I was telling someone how a friend has/had broken my heart and how hurt I was feeling. In response, this person told me to focus on myself and let it go, and that there were other things more important. This person is privy to how my friend had treated me so in a way, I knew they were telling me to let go because this friend did not deserve me to stress over the ending of our relationship. Although I knew this logically, I couldn’t help feeling that this person I was sharing my hurt with had dismissed my feelings. I thought about it for days, to the point where I was telling myself, I was never confiding in this person again. Obviously I was being dramatic.
I have been thinking about my unusual attachment to friendships and its impact on me, especially when it ends.
I have never had a huge group of friends, I’ve always been drawn to 2–4 people at a time. I have 2 friends from primary school that I still interact with. In middle school I had 2 friends, that I carried into highschool. In highschool, I had the most friends I’d ever had mainly because all the Africans hang out with each other but I still maintain a friendship with only one person. Following that, my adult years have been filled with 2 people here and there maybe four or so. All this to say, I count count all my friends on my two hands and have some leftovers.
I am not sure why this has been the case for me. But it definitely was not on purpose. I want to get to know people, I especially love women friendships, but life has always given me just a few. I guess quality over quantity. But I also guess that is the reason why I feel it so deeply when a friendship ends. I’ve stated this before, sometimes my friendships end because of a move or just different interests, but never because one has offended the other. But even in those cases, there is still a part of me that ache for that loss.
Back to being attached to my friendships.
Sometimes I want the ease and ability people have of cutting people off that do not serve them. The funny thing is I am able to do so easily with my romantic relationships but when it comes to my friendships, I think about it more than I should.
Nonetheless, I am glad for the growth when it happens. I able to evaluate myself and see how I contributed to the demise of the friendship, what I can I do better, and I also set boundaries on how I want to be treated. Most importantly, I am able to deal with my attachment issues. I have realized that sometimes when I struggle because a friendship is over, it isn’t because of the person, its my fear of abandonment.
*childhood trauma anyone?*
Realizing this has been life changing for me because I am now able to let go more, hard as hell to do but I am working on healing that part of myself where I feel like people will just abandoned me. And realizing that I will not die if they do.
Also, in the instance where it is the friendship with that particular person that I am missing, I know that there are many people out there I can connect with in a similar way, so I can be free to let go.
Tell me, do you struggle with the ending of a friendship?
