Have I become a bad friend?

The other morning, I spent the first fifteen minutes of my day crying on the kitchen floor.

When my son descended the stairs, I tried to collect myself and said, “Good morning, baby.” But I couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

I realize that my ADHD, along with my nocturnal habits, has made it difficult for me to be the friend I always was. My executive functions, like time management and memory, have suffered in the past few years. I remember having to do something at 1 a.m. when I finally found time for my thoughts. Most of my day is consumed with ensuring my child, my menagerie, and I have a place to sleep and enough money to keep the air conditioning running in the relentless desert heat.

I've been struggling as a single parent since my son’s father first went to rehab. Despite all the work I’ve done to heal from the traumas in my life, the emotional stress of dealing with an alcoholic ex-partner and father to my son has been incredibly challenging.

I do not have family or long-time friends in this superficial city or on the West Coast. I don’t have anyone to ask, “Hey, could you please pick up my son from daycare so I may shower longer than 5 minutes today?”

I’ve been taking days off from the gym to maintain my household in the far from acceptable, current state it is in, or to painstakingly edit content that takes me hours to achieve because of my perfectionism and not knowing how to use AI tools.

I feel that I have no one here who understands the weight of all that I carry from my past, my present, my neurodiversity, and how much it hurts me with all the injustices & atrocities currently happening around the world because I care too much about too many things.

But apparently, my “struggles by choice are a fucking cake walk” compared to my friend’s, because I chose to become a mother.

I apologized for my response in returning something I borrowed from him (which I did attempt to return a couple of times, and suggested he could always come by my place, or meet me halfway to retrieve them), and for my lack of communication, which is what resulted in him berating and belittling me.

I strained to ask him how he always feels entitled to speak to me the way that he sometimes does, and further apologized to him. But instead of taking a breath, like I asked him to do, he further took his hurt out on me.

Undoubtedly, he is struggling himself. I immediately recognized that fact, and said, “You are going through a lot, so I can take it,” because wounded me has always taken on the toll of other people’s emotions.

So, I knew I had to return his belongings that day to him, and I knew immediately what I wanted to do as an apology.

After my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon, where I flustered the good-looking nurse who gave me the cortisone injection into my right shoulder, I drove to his condo complex, which has security that feels like an immigrant trying to enter America. My friend told me to delete his number and to keep the items I borrowed because I “basically stole them,” so I no longer wanted to engage with him further.

I have five other friends who live in the same condos, but two of them were at work, two are in Europe, and one is in the middle of nowhere in the Northeast. After finally getting a hold of one of them to tell security I am no threat, I returned my friend’s items and delivered a plant as an apology with a simple, “I’m sorry,” note and a drawing of a species that his late mother, and a former acquaintance of mine who committed suicide years ago, had an affinity for.

After I drove away from my friend’s condo, I messaged him to let him know his items were at his front door. He thanked me for returning them, and only then did he apologize for how he spoke to me.

My friendships unquestionably mean a lot to me because I do not have siblings, close family members, a partner, or best friends. I lost my closest friendships within months of my father’s son going to rehab. But my mind is always preoccupied with caring for my son and my pets, and lately, the lack of humanity and common sense in the U.S. has led me to neglect my friends unintentionally.

I do not know what it is about me that screams, “Please ghost me after years of friendship,” thereby triggering my abandonment wounds. Or, “Please berate me,” as I’m already crying.

I spent four hours in the gym yesterday to distract my mind from its fragility and to increase endorphin production to mitigate my sadness. It was not until after 1:00 this morning that I realized why I couldn’t stop crying Tuesday morning, even after my son came down the stairs.

Whenever my mother belittled or berated me to the point of tears, her anger would intensify, and she would dismiss me and my feelings, just the way my friend did.