I’ve been sitting on these thoughts for a few months now
Several months ago I while under the influence of a couple of substances, I hurt a close friend of mine by doing and saying some disrespectful things. Afterwards she cut off all ties with me and told me to never speak to her again. Initially I had a very strong emotional reaction and looked for support from my other relationships. Their reaction to me telling them what happened didn’t sit right with me.
I didn’t remember all the details of what happened that night but my friend did mention what I did when she told me off. When I recounted these events to the people I was seeking support from they didn’t think what I did was all that bad. Maybe it was because they didn’t have experience with something similar, but based on the kind of relationship me and my friend had and the power dynamics involved, ending the friendship was the right call.
Unfortunately my friend and I were coworkers so that ended being affected too. In the days following the incident I changed my schedule several times to avoid running into my former friend. The novelty of a changing schedule managed to offset some of feelings of grieving the end of my friendship. After a while I did eventually run into her a couple of times and I think it just became too much and my performance suffered enough for them to let me go from the job (I probably should have taken an extended leave to sort my stuff out or something).
Losing this job meant that I lost most of my social circle of acquaintances and people I regularly interacted with. I also began to distance myself from most of my close relationships since I felt that there was a fundamental disconnect in how we viewed the severity of my actions.
Slight tangent: I want to make it clear that the people I have had close relationships with would not consider themselves feminists or leftists thus they wouldn’t have viewed my actions through that lens. I don’t simply look at what I did as a bad thing or that I am a bad person, but that my actions were the result of internalized elements of patriarchy and misogyny.
After all this happened I didn’t have an avenue to apologize or make amends. I did avoid mind altering substances after that night. Early on during my unemployment things were fine and I did a lot of stuff that I had been meaning to do but now I’m kinda lost. I don’t really find enjoyment in things like I used to and feel really unmotivated to do most things. I’ve had to rely financially on my family and don’t have access to transportation so I’ve been stuck at home for months. No one has checked in on me at least in relation to what happened. I don’t feel like i’m safe to be around especially for marginalized peoples. I feel emotionally flat
Stray thoughts/context that I want to add: Up until a few years ago I didn’t really have relationships with women and never really experienced much heightened emotion. It wasn’t until I fell down the left-wing/communist rabbit hole that I began to seemingly deconstruct a lot of my previous thoughts and behaviors. After a couple years of this I finally got to a point where could become close friends with women and relate to others in an emotional way. This incident was the first time I hurt someone this way and I didn’t think would ever do something like that
Sorry this was kinda long and rambling, there was more I wanted to write but it was difficult enough to gather these thoughts together I don’t really know what I want to get out of writing and posting this (maybe i’ll delete it)but I greatly appreciate anyone that took the time to read this