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Dealing with guilt from past decisions

  • 23-01-2011 12:48am
    #1
    LegacyUser
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 166,026 ✭✭✭✭


    From 1st to 5th year in secondary school I was the quintessential painfully shy girl with low self-esteem. Towards the end of 5th year I started going out with a guy who really helped me raise my self-esteem and realize that many of my friends were actually contributing towards this bad image of myself. To top it off, my best friend started going out with a guy who I found hard to deal with. He was the type to jump on any mistake you made and ridicule you until you made a different one. I dreaded going out on double dates with them because I knew it would end in embarrassment for me. So I began to distance myself from these friends. Sadly, one of these friends' mother died near the end of the year. I was around to comfort her in this time but my feelings of wanting to distance myself from her and other people continued. When I finished secondary school and moved onto college I lost contact with all of these people completely.

    Now most of the people whom I even had a passing acquaintance with in secondary school refuse to acknowledge me. I think that perhaps many believe I abandoned this girl in time of need although I was distancing myself from that group of people a long time before such a terrible tragedy happened. I tried not to think about the whole situation until recently when I happened upon my previous best friend's Facebook profile. I have numerous friends in college but when I return home from college I find myself confined to my house, afraid to go out in case I bump into one of these people. To top it off, I'm starting to question whether I did the right thing at all. Should I have ignored my growing feelings of dislike for the girl to play my role as best friend in her time of need? Should I try to explain the situation to people from my secondary school? Should I apologize to the girl who was my best friend? I really don't know what to do. I'm so confused about the whole situation. I guess I'm hoping for an outsider to give me a new perspective on things.


Comments

  • #2
    albeit
    Closed Accounts Posts: 151 ✭✭albeit


    Hi Op,

    It seems like if these people are trying to make you feel that you have done something wrong no matter what you do! If you had fully taken on the role of best friends when your ex-friend needed you, you would have been very false and it would not have been helpful to her anyway. forget about these people, it sounds like if they have the attitude that you are someone that only exists for other people's needs and have to stick by someone who has previously hurt you because all of a sudden they need you.

    It sounds like if this girl has been saying loads of negative things around what happened between the two of you after her mother had died, and that is why all the other girls are turning away from you as well.

    You did as much as you absoulutely should have- you supported her as best you could in her time of need, without pretending that your friendship was somehow back to what it had previously been. I think that was the right thing to do, no matter how tragic the circumstances were- you shouldn't pretend that you are something you are not.

    Just ignore this for the moment, I'd say. If you try to explain why you acted the way you did it only gives this girl more reasons to try to exclude and say more negative things about you. Concentrate on college- you really do not have time for this petty drama anyway, and neither should they have.


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