Self-blame and low self-esteem

[flowergirl444]

Hi, I shared a story before about a toxic friendship I was in.

I can't help but spiral and think I was the one who was not a good friend. I keep getting looks from people who I used to be friends with like I did something so bad. It might be in my head, but there have been a few that are not nice. It just feeds into my spiral that I am a bad person. It makes me want to never leave the house. I keep replaying what happened. I seem to forget all of the bad things they put me through and only focus on how I ended the friendship. I am so deeply scared they are spreading false rumors about me. I try so hard to be a good person, I am so scared. I just want to be free of this person in my brain, but it is so hard. I keep telling myself to move on forget about it, and try not to care what people think about me. But physically can't.

[Dolphin14]

I'm sorry you continue to struggle with this

Our heads create so much of this. People don't care as much about us as we think. I'm sure you are not in their thoughts constantly. You are probably thinking of them more than they are you.

Unfortunately this type of stuff occupies our brains and we only hurt ourselves

I hope you find peace soon

🐬

[CL3V3R-G1RL]

I had a friendship end badly. I, too, I was worried. But then I realized that people who do know me will understand and know I'm not some kind of monster. I tried my best to maintain this friendship. Did I make mistakes? Of course I did. I did my best to apologize. However that's all I can do. I can reverse it and I can't go back in time. All I can do is apologize. It's up to the other person to either accept my apology and allow me to make amends. Or they won't. People on the outside looking in have to understand is that this friendship is between 2 people that just can no longer be friends. And that is between them. Nobody else needs to be involved. We can still have mutual friends in common. We just don't have to speak to each other. At least that's how adults should treat such matters. I'm still friends with our mutual friends.

There's a quote I like and I'm not sure who said it but the quote is "Once you have ruined your reputation. You can live quite freely."

I'm sorry that our brains are hardwired to keep hold of terrible things as a lesson to be learned from. To not make those mistakes again.

But for people with depression and anxiety. Those just live in our heads rent free. We replay them over and over. Wish we could do things differently. Torturing ourselves. Gotta forgive ourselves for these things. We mess up and we learn from it. We grow and move on. We are not perfect. Nor will we ever be. That's okay.

Sending you light and healing 🫂❤️