Betrayed by Friend

Kimia

Hi all,

Not bothering to go unregged for this. Basically I find it very hard to trust friends as a result of a horrific betrayal when i was younger (13). Me and this girl were best best friends, together all the time, really lived in each other's pockets.

It turned out that this girl had been stealing from my family for months. Stupid stuff, money, mum's cigs, drink, that kind of thing. She wanted it i assume to impress her older brother's friends who she was constantly trying to be friends with (they were a rougher crowd).

My mother confronted me because she thought i knew (that's how close we were) and then realised from my absolute shock and horror that i had no idea. I was gutted, she was just using me the whole time.

So fast forward and I find it very hard to trust girls. I find it hard to get motivated about being friends with them. I have a few close friends who I love, but I can't bear to spend too much time with them. I don't know why. It's like I'm always assuming that we won't be friends forever maybe?

I'm just hoping that someone has some words of wisdom for me or similar stories as I feel like I'm missing out. As i said i have good close friends but I keep them at arms length too and I really don't know what it's like to be that close to a girl anymore (as i said i was 13 or so when it happened).

hornyfemale

One bad experience when you were a teenager shouldn't put you off. Most of us are good honest people. There are certainly more of us than there are the type you encountered when you were 13

Kimia

I know and as I mentioned I have got some very good close friends. I just find it hard to let go and enjoy the friendship. I suppose because I have done this (subconsciously up to now) that I now realise I have no real experience with having proper friendships and that makes me kinda sad. I want to get past this but it's hard when this is normal for me if that makes sense..

ohanloj3

I know where you're coming from I had a best friend who I met in college and we were inseperable, moved in together for a year and everything. When we were about 3mths in the apartment she got with this guy and he basically became part of the furniture. Neither of them had any consideation for me-waking me up with sex noises, him basically controlling the tv, using all the hot water etc. I felt uncomfortableut it and in my own home, I approached her about it and things improved for a short while. Anyway when the year was up we moved out (that was always the plan).

Shortly afterwards I became very unwell, hospitalised for nearly a month and she visited me maybe twice, she said she found it hard to deal with (shes a nurse for gods sake and I was the one who should have found it hard to deal with). After I was discharged, I wasn't allowed drink or be in nightclbs with bright lights, I couldn't drive either. She made very little effort to involve me in anything or to visit me. She basically excluded me from everything.

Alongside this she got engaged throughout the years we always said we'd be each others bridesmaids but when she got engaged she told me she had too many friends to chose from and was only gonna ask her sis and cousin, I admit I was gutted but understood.

But then to add fuel to the fire I found out she'd asked a a friend of ours who she'd started going out with when I couldn't go out. I felt totally betrayed and I was devastated. I approached her over it and she told me to stop acting like a spoilt child and get over it that it was her wedding and she'd do what she liked. We had a huge row over the phone and she hasn't contacted me since, that was two yrs ago.

She reall hurt me, broke my trust and totally let me down when I needed her. I now have no est friends and don't wanna have any, I can't stand the idea of being hurt like that again.

So I really know where you're coming from and my post is probably useless cos I can't tell you how to overcome it, cos I still haven't. But I just wanted to sypathise with you and let you know your not the only one whos been hurt by friends.

BobbyOLeary

Hey Kimia,

I know exactly how you feel, I had something similar happen to myself when I was much younger and it's caused me problems ever since. I found it really hard to make friends as I was always afraid to make a commitment to them or to risk having them reject me. I made some friends in school but I was always a bit distant. Eventually, through a lot of talking about it with some very close friends of mine I got a bit better. Not cured by any means but I'm better at bridging that gap and trusting people these days.

You're not alone in this believe me. Even now with my girlfriend who I love to bits there's always a small nagging voice in my head telling me that she'll betray me. I can't tell you how to get rid of it entirely but what does help is talking about it and just forcing yourself to get out there and risk trusting people. I know it's hard but not everyone is horrible, funnily enough I only found this out recently. Good luck, I feel for you.

Bubblefett

The thing I've found with friends is they change, particularly during the college years- it's when many of us find ourselves and unfortunatly sometimes people who you love turn into people you can't quite recognise anymore.

For example, my oldest friend (she's been in my life for as long as i can remember) a couple years ago "found religion" and only had time for her "youth groups" (she became a leader) and new boyfriend. I was thrilled that she was happy and I tried so much to get involved in her new life and keep her involved in mine but we just difted apart. different paths.

She's just one example though, many friends have come into and left my life at different stages and i love them all, but our lives go different directions and sometimes people are left behind. However, if you're ever lucky enough to find a friend who reallly gets you and is always there for you when things are hard without you asking then you hold onto them! I know I have.

I hope this helps and doesn't sound like rambles...

Dublin141

I think a lot of girls have more "frenemies" than actual friends when they are young. Partly because people change and partly because we tend to hang on to friendships based on the length of time we've known the person.

I literally speak to one girl I was friends with as a teen and that's only on Facebook. We would never meet up because we aren't into the same things anymore but I still like her. The girl who I was supposed to be "best" friends with was always the same but I still clung on to the idea that we were friends because it had been a lifelong thing. She likes attention and lies and gossips to be the centre of attention. It turned out that she said a lot of nasty lies about me (and many other people) so that people would listen to her, really. I left school early and apparently a lot of my friends listened to her and believed her because many of them snubbed me for no reason afterwards. But I see it now as they weren't really friends if they didn't look for both sides of a story.

She's still doing it to this day. I pity her now more than anything. She's a grown up, she's married with children and she still feels the need to lie, exaggerate and badmouth people to be liked. That says more about her than the people she betrays.

If I was you, I'd forget all about her because she's still affecting your life negatively. I still don't have any close friends because I can't trust anyone either but that isn't a good thing. The people I might be good friends with, I find myself distancing myself from them if I get too close. It's a defence mechanism I suppose. But it leaves you in a lonely place if you ever need a friend.

Stories like yours happen a lot, I hope that you can let it go and be free of it because it's a pity that a person like that has some power over you, even now. The people you know now are a lot more mature than that old friend of yours and it's very unlikely that you'll allow them to hurt you as much as she did because as an adult you tend to see certain aspects of people's personalities more clearly and are therefore usually a better judge of character. Concentrate on the good in people and you'll be grand.

Sorry, that was incredibly waffley but you get the gist.

seahorse

Hi Kimia. I'm sorry to hear what you're going through. Please just know that it's not as unusual as you might think and that a lot of people experience these feelings for similar and different reasons. In my case I'd been best friends with a girl I met when I was fourteen and we'd been very close for ten years. I didn't see her sometimes for a year here or there because of our circumstances (she moved back down the country when we were in our early teens) but we were always very very close and she was without doubt my best friend in the world for those ten years.

Anyway when we were both twenty-four she hung herself and it would be very hard for me to describe what that did to my mind, but one of the side-effects for me was that I couldn't bear to get close to women and certainly didn't want to make any female friends. Any time I found myself forming something approaching friendship with a woman I just retreated completely and walked away from the situation. That continued on for several years until I decided my behaviour wasn't healthy and faced up to the fact that I'd been severely traumatised by her suicide.

I went to group counseling specifically for people who'd been bereaved by suicide and during one of the sessions one of the people in the group (a woman) got very upset and fled from the room. My heart went out to her because I knew exactly what she was going through and after the session, without really thinking about it, I approached her and gave her my number, telling her to give me a call if she got really down and needed to talk. She called me a couple of nights later and we talked about our experiences for a long time on the phone. It wasn’t until several weeks of calls and texts passing both ways that I realised what had happened. I had made a new friend!

She and I are still close to this day and call and visit each other regularly, go out for a few pints and do all the other normal things girlfriends do. In the years that have passed I have stopped pushing people away and made other friends too. I guess the moral of the story is that you need to do whatever it takes to get over the feelings you've been left with that are blocking you from trusting people and living your life in a healthy way. Personally the lesson I've learned out of it is that if you are not embracing the people you meet in your life you are not embracing life itself, and I dread to think where I might still be in my mind today if I had never gone to that counseling service.

I think you need to figure out what you need to do in order to work your way out of this mode of thinking and then go and do it. A good place to start might be in considering the fact that this was obviously a very insecure and messed-up young girl who used your trust like that; she would have to have been to pass up a true friend in order to seek validation from some crowd of people who did not care about her at all. If you can find it in yourself to feel sorry for her perhaps that would be a good place to start. I know it's easier said than done but she does sound to me like a very confused young girl who honestly deserved less scorn and more pity. Ask yourself, would you trade places with her? Asking yourself this might make her pitiable character clearer to you. I wish you all the best and just remember that these feelings simply cannot endure forever if you firmly decide in your mind that they will not.

Kimia

Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. Seahorse I am so sorry about what happened to your friend, that story was so sad and yet inspirational so thank you for sharing that.

I think i need to try and ignore those automatic feelings of wanting to run away although it is hard. I don't feel angry towards that girl anymore, she as far as i know is now a drug addict and has really messed up her life, whereas i am doing well for myself and am very happy in all other aspects.