friends help: Friendship help. - Help.com

May be she is just having issues dealing with the fact that you have HIV. I don’t know what your ages are but may be she just lacks the knowledge to know better and somebody gave her bad advice. Do you have a common friend that could try and talk to her?

When my wife died, some people stopped talking to me or interacting with me or started treating me weirdly. Why? Too much emotional baggage for them. They didn’t know how to handle it. They were afraid and didn’t know what to say.

I discovered I had a choice: I could blame them for seeming to be uncaring and mean
OR
I could make things easier for them by approaching them, showing them I wasn’t going to break apart and cry around them, and showing I could still laugh and be myself.

For some I chose the first… for people who were more important, I chose the second.

You have in you the power to affect how people will react to your HIV+ status. You can choose to make it easier for them. You don’t have to turn this into some kind of test. You can still fix this. Forgive her and forgive yourself for your reaction to her. Reach out and make it easier for her.

I think you lost your friend when you said you were HIV+…

Well we are both in our 20th and her and I have been though so much together,
I understand whatever is saying.
I don’t sit around and cry about it anymore i’ve just learned to deal with but now that i’ve lost one of my very best friends … i’m so upset.

I’ve been tossing the idea in my head about calling her about it but the last time i talked to her she was so “matter of fact” and somewhat hurtful.
all of my otehr friends are pissed off at her because of what she has done “turned her back” on me.

After so so so much time and friendship i’m just having a hard time dealing with the fact the she is no longer in my life

Hmmm, sounds like you guys need to have a heart to heart. It may be that with her new life, she just doesn’t have time to give the attention to the relationship that you need… although that doesn’t excuse her behavior… I suspect that it goes deeper than that, and now she has to make decisions with her new family in mind…

If you want to continue the relationship… you may need to step up and address your illness with her. How did yu approach her with it? Try being a bit more delicate… you have to live with this, and as much as you want others to understand… your friend can’t not on your level… you have to gently ease people into this.

Anonymous wrote:
all of my otehr friends are pissed off at her because of what she has done “turned her back” on me.

This just makes her more defensive and more likely to avoid all of you. The more drama and hurt you pile on, the more paralyzed she will be. She can either accept she is a bad person for acting this way or she can cut you all out of her life and still feel good about herself.

The only way to short-circuit this is to reach out, say no hard feelings, forgive her, ask for her to forgive your reaction and move on. It’s not worth “standing on principle”, judging each other, etc. to make a point.

Use the power you have inside you to make this right. Show humility and self-respect and you will inspire her.

srnityblu wrote:
Hmmm, sounds like you guys need to have a heart to heart. It may be that with her new life, she just doesn’t have time to give the attention to the relationship that you need… although that doesn’t excuse her behavior… I suspect that it goes deeper than that, and now she has to make decisions with her new family in mind…

If you want to continue the relationship… you may need to step up and address your illness with her. How did yu approach her with it? Try being a bit more delicate… you have to live with this, and as much as you want others to understand… your friend can’t not on your level… you have to gently ease people into this.

Well everything you said is what i’ve been thinking for some time. I want to be there when she gets married but she knew i had hiv for about a year and then when I went to the DR he said I had AIDS and if I don’t get on meds right away then I would mostly die. and that blew my mind and all I did was cry for weeks. And When i needed her most it killed me that she was not there when I’ve been there and we had such a strong relationship for so many years.
I want to talk to her but she has become so wraped up in her own life. her bf is very controlling so i cant help but thinking he has a large part in this.

linuxya wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
all of my otehr friends are pissed off at her because of what she has done “turned her back” on me.

This just makes her more defensive and more likely to avoid all of you. The more drama and hurt you pile on, the more paralyzed she will be. She can either accept she is a bad person for acting this way or she can cut you all out of her life and still feel good about herself.

The only way to short-circuit this is to reach out, say no hard feelings, forgive her, ask for her to forgive your reaction and move on. It’s not worth “standing on principle”, judging each other, etc. to make a point.

Use the power you have inside you to make this right. Show humility and self-respect and you will inspire her.

I understand that also, I do have self-worth and I’ve tried what I could but it seems like she wants nothing to do with me.
just talking about this is helping yet i’m still confused.
I wanna eat humble pie and try and talk to her but i’m so mad that she just decided to no longer speak to me.

Bleh

Let me take a stab at what she might be thinking:

- she’s planning her wedding, it’s supposed to be the highlight of her life (sad, but true)
- she wants happiness… she can’t cope with the stress of a wedding (perhaps she’s planning some big thing) plus the huge emotional needs you have with your HIV+
- perhaps she even convinces herself it’s your fault and perhaps she’s even irrationally angry with you for “spoiling” her wedding bliss

That’s looking at her potential emotional point of view. So why not do this? Say you understand she wants a happy wedding and you wish her the best and you’d love to catch up with her when she’s back from her honeymoon… no hard feelings.

yeah I think your right… but I’ve known her longer then him and I got them together.
Shes not having a huge thing… it’s a BBQ.

just hurts.

Anonymous wrote:
yeah I think your right… but I’ve known her longer then him and I got them together.
Shes not having a huge thing… it’s a BBQ.

just hurts.

Yeah, it sucks. That’s the trouble with humans: we all have a 21st century brain shackled to a caveman’s emotional system.

Do the right thing, like I suggested. Then focus on the friends who are supporting you. Don’t take this personally. It has nothing to do with you as a person. You probably feel judged for being HIV+ as it is. Work on letting that go. Focus on the treasures of the love you can find around you rather than the people who disappoint you.

thank you so much… you made me cry a little but you did a world of good for me.. no one understands and you do.

xoox

Yeah he’s good.