HS "Friend" That Won't Go Away

I understand. I have asked my husband to stop me when I make attempts to contact certain people who have repeatedly treated me badly. I tend to want to give them the benefit of the doubt and think that they are the people I wish they were instead of who they have proven themselves to be. I don't know how long it will take for me to remember on my own and react properly in the moment, but for now, I have enlisted my husband's help in controlling my generosity with certain people.

It's really easy to not pick up the phone when you see her number pop up, to not even look at her emails, and to throw away any written correspondence.

I think you're right to just cut your losses and no longer let her suck you in to things. It's never healthy to have someone in your life that just wants to use you. Was it right to get nasty with her? Eh. Who knows? It's done now and you don't owe her an apology - she wasn't any nicer to you.

My advice? Block her email, ignore any and all future calls from her and consider yourself better off.

Good for you... you don't need to feel bad, dear. Don't you feel better thinking that she won't be inclined to call again?
What's done is done. Don't worry about how you handled it...just be receptive to whatever lessons are in it for you. Maybe you could look at this as an opportunity to grow.
Who needs friends to take from your life? Friends are supposed to be around because you WANT them there and they have something to offer...right?
It is not always EASY to stay true to yourself.

My only advice is that the next time you need to "vent" by writing a less than nice email...write it all out and then save it in your "drafts" for 24 - 48 hours and re-read it before you hit the "send" button!! lol
It looks to me like the only thing you came up short of was the money that she owed you for doing the taxes. I would consider the fact that you can now write her off of your list of contacts as the "pay" for your work!! Don't respond to anymore of her emails (shoot put her on the blocked list if you want to!), don't take her phone calls and just act like you never met her before.
Don't worry about what happened between the two of you in this last exchange...nothing you can do is going to change anything and you don't want her in your life anyway!!
Mission accomplished!!!

OK -high school is OVER! Quit beating yourself up. You learned your lesson. Block her emails and forget about her. She's continuing to take up your valuable time whenever you give the situation a thought.

Tell her you are going to sue her for what she owes you in small claims court if she contacts you again. That should keep her from contacting you anymore.

Don't beat yourself up. I make a real effort to always be diplomatic and mature, but it doesn't always come easy. Lots of times I just want to tell people exactly where they go with themselves. And I married a sailor and grew up with boys, so if I want to tell someone off, it will be good. (or bad, depending on your viewpoint :) Like I said, I have to make an effort. Because I know it gets me nowhere and I want to be better than that. But boy, does it feel good sometimes to be honest, even if it isn't nice. Everyone stoops to that level at some point or another. They may do it by being catty and devious, or blunt and totally classless, or quiet and hurtful. But at some point everyone does it. At least you were just being truthful about what kind of person you thought she was, not making things up. You said it yourself- bad things follow her. She just brought out the worst in you. You feel bad about it now, because you know you are better than that. And you are better than that because you have the decency to feel bad about it. I bet she doesn't. I say, cut yourself some slack because everyone blows their top once in a while, and at least she deserved it. It's not like you were mean and hurtful to a friend. It isn't worth feeling bad about as long as you take away a little lesson of some sort from the situation. Whatever lesson you want- not to help users, not to use bad language, not to be childish. You choose, you learn from it, and move on. And you accomplished your mission, I bet she won't bug you anymore. :)

I think you should follow your own advice, and remove her from your life -- especially from your thoughts. I had something similar happen not too long ago, and found myself replaying the situation over and over in my head. It took so much of my energy, justifying whether I did the right thing, or who was wrong, and wishing I had handled it differently, or worrying what she thought of me, and justifying it all over and over again. Too much energy.

Even if you feel a smidgen of thought that you could have handled it differently -- let it go . . . You know deep inside you that this is not the person you want to have in your life -- so it really doesn't matter.

A life coach of mine gave me this thought once: who do you want to hang around with -- soaring with the eagles, or quacking with the ducks? You become very similar to the types of people you hang around with. If you are with ducks, they will ever encourage you to soar and become all you are meant to be in life . . .

And when all else fails, find a good friend who will always back you up no matter what you do -- have an unspoken agreement that allows you to vent for a moment and then get back to moving forward. We all need support and encouragement, and the chance to be told that we are right!

Hope this helped.

Blessings,
N.
www.MyLifeCompass.com/NicoleSteiman

You know what? In a year or two she'll contact you again like nothing ever happened and try to use you again. Just remember what you are feeling right now and tell her you are not interested in talking with her and hang up. If you get an email ignore it. She's not worth your time or attention; never has been and never will.

Maybe you said what should've been said back in high school. Sometimes it's hard to deliberatley say things you know will hurt, but there are certain types of people that you can only get through to by doing so.

I would just let things go and just try not to get roped into the same sort of situation again. We can't be nice to everyone in life unfortunately, but if we could would you really have started with her? Good luck!

You have had some very good responses, especially from Marda.
Let's face it, we all want to be liked. You sound like a good person who didn't want to hurt someone's feelings and were willing to give them another chance to be a good person also.

This is actually a fantastic learning experience. Ask, what have you learned about yourself? Because really, everytime you have this kind of thing happen it is showing you something about yourself. You have a family and a successful profession, you are smart and loved and yet you are still controlled by something that happened ten years ago. Put that in perspective and give thanks that HS is behind you. Remember that we are always deciding what kind of person to be. You can't go too wrong when you take the high road. Good luck

One of the major things that I have learned on my healing journey is to take 100% responsibility for anything that happens in my life. I know this sounds a little crazy at first, however, I now know that it is the only way for my life to really transform.

I know this other person was irresponsible and had some poor behaviors; however, I wonder what type of theme she is reflecting for you. Do you often find yourself angry because you have done things you didn't want to? Do you seem to attract people into your life that are demanding and don't return the support you give them? Do you have beliefs about being kind, doing for others, not saying no that tend to push you into not having boundaries? Does the term boundaries make you feel confused, frustrated, or angry?

Focusing on the other person and their behavior will never actually change what is happening for you. It would benefit you more to learn about your own patterns of behavior, your own thought processes, and to recognize how you ignore your feelings.

I studied in depth about boundaries and found that I had never had permission to have them; in fact, I was punished for ever even trying to have them. As a result, I brought people into my life that walked all over me and found myself dealing with a tremendous amount of anger--or depression when I was stuffing the anger.

Use this experience to support yourself in looking deeper into your own reactions and finding the places to heal that will utlimately help you to not even attract people that treat you like this any more. We really do teach others how to treat us. We can only change this by changing our own belief systems and owning our own feelings and behaviors.

This isn't an easy process, however, it is soooo worth it. While you do this process it will be extremely important to be gentle with yourself--to resource you pain, anger, frustration, and confusion through journaling, asking for help, tons of self-care, and learning all you can about boundaries, saying no, and how to communicate openly, directly, and clearly. Best Wishes, T.

She ripped you off. So you were immature in your email.

Don't worry about it, at least now she's out of your life for good. I doubt she'll call again, since she stole money from you, but if she does now you have a REALLY good reason for ignoring her.

Think of this as a good way to have her out of your life for GOOD, and be happy about that.

Oh, I can SO feel your pain. And I hope you feel better reading some of these posts and knowing that everyone has gone through things like this. I am horrible at looking back and obsessively wishing I had done something different. But I have learned that the best I can do is to learn my lesson. Think about what you feel "stupid" about (your words, I don't think you have anything to feel stupid about). And make sort of a mental note about it- do you wish you had not offered help so quickly? Make a resolution to count to 10 before answering/always tell people 'let me get back to you'/make a pros-cons list before offering help, etc.

Again, you did nothing wrong, and ultimately are rid of a toxic person. But I know how hard it can be to move past regrets. I do usually feel better after a time, and after knowing that I've learned a valuable lesson and maybe the situation prevented me from making a bigger mistake later on.

Give yourself time to sort your feelings out, give yourself a break for being a good person! And by the way, there is usually a way to block an e-mail address so you don't even have to see any of hers in the future.

Good luck!

I have had this happen with some HS buddies too and it is the worst! Especially since you were trying before to be the bigger person.

Needless to say, I think you succeeded in getting rid of her. = ) Pretty sure you won't hear from her again. WooHoo!!!

Based on my experience with this, I will suggest that you do not read any of her emails from here on out. It will just drive you more crazy! Just delete and move on. And remember, she is the one with the problem, even though you lost it for a bit, you never took advantage of her like she has you.

I say let it go. She isn't worth the energy!

Good luck!

P.S. Two last thoughts, in regards to emails, remember that she probably can tell if you have read them and you do not want to give her that satisfaction. You can also set her up as spam so you never even see if she sent you anything.

Live and learn, that's really it. You are angry now (as you should be), but you'll have to chalk this one up to a learning experience and call it good. You sound a lot more mature than this woman, and obviously on a different level than her. So don't stoop to her level anymore by answering her calls or emails (that's part of the lesson), and delete her email and phone numbers from your life. Then breathe and know you have learned a huge lesson about how crummy people can be. Know that by getting rid of the junk in your life, you are preparing yourself for much much better.

Don't beat yourself up over this person. It is obvious you have been holding things back when it came to her and it was inevitable that it would all come pouring out. Don't dwell on the things you wish you hadn't written or what you could have expressed better. You needed to let go of all of those negative feelings. Now, it is time for you to move on and block this person off completely.

I held some bad feelings towards a person for years and it took her making a disparaging comment about how, in her opinion, my husband and I were not parenting our son well for me to finally blow up. I went off on her and kicked her out of my home. For a long time I thought about how I could have handled that moment better and how I could have expressed myself better. But to be honest, it was in the heat of passion and there was no way anyone could reel me back. It felt good to finally put my foot down and draw that line. Just keep moving forward and don’t look back.

When I was in therapy I discussed a situation with the psychiatrist in which I was overly forceful in an angry way. He said that sometimes it takes that much energy to establish our boundaries. He suggested that what was important was knowing our boundary and defending it; that eventually I would learn how to defend it in a calmer manner. He suggested that the amount of anger I used was directly related to the number of times I should have said something and didn't. The lesson for me was to say no the first time I felt used or didn't want to do what was asked of me. This meant I had to beware of the boundary that was being violated. To do this I had to "listen" for my emotional response instead of pushing it away. I often disregarded my feelings so that I would be "good" and please the other person. I learned to be a people pleaser and had to unlearn that role.

Be gentle with yourself, knowing that you have learned from this experience. Be aware that your reaction was normal and necessary so that you would learn how to handle other users that come into your life.
And, most importantly, let go of your sense of shame. You did the best that you could at the time. Remind yourself that by focusing on this situation you are continuing to allow her to control you. Take 10 deep breaths and let it go. Whenever your negative thoughts come to the surface, remind yourself that you are a good person and once more let those thoughts go.

Recently, I over reacted to a friend and realized I'd been holding back negative feelings and it took anger for me to release them. So.....I'm still working on this one. It does take time to change long standing habits. :)
I did, at least, not send the intense e-mail that I wrote after she left. Another strategy to use. Don't send emotional e-mails until the next day. I'm also still working on that one.

Nothing different to add - just the reassurance that you've learned from the experience and can consider her persona non grata in the future.

Unfortunately, I'm a pushover, so I'm not sure I'd completely cut my ties (if I'm being honest about myself) if she came running back down the road.

But, I think we all agree you are the better person and are better off without her in your life..

Full-time Dad here, my 2cents worth, since you mentioned your family was being affected. I try to model the behavior I want to see out of my Pre-K daughter, and it has changed ME completely. I swear less, lose my temper less, and in general I'm just a more happy person. So, I'd turn it back on you. I'd guess deep down somewhere you already know the answer you're looking for, so be the reassurance you are seeking....How would you have advised your child to handle a similar situation? If there were a friend-influence I didn't think was being a positive influence for my daughter, I'd steer her away from it, period. All of the "she-said, he-said" aside, sounds like the inner-you was doing what needed to be done, and deserves some sort of small Thank You for it.