When I was thirteen years old my best friend passed a note to me (this was before mobile phones and texting – does note passing even exist anymore?) during study time and my excitement to open it was quickly replaced with panic as I read “I don’t want to be friends with you anymore.”
My first experience of heartbreak was not via a cheating boyfriend – that would come later – but from the abrupt ending of a platonic female friendship.
Even writing this I can feel a tingling in my palms and my heart races a little faster proving the impact this had on me was enormous if I can still feel remnants of the pain thirty years later.
This was my first time to go through a friendship ending, but not my last. Years later as an adult, this time via a friend who I thought was one of those we’ll grow old together buddies, sent me a message detailing all the ways she felt I had let her down and what a horrible person I was. Feelings from the past rushed back with a blast of adrenaline and anxiety.
Thoughts of “how can I fix this? “How can I make her like me again”, “there must be something wrong with me,” things that had been planted in my teen brain resurfaced and raced around on a loop for months.
I would obsessively check her Instagram, each time I’d see her looking happy or socialising with mutual friends it felt like rubbing salt in a wound. I kept messaging her asking how I could fix it, what could I do, how could I be better.
She never replied. Once I saw her in the queue in Primark and found it difficult to breathe, for the rest of the day I snapped at my kids, felt anxious, panicked and distracted.
Though my almost stalking behaviour only lasted a few months, this heartbreak took years to heal, and I think that’s partly because we don’t talk about the pain of friendship breakups. Like all those years ago when it happened, I put on a brave face, pretended it didn’t matter whilst inside I felt ashamed and hurt. Deeply hurt.
When I mentioned on my social media that I was writing this article so many people got in touch with their own stories. While we may feel alone when this happens, we definitely aren’t.
One woman found herself cut out of a friend’s life that she’d known for over 30 years with no explanation. Like me, she desperately tried to make sense of it and figure out why.
“At first, I was so hurt and really felt like it was my fault. Then I was angry at how mutual friends handled the situation, then angry at myself for not speaking out about how much it had upset me. When I found out the cause years later it was something that I couldn’t have imagined, and I felt sad that something so special had ended over something so trivial, but I had to let it go for my own sanity. It’s sad but I know now that I’m a good person and don’t need to change for anyone.”- Barbara
“Someone I’d been friends with for 15 years slowly ghosted me. She never said outright that she didn’t like me anymore but her responses to my messages got slower and slower until she wouldn’t respond at all. It really hurt and for a long time I thought there was something wrong with me but the more work I’ve done on my own healing journey I realise it’s ok for things you thought were forever to come to an end.” – Anna
We won’t always get the closure of knowing the reason why someone feels the way they do about us. Knowing the reason may not mean we will understand it, but it’s really important to allow yourself time to grieve and heal so you can move on without it impacting future relationships.
When I asked someone who had shared their story of friendship breakup if they felt it affected her life afterwards, she replied.
“When I was 19 me and my best friend did everything together. Then when I fell unexpectedly pregnant, she never contacted me again. We only lived around the corner from each other. When you asked me if it had affected my life later at first, I thought no, at the time I pushed it to one side because I was so busy figuring out how to cope with my situation and then a new baby, but now decades later I can see it must have affected me because I’ve never actually created new friendships since.” – Cat
When couples part ways people rally around to support, tell you how amazing you are and help you move on. In my experience of friendship breakups, even when other friends knew they didn’t want to get involved or take sides. I didn’t need anyone to take sides, but I did need to feel loved, and I needed to share how devastated I was. I carried my hurt around inside a black ball of self-doubt, shame and fear, terrified it would happen again. The consequences were that, already a people pleaser, my need to keep everyone happy became chronic. Boundaries didn’t exist in any area of my life and all that mattered was trying to be all things to everyone, trying to be perfect. “If my best friend doesn’t like me anymore who will? How can I make people like me?”
It’s an exhausting way to live. Unsustainable and impossible. I remember reading once that “you will be the hero in some people’s stories, in some you won’t feature at all and in others you will be the villain” and which of these categories you fall into is completely out of your control.
The only relationship you have control over is the one you have with yourself and if you are experiencing the pain of a friendship ending whether it’s an abrupt finite ending or the fading out of contact, the messages not replied to or plans to meet never coming to fruition (this can be equally painful). I can tell you with absolute certainty that it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. People change and evolve and sometimes we outgrow or are outgrown by them.
You are going to be ok. You will come back from this.
You are grieving and there is no way to instantly dissolve that. Healing requires feeling things we may not like feeling so they can be released, and we can move on.
As you face this process, you can make it easier by promising from this moment on to begin creating a positive relationship with yourself and show yourself compassion and kindness on your journey to acceptance and freedom.
I remember waking up one morning after my adult breakup with a lightness in my energy and realised I wasn’t hurting anymore; something had shifted and when I thought about that person, I didn’t feel upset. In fact, I had a really strong sense of wanting them to be happy. More recently I saw them in a store, and it didn’t send me into a panic. I didn’t feel anything at all except proud of how far I’d come. This was a big wow moment – I no longer needed her or anyone else to love me in order to love myself.
How to begin making friends with yourself after a breakup.
You might well be thinking, okay you are making this sound easy but I’m feeling miserable and blaming myself so “how do I do it?”
Step One. You make a conscious decision right now to start relearning how to like yourself.
Step Two. Pay attention to how you speak to and treat yourself, if your thoughts and inner narrative was a physical person would you want to be around them? If not, start actively making them kinder.
Step Three. Celebrate your wins each day no matter how small they may seem, smile at yourself in the mirror. Journal a list of good things about yourself, write a letter “Dear me – Love from me”. It can also be helpful to write a letter to your friend telling them everything you feel no holds barred and then burn it while focusing on how good it will feel to let go of the hurt. When your brain wants to go around in circles thinking about all of the things you must have done wrong to make this person not want to be friends with you anymore, catch it and remind yourself “I am a good person and the actions of others towards me don’t determine my worth.”
It takes time to heal and move on but the kinder you can be to yourself the quicker acceptance and even forgiveness will come.
When you need love, love yourself.
When you need to be celebrated, celebrate yourself.
When you need to be nurtured, nurture yourself.
You have everything you need within you already; you were born knowing it. Now it’s time to find it again.
I’m rooting for you.
Support Our Campaign
We rely on the generosity of the public to fund our work and so far together we have achieved great things! Please do continue to support us so we can provide future generations in Ireland with the resources to recognise and talk about their emotions, and equip them to navigate the ever-changing world around them as they grow
