I wrote the other day about how I’d come across the facebook page of an old friend of mine. After this I felt an urge to google everyone else I’d gone to school with and I found a youtube page belonging to someone named James T______, who had the same very unusual surname of a friend I’d gone to school with. He had a photo of himself, and while I wasn’t entirely sure it was him as I haven’t seen him since 2006 and this person looked a lot older, he was bald, and James had gone bald last I saw him, so I left a comment on his page asking “Are you James C. T_______ from (hometown’s name)?”
I wrote in the disabled megathread about how it was him, and we sent emails back and forth for the rest of the night. I was so thrilled and excited to find him. However it ended with me doing a massive trauma dump on him where I told him about all my health problems, being unable to work, the fact I’ve become hideously ugly, the fact I haven’t seen any of my friends in years, etc.
It was almost a week ago and he didn’t write back again after that. At first I was just hurt by this. However as I mentioned in the disabled megathread, I was experiencing some type of religious mania at the time, which I have on multiple occasions previously, and honestly I think i am undiagnosed bipolar and I was having a manic episode. I did all kinds of stupid things during this episode including cutting my hair really short on the spur of the moment with some blunt scissors I found and throwing away some of my books because I thought God wouldn’t approve of them.
I think frantically searching for all my old friends and contacting James, and telling him all my problems might have been part of this mania. Now the mania has died down a bit I am so embarrassed at my behaviour I am cringing constantly and wish I could take it back. From my point of view at the time, I was simply sharing my life story with an old and dear friend. But now I see from his point of view he was contacted out of the blue by someone he hasn’t seen in 20 years who then immediately used him as a therapist, inappropriately oversharing all of their problems .
I must seem like a really desperate loser to him, reaching out to a long lost person and telling them everything like this. And I am a desperate loser but it’s embarrassing that he knows that now. Everyone here at hexbear is so accepting and always willing to listen to my problems, I guess I got used to that and forgot that in real life people don’t want to hear it and think you’re a weirdo if you don’t act like everything is fine all the time.
Why doesn’t life have a rewind button?
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Oh geez, the post-mania embarrassment is ROUGH lol. For me, it dovetailed nicely with a follow-up depressive episode that really let me stew in self-hatred. So you’re definitely not alone there!
I agree with others in recommending a short follow-up email apologizing and saying that you weren’t in a good place mentally. Either way, thinking about it more isn’t going to make it better - if you notice that you’re ruminating, force yourself to think of something else. No use crying over spilt milk etc etc.
I’d also recommend getting a diagnosis and meds if you think you’re bipolar! Mood stabilizers rule.
I’ve thought about it and decided not to contact him again. He hasn’t tried to get in contact in 20 years, despite the fact I’m still in the same town and would be easy to find, and now he isn’t responding to me again. He doesn’t want to be friends and hurtful though it is, I’ve come to terms with it. I realise that if I had a life worth living, as he probably does, I wouldn’t be so hung up on reconnecting with old school friends either. There are people from my past that I’m not interested in being friends with, and if one of them contacted me out of the blue like that I’d probably not respond either, and would think it was weird that they had suddenly contacted me for no reason. Now that the mania has died down I see that that is probably how James sees me, and I won’t bother him again. I suppose a more pressing issue is, in the future if this mania returns and I feel like doing something is a good idea when its not, how do I recognise that and stop in time. The mental health services here are awful, I know I’ll get no decent help, it’s barely worth trying and I can’t handle any more medication. I know I’ll get all the side effects. I’ve also recently started becoming allergic to everything so i want to cut my meds down rather than increase them.
That’s fair! For what it’s worth, he was interested in talking to you initially, and dropped off when talking to your manic self (who tends to say wild shit). Personally, I’m not ruling out that he’s just too busy, but either way I wouldn’t take it as a rejection of your “normal” self.
Really hate “if I had a life worth living…”. I’m guessing “ah, but you do!” won’t help, so I’ll just say that I’m sorry that you feel that way and I hope that one day you won’t.
Re: not being on meds, my doc recommended monitoring your sleep as a good check on mania. If you need less sleep and still feel energized, that might be a sign you’re manic. Getting enough sleep is v important, to the point where I’d probably recommend taking a sleep aid if you aren’t getting “enough” (where enough is unique to the person, but maybe 5ish hours?). Maybe you could take Benadryl, since it also helps with allergies…?
I don’t have a life worth living though. I’m in chronic pain, dosed up to the eyeballs on meds with a ton of side effects, can’t even do basic things like walk or dress myself without great difficulty, trapped indoors much of the time due to often being unable to walk for long periods of time, alone, bored, and facing a lifetime of horrible medical treatments and endless poverty as I’ll never be able to work, constantly going through the stress of being reassessed for benefits. It’s an objective fact that this is not a life worth living, I know society loves to push the toxic positivity narrative and try and convince people in situations like this that their lives are worth living but that’s all a lie. If society had a shred of decency, assisted suicide would be available to me, but society likes to virtue signal and pretend they care too much about the disabled to let us die, all the while making it as difficult as possible for us to access the benefits and medical treatment we need.
I am already prescribed loratadine for the allergies but they are getting worse over time. I don’t think benadryl will cut it.
Ah fair - I mentioned Benadryl just bc it helps you sleep, not for the allergies.
That sounds really rough, I’m sorry :( I’ve had existential spirals that ended up at similar conclusions, but I definitely wouldn’t say I “get it”.
This reminds me of this video I recently saw. I liked the whole thing, but I linked to a specific section that I really identified with.
I’m glad you’re on here, and thanks for sharing what you’re going through. It makes me sad that you’ve resigned to thinking your life isn’t worth living. I hope that you eventually feel better mentally, if not physically.
Either way, wishing you the best.
Thanks.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I was simply sharing my life story with an old and dear friend.
I know it’s tough sometimes but you really don’t need to go any further than that. You have no idea what this persons life is like. Even if James shared his story back to you, you never know how honest and complete people are in those situations. He could’ve just received devastating news, or maybe he had a busy week coming up. Jumping to conclusions like “it’s because I’m annoying” are not productive in any way.
Be nicer to yourself. Personally, that’s what i’m trying to be better about these days.
you can apologize so it wouldn’t gnaw at you, and let it restI feel like that would just be even worse, contacting him yet again when he still hasn’t responded just seems like badgering someone who doesn’t want contact from me.
just write a short message with an explanation and apology, if he doesn’t answer, then ok, if he is accepting - also ok. leave it short, and to the point, without any hooks for need of response or acknowledgement, let him decide freely
An explanation would just be an extra, embarrassing dump though, like it’s already bad enough I dumped all my medical issues on him, but to go back with “oh sorry about my last message, I think I’m undiagnosed bipolar and was having a manic episode,” will just make it worse and even more embarrassing.
i mean, if somebody out of nowhere dumped some of their problems on me out of the blue, some short explanation that they were feeling vulnerable/nostalgic in the moment (don’t go immediately for self diagnosis, try to be more down to earth rather than clinical), and they apologize would make some sense for me. now i would debate internally if this is something i can deal with, but at least i will have fuller picture (to establish boundaries or say can’t deal with this, sorry etc). the alternative is them either reaching out or ignoring (basically same options tbh), but with a lesser information available
(dumping is also providing explanations that person can’t deal with or can’t help with, this is why i mentioned keep it short and sweet, like “sorry, mate, i was feeling depressed and was reminded about you, and just couldn’t stop myself from oversharing. i apologize.” don’t leave any hanging questions or “i understand if you won’t answer this”, just clean and short, without any implied guilt on them for not responding either before or to this, so their decision is also clean)
I finished by saying I’d like to meet up which he clearly isn’t keen on. How about if I send another one, making out I’ve assumed he’s just been too busy to write back or something like “it’s been a hectic week for me, looks like it has for you too. Anyway you know where I am now if you ever want to reach out.”
well i wouldn’t quite phrase it this way, neither about keenness (maybe he is busy, but maybe not, don’t pre-convince yourself of anything bad or good) or implying he is busy (people don’t like ascribing motives to them), so i wouldn’t put “looks like it was busy for you” in (maybe they feel guilty or don’t know how to respond or ill or have a deadline or have a family issue rn or forgot or got stuck in indecision loop or don’t know how to softly distance themselves, some good some bad some neutral reasons). hectic week, apologies for oversharing, reach out if you want seems fine to me, non-obligatory, light, explanatory
the main reason for apology is that you signal to them that you yourself understand that you might have gone too far (or just too sudden or too excitedly) and if they contact you, you won’t do it again or that strongly, so they have lower expected emotional barrier to communication.
Gonna agree with pinky here. No harm in apologizing. If you never hear from him again you weren’t gonna anyway and you can just write it off.
not implying I have good advice, but if I were in this situtation, and I actually wanted to talk to this person later, I’d 1) not apologize for the infodump 2) send a new message with a new topic.
This is a good idea. Although not only did I blather on about all my problems but I also said I’d like to meet up with him so I think part of it is he doesn’t want to meet and doesn’t really want to be involved with me, also it seems a bit desperate to keep messaging him after he hasn’t responded. Because I’ve been alone and bored for so long, finding him was a huge exciting deal for me but he has a decent life and is understandably not that keen to reconnect with me since he doesn’t need an old friend he hasn’t seen in decades. I think i need to take the hint.
