Sorry this post is so long! I’ll try to summarize the main points as concisely as I can. Feel free to skim if you’d like. Thanks for reading!

All this began when a friend asked me if she had been a bad friend- and specifically, if there were any points when I wanted to end the friendship. This friendship had been one I’d wanted to end for years to be honest- it was very one-sided, with me offering extensive, unhealthy amounts of psychological support to this person, and receiving little to no support in return.

(She also treated me badly and was straight-up mean to me many times in the past as well, if I remember correctly. Once she even slapped me in the face in front of a crowd of our friends. I wanted to end things then and there but she kept flooding me with apologies/ somehow got our friends to take her side and kept flooding me until I just gave in, from what I recall).

(But she wasn’t always mean. She was nice and we had fun and we spent so, so much time together for a long time. I genuinely loved her as a friend at some point and wanted to help/ protect her as much as I could. Maybe in that way the abuse is my fault- I never learned to set boundaries, and kept offering her everything I could, and let her treat me this way.)

After she asked me if I had ever wanted to end things, I decided to be honest and offered to have a conversation with her about our friendship. I was extremely honest but not cruel, and we talked chronologically through our entire friendship. I mentioned the things she had done that had hurt me. She seemed understanding. I left the conversation with a lot to think about, but proud of my transparency and with the impression that the conversation had gone well.

I wasn’t quite sure where to go from there. The friend seemed eager to just have things resume like normal. But I wanted some time to process what had been a long, heavy conversation we had where I expressed my feelings regarding her abuse. I told her I wanted a month of no-contact time to process everything we had discussed. She initially agreed, but then got really upset and wrote me what my therapist described as a very manipulative letter. She said she “wasn’t sure if she could be friends with someone who would abandon her like this” and threatened that “she may not be there after a months time” and “she didn’t think she’d ever be able to trust me again because friends are supposed to be there for each other no matter what.” She then actually violated the no-contact agreement several times as well during the month of no contact.

My therapist insists and stands by her statement that this is an abusive friendship, and I really trust my therapist a lot. But my CPTSD/ dissociative symptoms have been so bad that I honestly can’t even remember the entire friendship (I have severe memory loss when dissociated), which makes me doubt that I was really abused since I am struggling to remember much right now. The one thing I do know is that I seem to have a gut reaction of overwhelming stress when I read the friend’s texts, etc.- my heart starts racing immediately, and sometimes I feel panic or feel like throwing up.

After the month of no-contact, the friend told me she thought it might be for the best for us to take a break because she wasn’t in a good mental state and didn’t want to take her anger out on me. She also blamed me for not being there to support her for a month. I agreed that it might be best to part ways as least for a bit, since my mental health was also quite bad, and I wasn’t confident enough in my ability to set boundaries with her for the first time in such a state. I accidentally said the word “abusive”. (During our long conversation, she told me in her own words that she had been abusive.)

She then exploded. She got so angry. “Wow so I was apparently abusive? When did that happen?”

I was kind of shocked because she was the one who told me in her own words that she had been abusive. I assumed she had said that because she had gained insight. In hindsight I was left feeling like during the long conversation we had, she was just nodding along and saying whatever she thought I wanted to hear so I would stay in the friendship. I’m not confident she even remembers the conversation or was even listening to be honest- that’s the gut feeling I get now at least.

I blocked this potentially abusive friend via text after she got angry and sent me what I felt were extremely hurtful messages. In our last text convo before I blocked her, it was jarring how quickly she flipped back and forth from seeming remorseful and apologetic to angry and punishing. Her messages went from being like “I’m so sorry smolactor for everything. Ugh I guess I was abusive, you deserve to be happy and treated well” to “I want to make it up to you that’s all I want.” When she got to the last phase she then spammed me with messages and calls, to a point where I had some kind of sensory overload.

Her final text message (which she sent after I told her I was uncomfortable with her showing up at my house unannounced, and to please not do that anymore) was the following, word for word:

“You know I’ve really tried here. But now this was the final straw. I was trying to extend an olive branch to you and now I’m done chasing you. Do what you want but don’t bring me up in your convos don’t bring me in your life just leave me out of it. I’ve been nice up to this point. But you say you were abused how about bottling shit up for years.” (The part about bottling stuff up is true- over time, my affect became more and more flat around her, and I was more dissociated/ hid my feelings/ kept personal info private. I can’t tell if me being distant was a justified response to what my therapist insists was an abusive friendship or if it was me being a bad friend.)

“Hopefully your future friends don’t treat you like this and you’re not fake with them like you were with me. I constantly defended you and stood up for you at your lowest points and this is how you talk to me are you serious? Whatever. Bye.”

After this exchange I blocked her via text. I figured everything was finally over... but no, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

She then contacted me weeks later on a different platform saying: “hey so you probably don’t want to hear from me again but I don’t wanna end things on bad terms. You were my best friend in the world so I was just angry and hurt that you abandoned me like that. But all that is forgiven because what I put you through was worse. I love you and hope we can still be friends but if not I understand.”

Did I abandon her if I told her clearly that I wanted a month of no-contact, and explained why? I’m not sure...

I panicked and asked my therapist for advice, and she suggested to block the friend on the other platform too, so I did.

But this friend lives a few streets away from me.

The last form of contact happened on my birthday- what is already an extremely stressful day full of triggers for me.

She had a massive present shipped to my house via Amazon with a note saying, “Hey u/smolactor, I know we don’t talk anymore but I felt it was necessary to get this for you. I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you through, happy birthday!”

I was insanely triggered and stressed by this. I still haven’t decided what to do. I spoke to a mutual friend and apparently the abusive friend has been crying every day about missing me and wanting closure and being confused about what she did wrong... but also, didn’t we sit and have a whole conversation about the friendship and what I found hurtful? Unless this friend also suffers from memory loss like me, it sounds like she indeed wasn’t listening during our convo.

I feel immensely guilty and conflicted about what to do. I feel directly responsible for her suffering, and like it’s my job to at least keep trying to explain to her what went wrong since she still sounds confused. But also it feels like nothing I am saying is getting through to her so I am at a loss for what to do. I know she’s been in a bad mental state and I feel guilty at the thought of exacerbating her suffering. But I am afraid to contact her as my mental state is also so poor right now. All I’ve been trying to focus on is surviving. And now I have a giant present sitting in my house which I have to return to her. She seems desperate to contact me- and I guess she won. I think I will have to write a note when I return the present to her or she will just keep contacting me. And maybe she still will.

I feel bad for her since she seems to have little insight into what she’s done. But she also keeps insulting me, getting angry at me, or blaming me. All of her messages involved her describing her feelings/ doing what she wanted and not even thinking of how I felt. I’m at such a loss.

I’m dissociated, my memory is full of holes, and I feel flooded by all her attempts to contact me. I’m starting to doubt the relationship was even abusive and consider that I truly am the one to blame for everything. I’m just so confused. I feel like I owe her something now- at least a longer explanation- but will she even be able to process it?

I’m so lost. I don’t know what to do. Any advice or kind words would be appreciated