My best friend discarded me and i think its my fault.
So before I begin. We were both toxic people and she certainly did some manipulative things. But this about my guilt and i knew my behavior was wrong at the time and made excuses to justify my behavior to myself. So I'm trying to focus on what I did wrong and not what she did wrong because I forgave her, even if she won't forgive me (as far as I know she won't anyway).
I think it was five years ago I started the worst job of my life. The government job, archives, in my home town of baton Rouge. And I stayed in that hell hole job suffering for three years. I was suffering so horribly much I had to hospitalize myself four times in three years
I was in archives and responsible for transportation of old documents. After a while I meet the person who would become my best friend. Who i will call pumpkin for here on out. We bonded extremely quickly, probably too quickly in hindsight. We had allot of mutual traumatic experiences in common. Common interests, identical taste in music, same love of dark humor. We became close extremely quickly and borderline inseparable soon afterwards. And I made the worst possible mistake I could in this situation. I caught feelings for them.
One day pumpkin takes me out drinking downtown at the bars near the office. We have dinner and she give me "the talk" ether she figured out i had feelings for her or someone else pointed it out. She let's me down gently, assured me we are still close friends and that's not going to change.
And at first its not an issue, we had this really beautiful friendship where we would spend all day every weekday. Monday through Friday 8am til 4 pm we text all day while complaining about our coworkers. And every night we spend on the phone from 5pm til 9pm just talking to each other. And when I came out as Trans at work pumpkin was my number one supporter. We were each other support network. I didn't know this at the time but rumors started spreading we were secretly dating at the time. I don't know if this bothered pumpkin or not. But nothing romantic or sexual ever happened between us. That being said this was still a pretty intimate friendship, just no touching aside from hugs.
I first started noticing her pulling away about three weeks before her 38th birthday. We went out for drinks at the local gay bar. Im the shy introverted one while she is the more outgoing one, but im having a wonderful and she is absolutely miserable experience. I didn't even notice until she pulled me aside and told me she needed to leave ASAP! I didn't understand what happened at the time and can only speculate now about why pumpkin was upset. But she was visually disturbed by something that occurred and I tried my best to comfort her but only made it worse bye giving her advice that backfired on her horribly. As a result she ghosted me for three weeks and only started talking to me again when I sent her a birthday message on her big day.
Everything kind of went back to the way it was before almost immediately. Text each other all day 8til 4pm phone calls 5pm til 9 pm every night. We were each other's rock. But now their was some tension in the air as I became paranoid about the state of our friendship. This friendship meant EVERYTHING to me. And the fear of her discarding me because I was too much began to consume me. My feelings for pumpkin began to spiral outta control and I did everything to convince her I was the "perfect friend" this quickly caused her to spiral back into mental health issues and me to spiral in response. Or maybe it was the reverse and she her mental health spiraled first and I spiraled because of that.
Doesn't matter who had the mental break first, we both eventually had to take a few weeks off work and away from each other. She went to the hospital first. She missed a week of work. Around this time we had a conversation that I didn't realize was important at the time. In hindsight it was obvious she was trying to tell me something but I completely failed to read between the lines.
A few weeks later the abuse I took from my boss hit a boiling point and I shut down and checked myself into a mental health hospital for two weeks. Told pumpkin i was going to be gone for two week because my mental health was failing. And I should have known something was up because she suddenly was unable to care. I was in crisis mode so I didn't question it until later.
I leave the hospital two weeks later, go back to work. Go in for our morning hug. And pumpkin flashes me this look of complete and utter contempt while barely managing to suppress the urge to scream at me. i still see this moment in my nightmares.
She tells me to go and we will talk later. Later never came. Two weeks pass my boss is still abusing me at work. I get my transfer to a different department denied. And my alcoholic boss drunkenly confirmed he had my transfer blocked because I was the only reliable person in archives. Cut off from my support I lose it and quit. Three years of hell for nothing.
Its been two years and i never heard back from pumpkin. I never found out what set her off. And I ruminated on everything I possibly did wrong only to discover i dont think I did anything right. I practically tortured myself the entire time with my guilt and shame over pushing away my best friend.
About 6 months ago I tried to reach out to see if we could maybe at least make amends. But I'm blocked on everything. As far as I know she still hates me.
all i want is to say how sorry i am for pushing her so hard and not leaving her any other choice. but im never going to get that chance now.