In what kinds of ways was the new roommate/partner "dark," if you don't mind me asking? The new old person they were hanging with is very angry, but pretends to be happy They worked at a police department as dispatch but got fired recently because, well, they have the most negative attitude ever. They also slept with another persons partner (more than one time) throughout the friendships and have nothing nice to say to anyone. They went through a great deal of trouble to open some (recently) expunged police files on one of our arrest records from some time ago and misrepresented the information they found (which has now been corrected by the courts and, not sure why they did that but it was finally reported that they had pulled records they weren't supposed to by a lawyer involved with it all. At this point, I'm going to sit back and grab the popcorn). This darker person is also a heavy, heavy, heavy drinker and pretends like it's totally normal.
What type of toxic traits did they have? Aside from just being a straight up ass, "cheating" on the friends with their partners, etc, I think it might be easier to list the dark person's non-toxic traits. As far as the friend themselves, they tell a lot of little white lies to make themselves seem a certain way, they worry a lot about whether they are doing the right thing and make small, but collectively large, bad choices. They are an awesome friend when they are awesome, and a fearful enemy when they are not. She drinks a little much and won't trust therapists/shrink, etc to help them. She's been going back for amphetamines when they aren't working for her ADHD. (My therapist said this about it: A person who is in THAT bad of a mood, THAT angry and sleeps as much as I had described, isn't working out for adderall and probably needs a closer look) We LOVE this person. One of the group that's still tight with her is probably really like her sister/mother more than her real family was. Another toxic trait was she tried to pit us against each other and then blamed us (well, me) for doing a lot of stuff this fall I just didn't do. I think she had someone else she had pissed off spoofing calls and stuff to her. I took the blame for it, but I didn't do it. I had been duplicitous in other ways, so I just took the fall for all of it. I shouldn't have done any of it anyways, not matter how much I thought I was helping.
How did things reconcile with the friends who came back around - how did the not-friend to friends-again process go? Umm, there are three total. One, whom I don't see that much, called me. He and I go way back. I think he might have been breaking the ice on the others behalves. One I emailed and apologized for some things I said and expressed some frustration over the whole thing. I was finally able to hand her my side of it. She was cool. The other guy was on the fringes and just came back when the ice was broken with these two and texted me to say hi and start up the conversation again.
If the friend who didn't come around, were to change and leave the toxic influence and get her shit together, would you guys welcome her (if her actions showed she truly changed) again? I think she left the toxic influence already. She's smart enough to even know her limits. She doesn't have to change at all. She just needs to be her. That's all we wanted from her anyways. Just be her. As long as she is her, she is forever our friend. I specifically mentioned to the girl above (reconcile friend number 2 for those of you trying to keep up) that I wanted her to get healthy. She wasn't being healthy and I didn't know how to help her.
Or is the bridge burned forever? Oddly enough, I am not a person who ever believes a bridge is forever burned, no matter how any of us behave. Sometimes, bullshit has to be owned and apologies have to be made, but there's no forever burned bridge with these people. There just isn't anything any of us have done that's that bad. I am sure there could be circumstances to make me think otherwise, but not at this time.