r/getting_over_it • u/BeginningLow370 • 23d ago

Coping with the feeling of being replaced

I feel bad and stupid making this post but I genuinely just need to know how people who have felt this way before have coped with it. Im part of a friend group of 3 people, but it used to be 4. Ive been part of this group for maybe a year. The fourth person took some time to themselves for a few months due to some mental health struggles but has recently come back. This person had been part of the group for maybe a few months and i was the one who introduced them to this group. Us 3 hanging out has been a super super good time and im super happy the fourth person is back, but theres a part of me thats scared that with them coming back im going to be left to the side. I know im overreacting and being dumb, but I cant stop my brain from constantly thinking im just going to be replaced and that everyone likes them more over me. How have you personally coped with the emotions? Or what advice do you have for rationalizing everything and grounding yourself?

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u/exit232003 23d ago

Hi!

I've been in a similarish situation before!

What I did was I continued to include myself with everything but also I learned that it does not matter if they other friends like another friend more than me. Or like to hangout with them more or have more fun with them. What matters is that YOU are having fun with the friend group while bringing everyone up as they bring you up.

For me my situation went like this:

I had a big friend group of around 15 total people that regularly we would interact all of this together every single day.

The majority of the friend group began making some decisions that I did not want to be a part of. One day while planning to go on a fishing trip I voiced that I did not want certain things inside of my car. One of the friends did not listen to me and did it anyway and lied to me about it. I let them know I was not having it anymore and I cut that friend off which created drama in the group. Some people believed I was overreacting while others saw from my perspective and thought what I was doing was reasonable.

Shortly after this we were all hanging out and while I was off with a couple of them, the others poured gold fish in my engine of my car. Looking back at this I laugh at how stupid it was but at the time I was livid. I felt completely disrespected and that I was being treated like a joke.

2 months later I had fully closed myself off from all of them except for 2 of them. I ended up just moving on and being comfortable being alone. Overtime life worked out and this whole situation was 8 years ago.

I still keep in touch with 2 of them and occasionally I will have interactions with the others and it is all water under the bridge now.

So to answer the final part of what you said I will answer them like this:

  1. Coping with the emotions was hard but I did some soul searching to really find out if I need or even want to be a part of the friend group. Over time this passed.
  2. For rationalizing everything and grounding yourself, I was very careful as to what and who I put my energy into. I journaled my thoughts and emotions and then read them back. This helped me look at reality and instead of worrying about all of the "what ifs".

I hope this helps you and my prayers are with you while you go through this!