ConfessionsPeachTwig

8 Sept 2 min read

I lost connection with my friends......

Truthfully, I’ve made choices that cost me all my friends. For a long time, I told myself it happened because they didn’t understand me. I was hurt, insecure and angry, and instead of feeling heard, I felt like everyone was deciding what I was thinking and feeling without ever actually asking me. So I reacted. I said things I regret. I made choices I probably wouldn’t have made if I had been thinking rationally. I let my insecurities turn small things into much bigger ones, and eventually, the friendships I cared about fell apart. I can admit that now. But admitting I was wrong doesn’t mean I believe they were completely right. What still makes me angry is how they spoke for me. They told me what I supposedly meant, what I supposedly felt and what my intentions supposedly were. There were things they accused me of saying that I genuinely never said. And during that final conversation, I kept apologizing. Over and over. I apologized because I wanted to fix things. I apologized because I thought maybe if I took enough responsibility, they would finally try to understand where I was coming from. They never did. At least, that’s what I believed. For months, I carried that anger. I hated them for making me feel like I was crazy for being hurt. I hated myself for allowing my insecurities to ruin relationships that mattered to me. Then I found something I wasn’t supposed to see. A conversation between them. And that's when everything became complicated. They had been talking about what happened long before that final confrontation. And some of the things they said about me were completely wrong. But some of them weren't. They had noticed things about me that I was too defensive to admit. They had tried to understand me in ways I never knew about. There were moments when they had actually given me the benefit of the doubt—and I had completely missed it because I was so convinced they were against me. Suddenly, I wasn't sure who I was angry at anymore. Because yes, they misunderstood me. But maybe I had spent so much time demanding that they understand my feelings that I never stopped to understand theirs. Maybe I wasn't the only person who felt unheard. Maybe everyone in that room was hurting. And maybe the hardest truth isn't that I lost my friends because they didn't understand me. Maybe I lost them because we all understood just enough of each other to know we were hurting, but none of us understood enough to know how to stop hurting each other. And somehow, knowing that hurts more than believing I was completely innocent ever did.