a constant courtroom with me as the advocate and me as the suspect yet the judge is mute and deaf

Every day I seem to look into the past, specifically at a friend who showed clear signs of fearful avoidance, how they left and discarded me without the slightest regard. It’s been a few months, yet I still see myself sometimes checking what I did wrong, wondering what if I had said things in a better, less triggering way, even though I was already rewriting things to avoid triggering her avoidant defenses.

I know analytically that I didn’t feel safe around her. I felt like I was walking on eggshells. i felt id be discarded if i was fully honest, The uncertainty and ambiguity were things I just had to get used to. The breadcrumbing.

Yet I keep checking, even though I know this is a structural problem. I can’t help but think I did something wrong, that’s why it fell apart. Cognitively I know that isn’t true.

Yet emotionally I still feel it, the guilt, the regret. It comes and goes.

I can’t be angry or resent her for long. I understand the mechanism, yet I feel anger for the hurt all of this caused and the invalidation and erasure that followed when I communicated it to her, even though she agreed to talk and seemed reasonable at first

I feel like all of this has tainted my ability to trust, love, and most importantly made me feel like I’m a criminal who must be the reason for all of this, even though I know it isn’t binary.

The most bothersome part is that all of this is only my side. so i alwasy have that feeling taht no there is something i missed, She never told me her side she said she would but she just cut me off in the middle of the last conversation. I have nothing to go off of. Cognitively I know this case is closed. It is incompatibility between regulation styles, communication, and courage. Yet my nervous system doesn’t want to accept it.

How have you guys dealt with this?