Friends are really hard work sometimes

I am so shattered this evening. I was supposed to be off work all week but after we booked our flights to go travelling I realised I will need an extra day of leave otherwise I will have to go to work the day after we return from our trip. So I decided to get up early and go in today. The plan was, to start early so I'd still have a long evening afterwards. Well, it all worked great except for the fact that I've been getting up after midday all week with being off and the 7.30 start turned out to be a bit too much for me.

I had invited my friend Pou round this evening to watch movies and laze about so I picked her up on my way home from work, but I felt too tired to cope with being sociable. She was in a slightly manic mood as well (she tends to swing from manic to depressed really rapidly) and kept making un-funny jokes which she then expected me to laugh at and I didn't have the energy to tolerate this. I find her hard going at the best of times when she's manic.

When I'm tired I get in a bad mood and don't want to speak or be spoken to and I definitely don't want to be touched. I apologised when I picked her up and said I was really knackered and she said it was OK and that we'd just relax and watch a movie, but then it seemed she expected more than that. She kept saying stupid jokes and poking fun at me and then wondering why I wasn't really laughing. I felt like shouting at her to stop forcing me to play her game. She also kept trying to hug and kiss me and a few times I was actually screaming for her to stop but she just thought I was being silly. I WASN'T! When I feel that way, any kind of physical touch is almost painful. I can't stand it. I was having a hard enough time just sitting on the same sofa as her. I actually told her that I was in a bad mood and that I don't like hugs when I'm in a bad mood. I tried to say it in a nice way, but I don't think she got how serious I was.

She then (don't ask me why she did this) threw herself on me and starting nuzzling her face in between my boobs. Either she fancies me (very unlikely), has some kind of boob fetish (equally unlikely) or just thinks it's funny. Whatever the reason, it's certainly not funny to me and made me feel really angry. My chest area is a part of me I am extremely sensitive about. I can't stand to have my boobs touched by anyone; I get nervous all the time when my husband is near me in case he accidently touches my boobs and to have someone force themselves onto me like that, wether they think it's funny or not, is awful for me.

Not to mention the fact that I have permanently sore ribs and any kind of pressure on them can trigger a lot of pain for me. My T said the chest pain I get might be a body memory from a time when someone broke my ribs by crushing me to the floor with their body weight. I am not sure if I agree with this theory; I tend to think I actually just have something wrong with my ribs (which may be a direct consequence of the rib crushing event or may be unrelated), but anyway, I've told Pou before about my sore chest and also, I shouldn't have to warn my friends about my ribs because I shouldn't have to expect that someone would do that to me!

I think she felt hurt by my reactions to her. She asked me if she had annoyed me this evening and I explained again that I was just really tired, but secretly I did feel annoyed because I felt like she was expecting me to be someone I am not. I want to make her understand how important it is that she doesn't touch me or try to hug me if she senses resistance from me. It's not like we hug that much at the best of times; I'm not a 'huggie' kind of person, except with my husband (mainly when child parts are out). But it was almost like the more resistance I showed, the more she tried to do it and...kissing me? What the heck is that about?

I feel like I need to be really blunt and explain that I can't tolerate affection sometimes, but I feel like if I was blunt enough to get through to her, it would make her feel bad and nervous of me as well. I feel like what I am about to say is really selfish but it's something I've come to realise is true about me and can't really work for me any other way: affection has to be on MY terms.

I'm also feeling pissed off because she was putting on her perfume and she asked if I wanted a spray; I said NO so she sprayed it on me just to spite me (she thought that was funny). This to me was bigger than she realised. I felt like I smelt like someone else. It's hard enough feeling like I am one person some of the time. Now I felt like I had become Pou all of a sudden. I guess it may have also been a reflection in my mind of times when I've felt I had someones smell on me after not nice things happening with a person and the repulsion I felt at that time kind of came back to me. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to upset her but I felt violated and after sitting with it for an hour I had to go upstairs and change my clothes. I can still smell it now though :( Can you have 'smell memories' too? Lol

She also made my child parts feel very upset because my husband bought us a teddy for Christmas which hasnt left my side until today when I had to go to work. But she was kicking it in the face because she thought this was funny. Then when I was cross and telling her not to she thought I was just being silly. She knows I have DID but sometimes she seems to have no understanding of it. Today though it almost felt like she was doing things on purpose to try to upset that part and I couldn't help but wonder if she was doing it to try to get me to switch so that she could see me as a child...out of morbid curiosity. I'm probably just being paranoid.

I feel like this post has just been me whingeing about Pou, which is bad because I don't have many friends and we have some great times together, but there are just times when we totally clash. I hate to say it but I prefer her when she's depressed; I find her really hard to tolerate when she is manic. Her sense of humour is so different from mine. Sometimes after finding this whole friendship thing so hard, I feel I want to shut myself off from the world and just be alone. Friendship is so hard to navigate and I am too changeable to be a good friend :(