This is my first post on this thread.. and I just need some advice and perspective… these last few years have just been some of the hardest for me and that says a lot, because there are many periods of time in my life that I’ve been in a low spot and felt like I hit the bottom.

I moved away from home 5 years ago, to start fresh and move on from some really painful things that I put myself through during my teen years and early 20s. I had met my current partner who lived half way across the country and we were traveling a bunch to see eachother and making plans for the future and then Covid hit. At that time we decided we were either going to take the next step in our relationship and actually be together or we were going to end it. I don’t regret leaving home.. there was basically nothing left for me there, besides memories of the life I lived during active addiction and so many triggers.. & after having my son in 2016 I was doing my best to focus on myself and our future and rebuild.

Looking back now I really should have started prioritizing my mental health back then, but unfortunately I’m really good at just shoving things down and carrying on — and lesson learned because it’s all finally boiled over and I’m probably at the worst I’ve ever been with my mental health and I’m at the point where things really feel hopeless and very overwhelming.

The last year I finally started therapy and was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, CPTSD, anxiety, and ADHD. I knew I had things to heal from and I finally took the step to reach out for help and I’m so glad I did, but there’s a long way to go. Throughout my time living here through my first job which I held for a couple years, I made some great friends. For the first time in my life I felt like I had a group of girls in my life that saw me, understood me, and cared about me. But unfortunately with my depression getting worse and worse paired with my ADHD and other issues I started really struggling with the most basic things. I became worn out and constantly stressed and just living in full survival mode and it became really difficult to just live life day after day. It got to the point where I would make plans and constantly cancel or just not answer texts because the thought of leaving the house was too much. Socializing and putting on a smile while my entire life felt like it was slipping out of my control just didn’t seem possible. And when I would see these friends I would really just talk about how I was struggling and what was going on in my head. I felt safe and comfortable like these people really cared for me and could understand I just needed an outlet. I was wishy washy and inconsistent with keeping plans and being able to show up and reciprocate the sort of friendship that they deserved back from me, but that wasn’t always the case. I just really am feeling debilitated by my mental illness.

So obviously with these patterns, the communication slows down between these friends and I, I gradually just keep missing and skipping out on plans, not because I didn’t want to. Because I mentally and physically could not bring myself to leave the house. We didn’t work together anymore so there was no seeing them unless I could manage to follow through on plans. Most of the time on my days off things were so bad I couldn’t even bring myself to go out and run the errands I needed to do to keep things afloat at home. My work schedule for the job I had the last 2 years was not helpful for my mental state either, if you work in hospitality then you know. I had so much working against me I was literally just trying to keep my head above water and my thinking just continued to get darker and darker and scarier.

One of these girls I was extremely close with. We told eachother multiple times how much our friendship meant to one another and that we were best friends. She was always pretty understanding and always said she understood, even thought it’s not lost on me that it was probably pretty frustrating to be my friend this last year or so. I started to try to mend things. My life is still falling apart but I started to put forth an effort because I knew I was driving a wedge between us and wanted to try to fix what I had damaged by being an inconsistent unreliable friend.

This last week has really been the worst I’ve seen myself. I quit my job to start a new one, a really promising one that could be a stepping stone…but had a nervous breakdown on my 4th day and took myself to the hospital instead of work, and between my therapist and mom we decided that I can’t work a night time schedule anymore because it is the root of alot of the things I’m struggling with. So now I have a lot of things up in the air. I reached out for a few days to this one friend and kept getting no response, and finally after a few days she sends me a text that she’s sorry I have so much going on and she wants me to be well but doesn’t have the time or emotional space any longer for this friendship because of all my unreliability and inconsistency. She said that when we would get together it was like I only wanted to talk about what I was going through and she felt I wasn’t there for her when she needed someone.

It just really hurts. I know that I’ve been a shitty friend. I’ve just been really at my lowest. Have felt like not living anymore and each day feels like I’m just struggling not to have those thoughts of wanting to end it and take the easy way out. I know I can’t do the best job seeing things from her perspective right now because I’m just desperate for friendship right now. But I can’t understand how you tell someone you’re their best friend and that you love them and then they reach out because they really need someone and you can just say no, sorry, don’t have the space. I don’t need things to go right back to the way they were but I just really needed a friend. I feel so alone. I feel like even if the tables were turned if any one of them reached out to me when they were really struggling I would be there. And now none of them will even answer my texts.

Am I the asshole? I’ve explained that I’m truly sorry. That I wish I could change how I’ve been the last year. How everyday I’m just trying not to stay alive and that I’m really low down in the shits. Am I wrong for feeling incredibly hurt that they would not even consider that I’ve just been unable to show up for people. I can’t even show up for myself or my kid. I just need a friend.