A month ago, a conversation ended when she was too angry to listen to me or accept my point that distrusting me does not mean it is okay to disrespect me in our friendship.
I did not feel heard, but I accepted that the conversation should end because she did not want to listen to me anymore. This was a form of shutting down communication that I accepted because I understood the presence of her feelings.
I did not feel extended the same understanding.
Two days later, she also suddenly blocked me on every platform I exist on without a word. This hurt a metric fuckton and I experienced a lot of emotional pain from the incredible rejection of my entire person that that was.
Another two days later, she suddenly texted me, which kicked up more emotional turmoil again. She asked what I needed for closure.
I felt that blocking me everywhere without speaking was a pretty clear sign that a full and vulnerable conversation was not something she would want to have with me again, so I simply asked to be heard. I took 2 hours to compose what felt like a final goodbye, and though I was emotional, I respected that she did not want me to be in her life. It was not my place to debate something as important as that.
And to make sure I understood the terms, I asked on that day: is this for forever? The foreseeable future? And she said yeah. There were no maybes about it.
I asked, would it be best if I never contact you first? And she said, that would be for the best.
And I listened. I respected all of this. I understood that I was blocked once again from then onwards. I think it’s actually logical that I assumed this was going to be a forever thing, and that she was going to leave my life entirely. This was basically No Contact.
It hurt so much to have to go No Contact when I wasn’t asked if I wanted to or even told that she thought it to be the best idea at all. I had still really, really wanted to repair things. I had only wanted to feel heard and shown that she could respect me even if she didn’t want to be friends with me.
Being blocked without notice, as though asking me to leave her alone wasn’t an option, as though I am not worth being told to my face in plain words that she did not want to be my friend any more... It was just plain insulting. It was a pretty genuinely degrading show of how little she actually respects me as even just a person.
But my hurt feelings were not her problem any more because I understood the rules of no contact. Blocking isn’t a challenge to me to get around the block. It’s a clear signal to not communicate.
So I turned to my personal and private blogs to vent my frustrations and my pain and my sorrows. I have literally never initiated any contact since then. None of my private posts were anything more than diary posts, sometimes addressed to the idea of her in my head as the person who cut me out of her life and left me with tons of unaddressed hurts.
Even this post isn’t me sending anything. But if any of you are still snooping on me, you might as well get the whole damn picture from me, myself, and I.
I had a long and awful depressive episode after realizing this really was for forever in her mind, but I processed the lack of genuine healing and closure with a lot of help. It was tough, but I really accepted the idea that she would never be a part of my life again out of respect for her desire not to talk to me...when I got a series of messages... from her.
This kicked up more emotional turmoil with no regard for my actual mental or emotional states. I had not touched her accounts anywhere, I had accepted that I would never speak to her again, and that she and I were simply going to have to live different and separate lives... and then she broke into my personal space once again.
Worse, it turned out she had actually been watching me the whole time?? Like, yes, she blocked me, but she was looking at my accounts, my blogs, and talking to people about them behind my back? And in fact, she had gotten a link to my diary blog and had decided to start reading it all.
I found a text on my phone that day. It asked, how did I interpret things like this, so differently from how she meant them? It hadn’t been a forever thing, but we just needed to have time and distance. How could I say these things about her if I ever wanted to be friends again?
The bald faced lie that that held has made me stop trying to protect anyone from the idea of gaslighting being a recurring theme in our communication. I don’t think it’s intentional, but you have to understand how the fuck it happens and why the hell you perpetuate it.
Caeona, you have not only dismissed my hurt feelings, you constantly tell me that I’m not right for feeling the way I do. You deflect taking responsibility for how your actions have hurt me. You claim you are too emotionally drained to do it or that I am the one who is wrong because that’s not how you meant it, so my interpretations must be wrong. You used to deflect to the coming out frustration even when I tried to address our deeper trust and respect imbalances.
This is basically a checklist of things I had my friends keep track of for me, because when I talk to you and you constantly rewrite the narrative and dismiss my experiences, I get so foggyheaded that it’s ridiculous. It makes me feel crazy, like I’m too sensitive and that somehow I am hurting you by having hurt feelings.
You constantly told me how my interpretations are wrong or improper just because they don’t match yours. You find a way to make things about your feelings even when I am talking about mine, even when I try to acknowledge yours and you don’t acknowledge mine.
But in this month, I’ve gotten a LOT of practice again. It turns out I’m just as good as anyone else at identifying and trying to talk about my feelings.You just got way too comfortable with avoiding personal accountability, and all I have seen is you shutting down conversations I thought we needed to have.
You have disrespected me over and over. You have ignored my space, my time, and my feelings, even after you acted like you were going no contact. When I asked for clarification, I was snapped at for interrogating you. And yet even when we went no contact, I wasn’t aware that that meant you were going to stalk me onesidedly and prey on my willingness to leave my accounts open to the public for my own friends and reasons.
What did I do before we went no contact? I asked you that, if you had time in the week ahead (which you did not have to have because I knew you were busy), I wanted to have a serious conversation with you. I asked you to let me know when you might be free. After you confirmed a time with me, I asked if you had time, energy, and a desire to have a serious conversation first before beginning.
You proceeded to snap at me for asking how much time you might have for the conversation, as though it is invasive and unfair to want to know how much time I have in a serious conversation I tried very hard to leave mostly open to your schedule, and that while I did not care what you would leave for, it would help me to have ANY idea how long I could talk for. You also proceeded to yell at me to shut up, and I really just knew from that moment on that, if you weren’t going to apologize seriously for being in that headspace, that you had genuinely decided disrespecting me was an okay position to have.
When you asked me to go no contact, I did. I stopped contacting you. My personal vent diary is none of your or anyone else’s actual business. It’s true that I made a mistake by leaving it publicly accessible even if it was private in every way except being password protected. I wrote you a very thorough apology for it, acknowledging that this had led to harming you.
You rejected the apology twice.
Where have you shown me a fraction of the same consideration? Where have you shown any awareness or accountability for the harm you have caused me at any point?
What are your reasons for stalking me? Why did you do all those things evern after you already asked me to leave your life? Either talk to me or just get out. Take my name out of your mouth and eyes and move on.
I never blocked you. I’ve never left a conversation first. I never stopped trying to acknowledge both your feelings and my own. I would happily post every written thing I’ve ever done to prove it to anyone else.
But you have literally constantly told me how wrong my feelings are for my having them, you have constantly jerked me around emotionally and felt entitled to treat me horribly with no explanations or accountability for the harm you cause, and I am just so done with the constant “Will she? Wont’ she?” of me never knowing if you’re looking.
Maybe in one timeline, you never see this ever. And you never know all these things I said. And maybe in another, you see it and you never tell me. Maybe you stop reading my blog on your own and I can never tell. I just have to live with the fact that I expected security and privacy from a place of mutual respect, but it turns out, once again, I was trying to respect you and you had no respect at all for me or my experience.
There’s no way to replace that trust without a conversation, so I just have to live with the weird broken trust state. I have to live with the random pangs of fear that you are still watching me and judging me and might suddenly message me for whatever reason you feel like.
Why do I even fear talking to you? Because every time I have tried, you have still dismissed me, just like you have anyone who is even remotely neutral, which makes them equally fair to me and you. It feels like you’re unable to admit to your own mistakes and potential for error. I’m not.
