Clair, normally I have that problem, too. I am the caregiver (at work and at home and in the majority of my friendships), never cared for, never want to be. This is the first time in a very long time, where I have needed someone. I think I just became overwhelmed with everything. Work has been really stressful, for both myself and my friend. We're dealing with a difficult pt and running into brick walls every time we try to get the pt the help he needs. It's stressful and frustrating, and I think that, combined with everything else going on (her personal life, family issues, etc and my stress about starting group therapy, plus family issues that were happening at the time), is what led to the whole 'spilling our guts to each other' incident in the first place. After that, I guess things just went back to the way they were before, with us only depending on each other for work stuff, nothing else.
So, the point you made, Zip...After she and I had our little venting party, then went back to normal, I wasn't depending on her outside of work. We were still talking about non-work stuff for awhile, and that was fine. We were also talking outside of work (calling and texting each other for awhile). Then, we just sort of stopped talking about it and stopped talking outside of work, I dealt with my family crisis and went to the group therapy, she seems to have dealt with whatever was going on with her family because she hasn't been leaving work for it anymore. But, we haven't talked about it. We've talked everyday at work about work stuff, and that's all. So, the question is, how do I show her that? How do I show her that I wasn't depending on her to deal with my crap and was more than capable of doing it on my own? Do I just casually mention it next time we talk, like, "Hey, by the way, I finally made it to that group therapy thing."? lol. I just don't know how to bring any of it up or if I even should. I mean, it feels strange NOT to, because I got her involved, she was interested, wanted to know the outcome, then we just stopped talking and I never got a chance to tell her what happened with it. She hasn't asked, so I just assumed she doesn't want to know. Then again, I haven't asked her about what happened with her stuff, either.
The only things we've talked about besides work, is the casual, "what did you do over the weekend?" and exchanged some silly stories about going out with friends and drinking more than we should have. :p
I'd just like our friendship to be about more than work and drinking, but at the moment, that's all we ever discuss. I just want to be able to talk with her they way we used to. It doesn't have to be serious all the time, or venting constantly, and I don't expect her to start telling me everything about herself and her life and her problems, and I don't intend to do that to her either. I guess I just don't understand how we went from talking like we did, to not talking at all, to talking about only work-stuff and ignoring the fact that we ever talked about anything else. It just seems weird to me. That, and how we talked about making plans and doing all of this stuff together outside of work and she seemed very excited about it, then, when I'd actually try to make plans with her, she'd shrug it off or not get back to me about it. Now that I'm thinking clearer and not having little paranoid freak outs about how she hates me or something, I can just assume she was probably busy...but....still, I don't know. It doesn't really make sense to me. I'm really bad at understanding other people! Does any of this make sense? Are my concerns completely ridiculous or valid?
