Edit to add: she has all of her posts and comments public. If she posts or comments in another subreddit they can simply click on her profile and see everything she’s ever posted or commented making her diary extremely easy to find. I know I click on people profiles just to be nosey sometimes.
I want to put this up here to really drive home why I’m upset. My name is rare. I am one of 2 people on Facebook with my name. I am INCREDIBLY easy to find and I value my privacy.
So some back story on this friend because I honestly feel like I’ve put up with a lot and it feels insane to me that this is the last straw.
We have been friends for 5 years. Share everything with eachother the whole 9. She got her first boyfriend 2 years ago and was insanely obsessed. He was all she would talk about. For the year they were together every hangout was about him. She didn’t care much about me or anyone else. I’d try to talk about my life or something I saw online and she’d shut it down and go back to talking about him. I gave a lot of grace because she was obviously excited about having her first boyfriend. Then they break up. Apparently he didn’t like how obsessive she was and our other friends said some of the stuff she did gave stalker vibes.
After the breakup she started taking it out on everyone around her. Being mean to everyone and acting like none of us really mattered unless we were going to be a listening ear to her (obviously she views this differently from us. Her pov is that we weren’t being very good friends because we didn’t give her enough time to grieve and we expected her to get over it faster than she was capable. Her pov is as important as mine. It wasn’t any of our intentions to make her feel that way we just wanted to talk about things other than her ex but she obviously was not in a place to do that which sucks but it is what it is) the friend group fractured for a lot of reasons. People moving away people growing apart and my friend being mean to everyone didn’t really help any of that.
Well I was the one who stayed being friends with her after that. Naturally I started taking on the brunt of her everything. She was at my house every day if I asked her to ask before coming over it was the end of the world and I didn’t care about her or her feelings (meanwhile I’m married and neither my husband nor I want someone at our house all day every day. We would like some alone time) she’s still doing the thing where all she talks about is her ex. It all comes down to me having a conversation with her that I can’t keep being her emotional punching bag and if she keeps treating me that way I’m going to have to distance myself for my own mental health. Well she takes that as “we aren’t friends anymore” and tells me not to contact her anymore. So I don’t. Well one thing leads to another and we become friends again.
Things are okay for a good long while. I’m happy she’s happy. Well the anniversary of the big friend group break up comes around and now all she can talk about is how those friends were all bad friends and she hates them all so much. I don’t feel like a punching bag as much this time but I do try to set a boundary of “hey I have a lot going on in my life right now. I understand you’re hurt and so am I but when every conversation we have is about them it kinda sucks” and she took it as “you can’t talk to me about your feelings at all and I hate you”
Well I find out she keeps an online diary in a public subreddit she created. She begs me to read it so I can understand her feelings more. This diary has been on the internet for 3 years. 3 years of using people’s real names talking about her true feelings about everyone in her life. I see a lot of things about our old friend group about how annoying they are and how no one cares about her. I even see things about deaths in my own family and how I’m having a hard time coping. Everything is so extreme. I see her posts from when I set boundaries with her and how she feels I “must hate her so much and don’t view her as a real friend” she talks crap about everyone in her life on there again WITH OUR REAL NAMES. She recently started talking about NSFW things on there and tells me about a guy who messaged her wanting to meet up and give her money. I tell her this is starting to get dangerous. There are creeps everywhere and you’ve got everyone you knows real name on here while also posting NSFW things in your “online diary” and might I mention my name is extremely rare. There is only one other person on Facebook with my name. Yeah I’m stressed. I keep my life very private. I tell her I’m uncomfortable with it and I ask her if she would consider privating the subreddit so our information isn’t out there for anyone to grab and be a creep about ESPECIALLY with her posting NSFW stuff. She says she’s sorry for making me uncomfortable and feeling unsafe and she privates the sub… for exactly 2 weeks. I’m scrolling on Reddit and I see a post from her subreddit basically saying “well I’m lonely and miss the attention so I’m opening this back up” I scroll again and see where she says I’m being dramatic and “murder and stalkers don’t happen to me no one likes me enough for that”
Now I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’ve put up with a lot over the years and it feel insane to me that this might be the final straw. My husband says I could ask her to take it down again and set the boundary that if she doesn’t that’s fine I just can’t continue being friends with her which is a good idea but man does this suck. I guess I have loss cost fallacy? Like I’ve put up with so much and then it’s just going to end like that? I’ve talked to my therapist about how every time I express I don’t like something she stops doing it for a week or 2 but then goes right back to doing it and it’s been a long pattern for 2 years now. My therapist says that to her it seems like it’s performative. Like she will say whatever it takes to shut me up and then go right back to doing whatever it is because she doesn’t really care she just wants me to let her do whatever she wants without being upset or saying anything about it.
I realize I can’t control what she does, I just wish she cared enough to take what I say into consideration. She specifically told me that when people set boundaries with her it makes her upset. It makes her feel like those people don’t love or care about her and that’s why she never sets boundaries with people. (And I mean real boundaries not the bs where you try to control people) any time I set a boundary with anyone I say “it hurts me when you do this, if you continue to do this that is fine but I won’t be around you while you do that thing” just like my therapist told me to do.
I feel like I have to walk on eggshells. I know for a fact that if I tell her “if you can’t take your subreddit down or at the very least take everyone’s names out of the 100’s of posts you’ve made I won’t continue to be your friend” that’s it. She’s done and she’s going to make another 100 posts on her subreddit about how I’m a bad person and I never really cared about her.
Anyway, this all sucks. What would you do given all the context and the current situation? How would it make you feel if you were someone who values privacy and your friend posted not only your name but also your business on a public platform where people actively look at it? I know it’s not a lot of people that look at it but people do look at it.