Long and ranty - you may as well skip this.

So, it turns out that I'm definitely not over the shit I went through at Borders last year. Am I allowed to name the company now? It doesn't exist any more, so I will.

I thought I had managed to get over it all, but the past week I've been having emotional meltdowns galore, and it's made me reassess myself (again) and my friendships.

Basically what happened at Borders was that I stood up for what I thought was the right thing to do, which was holding our corporate psychopath of a general manager (I got that term from my psychologist and it's incredibly apt) to account for his lies, manipulation and breaking of every industrial relations law; made an off-hand remark on Facebook about the company going down the crapper; had one of my "friends" from work take a screenshot and complain about me; had a teenage style tantrum on Facebook and posted a status that people could kiss my arse, then proceeded to delete the people who made the complaint. In the end, I really should have done it the other way around, because those people who made the original complaint then went and took a screenshot of my teenage-style cranky status and saw that they were later deleted and wrote letters of complaint about me for "bullying."

Irony.

I'm not saying that I was right to have that mini meltdown on Facebook, and I was and am completely aware of how juvenile I was about the whole thing, but this in no way excuses the people who were one thing to my face, but another thing behind my back, and all for this psychopath who they all claimed to despise. In the end, I was left beaten and broken in a heap. It still breaks my heart to think that I went into bat for these people, only to have them do this to me, and for what? A bit of flattery from a dickhead and a chance to jump on a sinking ship. Awesome. But these people didn't blink an eye and moved right on with their lives, got new jobs immediately, and show absolutely no remorse.

All that aside, and it still breaks me in pieces, I know on a cognitive level that they are cowards and whatnot. It drives me nuts that there's been no repurcussions for them, and that every day I'm living with mine. But I know there's nothing I can do about them, they were obviously fake and in it for themselves etc.

I think what hurts me the most is the people who I thought were my friends, and I don't think had anything to do with what those people did to me, but at the same time never thought to even call and see how I was doing. If it weren't for some of the people around me, I wouldn't be here right now. I think because I crack jokes and make self-deprecating remarks about how "I'm a bully" and things like that, people think I had a bit of a cry but then I was OK. Only a couple of people really know how painful this experience has been for me and how it still affects me. People from Borders that I thought were really good friends stood by and let this happen to me, because apparently everyone knew and decided it had nothing to do with them so they wouldn't get involved. The same people that would have gladly let me stick my neck out for themselves, and in fact I did, many times, which is what got me in the psychopath's target in the first place. One of these people lives under my roof, and I struggle daily to not scream at him. I know it's not fair, because these bystanders didn't do anything to me, but, whether or not its irrational, I feel that because they turned a blind eye and stood back, they are just as guilty as my other "friends" who stabbed me in the back.

And I have some beautiful friends that stood by me through all of this shit, and it gives me joy. But at the same time it breaks my heart because they have also been punished just for being my friends. They've also been cut out of the social circles and denied their rights, just because they didn't think that what was being done to me was right. And for that I'm forever thankful, because they're the ones who pulled me out of the hole I was in, but at the same time I'm also filled with guilt that because of me they also felt the fallout.

This has all come up again because of Australia Day when I got drunk and started crying again about everything. That's when I realised that I wasn't over it like I told everyone I was. That's also when I realised that people think that I should get over it; that I'm being overly dramatic. I don't think they realise that I can't get over it. I'm living with it every day. I know I'm not normal: because of my effed up family situation, I've always put too much into my friendships. That's probably why it hurts so much to have something like this happen - I considered these people my family, and to be honest, I'm tired of my family effing me over.

And Australia Day is when it came to a head. There were some people that understood what I was going through and wanted to help me, and there were others that I could feel just rolling their eyes at me being a crying drunk. I can't control what people think about me, although I'd love to! And I know I should just not care about what they think, but I'm so tired of having to justify myself. I'm kind of tired of everything.