I, at least, have a totally clear conscience. One of my friends had a psychotic snap and decided to take it all out on me. She pointed out a few instances where I offended her, so I apologized and corrected those mistakes. She didn't accept my apology and persisted in antagonizing me even more, hitting my most sensitive and vulnerable spots with fury and nastiness. I must have apologized like 13 times, kept my cool, asked her if there was something wrong which I could help her with, and she just kept kicking me in the crotch.
She childishly unfriended and blocked my entire family and Meg from her Facebook. My son's (at least I have him, and he and Meg are my voices of reason...) response to all of this is essentially everyone else's: "So what? She'll come around when she's sane again." None of us are particularly worried about it. (Editor's Note: She did come back. And she did the same exact thing 2 years later. She verbatim sent the vitriol text messages one after another, cut and pasted or whatever, the same crap. Everyone was cut off. The same childish nonsense from a woman in her 50's.)
People insult me all the time, question my abilities and activities and yes, it hurts my feelings, which I told this friend of mine. She thinks I'm "pathetic." She thinks I'm not an intellectual or an artist, same as my son. She implied that she only asks me questions about things which interest me out of politeness, not because she's actually interested in learning something new. I always enjoyed learning from her and valued her opinions and ideas. Last week, we had a long, very enjoyable phone conversation, which gave no indication that something was wrong with her emotionally.
When she loses an argument, she retreats by running away. She's unfriended friends of mine who've disagreed with her on points, claiming they're stupid and she's not. She is incapable of entering into an intelligent argument or discourse without pulling out her "I know more than you do" card. (PS, that's seldom true.)
My energy is better spent doing things with people who don't lie to me when they say they love me unconditionally, completing my school work and enriching relationships with promise.
It was a difficult week. She should've known that looking at my Facebook. I lost a first cousin and it was a very emotional time for my family. (Editor's Note: My cousin died from thrombocytosis, a complicated autoimmune hematological blood disorder, which caused her body to produce too many platelets. My Gram had thrombocytopenia, the opposite blood disorder, where the body produces too few platelets. Another cousin was diagnosed with lupus. All of us have hypothyroid problems. Another cousin in the last year or so with lymphoma. I looked in the mirror one afternoon and saw giant welts which are urticarial vasculitis. That was after multiple sclerosis came into the picture. Point being, I think, is that a frightening number of people down the lines on my mom's side have autoimmune disorders.)
Not only did she not offer condolences, but she ignored it altogether. She was offended at my last blog about helping depressive bipolar as if I was saying I had the "the most horrible disease on the planet." I never said that. This person has Crohn's Disease. I understand that she's very ill. It wasn't a competition of who has the worst illness. The blog wasn't directed at her, and, in fact, there's a point in that blog about other people not making it about themselves, which she obviously overlooked.
She may come to her senses eventually, but I'll follow Luke's advice. He knows she's done crap like this before. Possibly one of the cruelest things you can do to a person is kicking them when they're down. And she did. And I, at least, forgive HER for that, because she's obviously very sick.
