I was right, that I was completely wrong
So turns out she (obviously) doesn’t hate me and does value me as a friend. I’m glad I did CBT, but I also did talk to her about my concerns and I hope she understood and internalized it. She proactively reached out to me to call, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. Weirdly enough, I also had a Zoom call with her mother after that. That happened through pure coincidence, but I talked about a lot of things with her mom. One notable thing I was proud of was her mother wanted to tell me something about my friend that I thought may have been personal, so I interrupted her and expressed my discomfort with that. That aside, her mother reinforced the evidence that we are friends – and was very understanding because we had fairly similar childhoods and struggles.
It was very nice to be able to talk to a mother figure, and have that assurance and advice I was envious of other people for having. It also was very interesting to see how inherently flawed and how many of the same struggles I deal with now are things her mom is still dealing with. We talked a lot about different issues we were able to relate to, and it was overall an incredibly healing process. Before this, I had gone over to their house to join them for dinner once, and that was the first time I had done that before. Turns out both she and her husband liked me a lot which was a very nice thing to hear. Her mom was also incredibly surprised with my awareness and emotional maturity which was a nice bit of evidence for myself. I would surprise her with the stuff I had to figure out going through life, and with my awareness of different things. She even really liked the technique I’ve come up with of having a dialogue with yourself out loud, to self-support in a weird way.
We said we would talk again sometime in the future, and she said “And I am quite fond of you in specific : )”, which made me somewhat feel like tearing up in a nice way.
It’s nice to know life isn’t the view of it I have scarred in me from my childhood. I guess time for a bit more CBT to really run this idea home.
Situation: A friend’s mother said that said friend values me a lot as a close friend, and I am insecure about the level of this friendship.
Thoughts: There is no way for her to know, this is just her saying random stuff or trying to be nice. Even if this was the case, we may have drifted apart, she could have replaced me, or I could have ruined the friendship and she finally got rid of me.
Feelings: I feel horribly alone. I feel incredibly insecure about the relationship, and I feel ultimately unloveable and unfit for friendship.
Behavior: When I have a bit of lucidity, I will overexert or put too much strain on the relationship to test if it is still there. This will inevitably destroy the friendship as I will continue to strain it to test until it snaps. I will destroy this friendship to stay consistent with my childhood worldview instilled in me. I will be alone.
If I give myself a bit of compassion and step away from that worldview, however:
Thoughts: She means it. Her justification makes sense and aligns with the fact that this friend does care for me and values me as a friend. I am not being replaced, and even if she does make new friends, that will not affect our relationship drastically. We are close friends!
Feelings: I desperately want to truly believe this. I feel like I have more than enough evidence for this, and all the evidence against it has felt shaky and ill-founded. I feel okay, and I feel loved. I feel like everything is fine in life, and that it is no longer like childhood where I was unloved and neglected. Things will be OK.
Behavior: I won’t self-sabotage this relationship, and I will also allow myself to show the best parts of myself instead of the ugly insecurities to this friend and others. I will also be overall less stressed and will have a great experience in order to undo some of the neural patterns that have been reinforced so hard in me. I will be ok.
I stopped and started to write this down halfway through the unhealthy thoughts section; one indicator of an unhealthy thought would probably be when to try to justify it, I have several different reasonings that could be true – yet they do not coincide with each other. For example: her not knowing if it is true but meaning it, or her not meaning it and saying it to be nice are both POSSIBLE, yet one conflicts with the other. To me, this feels like me trying to justify whatever will keep my worldview consistent. This is a nice little tell I want to be more mindful of to try to avoid this stuff in the future.
The effort you’ve put in is seen, and it is incredibly valuable. I love you blight <3