I (18F) just had one of the worst weeks of my life and I need advice on how I’m supposed to move on. I feel like life has really horrible timing hitting me with two difficult events at once And I’m not sure how I’m going to recover from both at the same time.

(TW: mentions of throwing up at the very end of this post)

Last weekend I invited my 6 friends over for an early birthday celebration / last hangout before everyone goes away for college. My real birthday is in early September and, because I’m taking a gap year, all my friends and my boyfriend will be away at college and unable to celebrate with me. I usually host group gatherings, and they have a history of going wrong with friends flaking / inviting others without asking me. I was really hoping this time would be different especially since it could be the last time I see some of my best friends for years, and I was super excited to have everyone over. Of the 6 friends only 3 of them got back to me, 2 saying they could go and 1 saying she couldn’t make it. I reached out to the 3 friends who I hadn’t heard from separately, just letting them know that I hadn’t heard from them, but they were more than welcome to come. One of these friends (we‘ll call her Ava) got back to me saying that she might be able to come if she wasn’t too tired from work. Ava’s good friend Bella is relatively new to the group, and I don’t really know her well, but I thought the more the merrier. I texted Bella to let her know that I would love to have her over and that Ava was hoping to come too in case she wanted to communicate with her.

Friday night rolls around and I haven’t heard anything from Ava or Bella. I have my two friends over and we‘re just enjoying some snacks and a movie when I try to reach out to Ava one last time. Ava responded hours later saying that she was super tired from work and wasn’t planning on coming over. This struck me as odd because Ava works at an ice cream truck at the local fair and it was pouring rain all day so I can’t imagine she had a lot of customers. Additionally, one of my friends who was over showed me a picture from Ava’s private story captioned “bored at work”. I felt bad that Ava didn’t want to come over and felt the need to lie to me to get out of it. I also felt bad that this was yet another event that I tried to plan and didn’t work out.

the next morning I asked one of my friends who had slept over if I could see her again before she left for school and she said “I’ll see you at the dinner thing tomorrow night” I replied “what dinner?” And she looked at me confused before saying “you’re in the group chat aren’t you? I swear i saw you in there.”

it turns out that Ava invited everyone over to her house on Sunday night for a picnic potluck. That is…everyone except for me. I was really upset by this especially since I had invited everyone over for my birthday / one last get together and half of them didn’t even bother to respond. The friend that told me about the dinner genuinely had no idea that I wasn’t invited and the other friend that slept over knew but just wasn’t going to tell me.

After my friend asked Ava why I wasn’t invited, Ava said “I didn’t really have a reason” and then told my friend “You can invite her if you want”. So 4 hours before the dinner is supposed to start, I get a last minute pity invite from my friend saying that she wants me to come. The thing is, I already decided that even if I was invited last minute, I wouldn’t go to a gathering I wasn’t invited to in the first place and where I was clearly unwanted. Ava only invited me because she was called out and I don’t see how she could ‘accidentally’ create a group chat without me in it and then not realize when I was messaging the chat I was in asking people to rsvp for Friday night at my place.

So I didn’t go over to Ava’s and I instead spent the night with my mom who tried to cheer me up by offering to have a picnic of our own, and I know my mom had the best intentions, but her suggestion only made me cry because it felt like a sad way of me trying to experience an event that I was excluded from. Instead, I went and played tennis with my mom and tried to ignore all of Ava’s instagram posts showing all my friends happy together at an event I wasn’t invited to. The way Ava excluded me was some middle school bs and then posting about how ‘blessed‘ she was to have ‘so many beautiful people who make leaving for college so difficult’ was just a way of her rubbing it in my face. I decided to cut contact with 4 of the people I considered to be my closest friends, but kept in contact with the one friend who told me about the event and called Ava out for excluding me.

You might think we’re done here, but it only gets worse. The following weekend my boyfriend (18M) of 9 months broke up with me. He is going to a college around two hours away and was on the fence about trying long distance. He was my first boyfriend and in our relationship, we had no issues with the exception of the looming deadline for when he would leave for college. We had good communication and talked about it openly. He expressed his concerns with how he wouldn’t be able to come home much due to sports (football and baseball) in the fall and spring. I told him how I could drive up and spend the weekends with him and either stay with him or a friend from a neighboring college just minutes away. For weeks he insisted that he didn’t know what to do and he hadn’t made his decision yet.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what he was going to decide, but when he came over three days before he left, he told me that he loved me three times. To some, this may seem insignificant, but my boyfriend comes from a family that doesn’t say I love you that often and, because of that, he had trouble expressing his feelings early on into our relationship. He has since gotten more comfortable with expressing himself, but for him to say it three times in one night was significant. I interpreted this as a sign that he was leaning towards doing long distance and even started preparing some of those ‘open when’ gifts for times when he would have a bad day or miss me and I couldn’t be there.

The next (and last) time I saw my boyfriend he seemed off. He wasn’t being as affectionate as usual and at times would avoid eye contact. Later that night when we were cuddling he said “I’m really going to miss this” and I took that opportunity to ask him what he had decided about doing long distance. He paused before saying “I decided…” and trailing off. He was quiet for what felt like ages but was really only a few seconds. I swear to you I could literally feel my heart breaking. My chest felt heavy and tears were already falling when I said “just say it.” And he finally said that he didn’t want to try and do long distance. Naturally, I started sobbing and he just kept saying he was sorry and he started to cry too. I didn’t beg him to stay or ask him to change his mind. I could not stop crying or control my breathing and I was literally shaking.

Once I had calmed down a bit he asked me if we could still talk and be friends. I told him that I couldn’t just keep talking to him and not stay attached. I told him that it would likely be a month or several months before I could talk to him again. I told him that I still cared about him and that I always will, but that I think he should leave so I could be alone.

I walked him out and kissed him goodbye for one last time. He hugged me so tight that I thought he wouldn’t let go and would change his mind right then and there, but he didn’t. He gave my hand three squeezes and I turned around and didn’t look back. The second I closed the door, I fell to the floor sobbing and stayed there for hours.

That was a week ago. I have cried for hours every day since, and every night I dream that he texts me saying that he’s made a terrible mistake and wants to get back together and do long distance. Each time I wake up and check my phone only to end up crying all over again. I loved him so much and I STILL love him so much. It’s so hard not having anyone to text good morning and goodnight to. I want to hear about his day and tell him about mine. I thought we had more time and although it wouldn’t have been easy, I know we could’ve made it work and at least gotten a few more months together, if not years.

I don’t really have anyone I can talk to about this because all my friends excluded me with Ava, and the one friend who stuck by my side had her aunt pass, so I want to respect her time with family and I don’t want to burden her with both the betrayal of my ‘friends’ and the loss of my relationship when she has so much going on.

I’m looking for advice on ways to cope with all that’s happened. I’ve had difficult life experiences before, but this one has me feeling completely and utterly alone. Ive been working long hours to distract myself, but I can’t even look at myself in the bathroom mirror without crying. How do I get over this? How am I supposed to move on without the support of friends? How do I come to terms with the fact that my boyfriend is no longer my boyfriend? That he’s no longer mine?

I also have a finicky stomach and throw up easily when I am extremely stressed, sad, or exhausted. I’ve gotten sick quite a few times this last week and I need to find some foods that I can keep down. Toast is getting really, REALLY old.

Any help or advice is appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read through this post.

Edit:

Hi everyone, I just wanted to come on here to add / clarify a few things and thank everyone for the support. I have read through ALL the comments and it is so touching how many people took a second out of their day to give me some advice and wish me well. I have also gotten a lot of PM’s so I apologize for not being able to respond to all the messages and comments.

i would like to point out that in the original post, I made an error and typed “I decided to cut contact with 5 of the people I considered to be my closest friends“. That 5 is supposed to be a 4 and accounts for my friend who got back to me right away and let me know that she wouldn’t be able to come over on Friday. We are still on good terms and although I haven’t talked to her recently, we have plans to get smoothies over the weekend before she moves out for college.

For some background information: I have never had any issues with Ava and after the whole situation went down, I tried to think if I had done anything to upset her and the ONLY thing I could possibly think of was the fact that I left her grad party early because my little brother (14M) insisted on coming along (likely because he recognized the food caterer and wanted to eat there) and there was no one his age there. it was getting awkward trying to include him in conversations with people from my high school and after delivering a grad card and taking a couple pictures with Ava, I left the party after about 45 minutes. I can’t imagine this would upset her to the point that she would exclude me, but it’s the only thing I can think of. Ava definitely has a mean girl reputation, but I really try not to judge people based on what others have said about them and I form my own opinions of people based on my personal interactions with them. Until this, Ava has never been rude to me and I’ve had her over several times before and been invited past events that took place at her house (She usually hosts new years and it’s been fun both times that I’ve gone). To me, this came out of nowhere since the group hasn’t gotten together as much as we would’ve liked and we have only gotten together the seven of us three times this summer so I was hoping the seven of us could get together one last time before everyone takes off.

I did receive some constructive feedback, which I appreciate because I made this post looking for others perspectives and advice. One thing that was brought up a couple of times is that I am too clingy and because of that I was pushing my friends and ex boyfriend away. I think part of the reason I came off that way in the post is because I wrote this after those events had taken place. I did / do want to cling to the thought that my ex friends and boyfriend could walk back into my life tomorrow and realize that they’ve made a mistake, but I now realize that that likely will not happen.

I also want to clarify that at first, I didn’t question Ava’s decision to stay home. I work long days and I completely understand when you’re too tired to hang out. I still texted her letting her know that she was welcome over, but not to feel bad if she didn't feel up to it. When Ava finally texted me back later saying that she couldn’t come, I told the two friends who were over that Ava wouldn’t be able to make it because she had a long day and was tired from work. After I said this, one of my friends showed me the post from Ava’s private story that I wasn’t on. I wasn’t snooping to find out if she was actually tired from work, the picture was simply shown to me. I never texted Ava asking if / why she lied or pressed the issue further because it wasn’t super significant at the moment. I just felt bad that she couldn’t come.

For the people saying that my ex was stringing me along, I disagre. Maybe I’m still looking at the situation through rose tinted glasses, but I know my ex well and he is an indecisive procrastinator to his core. If you told him a pair of pants were on sale and he could either get them in black or gray, he would take so long deciding that by the time he made his decision, the pants would’ve gone out of style. I do not think this decision regarding our relationship should’ve been put off until the last minute and believe me, I really, REALLY don’t appreciate how he avoided the issue until the last possible moment. He told me that he only made his decision that morning and that he doesn’t think it would be fair to me to go long distance when he wouldn't be able to come home often. I know this decision was hard for him and as much as it hurt me, I know it hurt him as well. That night when he kept apologizing to me, I told him not to apologize for making what decision he felt was right. I told him how excited I was for all that he’s going to do in college with both sports and school and I know he’s going to do great. I’m really sad that I can’t be by his side while he goes through all these new experiences especially since two hours is not far away at all and would be very doable, but I understand his concerns about going long distance and I respect his decision. That still doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Many people were asking what I was doing for my gap year and I am happy to report that I will be keeping myself busy. I will be taking 3 classes online at my local university and those credits are guaranteed to transfer to the college I will be attending next fall (fall of 2025). said college is far away from home and i will never have to worry about running into people from my hometown. I will also be working part time (8-10 hour days every other day) at a job in my field of study to get some good experience before college. In March, I will have the opportunity to study / research abroad for a few months and I am very excited for that. I have always been a busy and active individual (I played 3 sports in high school) and I’m lucky enough that I will still be playing all three of these sports at a more casual level until I leave in the spring. Lots of people also suggested volunteering. I do volunteer to ref for and coach youth sports games, but I know there are so many more organizations out there who need volunteer and I am excited to look into those options as well.

as for today, I was able to keep all my food down and was overall less nauseous throughout the day. Thank you to the people who suggested eating ginger, soft foods, and soup. One comment that I found really helpful was the suggestion that I try to eat smaller portions like snacks opposed to three larger meals a day.

I will keep everyone updated if there’s anything more to add, although I’m really hoping there won’t be so I can start my healing journey. Thanks again for all the kind words and support.