On Healing

I reached out a couple friends from college. One I haven’t spoken to in a decade due to a major falling out, let’s call her Y. I said I was sorry I was a bitch at 19, I regret my actions, and I hope she’s doing well. I can’t even front – She was cold and nasty. I also got a kind and sweet response from another friend from college, who apologized for her own actions at the time and we are going to make dinner plans, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about today. Today is a thought experiment on taking accountability and trying to be a better version of yourself. It’s a ride and healing is not linear…You never know what responses you’ll receive, if at all.

In 2015, I was a sophomore in college, transferring from a commuter school in my hometown to New Paltz. Ugh, New Paltz. I love it there. I will always love it, even if it broke my heart, it saved me, too. I didn’t have many friends, and Y was my suitemate. She introduced me to some of her friends, and we all bonded quickly, watching movies, playing Smash Bros, and being nerdy kids that drank vodka in the dorms but never went to any parties. Y was seeing this guy at time casually, in the group, let’s call him Z, and Z asked me out. I said no, on account of  being friends with Y (girl code and all that), and I told her about it, hoping she would break it off since she really liked him and it was clear he had a wandering eye. Z assured me their relationship meant nothing, and that only upset me more and solidified my decision. She ended up dating Z and setting me up with her friend, my ex, let’s call him, X.

X slept Y before we dated when they were in high school, a few years before. She set us up, but I guess they both decided it was best for me if I didn’t know. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. It’s one of the reasons I always practice ethical communication now. The truth hurts but lies hurt more. I wasn’t given the choice in this relationship, whether or not I’d want to date someone my friend had been with, and my ex knew this – his reason for not telling me was because he knew that I would not be with him if I knew. That choice was taken from me. He was wrong for this. We ended up dating another six months and it was   torture for us both. I knew I would never trust him again but I was going to put him through the ringer for it. 

 I was upset at her for dating Z after his actions came to light but they seemed happy. I had a good relationship with Y. I was willing to overlook the drama and stay friends with Y and Z. I tried not to be a threat to her. I distanced myself from Z. After all, it was only saying no to a date, there was no real history there, and guys liked the idea of me all the time. He didn’t even have a deep understanding of who I was at the time. Me & Y had a lot in common and we decided to move in together before this went down. All was going well, until she told me when we were drunk that X liked her before he dated me.  We had went on double dates, hung out all the time, and I was the only one who didn’t know about them. I felt humiliated, angry, and betrayed.  

At the time, I thought Y did this on purpose; jealousy and internalized misogyny on both sides. Now, I have no idea. I can’t escribe motivation because this closure has always been taken from me. Her strategy at the time was to act like it wasn’t a big deal, and that she didn’t hide it from me, I just didn’t ask, so therefore, she didn’t expand on it. This is actually lying by omission – it’s crafty, but still lying. I had absolutely no tools to deal with this situation in a healthy way at 19. I went scorched earth. I moved out. I told everyone who knew us both. We split the friend group. I was a super petty bitch. I dumped X. Z dumped Y.  I guess Y blamed me and Z equally for her removal from the friend group, but people made their own choices about her. I wasn’t even the one to kick her from the group chat. I ended up being friends with Z until 2025. After ending the friendship with Z, I began to relive and reprocess a lot of my trauma, including ten years ago. 

I apologized in 2026 to Y for going scorched earth in 2015 because I have grown out of being a vindictive bitch. I don’t know what I expected or wanted from this other than to speak my truth on it. I could have been better. She said my apology was self-serving, that she didn’t care about me, and that the situation only made her stronger. She took zero accountability for setting me up with a guy she slept with without telling me prior, and made no effort to reconcile. She remains the victim of all of this. “Apologies are meant to fix something broken and you ruined any semblance of friendship we had.” Did I do that on my own? Did I? I am taking accountability for my mistakes, are you?

I didn’t to respond this message. I calmly logged off and blocked Y. Although, I guess, in a way, this is a response. This is me telling my story. I view my relationships that have ended like “it takes two to tango.” I’ve fucked up and said shitty things. I didn’t know how to regulate my emotions and I was a hurt person. I would gossip about this experience to people without leaving out the names. I would go on her social media for a year or two after the incident to be petty, but over time, I stopped looking, stopped thinking about it, and moved on. I healed a lot of my wounds and realized that I became a mean girl through the world beating me down. I realized I never wanted to be a mean girl ever again. Until the relationship with Z ended and I saw Y come up in my Facebook recommendations, it didn’t even occur to me that I should reach out. I did it on a whim and with some liquid courage.

I didn’t explore why she did what she did, but I guess she hasn’t, either. Who knows. I had a lot of shit to get over in undergrad and I wasn’t super empathetic about it. I wanted to reach out to speak my truth, to apologize, to recognize that I didn’t act my best. I am 31 now. I no longer let anger and revenge fuel my life. It took me a long time to get here. It took me a long time to realize that if someone ruins your life, you don’t need to ruin theirs right back. I still have a long way to go. Sometimes you don’t have to dig up old skeletons – forgiveness needs to come from within. The guilt I feel for being a petty bitch is my own, spawned from growing up in a conservative town, the onset of the internet where we’ve normalized bullying, being bullied myself relentlessly throughout my childhood, not being raised in an empathetic environment, not learning conflict resolution methods until my late twenties, etc. There’s a lot of shit I’ve had to unpack to realize I can be a victim and survivor of trauma, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t victimizing others, too.

It is was a bit shocking to see the lack of self-awareness in this person, but I do think relationships are meant to teach us something, and my reaching out to her just meant we had one more lesson to teach one another. I hope she can think about this, but I’m not holding her to account. We’re strangers now. Some people are meant to stay blocked off. We can’t reconcile and fix everything. Not everyone wants to heal those wounds. Sometimes those wounds define them.

When X, Y, and Z lied to me, I felt embarrassed, insecure, and alone. It was my first time out on my own in the world, and I was so betrayed. I could have done things differently. I could have disconnected without trying to cause people harm. We were all just hurt kids. I was an animal backed into a corner for a long time. I’ve done a lot of work in the past decade, and a lot of this can be credited to having strong relationships. My husband is so kind and empathetic. He sees the best in everyone. He always pushes me to be the best version of myself, celebrates me on my achievements, and holds me accountable. I still have friends I talk to years later that were there for this situation, who know my heart, and who know my intent. My family members have grown so much as people. I’ve been taking Lexapro for years now for my anxiety disorder, and it’s changed my life dramatically. I’d like to talk more about my experience with being on an SSRI in a future post.

Some of this self-reflection came about because last year I stopped talking to Z. For a lot of reasons. He caused a lot of pain for me, and for our once mutual friends. I am still grieving that relationship. I’ve reached out to try to talk, apologized for my role in it, and gave him the opportunity to take responsibility for his actions. There were a lot of bad times, but there were good ones too. I won’t get into details here because there’s other people involved and I think privacy matters, but I can honestly say, I did everything I could before letting him go. I just need to remember the good times and the positive lessons gained from this experience. I’ll relay something my sister told me yesterday on the phone while I was crying to her about reckoning with the person I was and who I am now: I “always give people opportunities to do the right thing and see the best in them.” I “give them the opportunity to take accountability,” whether they take that opportunity, or they run, is up to them. My mom also told me I did nothing wrong, and that’s what moms are for, but I know that I was a mean girl!

I can’t control what other people do. I can’t form myself into the person they need to help them heal from my past actions, and I can’t always get a clean slate with everyone. I will continue to grow and give people this opportunity to take accountability, but there are some relationships that need to be laid to rest. I have no hate within me nor the strength to argue. I just wish people who have hurt me the best in their endeavors to be better than they were when I knew them. That’s all I can wish for anyone – that we’re learning to be kinder and to communicate our needs in a trauma-informed way. I don’t need to know who they are anymore in order to forgive them or even why they did what they did, and I have to give myself grace for the past. It happened, decisions were made, and now it’s over. They don’t need to gift that to me. It’s a gift we give ourselves. I’m responsible for my decisions, and some of them, I’m not proud of. My biggest regrets in life are always that I wish I was kinder. That’s who I am today.