I (F, 24) had a horrible fallout with my closest friends, and feel like I lost my community. How do I survive this? How do I start from scratch?
Hello everyone. I am genuinely looking for advice from people who have lived longer than me, and maybe went through something similar. I will keep it short:
I (24), had a horrible fallout with my closest friends. It all started when I went backpacking to another continent, initially for 2 months, but I ended up falling in love, and staying for 6.
While I was gone, my two closest friends and roommates, slowly ceased communication with me. In the beginning we would have video calls regularly, then less and less, and in the end, I felt like they weren't reaching out anymore at all. When I came home, I was sad and confused, and I asked them why they stopped talking to me, and how the change happened so fast. From then on, everything went downhill quick. They felt pressured and withdrew, I was even more hurt, and I felt them teaming up against me.
From then on, everything I said was interpreted in the worst way possible, I felt like there was no way for me to be seen in a kind way. I wasn't even angry, I was just sad. The the fights turned into bullying, it got so intense, in the end they called me crazy and ganged up on me. I had to flee the flat, because I genuinely felt unsafe. I never, never, never thought this could happen, we were best friends, and I thought I knew them. In their story, I am the bad one. I am leaving out many details, for the sake of quickness.
Long story short: My former best friends and roommates hate me now, and I am sure that their friends (who used to like me) hate me now too, as no one reached out to me. I tried to talk to one of their mums about it, as we used to be really close, but she said she "doesn't recognize me anymore", and does not want to speak to me, or even hear my perspective. I can not imagine what they must have told her about me.
This is the worst heartbreak I have ever experienced, I feel like I lost everything: my friends, my home, my community, my network. I feel like I have to start from zero. I decided to move to a different city to start over with my wife (the person I feel in love with while backpacking! We are married now! :)), but the idea that everyone I used to love thinks horrible things of me and I can not make myself heard is eating me up from the inside.
My questions to women:
I just turned 24 a few days ago, am I "too late" with building a new community from scratch?
Did you meet your "tribe" later too? How can I live with being so hated by people I used to love?
And something that is probably impossible to answer, but always rings in my head: why, why why? How did this happen? Why did this happen to me? How can strong friendships break down so violently and what could I have done? How do I survive this
Thank you for reading.
Sincerely, a broken hearted 20something