Cutting people out - yay or nay?

Life in Recovery
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Hi y’all :slight_smile:

Over 2 years sober from alcohol / drugs -
And I am not as close with a lot of friends after becoming sober, for a number of reasons. Of course, I know this is normal! Happens to a lot of us, especially if your social life revolves around nightlife.
Processing this stuff I realized that many of them had not been there for me in ways I needed. It’s not that I necessarily blame them, but it is still painful.
This stuff is really complicated. I talked about it with my therapist a lot when I was still seeing her.
Sometimes, I wish it was as easy as just cutting people out. But that’s easier said than done.

I had one best friend in particular who I barely speak to anymore, one on one. Yet we are in several social media group chats together. She is not really interested in getting into why or repairing things, moreso in pretending like everything is “fine”.
We have a mutual friend who would repeatedly try to sleep with both of us when he was drunk. Recently I found out his behavior hasn’t changed - Again I barely have contact with him anymore. But I see her still actively hanging out with him, supporting him, ect.

As much as I’ve put up boundaries for myself, worked on myself, and wish I could just let it go and be a bigger person, I can’t help but obsess over these things. I know that rationally, she is just at a different place.
But it doesn’t stop me feeling almost rejected and abandoned, in favor of people who I now realize were not good friends.
It’s difficult to feel good about what you’ve tried to do for yourself, when in a way it’s cause for someone who was close to you, to not want to be around you anymore.

Anyway - my point in this rant was to ask for advice - How do you deal with complicated / painful relationships without cutting that person out?
Sometimes I think a social media break would be a huge help, but then we are all so reliant upon it. Cause I don’t even see her in person hardly ever anymore - I am mostly triggered by the social media stuff.
I wish it was as simple as like removing myself from group chats, but then I come across as being dramatic, or having to explain why, and like I said - She has expressed that she doesn’t care to talk.

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I think this says it all. If you step back and look at the landscape from 50,000 feet, it doesn’t make sense to invest your time and your emotions when all you get in return is pain. We know that we can’t make up a persons mind for them, all we can do is try to influence them, but sometimes that is a futile task.

I’ve gone through all this before myself. It sucks to give up on people that have given up on you, but at the end of the day, you need to do what’s best for you and your own mental health.

Now, maybe a break from social media would help. The world will still turn and you will still function without it. Try it for a month, see how it goes.

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Thank you, wise words for sure!
I guess my one whiny thought is, why should I have to avoid social media altogether because of one person - but whatever, I know it’s good for me to take a break regardless. Especially as a month is totally doable.

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Sometimes the way we feel about another person runs deeper than what we think and in a way can have nothing to do with that person at all; but, rather, that person strikes a certain cord within us which subconsciously brings up those old hurts.

Anyway, I used to hold on to my friendships. I would try to make them work even when everything turned to shit. I tried to think about how others felt, and how I could make things work. It took a long time, but I realized that it was okay to let people go out of my life, and that if that other person wasn’t interested enough in having that kind of a friendship with me, and wasn’t going to put the effort in, then why hold on?

I do currently have a few people in my life where there is a lot of history and pain. They remain in my life due to circumstances beyond my control because they physically live close or are friends with other people in my life. In this case, I have pulled away emotionally and physically, but I am socially pleasent with them as much as possible when they are around me.

Taking a social media break would be useful for you. Of course, if that’s not feasible for you, one possible idea is that you find some articles online talking about how cleaning up your social media life can be really helpful for your health. Repost them. Make it casual at first then ramp it up a bit over a few weeks. Then let it be known that you are going to clean up all your socials and are going to remove yourself from all group chats temporarily and then “purposefully” or “mindfully” rejoin the group chats you decide to stay part of. Or however you want to phrase it.

So then you remove yourself from them all, take a break for a few days or even a week, but really do decide which ones you want/need to be part of. Then slowly add back in if you need. People have a short attention span and so if you never rejoin a specific group, it probably won’t be noticed or it won’t make a huge “splash” when you leave and hopefully you will have avoided the possible drama.

You can’t force someone else to talk about things, and even if she did talk with you, we all see things very differently. We communicate and understand communication in ways that others do not. So there would be the possibility of things going unresolved for you even if she agreed to talk.

It’s a tough situation. I’m not sure if anything I said is useful for you. Take what is useful and leave the rest. Communication is hard. Hang in there.

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this seems to be a no brainer to me. this person is not your friend, you guys don’t hang out, don’t talk, have no contact. you only consume what she lets you see on SM and you are consumed by it. if you cut that shit out, you’ll feel better.

seems to me you still have some hope or obsession to remain in the position to spy on her life. maybe figure out what the reason for this is, examine if keeping “in touch” with her in that way will satasfy your desire. and when it turns out that it doesn’t, let go.

they say: let go or be dragged. and you are currently being dragged by this.

I let go of old friends when it became apparent they didn’t love me the way I needed. it hurt at the time, but the immediate decrease in drama and pain made it worth it instantly.

all the best to you! you are worth it!

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It sounds like this person cut you out already. Do the social media chats do you any good in spite of this person being there?

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I’ve never had that much trouble dropping people, not because I don’t care about them or it doesn’t make me sad that the relationship has changed but I guess I just don’t have time or room in my heart to spend this many feelings on people who don’t seem interested in putting in the work. All relationships take effort, but to me the ones that are worth it mostly don’t feel like work. Not only has this person caused you pain in the past and the present but she literally doesn’t care. And I get that no one really wants to have an uncomfortable conversation or entertain the possibility that they’ve hurt someone or done harm but dang, she can’t even pretend to care?

Also SM is garbage.

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Along my journey, I’ve had to detach from many “friends” in order to stay sober. It’s was tough at first because I felt like I was missing out. But turns out, the only thing I was missing was the drama and horrible things I brought upon myself when I was drinking.

As for social media - I still need it for my band and some other extracurricular stuff - BUT I’ve learned to snooze many people I’m still “friends” with online (and acquaintances in real life) so I don’t have to see their feeds anymore. Primarily because all they post about is drinking…what makes it somewhat worse is, many are family in some fashion. Thus, the snooze and not delete. Not yet at least.

I constantly remind myself if anyone gives me grief about not ever commenting on their social media postings - I’m 48 years old and I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to anymore. Including comment on your drunken escapades online.

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Dont really have any friends i had when i was drinking anymore most of them dead now but its a big world and plenty of new friends out there you havnt met yet wish you well

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Thanks all for your kind and thoughtful responses. Truly it helped me even more than I thought, seeing it from other perspectives.
This is someone I’ve known for 10 years, for reference. There are so many layers of complicated stuff between us - but she clearly doesn’t have interest in working thru that. Back in February we moved out of our shared apartment, we had a lot of problems with the landlord, but she “informed” me of her intentions to move out over text. I took it in stride, was focused on doing what seemed best for both of us - and then over time, after we had settled in our new places with new roommates, kind of realized she had ejected me from her life on purpose.
My trouble is adjusting to that, and being “polite” because I cannot just turn my feelings off. It literally feels like a break up and I am the one left very confused… She doesn’t look at things I post on social media, but will still tag me in old photos occasionally? It feels like I died to her lol! Almost kind of funny as it just seems so strange to me.
Aaaaanyway…. taking everyone’s advice and focusing on other things, new friends, and most likely a break from social media.

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