Venting i miss my toxic/abusive friend

[nails]

i'm pretty sure one of my first posts on this site was about a friend i had who had basically emotionally abused me for nearly the entirety of our friendship, suddenly blocked/ghosted me, then added me back. she was my only friend for a while. i wouldn't consider us friends anymore, but i don't know if she'd agree. i kinda stopped messaging her after we caught up and talked for a few days. i messaged her back once a month, maybe? but i've been talking to her a bit more.
in the time that she had me blocked, i made friends that are actually nice to me.

anyways, all of my current friends make me feel like shit, lol. it's mostly a me thing. i know they're not trying to make me feel bad, but they all just piss me off. i'm not mean to them and i don't lash out or anything, i haven't even brought this up with them (well, not extensively).
i'm sure they care about me, but it doesn't feel like it.
it feels like they barely even talk to me these days. everyone takes ages to respond, and whenever we do talk, it's never really anything substantial. i admit, part of that is my fault. sometimes i'm just too annoyed to fully engage in the conversation, but it's like that even when i'm trying to make the conversation interesting for the both of us.

with my ex friend, i feel cared about and the conversations aren't miserably empty. she's really busy, she's still quick to message me back and actually engage in a conversation.
i still feel like shit when i talk to her, everything that happened between us remains in the back of my mind; but i don't really mind. i'll feel like shit either way.

i felt alone when i was friends with her, but my loneliness has only gotten worse with my current friends.

i feel like an ungrateful piece of shit for putting someone who was so horrible to me above people who actually care for me.
i tried to attribute it to attachment, but that isn't it. she doesn't mean that much to me anymore. i don't even feel hatred, i'm mostly just indifferent towards her. it's easy for me to ignore her (i don't even do it intentionally these days) and i don't think i'd care if she ghosted me again. i only message her back when i'm painfully lonely and my friends aren't messaging me back, lol.
i just want someone to talk to who's actually consistent and makes me feel cared for, but i don't think it matters. i'll find a way to my myself hate them because i am incapable of being content in relationships. i hate my brain.

apologies for the shitty grammar

 

[Seven Threads]

Eh, since when was grammar really all that important anyway? As long as you're making yourself understood, that's good enough.

Speaking of, I wonder if that plays a part in this? However abusive your friend might have been in the past, she also perhaps knows you rather better than your current friend group, not least of all because she actually takes the time to respond and talk to you about things that maybe actually matter to you more than the casual conversations you have with your other friends.

Being seen, perhaps even being understood, is a powerful motivator. So many of us are so desperate just to have the appearance of somebody who possibly cares enough to get to know us that we'll put up with just about anything to get it. And that's just being human, it isn't your brain in particular.

Do you feel like you're able to be a little more authentically yourself in the presence of this abusive friend than with other people?

 

[nails]

Eh, since when was grammar really all that important anyway? As long as you're making yourself understood, that's good enough.

Speaking of, I wonder if that plays a part in this? However abusive your friend might have been in the past, she also perhaps knows you rather better than your current friend group, not least of all because she actually takes the time to respond and talk to you about things that maybe actually matter to you more than the casual conversations you have with your other friends.

Being seen, perhaps even being understood, is a powerful motivator. So many of us are so desperate just to have the appearance of somebody who possibly cares enough to get to know us that we'll put up with just about anything to get it. And that's just being human, it isn't your brain in particular.

Do you feel like you're able to be a little more authentically yourself in the presence of this abusive friend than with other people?

thank you for taking the time to respond

my ex friend knows very little about me, actually. she doesn't even know my real name. she knew a lot about me at one point, but that was a long time ago.
i'm definitely more authentically myself around her. my personality is a bit repulsive, so i suppress it quite a bit around my friends. i'm unable to make friends when i'm being myself. i don't really have a problem with this, though. i doubt it affects anything.

 

[wonderfulheaven]

i understand you, i dropped a best friend that made me feel awful most of the time two years ago. i still think about her almost every day, though i've recovered the slightest bit. even though she hurt me, she understood me, my humor, we didn't judge each other at our weirdest, but unfortunately she was still cruel when splitting and wouldn't change. i felt awful.

on the end of your friends that may take forever to respond (and i'm not defending them, i too feel a bit sad when people i actually enjoy talking to take forever to respond or seem disinterested in general) it could honestly be avoidance, if that applies to them at all. i have avpd so when i want to talk to people, it feels like there's a large wall of spikes keeping me from doing so. out of fear of rejection, insults, any negative interaction. from this analogy you can gather that it isn't necessarily at the fault of the other person ,, it is just really hard to socialize sometimes for no particular reason at all. sometimes it really is because of business and life. i understand craving the presence of another but you have no choice but to settle for someone so awful.

you seem pleasant so i don't see why anyone wouldn't enjoy talking to you, so regardless of what their reasoning is, i'm sorry that you feel invisible and hurt . i hope you meet someone that treats you with the kindness, loyalty and understanding you deserve