A friendship exploded

Ok, so this might be a bit hard to write. I haven't spoken to anyone about this, but it's been bothering me long enough that I thought I might get some help on here. A few months ago, I think in January, I had this friend. She was a lot older than me, but over the holidays off from uni we'd hung out quite a bit. I liked talking to her because she seemed to know a lot of things about how to be a good person. When uni started again, I got really stressed about the workload, whether my degree was right for me and if I would be sucessful in the future. I felt a bit helpless, I stopped eating as much and kept crying a lot. Probabbly more than once a day on average. I felt better, because I knew I had a lot of friends I could count on for support. Anyway, that's not really the important part.

I know I probabbly said too much about this to my friend. I think I overloaded her. A few weeks in she told me that it was getting too much for her. She told me I wasn't having a mental breakdown, and the only person who could fix it was myself. "Geez girl, you're 19! 19! Stop being such a kid, this is a chance to fix yourself!", "I used to be like you, I used to give too much affection to people! But then my friend changed my life. When I had no friends, I asked why. She said it's because your're :***:'n annoying." . It really upset me. I spent a lot of time on wikihelp. Maybe I was being clingy, I suppose I was also jumping into other people's conversations. I overheard them whilst I was working in the studio, and they were so interesting. I would walk over and listen. But I felt bad after reading a lot of the wikihelp entries. I called a helpline. I explained it to the counsellor on the phone. He said that maybe she was right, friends are not for emptying your problems on to. They are there to have fun. So I resolved to not dump all of my problems on her, and from what I can tell, I think I stuck to it. Mostly.

At some point afterwards, she asked how I was. I didn't really want to talk about it. I said that I was working on it. I said that I was sitting at my desk more and trying not to jump into other people's conversations. "Well we're always improving, nobody ever gets to a point where they're like 'yep' I'm cured now. Don't speak of it as trying to fix yourself, don't speak of after you're fixed.". And life resumed, normally as far as I could tell.

I remember there also being times when she rang me one night and asked if I would help her write something the next day. So I said yes. So the next day, she was sitting at her desk and I asked her if she wanted help, she said something like "not at the moment, I'm busy". So I came back a bit later and asked again. She said something much along the sames lines. I remember being slightly annoyed, because the work I needed to do for myself was practical and I wanted to be in the right frame of mind to help her do writing/thinking things. I felt like I couldn't concentrate on my work, so after a while, I asked again if she wanted my help. She said no, in a kind of final way. I remember being really confused. I remember when she rang the previous night, she seemed like she really wanted help. So I went back to my studies and just did my own work.

I know there were other times that she rang me, so I would ring back a few times, just to make sure she hadn't forgotten where her phone was, or couldn't get to the reciever, or didn't hear it the first time. We used to text a lot as well, she would always send me a lot of text messages. So I would reply, and it seemed like we were having good conversations. Sending photos and smileys across. She always used a lot of stars and love hearts and smileys in her text messages, so I started using them back to her too

There was a second time that she found me. I can't remember that much about it. She wasn't as friendly anymore. Sometimes she snapped at me about little things, and I remember friends remarking that she took it out on me more than other people. Even though sometimes she would still hug me in this kind of weird overpowering way that made me want to shrink away a bit. I think it was after this point that I started to stop thinking of her as such a great person. I know I have a tendency to put people up on pedestals. I started to get annoyed that she kept having these chats with me that left me feeling bad and adding another stress to the issues I was already facing. I started seeing some of her downsides. I was upset because she had kicked another student out of their shared studio space, and I was kind of friends with this other student. Now she has more space than anyone else in the art department. And yet, I never seemed to see her. She also left a lot of her paintings up for weeks in the common areas when she wasn't using them, or really using the space. She would put them up especially for a feedback session and just leave them there. Perhaps, what I was getting annoyed at wasn't fair. She said she had Chronic fatigue, and it meant that she couldn't lift things. I'd also walked with her to the chemist whilst she was getting her prescription filled. Something that came in fast acting and slow acting.

But there was a kind of pivotal moment. Her studio is directly across from mine. After a long absence, I noticed she'd been in and that she'd moved the power cord that another friend and I had set up in the first week so that now it was behind a panel where we couldn't use it. I got super annoyed. She was allowed to critique me, and everyone else in the art department; but she could take what she wanted for herself? I spoke quietly to the friend who had helped me put the power cord there in the first place. I asked if I should go in there and move it. She said that I'd better not, but maybe we should talk to her about it. She came in and I asked if she could move it. She said that she left the adapter at home. But we'd set it up before without at adapter! I folded my arms and scowled. I took a step forward. She told me loudly that she didn't want me in her studio space. Something in me snapped. I was so sick of her pushing me away, setting up her space like a little territory. Pushing other people out of her space. Taking all the space for herself. I took the step forward anyway. I think I glowered at her, although I don't think my facial expressions always come out the way I think they do. She said some more things. I asked her again if she would put the power cord out, I explained that I was doing a lot of work on my laptop and I needed the charge for it. She got my other friend to help her. I asked if I could help her at all, it seemed like she was doing it in a really inefficient, awkward way, but she didn't have any of it. The incident passed, and I thought that eventually we would get over it and everything would be fine.

Then I remember, I was standing in my studio and I was just about to start painting. She came up to me, and asked if I had a moment. I had this sinking feeling in my gut. It was going to be another of those conversations. Ultimately, she said that she didn't want to speak to me anymore. She wanted to cut me off as her friend. I'll try and remember what I can from the conversation, I remember a lot of staring.
"That day, with the power cord, I know I snapped your head off, but I deliberately didn't apologise"
"I was in pain, here you were, yapping on about some power cord, and I'm in pain! After you had left, I had to get one of the techs to drive me to the pharmacy. I didn't want to go to hospital, it would have been so embarrasing." and then I remembered that the name of the medication she'd bought was the same stuff my Mum had after her tonsilectomy. It was pain medication, strong pain medication.
"Everytime I look anywhere, you're always there. When I look at you, you're always looking at me. I'm talking to my friend and off you go running to the toilet. You know I was avoiding you. I was coming in at 11 at night just so I wouldn't see you."
"You can justify it in your head however you like, but I'm telling you how I feel"

I went home and looked her up on facebook to unfriend her. She wasn't there. I searched and she didn't come up. She hadn't just unfriended me, she'd blocked me. I think it hurt more because I hadn't gotten there first. I didn't talk to her again, I tried to pretend she didn't exist. She'd said she wanted to blank me, so I suppose that's what I would have to do. I remember hearing all of my friends in the studios and talking, and thinking that I heard her voice. I really wanted to go over and talk to them, but I was terrified. I didn't want her to be there and think I was trying to butt in on HER conversation. They're my friends too. I remember crying really quietly. I eventually walked over, peeked and she wasn't there. There was relief, but also sadness; I couldn't talk to my friends if she was there. I feel like she was almost witholding my friends from me. I remember being terrified if she walked near me. I didn't want her to talk to me, I didn't want her to say more things that made me feel guilty and sad and angry. It was almost like any friendliness I'd had for her got reversed.

When I think about this, it's really confusing. I feel angry, and sad (I'm actually crying writing this :dry. I feel guilty. What if I'm the bad guy? Nobody thinks that they are the bad guy. But then she is also a very clingy person. When I expressed worry about contacting a lecturer, and contacting them too much that they wouldn't want to respond; they said "Don't worry, you're not X(Her)". But maybe that is me justifying it. Another friend has said what she did to me was out of line, but they probabbly don't know the whole story. Even this, what I've written, is coloured by my own mind. I'm not sure if what I've written is the whole truth, but I've made it as truthful as I possibly can. Even if it does make me look like a terrible person.

I'm just so afraid to talk to people now. I haven't properly spoken about things that really bother me to other people, because I'm worried that they won't like me. I'm worried that I'm too clingy to people, so I've withdrawn. I don't ask friends out to things as much anymore, and if I do, I wonder why they don't always ask me to hang out with them. Is there a ratio? If it seems like I'm mostly calling another person, do they not like me? Or do they not just use phones anymore. Or they're busy with work and uni. I find it hard to find time to catch up with other people. I mostly hang out with people at uni because they're there. But now I feel self conscious about seeking them out, and I do it less. And I feel like they all have fun without me whilst I'm slowly withdrawing into my little bubble. I was thinking of who I could talk to about my sexuality things at the moment, or come out to. I couldn't think of a single person. Before I used to think I was surrounded by friends, now I feel like those friends don't like me anymore. What's there to like? I don't know. I honestly don't know. I'm afraid to go back to Uni when the holidays end because she will be there.

Sorry for the wall of text. If you've gotten to the bottom, thanks. :icon_redf