I fell out with a group of friends who were affecting my mental health but now I have to see them in class. Help! 

You can fix this, says our elder. But you’ll have to be the bigger person.

 

Dear EWC

I desperately need advice on how to handle a situation. Basically, I had a huge falling out with some girls from a common friend group this year, and I just cut everyone else off from the group for the sake of my own mental health. In other words, a few of the girls hate me, and the others are probably confused/ pissed off on why I just ghosted them. We’re all in college, around 21-22 years old, which I feel is old enough to not have gone through this drama to begin with, but I can’t help what happened. The problem is, next semester I’ll be taking in person classes with a few of the people in this friend group. I know it seems like a minimal issue, but the whole situation flared up a lot of mental issues that had been previously under control. I had an OCD episode that lasted about seven months, and my anxiety skyrocketed so much that I lost half my head of hair. 

Knowing I might have to face these people and deal with their unnecessary drama is starting to keep me up at night and I just don’t know how I’m going to handle bumping into them or taking classes with them. I need advice on how to handle an interaction with them and on how to deal if we take the same class? I’ve never experienced any falling out with friends until now, and it was pretty big. I don’t really have any other friends in college (I don’t mind), so I can’t just default to having company with me. Sincere advice would be appreciated. I can’t go through that mental hell again, and I can feel it creeping up just knowing I’ll have to face them. Thank you so much for reading. I tried to be as brief as possible. Lots of love and thanks.

 

Mrs.G replies

First of all, try to calm yourself down a little bit. I do understand your anxiety and your fear but there is a way to fix this. The key is to fix it now!

I don’t know what happened nor do I know how many friends were involved, but it sounds like maybe you could apologize to each one of them. Now I’m not saying you did anything wrong so it’s not like you have to apologize for your actions, but you could apologize for ghosting them or whatever you did. You could simply say that you are sorry your friendship ended and that you’d like to be with them again. Is this something you could do?

Basically, you need to be the bigger person here. You need to let them blame you all they want which I know will be difficult. But, by being the bigger person, you will show some maturity in your ability to admit to them that you were partly at fault for things going wrong and that you are sorry. The key here is that you are “sorry”.

I think if you could do this, it’s important to approach them individually – not as a group. In fact, if you knew their home addresses you could send a Christmas card. But since you probably don’t, text or email each one individually, as I said, and just briefly state how you feel. You need not go into a lengthy dialog. Basically – you are sorry you all split up and if you hurt someone’s feelings, and you’d like to be friends again.

I know you’re taking a risk, because you might get some nasty comments in return, but at least you will be facing the issue now before next semester. And at least you will be able to know you were the bigger person and be proud of that.

A lot of our anxiety can increase by inaction, as you are discovering. So, take some action and try to solve the problem. You might still feel anxious, but it will be for a different reason and hopefully will be less than before. I’ll hold good thoughts that you’ll have the inner strength to deal with this today and not wait for next semester when you’re in class together. Good luck and take care, my dear.

Article #: 482753

Category: Friendship