The fear a friend secretly hates you is usually less about them, and more about old patterns of self-doubt, says psychotherapist Meg Josephson
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friend recently shared a post from the satirical site Reductress. It depicted a woman, arms held triumphantly aloft, beneath the headline: “She Did It! This Woman Was Able To Confirm That Everyone Was Not Mad At Her!”
When I asked her about it, my friend admitted that it was partly a ploy to flush out anyone who might indeed be mad at her.
“The way I deal with it externally is to make a joke about it,” she said. “And a few people did message me – also sort of in jest, but not really – to be like ‘Don’t worry, I’m not mad at you!’”
