I Lost a Friend About 1 Year Ago Can I Make Her My Friend Again
The loss of a living friend feels especially relevant right now. Sure, breaking up with a friend has always been difficult to do, but 2020 seems to be a imprint year for the disintegration of relationships. I arraign the giant crevasse that we phone call the political split up.
The degree to which conflicts and disagreements bend or break a person'due south relationships is entirely subjective. Some people view particular disputes, offenses, beliefs, and attitudes as make-or-pause. Some manage to keep their friendships stable as long as there isanycommon ground left to stand on. Some allow second, tertiary, and fourth chances.
Some cling to a sense of shared history and affection for the person theyused to know, only to finally realize their friend has shifted so far in their entire way of being and assertive they're effectively a stranger. Am I getting a little as well specific hither?
Let's move on.
The loss of a friend as a secondary loss
At that place'southward an added layer of relevancy to this topic for WYG'southward audition considering friendship loss is a common secondary loss after experiencing the decease of a loved one. Hardship changes a person'south back up system for a variety of reasons. For example:
- People don't always know what to do in a crisis, so they offering bad support or disappear altogether.
- People sometimes struggle to accept when a grieving friend doesn't quickly return to "normal."
- Grieving people sometimes experience they've outgrown or drifted away from certain friendships.
Grieving people often experience an interesting paradox. On the i hand, they are grieving for relationships they've lost. On the other, they may have a deeper appreciation for friendships they've kept and the new connections they've made since their loss (what we similar to call "grief friends"). Information technology'south of import to understand, gratitude for existing relationships doesn't cancel out grief over lost connections.
Why does friendship loss suck so much?
The reasons whyyourfriendship interruption-up sucks are specific to you lot and your item situation. What happened? What did the friendship hateful to you? How does it brand you feel about yourself, your friend, people in full general? These are all questions only you tin can answer and, because thisis a loss deserving of being grieved,nosotros encourage you lot to take some fourth dimension to inquire yourself these questions.
Looking at the event more broadly, nosotros believe one of the main reasons friendship loss is and then difficult is because information technology's an ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss is when you're grieving a person who is all the same alive. 'Ambiguous' in this context, is another manner of maxim disruptive and complicated. Y'all can read more well-nigh ambiguous loss here and here.
By and large speaking, ambiguous losses are different from decease losses in that:
- It's oftentimes unclear whether there has been a loss
- There's a lack of any certitude (the loss is ongoing)
- There are questions over whether the person or human relationship volition return to normal or exist restored
- A person may experience stuck between a sense of hope and hopelessness
- A person may feel uncomfortable or guilty for experiencing grief-related thoughts and emotions over someone who is however alive
When the relationship has inverse:
When a friendship starts to fracture, there's ofttimes a lot of uncertainty. People might observe themselves caught between grief over the loss of the friend and hope that they tin can someday reconcile.
When the friendship suspension-up is due to a conflict, yous may question:
- Who is to arraign?
- Is this friendship worth repairing?
- Can I ever trust this friend once again?
- Why did the person give up or abandon the friendship?
- Did I ever even know them?
When a friend has changed:
Someone might experience ambiguous loss over a friend if their friend has undergone a desperate change in identity. Specifically, Pauline Boss, who introduced the concept of cryptic loss, discusses loved ones who are physically all the same with us, but who have undergone a significant identity change but are expected to exist who they always were.
Obviously, people change over fourth dimension. So we're talking well-nigh changes in identity that may seem a trivial more drastic. For example, if someone:
- joins or leaves a devoutly religious grouping
- changes their identity for the sake of a new human relationship
- joins a cult
- goes through a life-changing experience (yep, similar grief)
- enters drug or alcohol recovery
- significantly changes their conventionalities arrangement, lifestyle, or priorities.
- etc
In these instances, one may feel the person looks the aforementioned just is completely and utterly inverse. Many volition hold onto their shared history and hope that the person they once knew volition reemerge, only to repeatedly experience frustrated and permit down when it doesn't happen.
Does this always mean the friend has changed for the worse? No, of course not. Consider the scenario of someone with a substance use disorder getting sober. That's a proficient thing! But, no doubtfulness, it changes a person's priorities and relationships. Possibly his friend-group consists of drinking buddies who still look him to be the life of the political party. No matter how many times he says he'due south sober, certain friends volition e'er offer him a drink.
Sometimes friendships tin can adapt and withstand major change – and sometimes they just no longer work. Often information technology takes people a long time to understand the relationship is over, and usually, there's a lot of grief that comes with acknowledging the loss of the friendship.
Coping with the loss of a living friend
You may have a difficult time labeling your experience as loss or grief because you're used to associating these things with death. Likewise, considering you lot may feel and then injure, angry, or abased that y'all want to say, "this is no loss to me!"
But if the relationship mattered to yous, I'm willing to bet you're grieving at leastsomething.Whether you lot're grieving the person, the person you thought they were, or your entire faith in humanity, there'southward loss – and where at that place is loss – in that location is grief.
You lot also may be struggling with many unanswered questions. One question in particular that many people struggle with goes something like:
"Did I ever know this person?" or"Should I define this relationship by how information technology ended?"
Again, you'll have to find your own answers to these questions, only I do urge you to consider the reality that, sad every bit it may be, people come and go from our lives. Why does friendship have to be forever to have been worthwhile? And why does the end become to override the skillful stuff at the starting time and the center?
I get that sometimes the cease feels so egregious and revealing that information technology changes how we view everything. I've definitely had a few relationships similar that. I also go that sometimes people concord onto anger and hurting as a warning not to brand the aforementioned mistakes once again.
Nevertheless, I exercise think information technology's possible to hope that in the hereafter, when nosotros feel less burned and less vulnerable, that we can view the relationship as something that was skillful for a little while and so ended. If not that, only as something that was bad, only which we learned from.
Maybe not – maybe you'll find very different answers. Regardless, I urge you lot to take the time to process what you've been through. If you lot're not sure where to outset, things like journaling and talking almost your experiences can help you detect perspective. Also, if you want to learn more about coping with ambiguous loss, read the second half of this commodity: Ambiguous Grief: Grieving Someone who is Still Alive.
We invite you to share your experiences, questions, and resources suggestions with the WYG community in the discussion section below.
Source: https://whatsyourgrief.com/what-happened-to-best-friends-forever-grieving-the-loss-of-a-living-friend/
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