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I didn't get her flowers


Chillipeppers

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Chillipeppers

So a friend (not anymore i guess) had a stroke and went into hospital. I called to see if she was ok, offered to help with dinners for the family and was generally just checking in every so often on the phone to make sure she was ok.


2 weeks after she got out of hospital, she sent me an angry text saying she is upset with me because i just carried on with my life and she had a life changing event happen to her and the least i could have done was send her flowers to show i care. I replied with, i am sorry you feel that way, i do care, i wanted to give you time to recover before coming to see you, however i did offer to help in other ways. She basically decided to wish me well and cut me off.


fast forward to NYE. She was supposed to come and celebrate with us at my place, she sent a message to me saying she will pass. i figured she was still not feeling up to going out so i said, not a problem, i hope you have a good new year.


My other friend and i had nye celebrations together and we posted random cocktail photos on facebook like everyone does on this day, and this is when it gets weird.. she updates her facebook status with something along the lines of "goodbye fake friends, onto 2021", then proceeds to unfriend me and my friend on facebook.


I ignored it.


1 week later she sends me a message saying how could i delete her from a group messenger chat? i told her i didnt and then replied in the group chat, it is still here. she then texts again and said i think its for the best she doesnt feel the same way anymore about our friendship and if i am not there for her in her difficult times then why am i there at all?.


again, i ignored the message.


It has been quiet, until recently i found out she has been badmouthing me to anyone who will listen. To the point where i have had a falling out with another friend of ours that she has bitched about me to.


Im not sure what i am asking, i guess i just need to know, did i do anything wrong? do i deserve being treated this way? I dont even know how i am supposed to nip it in the bud. she is so passive aggressive, i cant even deal with her.

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If it was me I would continue to do what I am doing and ignore the drama, I would just carry on as normal. I can't think of anything else you can actually do

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People who have had strokes ( or any brain trauma) can have personality changes. I don't think you have treated her badly. It maybe she's struggling with her own reactions to her trauma. My grandma became very weeoy after her stroke for the first 6 months afterwards.

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StillFreddiesMum

Gosh OP - that's tricky. You DID check on her when she was in hospital and offered to help, so I really can't understand her "you didn't send me flowers" train of thought.


I'm not sure what you can do to mend the friendship. Do you want to mend the friendship? Because it seems like she has decided to end it. I'm verry sorry, I don't think you did the wrong thing but she obviously thinks you should have done more / something different.

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No, you don't deserve this.

I had a similar situation with a friend who first cut me off, and then badmouthed me to others. She didn't have a stroke, but like a PP said, she does have a history of trauma, and I believe it's affected her interpersonal skills. Hurt people hurt people, as they say.

Some friends weren't into the bitching and have stayed friends with everyone, and some lapped it up. Drama is really fun to some people! So I did lose some friends. On good days I think well, when people show you who they are, believe them, and friends like that aren't worth keeping.

On bad days I feel a lot of sadness and FOMO and anger.

If you want to salvage the friendship with her, I do think you should try, but don't let her erode your self esteem. You did try to help her.

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Chillipeppers

At this point I don’t want to salvage the friendship because she has said some very hurtful things to people and has told them personal details about me that only she knew because we were close. I’m not sure I can forgive that behaviour.

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If it was just friendship stuff I’d say good riddance to bad rubbish, but as a PP said strokes can have a big impact on memory and trigger personality changes. Did she even realise/remember you’d been checking in on her? Flowers might have been the only way she realised who had been checking in, and she may be embarrassed if she’s dealing with memory loss. Even the badmouthing could be caused by the stroke, it really can have a huge impact.


I don’t think you did anything wrong, but if the friendship was at one point important to you I wouldn’t be writing her off just yet.

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She sounds toxic tbh. I would write her off, grieve for her, and then focus on whether you want to salvage the other friendships she has damaged. Are they nice people, and good friends to you, who got the wrong end of the stick? Or are they nasty gossips who are lapping up the drama and happy to hurt you in the process?

The shittest thing for me about my 30's has been realising how many friendships don't last, I think in my teens and 20's I thought romantic/sexual relationships end but friendships don't. I'm older and bitterly wiser now.

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VeritasVinumArte

I would write her off. I don’t have time for drama in my life. You did not do anything wrong. If others lap up her drama/gossip then they are not really your friend.

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I know that you have written her off because she has betrayed your trust. I have done the same for a friend I loved deeply because the hurt was too great and for me there was no going back. I don't know if this helps, but if this is a complete behaviour change for her, then there really is likely to be some sort of brain damage at play. Can you mention something to the adults in her life explaining why you are pulling back and how hurt you are? Because she is likely alienating herself from many people and there might be more to investigate. I am sorry you are put in this position.

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Chillipeppers

She has been known to do this to people in the past, I just never thought she would do it to me. There’s no brain damage as much as I wish there was a reason for it.

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Don't worry about the badmouthing. In my experience, when someone is badmouthing people everyone around them knows what they are like and doesn't take it seriously. My sister used to do this to me, and it upset me so much until I realised that the more she did it, the more it said about her (not me). Now I just get on with my life and don't worry about what she says. It is actually very liberating.


As for the rest, I would evaluate how much you want to keep the friendship. If you value the friendship and miss her, reach out to her for a chat. She has obviously been through a trauma but is lashing out unfairly. If she was like this before though and you've had enough of the drama, I would just move on. I can't bothered with that kind of toxicity in my life.

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Don't worry about the badmouthing. In my experience, when someone is badmouthing people everyone around them knows what they are like and doesn't take it seriously. My sister used to do this to me, and it upset me so much until I realised that the more she did it, the more it said about her (not me). Now I just get on with my life and don't worry about what she says. It is actually very liberating.

 

 

Exactly this. I ended a friendship a few years ago when I discovered this person who was my "best friend" betrayed me.

I heard from an acquaintance that she had been bad-mouthing me and telling people that I had dumped her for no reason.


The acquaintance, who I barely know but who knew my ex friend very well said this:


"We all know you had a reason, everyone has a reason for no longer being friends with her and it's usually the same reason. So don't worry about her, everyone who has ever had anything to do with her knows what she is like. You just hung in there longer than the rest of us."


I carried on with my life and didn't give her another thought.

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Not Escapin Xmas

She has been known to do this to people in the past, I just never thought she would do it to me. There’s no brain damage as much as I wish there was a reason for it.

 

i think that's your answer then. I'm sorry OP, it horrible to have someone act so nastily towards you, especially when you thought they were a friend.

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You have made your decision to cut her off now so it's a bit of a moot point but you do not deserve this, you did nothing wrong at all.

I know you say she has done this before but even with this in mind and as PP have said there can be awful damage to stroke patients even when there have been no apparent residual damage on scans.

There is an anxiety factor that can really negatively effect a life with resultant personality changes.

I hope she is getting help for this but I also feel for you.

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Literally Nobody

She did you a favour as nasty as she is. Concentrate on the good decent friends you do have and pretend she doesn’t exist. There’s no room for such toxicity in a friendship as much as it hurts.

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Some people just seem to seek out excuses to cut other people out and then play the victim. I had a friend that I met through work that cut me off when I got pregnant shortly after her because she believed that I did it deliberately to copy her or steal her limelight or some such nonsense. It was her first pregnancy and my second so it wasn't really the same situation anyway. She has done the same thing to multiple other people that she befriended at work so I was just the latest in a long line of people cut off by her.

You showed concern but you also gave her space to recover, you did nothing wrong.

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I'd send her flowers and say on the card something like "Here are the flowers you asked for, now leave me alone and stop bitching about me to everyone"

But I'm a bit of a bitch myself now I'm in my 40's, tired and cranky lol.

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Chillipeppers

I'd send her flowers and say on the card something like "Here are the flowers you asked for, now leave me alone and stop bitching about me to everyone"

But I'm a bit of a bitch myself now I'm in my 40's, tired and cranky lol.

 

Lol that’s hilarious.

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I'd send her flowers and say on the card something like "Here are the flowers you asked for, now leave me alone and stop bitching about me to everyone"

But I'm a bit of a bitch myself now I'm in my 40's, tired and cranky lol.

 

😱

You actually surprised me with this comment!


I think I’ve just seen the other side of you!!!

😂

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She has been known to do this to people in the past, I just never thought she would do it to me. There’s no brain damage as much as I wish there was a reason for it.

 

I had a friend turn on me once and badmouth me to everyone she could. I lost a few friends at the time as a result, and it stung badly but I chose to just ride it out and get on with my life, trying to accept that I wasn't responsible for her behaviour. It was a pattern of behaviour for her too, and I have since had a couple of the friends I had lost apologise to me after she did the same thing to them, and those friendships remain valuable to me.

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She said the stroke caused no damage. It was a tear in her carotid artery that caused a mini stroke while she was in hospital.

 

You really don’t know if that’s true. I work in stroke rehab, people have personality changes and denial and say very strange stuff.


However, I’d still ignore her behaviour and call the friendship over.

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Not the same, but a few weeks after I had the baby, a colleague from interstate sent me a gift. I was so surprised she even knew I had a baby as she had been and still was on mat leave herself and wondered how she managed to find my address. When I went to thank her for the thoughtful gift I found that we had quite a detailed WhatsApp conversation and she had asked my address on day 2 while I was still in hospital (post C section).


So it's possible she doesn't recall you offering help. Having said that, the reaction /gossiping etc sounds like hard work. You may want to give her benefit of the doubt fur to personality changes other PPs have mentioned, or just leave it be

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