Sorry that you had a falling out with your friend. I know things like that are hard to forget or let go. I don't have any friends except for my husband and the one's I have here on this board and support groups. It is very hard to translate the word "friend" because there are so many things that can cause a friendship to crumble. The last friend I had "lured" my husband from me at a very vonerable time in his life and she knew that and took full advantage of it. I blame the both of them, not just her. However, if she was the true friend she said she was, I wouldn't have even had to concern myself with it.
Lets get down to the nitty gritty here. How can we classify a true friend. A true friend to me is someone who stands by you no matter what. They are there for you through good and bad, thick and flush. They don't waiver nor do they falter. They don't stab you in the back or talk about you behind your back. They defend you to others and protect you from gossip and untrue statements. Now that's a tall order for a person to be a friend. So, I have come to one conclusion. A friend is just as good as you think they are. No more and no less. When it all comes down to it, the person who says they are your friend would do whatever it took to protect themselves, not you.
I have found one thing to be true. Don't tell this person you call a friend everything about what is happening in your life. Sometimes we can fix things by ourselves without the help of any outside interference. Personally, when I need the help of a friend(s), I call upon the members of this group to help me. See, as I have said many times, we are names without faces. No one knows who we are or what we look like. They only know us by our profile and the things we tell them. I like that. This way I know that care for me, the name and not the face. They know what we are made of and where we are coming from. They know our deepest throughts, but, don't gossip because who are they going to gossip to? The other members? If that's the case, then they don't have to post to me anymore but that's not the case here. I have come on some hard times and these members will tell you it took me a very long time to open up to them because I got so hurt on a few other boards. I "lurked" in the shadows for a while before I even posted for the first time. I waited until I was sure that these members were who they said they were. I could tell from their warmhearted posts and kind and loving words that this was the place I had to be for love and comfort. Thank the good Lord I was right.
Now I know that everyone needs a friend to hang with and to talk to but I also know that I drove friends away by complaining about every problem and ache and pain I had. After a while, they got tired of listening to me. Even my family got tired of listenting to me and I was the only one that didn't see it. It was like, "God, here she comes, everyone run" type thing. I finally realized what I was doing and dropped friends alltogether. I was OK with that as long as I had my husband and the members of my support group. Your case is not unusual or strange. We have all gone through the same thing. Having a real friend is a rare find. See, friends have to be willing to listen and listened to. They have to be trusted as well as trust. They have to help as well as be helped. They have to comfort as well as be comforted. They have to lend support as well as get support. In other words what I am saying is that a true fried needs as much as you do. The main focus is not just on you, it's on them too. I'm sure you have friends who's lives aren't perfect who need as much love and concern as you do. They need the shoulder that you so desperately need. We get lost in our thinking that we are the only ones hurting when we are not. They are hurting too. Give this some thought and let me know if it has helped. I hope it does. It comes from the heart to a person that needs understanding. That person is you!
God bless
"Lefty"