https://www.resetera.com/threads/i-...-fuck-up-in-life-and-he-started-crying.74991/
This thread reminded me of just how much I hate the 'tough love'/'the truth hurts' mentality. I hate to use the word, but reading through that thread and seeing how many people applaud these tactics, it's really triggering for me. I've had several people in my life try to 'fix' me this way, as if tearing me down and pointing out all of my flaws that I'm already very much aware of is going to cause me to have some great awakening and turn my life around. It just causes me to hate myself even more and withdraw from other people even more. I have a hard enough time navigating the social world, fully aware of all my flaws, without someone I care about and consider a friend just itching for an excuse to tear me down out of the belief that you can fix someone through being harsh.
The last friend I had was all over this 'tough love' thing, and even two years after our friendship has ended, I'm still struggling to overcome so many of the thoughts he put in my head. I'd vent to him about something, especially since I didn't have anyone else at the time that I could talk to about personal stuff that was getting me down, and I'd wake up the next morning to 70 new messages where he'd be saying that he wasn't going to give me a pity party and would go into long rants laying into me and telling me what a weak and terrible person I am or how I do nothing to improve my situation and enjoy being the victim too much to do any better. He tried to get me to go on voice chat multiple different times so that he could 'deliver his message more coherently', but because I didn't want to be yelled at in person, I always refused. He had me constantly questioning if I was as bad as he said I was and just lacked the self awareness to see it. By the time our friendship ended, he had convinced me that I was mentally abusive, had a toxic personality, that I drive everyone away and that's why I can't make any friends, and that I was lucky to have someone like him who was willing to put up with me. One day he just blew up entirely, made one last massive rant to tear me down, accused me of having called him names that he had actually called me and that still even existed in the messages to prove it, and then blocked me on everything so that I could never talk to him again. It was devastating for me at the time, especially since he was my only friend back then, and it took me a long time to realize that it was the most healthy thing he could have done for me. I was genuinely terrified that I was as terrible as he said I was and I made an effort to withdraw from people. I avoided making new friends and stopped talking to people I already knew as much as I could because I was afraid that I was hurting people with my toxic and abusive personality and couldn't see it. I didn't want to hurt anyone, so I just isolated myself even more than normal.
Eventually I did make two new friends online, but it took a long time to really come out of my shell with them. I was afraid of being myself or else the truth about me would come out and they'd start hating and eventually block me too. One day I got comfortable enough to tell them about what happened with my old friend and how worried I was that I'm a toxic person. They told me that I wasn't anything like how he talked about me, and I was even told in a one-on-one private chat that I'm one of the nicest, most forgiving people she's ever known. It still blows my mind to this day that she thinks of me like that. As I continue to struggle to make even one friend in real life, I often have a hard time believing what she said while his words continue to come back to me over and over again.
I'm in a slightly better place than I was back then, mentally at least, but I constantly struggle to not be completely consumed by my own self-hatred, and my old friend only managed to ingrain it even deeper out of the desire to use 'tough love' on me. I doubt myself constantly, and I always worry on some level, irrational or not, that I really am toxic and mentally abusive. I try very hard not to be, but I try to do a lot of things to properly fake being normal, and what may seem unassuming to me may truly be as toxic and abusive as he tried to make me see. I just want to be a good person. I don't want to fight, get into arguments, or cause drama, to the point that I let a lot slide, no matter how much it hurts me, because I don't want to cause friction or foster negativity with other people. I want to be kind and be treated kindly in return, but if that were enough, I would probably have a few long lasting friendships by now. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells with every single person on the planet and it is exhausting. It's nearly driven me to suicide several times.
My old friend is not the only one who's tried to use 'tough love' on me, but his was the worst and has had a lasting, negative impact on my mind. I think the thing that hurts the worse though is that even to this day I still miss him all the time and constantly wish I could patch up our friendship after how badly things ended. I still miss the good times we had, because it wasn't always bad and he wasn't always blowing up at me. Before things changed between us, he was the best friend I had always wanted. At first he was even okay with me venting to him whenever I was feeling sad, and before things changed, he at least acted like he cared. It's been two years and I bet he hasn't thought about me in a long time, but I still think about him all the time. It sucks.
Sorry to once again crap up this thread with another huge post, but that other thread dredged up a lot of bad feelings and memories that I'm still not entirely over. I've been crying for like an hour now and I think getting all of this out is probably the best thing for me to do right now. I don't know if any of you can relate to this or has had a friend do something like this to you, but boy does it hurt.