A very confusing situation

I've been in a long-distance, long-term friendship with a friend for years.

As writers we often collaborate on things. It's hard to explain, but originally she had her own little world of ideas, and I placed some of my own within it. Not out of mallice. I could have thought better and I didn't mean to be so selfish, I was just excited and with my low self esteem I wasn't sure if my ideas would be interesting on their own. Either way, we've both admitted this may be a problem in the years since, though good things have definitely come out of it. "Mishaps" of a similar nature have occurred since, but this was largely due to me misunderstanding that this was her creation, and not ours.

In the last week though she's realised that it has impinged her creativity and now she feels very hung-up about it. She spoke civily to me, but angrily, and said she'll speak to me again when she feels like it. She admits the fault isn't just mine--if she realised her boundaries (she has a huge range of emotional issues stemming from deep childhood traumas) then she would have told me to stop.

Except she went on a long rant online about people who "emotionally blackmail her" and "###$ all of them".

I can't presume it's about me, but it does seem similar. It's frustrating to not know if I'm being biased in describing this, but I do often explain myself when I say sorry. I'm autistic, and I hate feeling like I'm saying sorry for everything. I don't mind/want to say sorry for what I actually did, but I hate feeling like I'm saying sorry for the way everything has gone. Which she interprets as me being "defensive" or "shifty". I never once told her that I wasn't sorry for what I had done, and she agreed in part, but said she didn't want to "give up ground" on her side of the debate. I tell her how I feel ("guilt tripping!") when she's told me I've done something wrong because I feel a certain way and that's valid, isn't it?

She tells me civily and without apparent offence that she's trying hard to be nice to me. Gee, thanks? I think it's an uncomfortable situation, but please don't go and rant behind my back! The worst part is I don't think I'll ever be able to convince her that she can't rant now.

Well...she can.

As she likes to say (and as I too believe) anyone can feel anything they want...but being childish and throwing a tantrum on a public place is surely not a good way? She's been reasonable but what in god's name has prompted this change? She said the people she's angry with "never give her space to talk", which I know for a fact isn't true--I don't know how to solve her depression, and with my low-self esteem, as well as my acceptance of the fact she knows more about this than me, I can't offer anything more than a gentle hug and a listening ear. Maybe she feels that way though, in which case nothing in heaven or hell will convince her otherwise.

I'd like to add that I'm not fuming as I can't be sure that she means me (she deals with a tonne of other douchebutts in her family, personal life, etc), but I don't know whether to talk to her about it. People do crazy things when they're not in the right frame of mind, and maybe she'll calm down.

(Alternatively I'll end up being sorry for how big of a problem this is for her too, and end up in effect admitting that I WAS blackmailing her and abusing her, because I'm left with nothing else to say.)

I didn't need to read all of this to know that you should drop with child out of your life right now. People who potentially have a personality disorder don't work with people who have a developmental disorder. The red flags you both give tell me you two should never speak again, the kind of abuse she's giving isn't something you should take for...what was it? Giving her creative help? F**k that, cut her out of your life like a cancer.

Foxes

Hey Foxes,

I can see your point. Honestly, I can, and it would be easy to drop her. I think she has a right to be angry at me for what I've done, and she has been fair when she described it. She didn't ask for what I did, but I still did it. I was 5 years younger and more naive...but I'm still sorry for it. Still, I don't think it's reasonable to be explosively angry, or act as I've somehow "poisoned the whole waterhole".

As she told me, the best thing to do would be to go back in time, but that's impossible.

She has a valid point and it is frustrating, but I just don't appreciate the mud-slinging that she appears to be doing to me (I need to check if she is or not) when she admitted herself that that's not a good thing to do. If it was meant against the negative people in her life in general and she's only just realised that then well...fair enough, but if it was aimed solely at me then god.

There are other things as well that I don't appreciate--like being compared to her overbearing, physically violent parents, because apparently we "both didn't mean harm in what we did". I called her out on that though. She does cut me a lot of slack...I just wish she didn't describe it like it was a huge chore to do.

Yeah if its not public domain like a forum or something its obvious a creative work belongs to its author. If its something that acts more like "interactive art" it would need a large public notice on it saying its not actually there for people to contribute to otherwise they would have no way of knowing they should leave it alone.

Damn, I need to be more clear.

By creative art I mean story-writing.

We're both authors, and I've added stuff to her tales.