Feels like PTSD

Many years ago I did not understand that the friendzone is something people do to themselves. It's when you fall for someone and decide that they are the only one for you to the exclusion of all others even though they don't feel the same way about you.

Anyway, I was in love with this girl and said she loved me, but she said that to everyone. "I love you" was how she routinely expressed things like "You're pretty cool", "I'm glad we're friends", or any number of other platonic friendship expressions. And honestly, I think she really did care about me, just not in the way I cared about her. I mean, I was her maid of honor when she got married (to a very pretty dude who ultimately conned her in to sleeping with a friend of his so he could sleep with that friend's girlfriend and then divorced her).

The only point when I realized what was going on was when I (finally) got a girlfriend and then that girlfriend dumped me. She said it was her, not me, but really she just didn't like being second banana to this other girl who essentially owned me. Go fig. When I went to my owner for consolation, she was ecstatic about my loss. She even admitted that while she told me to my face that she'd been happy for me, she was secretly talking to people behind my back about how to end my relationship. She said she thought the relationship was bad for me (and it probably was), but I think she could sense me moving away and didn't like the feel it.

When I got dumped, I realized that no girl would want to date me with her as my best friend. And with her confession of plotting behind my back, I realized that she also would never let me have a girlfriend if she had any say on the matter, which she very much did. I had to leave the state to get away and so that's what I did (happily married now).

Being in that position with her was like being in a cult. She was a fantastic charismatic leader. Gorgeous, smart, funny, accepting, kind, caring, etc. She liked to describe herself as "one of the guys" because all her friends were guys, but I think most of those guys were also in love with her. They were in the same cult as me. And if I had tried to distance myself from her, I knew I'd have also lost all of them as friends. My whole family at the time. So being there was my choice, kinda, just like being in a cult is the cult member's choice. They're free to go at any time.

In my nightmare I told her how I felt and that I needed her to be with me or let me go. She got upset and it was like I'd pissed on god's shoes at church. Ousted from the community, alone, suicidal, etc. Thinking about it makes me feel sick to my stomach even in the light of day.

I've only had a few FB interactions with her over the years since then and none for the last decade or so because I got into an argument with someone about the friendzone on FB and she read it and got upset. She decided I was calling her a bad person, that I thought she had hurt me on purpose, that I hated her, that I was never really her friend, etc. I told her she was wrong, but she wouldn't listen and that interaction kind of ended things for good.

To this day I'm terrified of seeing her in person or talking to her at all. I think I still love her. I'm scared that if I'm ever in her presence again, I'll trap myself again. I know logically that won't happen, but that doesn't stop the fear. I was *so* enthralled with her. She was all I thought about, even when I was with other women years after I left. It took forever for me stop pining for her and I still think about her every single day.

Anyhow, thanks for reading. Go ahead and downvote me. Tell me I was just an incel, unworthy of love or freedom. It's nothing I didn't tell myself at the time. I'm free now and at least I have that.