Friendships that turn sour.

Hi Duders. I've been following GiantBomb for years, but am posting for the first time. To keep a long story short, I have suffered with agoraphobia and panic attacks for the past five years or so, and that caused many of my relationships to turn south. Mostly because I was no longer interested in keeping them. I was terrified of my friends thinking I was crazy, so I made the very hard decision to let them go.

Not too long ago, I got in contact with an old friend of mine. She was my best friend for a time. I had noticed quite early on that she seemed distant and cold toward me. Because of my overwhelming anxiety, instead of talking to her about this issue, I took my frustration out on her. I tried to apologize but it hasn't done any good. Obviously, it's been a while since we've seen each other, but I suspect she's had a grudge against me for a while now; even before any of this started. My condition makes me very irritable and treatment is hard because it's a struggle to leave the house. I've tried explaining this to her, but I know I just sound like I'm making excuses, which I don't want to do. Unfortunately, I can only apologize via email since the nature of my disorder, and I doubt she'd even appreciate it if I were to show up randomly at her house anyway. I feel terrible about everything that has happened, and I'm finding it difficult to move on. This is the first time in my life, I think, where an apology hasn't worked. I suppose it's a good life lesson, but it doesn't make it any easier.

I decided to post this here because I'm a huge fan of the site, and I know this community tends to be supportive. This seems to be something everyone has to go through at some point. If you have any stories about friendships that ended, feel free to share them here!

This only happened once to me, when I was middle school. While a couple friends and I were jumping on a trampoline, limbs got tangled up and one of us took a hard punch to the face. Sadly, tempers flared and we kidnap went at it for a minute before storming off in a huff. Things were never the same after that. It was a stupid thing to break a friendship on, our egos preventing us from apologizing, but that's how it happened. It taught me a valuable lesson, though: always be willing to apologize, as oftentimes the other person will be willing to as well.

I became a recluse 2012/2013 for large periods, I'd spend an entire week with no desire to leave my flat for anything more than shopping and even then I'd be quite contempt with ordering a take away from Just-Eat every other day. Needless to say much like yourself I feel I lost a lot of friends during this period as I stopped attending social events and seeing friends performances and so on. The change in my mentality from happy go lucky socialite to recluse was quite sudden and it' hard to identify specifically what triggered or caused it but it was understandable some people know longer felt the need to bother with me, after all I was no longer bothering with them. I started to show minor signs of agoraphobia where I'd feel overwhelmed when near tall buildings and looking up directly at the sky especially at night and this discouraged me from going out further, I used to get dizzy spells and anxiety near tall buildings and in buildings with high ceilings with a feeling of being 'sucked into the air' when I was a young kid but these feeling disappeared completely around the age of 13... it wasn't agoraphobia I cannot remember then name of the phobia specifically... but this time it was certainly becoming agoraphobia as the fear came back and more and more things started triggering it (like being in a train station for example).

The turning point?
To be frank living this way is not healthy, at all, I put on a lot of weight and the cycle was destroying my confidence. I lost my confidence because I didn't interact with people, I didn't interact with people because I had no confidence, I had no confidence because I was putting on weight and wrecking my general appearance, I was doing this because I was losing confidence to face the real world, I lost my confidence because I didn't interact with people.... etc etc etc. I realized one day that the phone calls/text messages I get were from my mother and promotional offers from Pizza Hut and that really hit me... hard. So I decided to something about it, now I know this isn't easy because social anxiety and phobias aren't something you can just 'switch off'.

So what did I do? I showed that I cared, it was a gradual process that begun at the end of 2013 where I started getting in contact with friends on facebook unprovoked and asked them how THEY were doing and what THEY were doing and showing a general interest in their lives and interests. I still had a core group of friends, though the ties were fragile, and I made an effort to slowly turning up to more and more activities and showed I cared by inviting them to do stuff. Nothing too huge, invite people over, ask if anyone wants to see a band/watch a film. It was through the core group of friends I've been able to show others that I care again, those ties that I thought had been eroded to the point of 'aquiantence' have been salvaged. The point I'm getting at? People became friends with you for a reason, they liked you as a person and if you have the same traits you had when they became friends with you they'll continue to like you for who you are... however you have to show that you care and with the anxieties you have that's hard. But it sounds like you care about this person as a friend so you need to try and show this to them, show that you want to stay in touch with whatever means you can... I'd say try a couple of times (perhaps not immediately) but if they continue to reject you gestures it's unfourtenetly a case of letting the friendship go.

As with your social anxieties and Agoraphobia I can't really suggest anything as every case is different, form the sounds of things your experience has a different cause to mine and I can't say 'just start going out more' because that's not going to help anyone. But I say try to identify specific triggers and try working around them? But don't write off getting better :) I was in a terrible place last year (incredibly depressed and a shut in losing friends left right and center) but now I've not been happier for a long time, I go out every day and have built new friendships and salvaged some old ones (and lost a couple along the way but that's understandable... I really didn't appear to care at all for the at least a year) and I've lost a lot of weight as a result :) Hopefully you'll make a breakthrough or at the very least be in a situation where you and your friends both understand your condition a little better and use this further understanding to help reinforce your friendships.

People fall out all the time, just because the immediate aftermath may seem bad it doesn't mean it's ruined.

Sorry I rambled a lot, reading back it's actually poorly written. Sorry for the fluff :)

Yeah I've been there. I called out my mate for being a bitch (which he was) and needless to say he didn't want to be friends anymore. We'd hang around each other for a while after that as we had the same group of friends but he kinda stopped hanging round our mutual friends as well.

It might sound harsh but I haven't given a long story here. If anyone asks I'll tell but basically he fucked up because of too much drugs and by having a very destructive friendship with an ex-gang member who he let rule his life. Kind of like that King (Theodin?) in LOTR with wormtongue.

As for your Agoraphobia OP, it's a nasty phobia to have. If it's become a real heavy thing in your life and is affecting the quality of your life then you should get some professional help.

It's only happened to me once.

I had a friend that I knew all of my life, we hung out, trusted each other, played games together, went to eat a lot, the whole nine yards. He had a rough family life because his parents fought a lot, I ended up being his escape, so I kinda pin our fall out on that. It all started to change when he got into a serious relationship with a girl in high school. I had heard they bickered a lot and that he could be rude to her occasionally, but it turned out to be a huge understatement. He invited me out to go get food with them and he treated her like trash. He would raise his voice at her constantly because she was "Embarrassing me in front of my best friend". He called her an idiot, fat, annoying and some other stuff that you shouldn't say to your girl. When I couldn't take it anymore I stood up, dragged him out of his chair (I took a weight training class, I was miles ahead of him in strength) and knocked some sense into him outside the burger joint.

I got into some serious trouble. he got 3 stitches on his forehead, a busted lip, and a black eye. My role models pounded the ideals of never treating a nice girl wrong and always being polite into my brain and when I saw my best friend shitting all over those morals, I went crazy. I'll admit it was overboard.

I never talked to him after that, the girl took that situation as a message and dumped him. I'm good friends with her even today. He transferred out of all the classes he had with me. That was that.

I lost all of my friends at once over a stupid misunderstanding: My friends accused me of being gay (Because I didn't have a girlfriend) and drug me up to the high school's rooftop and proceeded to beat the sh*t out of me till I nearly fell unconscious and one of them started to strangle me to finish me off. I gathered all my remaining strength and threw him off the roof and promptly passed out. I have never talked to them since and never understood they're sudden immediate need to try and kill me. I've had a hard time making real world friends since that incident. I don't feel like I can trust anyone but I've managed to make a few friends since then. If I can make a couple friends after having everyone I know try and kill me, you can make up with a friend you got angry at.

So... Agoraphobia? Maybe talk to someone about it, do you have any family members who could help you? I've locked myself up in my own house for weeks at a time just because I don't want to interact with the world or I'm in a video game worm hole. Perhaps you could go out with a friend / family member and go to a quite place and slowly acclimatize yourself to the outside world?

Jesus, duder. That's really one of the worst things I've ever heard. Sorry you had to go though that, but I'm glad you've made new friends since.

As for the OP: It seems like a very complicated situation you're in, but if it's a friendship you really care about, all you can do is explain yourself, apologize, and hope she understands. I don't really understand how she doesn't sympathize with your condition if you used to be best friends, but perhaps things are more complicated.

I've had a friendship come back around after a solid chunk of time away from the person, so don't give up hope!

Hmm...I don't know that I've ever had a friendship that went real bad per se, but every close friend I've had has kind of gone away, either from moving away or just moving on in life. I still talk to them now and again but it's hardly the same. I have work friends now but nobody I consider that close. Most times I've tried to get to be better friends by hanging out or anything, they usually choose not to for whatever reason. Recently one of my buddies from work (who recently just got fired) and I planned to get drunk and do a movie marathon a couple of weeks ahead of time, and when the day came when he said he could do it, he instead told me he "wasn't sure" and said he would see how he felt when he got off of work. I mean, okay, he worked kinda late. It would suck to have to push it back again but I get it. I texted him later and got no response, then later found out he went out drinking with some other guys from work til about 2 am. So, you know what? Fuck that shit. I don't have the time or room for people like that in my life.

I went through real bad depression from 2012 to 2013, and as a result I gained and probably nearly lost a really good friend because of it. She helped me through a lot and supported me, though I don't think she truly understood what I was going through. I became too emotionally dependent on her, and eventually we stopped seeing each other as often. Not seeing her or talking to her anymore was probably the roughest period of the whole thing, and out of fear thinking I was bothering her and pushing her away completely, I didn't really ever try to contact her. The story is a lot longer and more complicated than this, but eventually I worked through all that shit and am pretty okay now. We're still good friends and go out to lunch together every couple of months. I wish I could see her more often, especially since we live about a minute away from each other, but we lead two entirely different lives and I don't think she has that much time for everyone in hers. I know I don't mean as much to her as she does to me, but I've learned to be content with what we have.

To be honest, thinking about it now, my social life sucks ass. I no longer have those close friends who I would do everything with. I really miss the hell out of that, and making good friends only gets harder as you get older. My advice is this: life is too short to let bullshit and personal issues get in between those you truly care about. Push through it, figure out what the problem is, and sort that shit out. Trust me, I know when it's the matter of mental instability that it seems like the hardest thing in the world, but it's possible and worth it in the end.

I also suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, but thankfully I've only ever had 3 in my life, all in the past 2 - 3 years. Not sure how that ratio "ranks" in terms of severity. My last one was actually last month. Depression is an obvious stem from that, but I basically let my friends know kind of bluntly, and they were really supportive. I guess I was lucky that way. I was reclusive for a good year and a half while I was figuring out what was wrong with me and I think it actually did me good to have time to myself where I just thought peacefully. I now have 4 or 5 circles of friends and there's always someone who is willing to hang out. Just try to let your friends know what is going on in your life.

It's hard to believe stuff like this still happens. Is it OK if I ask what country this happened in? I am sorry man, but it's their dumb mistake. There are good people out there, trust me. That group definitely wasn't them.

Wow that's badass. How tall was the building? How badly hurt was the guy you threw off?

I've lost several friends who have tried to steal from me. Its very difficult to stay friends after you've called the cops on somebody. Ultimately only two I've known in the last ten years I've only been friends with two people who haven't tried stealing from me, which might sound like maybe I'm just paranoid except everything turns up after the police call.

@therealmoot You're probably better off without having friends who want to kill you. Thats pretty disgusting.

I had a close childhood friend who was a popular user on these boards years ago when the site first started who got banned. He suddenly turned into a hipster douchebag in highschool and dropped all his friends for new ones.

@therealmoot: WTF! Those assholes should be in jail for attempted murder. My mind is blown every time I hear fucked up stories like this.

Had my best friend leave our flat 2 days before rent was due. Apparently he signed the lease wrong so he could get out when he wanted. He left me for a married woman he knew for 3 months. Never talked to him again .

I have a lot of issues/problems in this particular department, but I'm completely and utterly terrified of talking about it to anyone (including family). Though I guess I just posted this in freewill, so maybe a secret part of me wants to talk about it...

sigh...

I have had a friend since first grade, who I used to consider my best friend. When we started high school, he started hanging out with this one kid I really hated, so we kinda just stopped hanging out for a little while. A few months later, me and the kid I used to hate started hanging out, which meant that I got to hang out with my old best friend again, which was awesome, and it was just like the old days. Then, my best friend and our new friend did something that got them in huge trouble, which made them separate. I tried to hang out with both of them, but it didn't work. Now, the only one my old best friend hangs out with is his girlfriend. I still consider him my friend, but I don't know if he considers me his friend anymore, since we haven't talked in so long. I've tried to hang out with him a few times but something always comes up and he ends up cancelling. The only time we talk now is saying hi when we pass in the halls. It sucks, because some of the best memories of my life so far were made with him.

It's happened to be a couple of times.

I think this last year was probably the biggest when it comes to this kinda stuff. I was severely depressed for a while because all of my friends graduated because I was a year before them. So I was pretty sad over the fact that I had to go to school without them and it was just shitty. At the same time I had this problem with girls where I was really like desperate and I wanted to fall in love like all of those silly movies. So it got to a point where I also had this online friend I knew for a very long time, since my sophomore year. We played a bunch of League of Legends and I eventually introduced him to my real life friends who were seniors at the time. So after they graduated and all that jazz I eventually transferred schools and met this girl. I was really dumb and just assumed that I should try to go out with this girl, but the girl just wasn't for me. I tried to influence her decisions and what she would do or say and it just ended up with me being very sad. Right on that day I lost about 3 sets of friends, I lost that girl that date, I lost the 5+ friends from my old school, and my online friend. This ended up happening because I posted on my Skype status that I was really sad and stuff, so my online friend started complaining about me because I got depressed over a girl. I found this to be super shitty but at the same time one of my friends from high school started spamming me some dumb link thinking that he was funny, and this was a guy i didnt really like but everyone else seemed to still shit talk him but if anyone besides them did it they were shit. So I told him to shut up etc etc and they deleted me and refuse to talk to me, which I guess is okay. In the end if they look at certain things a certain way such as my online friend did I just need to move on and find new friends.

I'm just a teenager, turning 18 in august and graduating in 2 months. I do think that some of the things that happened to me I deserve so it's just friendships that go sour due to both the friends and my actions

That's life yo.

I could give you a billion examples of this. I've never been good at keeping friendships due to my inability to be proactive about...anything.

Since I don't live a lot in one country its pretty obvious that most of my friendships fade away with time. its impossible to hang out and be real friends when there is like 12 hours flight distance between us.

I feel like I'm in the process of causing a few of my friendships right now to sour. The hardest part about it is that I really want to show I care but I've been driven by my anxiety for so long that it has become even more overwhelming. I can't let that happen because they were all such good friends at one point. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucck. I NEED TO FIX MY PRIORITIES!

Man, that is the dumbest fucked up logic if I've ever heard it. You don't have a girlfriend so obviously you're gay which even if you were who fucking cares. Ugh, obviously these assholes were never your friends. It sucks you had to find this out in such an awful way though.

Oh boy questions!

@xyzygy Canada

@flacracker 2 floors + roof so... 3 stories? I have no idea how to measure that. How badly hurt? Irrelevant. Him and another one of my former friends who attacked me accidentally overdosed on cocaine and heroine and died a week or two later because they thought it would be cool to have a massive party with their parents out of town. Nope; Idiots to the very end and they payed the price.

I've made friends since then, better friends. But it sucks losing 10+ years of friendship over a rumor and stupidity.

And as a wonderful bonus I have some nasty scars on my face and chest to remember the ordeal. They are not pretty, nor attractive. Just a reminder that humans suck.

If you apologised and she still wasn't interested in hearing what you had to say then fuck her. And by 'fuck her' I obviously mean in the 'move on and forget about her' sense.

If you do actually want to fuck her (of course you do) then you need to be touching her on the shoulder, not apologising in an email.

My best friend of around 6 years moved on with his life/moved away for good sort of recently. I'm 21, living at my parents house in some small shitty town where I'm constantly anxious about what people know about me from highschool. Working 5 days a week in fast food. I went to university for a year and then stopped after depression and reclusiveness became a real problem. I had a chance for a fresh start and new friends, and fucked up every opportunity. I have "work friends" who I get along with out of necessity and hangout with occasionally, but our tastes are too different. The only girls I'm interested in right now (because they're actually decent people) are in highschool and probably realize they'd be better off dating guys their own age. So my social life's been worse, but I'm far from happy with it.

@therealmoot That's fucking despicable. I know what it's like for people to take rumors seriously and it having a really negative effect on my life, but I can't even fathom people taking it that far.

Hey duders have I got a shitty friends story for you.

I'll keep it brief since it's a legal cluster fuck, but About 3 years ago I rented a house with my best friends at the time. They started putting things up their noses and turned into asshole dude bros who were all about tattoos and breakdowns in drop A. Then they decided the house was haunted and grounded me for waking up too early to go to work. Stole my ps3 and wii, tried to sell them on Facebook and then sued me when I left. (Still payed a month of rent when I wasn't there so they could find a new guy) anyhow they wanted me to pay all of the houses rent for the remainder of the lease as well as pain and suffering (I got yelled at constantally because I worked overtime and exercised) because I wasn't there for them all the time and financially ruined them. Rent was $500 a person and I was leaving 4 guys. They magically showed up to court with new sleeves and hand tattoos while wearing suits. They lost.

TLDR; don't live with the only people who managed to get fat off of cocane while worrying about ghosts.

I also have a story, but it's from a while ago. I'm 25 now and this happened when I was 17. I had a best friend for two years who had just moved to my super small village from Germany. Where I'm from in Canada, Germans are moving in because there is simply so much space that they don't have in Germany. Anyway, it was awesome to finally have someone to hang out with around me (I still had lots of friends at school). So we hung out a lot, but I developed this weird attachment to him and got super clingy and paranoid and just basically became a shitty person. I wanted to be around him all the time, but obviously that wasn't good. He was still good to me though. He even took to me to Germany with him and his family for Christmas. Sometimes he would get upset with me depending on how I'd act, but most of the time we were just really happy around each other when it was just us.

I started teaching him guitar, he bought a guitar and we would play together, and show each other what we learned when we were away from each other. We'd play PS2 all day or watched movies and went bicycling to ungodly far areas. It was really fun. I haven't touched a bike since those days now.

Eventually I think what got to him was that I was getting too worked up and controlling, because one day after we got back from Germany he called me up and told me I was boring and hung up on me. I don't get where the boring part came from because we always had fun, but a month later on I found out that him and his family were moving out West to Alberta. I'm not sure exactly what happened but part of me thinks that he used that as an excuse because he didn't want to say goodbye. I also didn't want to say goodbye, so when his family had a goodbye dinner at my house (both our parents were/are still very good friends) I didn't leave my room. My mom came to get me a few times but I told her to go; she could see how confused I was. I would still see him in school for the remainder of the year, and it was really awkward when we'd pass each other in the hallway. I remember this one time it was just the two of us in the main entrance, and the way he looked at me. I still don't understand that look. Anyway, that was the last I saw him and his last thing I heard him say was that I was boring. I still think he thinks of me from time to time just as I still think of him, and on some degree I do think that he cut off ties because he knew he was leaving. But at the same time I was super shitty to him at times and in public, and sometimes I would ridicule him for hanging out with certain people, which I am very sorry for. I have been too scared to ask his parents for his email for the past 8 years but I know I will someday. But it probably won't matter by then because we were both just stupid teenagers and hopefully he'll also see it that way. I'm not the same person as I was back then, as I'm sure he isn't the same as well. I kind of wish I could see him now because I know we'd get along.

You and me both. I've moved countries every 4 years or so ever since I was born and I've had a lot of close friends that would simply evaporate over time after I'd move. Now as an adult I've become somewhat apathetic towards making friends. It's not that I don't want to hang out with people, as I'm very social and would like that a whole lot, but I guess I'm burned out on meeting new people if such a thing exists. I suppose it's fine to keep meeting new people when you've got a core group of friends you always go back to, but it's a lot more tiring when you're constantly the outsider in every group because you don't have one of your own.

I think the hardest part is getting to the point where you don't hold it against people that don't keep in touch with you. After all, you've moved away and your entire life has changed so you desperately cling to the way things were and the people you know as a sort of anchor - but to others it's just another day except this one person isn't there anymore.