life-cycles. They rarely if ever last indefinitely.

As I age, and with therapy, I’m now more interested in making friendships that mean something and that don’t necessarily last. Maybe ones where you don’t have to do anything but you sort of want to, where you can speak plainly, are good at scheduling time together, and can have a lot of fun with little. And where you can let go.

That's something I still have trouble coming to terms with, even though it's the truth - the idea that all friendships have life-cycles and will inevitably end. It makes me sad to think that most friendships are destined to be temporary.