Ask a therapist > Friendship > How do I stop fixating on a situation where I lost my best friend of 18 years?

How do I stop fixating on a situation where I lost my best friend of 18 years?

I went on holiday with a best friend of 18 years and her boyfriend made the holiday so toxic that I told her I was leaving. She screamed at me that I was abandoning her and I stayed. I was then yelled at and demeaned by her and her boyfriend and didn’t get to do anything I wanted on the trip. I always de-escalated the situation and played the peacemaker, even though I was hurt and upset at her behavior. I texted her a couple weeks after the holiday and told her I was hurt and upset. She told me she doesn’t have time to speak to me for at least two months. It’s now been 5 months and we only spoke once and she refuses to speak to me or reply to my texts. I’m struggling to accept that I’ve lost my best friend and she doesn’t care. I keep replaying all of the situations over and over and can’t stop thinking about it. How do I stop thinking about it?
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Asked by JD
Friendship
Grief
Answered
11/21/2022

Hello,

First that's incredibly pain and what a difficult loss in your life. It's hard when a friend isn't respecting your boundaries and sounds like she's siding with her boyfriend and not looking at the whole picture- which can be absolutely devastating. I will offer a few ideas here on how to grieve, process and reduce suffering around thinking about it and I understand it can take time. I think it makes sense due to this individual being your best friend for 18 years and having it lost in a getaway.

Processing is an ongoing thing to do and this is something I prefer to do to fully understand my side and why I experienced what I did. What I'll do is list all my emotions that I experienced from that situation now as a result of bringing this back up... I'll give an example of this.

Angry

Sad

Guilt

Lost

The goal here to allow yourself to say these are all the emotions I'm feeling that I can remember (more may come up, which is normal).

Next, you want to spend some time writing down how each of the emotions make sense. This is going to be more challenging and more fruitful. The important piece is to understand your side of what you went through and why you felt that way. It can be important as you write out each of the emotions and how it makes sense to include what you may have needed from each of these emotions. I'll provide a few examples.

Anger- I felt angry by how my best friend and her boyfriend treated me by talking down to me. I wanted to call them every name in the book, but I didn't. I was especially angry as I felt she sided with him and they were being unreasonable. WHAT I MAY HAVE NEEDED: I felt I needed to step away safely and disengage with self care and state specifically that I'm not okay with you two yelling at me (just an example is all).

The goal here is to self-validate and process how you feel, why it makes sense and what you might have needed.

There are more steps to this and this can be a helpful start.

Best Regards,

Mitchell Daas, MA, LPCC

(MA, LPCC)