goodbye, toxic friend.

So today I lost someone I once considered one of my closest friends.

I have known her for 7 years; so there will be grief, but at the moment all I can feel is anger.

It's true that this illness takes friendships away and makes those that remain stronger. This is the second friend I've lost in the past year who really once mattered to me.

Right now I have no regrets whatsoever. She gave me the choice to be a 'case study' for her shamanic healing (!!!) or to be taken out in the car by her for a day out so long as I behaved myself and wasn't needy and didn't ask for anything and didn't encroach on her boundaries.

I said I would rather stick pins in my eyes.

The point that finished us was whether you help your friends when they are in trouble. My answer is yes, of course you do. And it is fine to ask for help, when you need it. People are not obliged to help each other. But I always help my friends out if I can, and I do hope/expect they will do the same if I need it, as I have desperately needed it in the past year.

I have a close friend with Fybromyalgia and other serious health issues; we have not been able to help each other the past year. I miss her, as I think she misses me too. But our friendship hasn't died. We still love and respect each other. We have both expressed sympathy and sadness that we can't help each other in practical ways (i.e. having each other's children over) in the way that we used to, but long-term it hasn't affected our friendship, nor will it. She is too cool for that; way too cool, and non-judgemental.

This toxic friend, however, has, in no particular order accused me of the following: self-pity, being a drama queen (and she's the biggest drama queen I have EVER met!), resisting change, wallowing in my illness (god, as if), lying (I have no idea where that one came from), manipulating, driving my partners away, and being a 'spoilt brat'. All I did to spark this outburst was suggest that we start to renew contact and that perhaps she could come here, or we could meet in a park, as it hurts for me to drive the car. She kept on saying she was busy (see my post about 'what do you do when friends just don't understand').

This is somebody who I have stood by through thick and thin. I drove her bloody dog out to the dog hospital; I supported her when her ex was beating her up; I listened and listened and listened and listened and listened (sorry, but that was how it felt; she never stopped talking, scheming, plotting) whilst she was engineering how to steal someone else's husband (the woman was also a Scorpio, incidentally, and now she tells me 'I hate all Scorpios.' Ha! Trash their lives, slate their characters, kick them to the kerb and move on.... but watch out for the sting in our tails).

Good riddance to toxic relationships. I have no place in my life for someone who wants to gauge my eyes out at a time when I am in intense pain and need support and love. I cannot even, at the moment, wish her well. She thinks she is better than everyone else around her and yet wants to be a healer!!!

Thank you, Interstitial Cystitis, for ridding me of this bullshit and this horrible woman whose idea of helping me has been to continually criticise, patronise and insult me.

I wish her son well. He is lovely. My son was born close in age to him and loved him, so it is very sad for the children. I hope with a mother like that, he somehow manages to grow up undamaged.