Feeling ovsessive/infactuated over a friend. Want to get my head on track.
Hey all, as the title tells I have a friend I have feelings for and I am trying to get clarity for myself more than anything though this spans almost 6 years so please bare with me, ill try not to death wall with text and get my points across. I am partly writing this to get it off my chest but also to find something deeper than what I may be thinking. The more I try to think about it on my own the more my emotions mentally lock me out.
So I met this girl when I was 17, we worked together a lot and eventually started talking and getting to know each other. Back then I was extremely shy, but I was able to talk to her just fine after a while and after talking about each others hobbies she ended up being the first one to actually get excited and take interest in what I like to do. Because of that I grew feelings for her. We hung out a bit after that, taking hikes up the mountains, an occasional concert, airshows and I eventually built up the courage to ask her out. Now we dated for 3 months with nothing happening outside of hugging and our relationship fizzled. I take all the blame for it, I was a nervous wreck back then with zero experience for what I should have done. We remained friends but did not talk as often as we use too.
Fast forward 2 years, I get accepted to a college half way across the country and leave home. We started talking more frequently and felt close again, though it did not last long. She has been dating some guy for the past year at this point, he was causing trouble for her and eventually broke up. She was upset over some things she didn't want to talk about (that I would later find out), I decided to fly home for her birthday to surprise her. She was looking forward to it but the day before I arrived she disappeared on me. A month later she started talking to me again and I found out the reason for all her recent troubles, she was pregnant with her ex's child. I swallowed my pain and congratulated her and opened up to her saying she can always talk to me when she needs to talk. Didn't hear from her for a year.
Fast forward another 11 months. Out of no where in class I get a text from an unknown number, its her again. Being cautious about past events we talked a little bit, the father left her and her daughter (them being 19 at the time and he liked to party and fool around a lot). I was empathetic towards her and did a lot to cheer her up. I was about to visit home for spring break and she wanted to spend time and make up for the last couple years. I agreed and joked about how awesome it would be for her to pick me up at the airport. She got in contact with my family and hitched a ride with them, needless to say I fell for her once again. Spent an entire week just hanging out and talking about anything that came to mind, however on my last day home she pulled a disappearing act once again. Later to find out that the father tried to come back into her life and it upset her greatly and just had to get away from everyone. We occasionally talked after that but not much. Visited her once again during the Christmas right before graduation. Nothing fancy, just went out to eat as friends and cracked a few jokes like the good 'ol days'. Last summer after graduation (I graduated a year early) I visited home, she wanted to meet up once again, we set a date and time but for the 3rd time she vanished.
Now we come to this year in April. I am in my career, still 900+ miles away from home working my tail off and enjoying being a successful person. She ends up adding me on facebook and asks how I've been. We exchange experiences of the last year; she is on her own going to college, working and taking care of her 2 year-old daughter plus only being around the father as much as the court requires. I am really impressed with how far she has come in life and so is she with my life. A lot was said the following months, we flirted a bit about our current and past feelings but it wasn't till after mothers day when she straight up confessed to me. "I've always had a crush on you but it wasn't until recently that I realized how much I liked you!" was petty much what she said. The next month was talk just like that and coming to terms about the past, how things ended up the way they did, our thoughts, everything was open book and it was extremely refreshing. We talked quite a bit on skype as well, where some times she would stay up till 5am because she just wanted to talk to me (I work nights till 2am). At one point she apologized for everything that happened in the past and what it has done to me and because of it, on top of her being a mother she didn't feel like she was my 'ideal' girl, even though she said many times (even verbally on skype) about how much she liked and cared for me and wanted to try a relationship again. I would reassure her that I wasn't going anywhere and that I felt the same being so far away, whenever I would do something to cheer her up she would say how amazing I am, how happy she was because of me or that I just made her day/week. She even has a shoe box under her bed with every card and letter I have sent her since I moved out, which was only like 4 or 5 for mothers day and her birthday but still, it blew my mind and I think about it often to cheer myself up.
This all slowed down mid June. No more skype (I would message her with no response, 30-60 minutes later she would go offline), barely any Facebook messages or texts (she would see them but not respond), though we were using snapchat a lot still, it was strange and something felt off. I shrugged it off as maybe the whole 'lovey dovey' phase passed and talking like that was getting tiring (I was like that with a past relationship between these events where I just got tired of talking about my feelings all the time). Came home to visit 3 weeks ago, talking became a bit more frequent while I was home and we set up a date where I could come over between my adventures with other friends and stuff. When I visited she was babysitting her nephew we hugged and talked a bit but I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. She was more quiet than usual, her phone was going off a lot and she was sending a lot of texts, granted I was jealous and upset thinking why she hasn't given me that much attention in a while, especially while I was visiting. I shrugged it off again. Turns out the father of her child just got put in jail and it was causing a lot of difficulties for her. She left it at that, on the way out we hugged and I gave her a kiss on the cheek reassuring her that everything will work out. She smiled, said that was cute and thanked me for those words. Flew back home with nothing else happening. As I got home I saw she deleted her facebook, I grew more concerned and gave her a call. On top of the guy going to jail apparently some other people were harassing her hard core on facebook and it was making her more upset and she didn't want to deal with it. Since then we would talk off and on through snapchat exclusively, 4 days without anything and maybe 2 days max of talking.
With our past, I literally dont know what it is that I can do for her. I am to the point of paranoia that this is leading into another cycle of moths without talking, also feeling helpless that there may be nothing I can do. I do realize that Ive probably conditioned myself to be a bit obsessive and infatuated about my feelings towards her. When I think about that I try to calm myself down and try to focus on other things. However as soon as things pick up again I am sucked right back into that anxiety. Thank iMessage, snapchat score (where you can see who they talk to and they gain points every time they send a pic out) and FB 'seen' notifications for all that.
I dont want to sever ties completely, I do owe a lot of my past motivation to her and I want to continue being her friend. I just want to know if there is anything I can do for myself to calm my head. I am typically alright when I stay busy but any second of free thought I get eventually leads back to her and possibly over analyzing everything.
Thanks for your time reading this and any feedback given. Hell just typing this has helped a little bit lol.
