I was texting my friend (and I’m a notoriously dry texter). I also have depression and do not like socializing at all. In fact, I’m friends with these two women and we complain about how much people suck.
I’ve not been feeling in a mood to socialize lately, especially with my depression and not liking social stuff. However, I started to type in all caps to my friend after she asked what I was doing and if I was okay.
After typing “I’M. WATCHING. A MOVIE” in all caps, she sent me one last message that she was going to leave me alone, and then later blocked me? I talked to a friend about it, and she said that since I was always getting mad and treating people badly, the woman who blocked me was giving me some space.
Does this mean the friendship’s over?
I remember a while ago, asking my friend (the one who blocked me) if she knew how to play a game, and she said no, so I gave her my phone to fiddle with. She has poor reflexes, has never played the game, and the phone was laggy, but I took the phone away and told her it was “my turn now” because she was struggling.
(Also, I want to acknowledge that I’m probably in a bad mental space, so this will be the last thing I post for a while until my people skills and depression get better. After all, if I’m having trouble making the effort to respond to my friends and I’m constantly getting mad/impatient at everyone, however useless they may be, and the fact that I keep posting about my interactions, I should probably take a break.
I mean this as nice as possible: you can type up a mini essay about your feeling and situation in a semi normal fashion but you reply to your friends as if you want to express you dislike them or are trying to annoy them. What else is there to say? How many posts do you need to make?
Does this mean they don’t want to be my friend though?
Also, what was wrong with saying “I’M WATCHING. A MOVIE.”
That wasn’t too dry.
All Caps means yelling or huge frustration
Since you don’t see why this would be hurtful, this is extremely hurtful, your ostensibly friend is trying to talk to you and you send them an angry yelling text with extra periods that add extra weight, basically telling them to fuck off and not talk to you, and now that’s exactly what they are doing. You buy, earned this one. Yes, if I was your friend I would be expecting a sincere apology at this point
You need to do damage control. Being short in all caps to a friend trying to speak with you is rude. The only real move is to apologize.
this sounds like their question greatly offended you
You could have written “sorry, watching a movie right now” and then stop responding or reading messages they send you.
Hell, even if you remove the “sorry” part of the message. At a certain point, you need to take accountability for how you write messages, despite being in a bad place mentally at the moment. Maybe they were frustrating you by continuing to message you while you were busy (and it does sound like they had prior knowledge you were busy with a movie), but it also requires that you were continuing to engage with them despite being frustrating. Nothing was preventing you from simply not responding until the movie was over.
Seems like you’re hurting people’s feelings because you’re struggling with empathy, perhaps as a downstream effect of your depression, or whatever the cause of the depression is. It’s obvious that you’re in a bad mental space. Acknowledgement is the first step, but getting better should be the goal. For your own sake at least, but also for the people close to you that you are hurting because of you.
And yes, this might mean the friendship is over.
If you’re not feeling like being around people, don’t be around people. If you need social interaction, you have to make the effort to make people want to be around you. Sure, you might find some people that’ll get you and put up with you being a dick to them, but that’s pretty rare. Especially in a time where people are feeling comfortable going no contact with their family.
Relationships are a two way street and take effort. Take some time to be your own friend. Be kind to yourself and you’ll find it easier to be kind to others.
Now the obvious, totally don’t mean it in a judgy way, part: If you’re not talking to a professional about your depression and desire to have positive social interactions, you should.
Good luck!
Disclaimer: I’m midway through my coffee, so I apologise if this ends up meandering toward a point.
First off, I’m sorry you’re going through depression, it’s draining and it sure seems to have done a number on you.
Secondly, yeah, it’s a pretty bad sign… But it’s a bad sign which can serve as a wake-up call, depending on how you look at it and how you choose to react.
I can understand how frustrated and spent one can feel while going through it. It drains not only social batteries, but emotional ones as well, making it really easy to lash out at others out of pain. Your example seems to fit. But there are other ways to go about it. I know it’s hard to make an extra push when all you seem to be doing is pushing that boulder uphill all day long, but you have to realise that, unless your friends are toxic and abusive (which they don’t seem to be from what you’ve offered) thus basically one of the reasons which keep you stuck in depression, they’re not to blame for it (and if they are, you should be reconsidering your friendship with them in the first place).
As such, it’s unfair to react aggressively toward them for trying to socialise with you. They’re just trying to do what friends do, to connect and be with you. In this case specifically, it sounds to me that you had an expectation about how your friends should approach these attempts at interacting with you, but you’ve not said anything about communicating it to your friends before reacting to a perceived disrespect of said expectation. What your friend did is a pretty natural and normal reaction when faced with random hostility from others. They are not obligated to just sit there and take it because you’re friends, it’s quite the opposite of what a friendship is supposed to be.
So, now it’s up to you to choose how to deal with it. If you’d want to try to salvage the friendship and maintain it from now on, my advice for this would be really taking some time for yourself for a week or two, disconnect from socials and try to do some digging around how you’re feeling and why, to put things in perspective for yourself. And keep it contained, give yourself a set deadline, because isolation and depression are best friends…
Before that, though, I’d recommend writing out a short and sincere apology letter to the one who blocked you. If you have no way of otherwise reaching out to her digitally, make it a physical letter and actually deliver it. Tell her how you’ve been feeling - be honest and open about it, really - and inform her of your planning to take some time for yourself and be specific about the amount. Even if you’ll end up needing more time for yourself, it’s better to communicate an extension than to leave it vague from the start.
The most important aspect of the above is not expecting a reconciliation. Apologise for the sake of it if you do feel inclined to apologise, but your friend is now fully within her right to decide for herself whether or not she wants to give you a second chance. And regardless of what happens with this friendship, try to keep in mind what I said about people not being to blame for how depression makes us feel, and I mean with everyone. Again, if they’re toxic, the priority should be establishing boundaries and increasing the distance between you, but that’s a different situation.
Also, always keep in mind that human beings absolutely suck at mind reading, so you’ll need to communicate expectations from the start. You really don’t need to feel bad about setting expectations, because relationships are a two-player game at a minimum and the other person can always choose their own reaction. But it’s important that you contextualise yourself for them, tell them what works and what doesn’t work for you, what you need and don’t need, the works. And it’s 100% ok if you need some space, or some time to yourself, or you’re not in the mood to chat right then and there, or you have other things going, but it’s essential that you communicate that. The only type of bad texter is the texter who doesn’t communicate their pattern (or lack thereof). A short “can’t talk now, will drop a line when able” is more than enough to call a break.
As a side note, the other end isn’t much better in terms of maintaining relationships, and I’m referring to the vanishing act. That’s the one I used to pull back in my early twenties when dragging myself through depression, I’d just vanish off social media and would not respond to anyone for months. They even used to joke that they were placing bets on whether or not I was still alive “this time,” which is just as cruel a thing to do to people who are invested in your wellbeing…
You messed up. And it’s ok that you did, seriously. It’s how we calibrate ourselves to the world around us. The important thing is what we learn from messing up and how we apply the lesson moving forward.
I genuinely hope you’ll be able to find some inner peace and clarity! And don’t hesitate to ask strangers for their perspective, seriously. If you’re not clear about an aspect of what you’re going through, drop a post on one of the mental health boards, or relationship advice communities. And try to be honest about it with yourself first and foremost, give yourself some grace and compassion. Human life is a collective learning experience, literally not a single person who has ever lived on this planet has ever had it all figured out.
Just don’t, y’know… like, doxx yourself, or something:)) And try to take everything with a grain of salt, actually think about how much sense one piece of advice makes when taken in the context of who you know yourself to be.
It sounds like you were being an ass for a while and you’re recent comments were the breaking point.
I’m a negative person, but I try to reign it when communicating with other people. When I do have to vent, I tend to get support because I’m not being an emotional vampire to those people.
I have some other people in my life who do nothing but complain and I keep them at an arms distance. I feel worse being around them. I do not care about their petty problems.
