I feel sick to my stomach. My tummy is in knots. I am mad. Disappointed. And mostly sad.

The fallout from the psychotic woman from the softball team has hit me hard. I am mad at myself for getting so upset over this. The woman doesn’t deserve a moment’s though. I’m disappointed with how things turned out considering we’re supposed to be adults. And I am sad because it has affected a third-party friend who has not been involved in this at all.

Lisa and I have been close friends for over ten years now. She threw me a baby shower when I was pregnant with V. We take at least one “girls weekend” trip together every year. We’ve taken vacations together and have been out of the country together. And we’ve been there for each other during both good and bad times.

Lisa is good friends with psycho-softball woman. Their friendship is only a few years old, but they hang out quite often. Certainly more often than I see Lisa these days. Lisa’s also getting married in three months – and I am throwing her a bridal shower – and guess who’s on the guest list?

As a result of the final email received from psycho-softball woman, I’ve had an uneasy feeling all day. The I-need-to-watch-my-back-and-check-my-car kind of feeling. This woman is so unstable that I’m actually afraid she might try to do something above and beyond the horrible emails. I’m not afraid for my life or anything, just more along the lines of getting the cars keyed, tires slashed, spray paint on the house kind of thing. Being that two other people on our softball team have called me today and told me to watch my back, I’m certainly not the only person who thinks she’s unstable. And I’m not sure if it’s just the shock of it all that has driven me there, but I spent the afternoon researching how to attain a restraining order.

Begrudgingly, I had to tell Lisa today that I don’t feel comfortable around this woman and, knowing that Lisa is having another shower thrown for her, I asked her if there was any way she could invite the woman to that shower instead of the one I was throwing. Lisa’s reaction was not a good one. She’s pissed. And this afternoon she sent an email to both the woman and I telling us she wants us to work this out and come to some kind of common ground as she refuses to pick between friends.

The problem is, no matter how good of a friend Lisa is, I am not willing to talk to this woman ever again. She’s lost her mind and is clearly unstable. She crossed the line. And although I know I would easily be able to stay away from her if we were to find ourselves in a group situation (ie: a wedding), I do not for one moment trust how she would behave towards me and my family.

So I told Lisa today that I was pulling myself out of the shower and wedding festivities. I do not want her to have to choose between her friends, yet I am not willing to compromise over what is right and so very, very wrong here. And this woman is the one who is so very, very wrong. I have a great degree of sadness because in all likelihood this will negatively affect my friendship with Lisa, possibly ending it. I knew that before telling this to Lisa. But I just cannot budge.

It’s such a damn shame. I’m tearing up thinking about it because my family and I did nothing, NOTHING, to warrant these viscous verbal attacks from that woman. Yet I find myself in a situation where I am at risk of losing something I value – Lisa’s friendship. Why does it feel like I’m the one being punished? I did nothing to deserve this and it outright sucks.

Mean and evil people are the one’s who should suffer the losses in life. Yet this mean and evil woman will attend Lisa’s shower, Lisa’s wedding, and retain Lisa’s friendship. I am so very, very sad.

UPDATE: I received a call from Lisa this evening. She asked for my side of the story, which I shared with her. She then said she didn’t want me throwing her a shower and that everyone on the invite list, except for psycho-woman and myself – would be invited to the other shower that’s being thrown for her. As of now, she’s thinking that she’ll invite neither me or this other woman to the wedding reception because she doesn’t want one of us invited and not the other. She may change her mind on that, she tells me.

This is what I get after ten years of friendship? For doing absolutely nothing wrong? Wow. That stings. Guess she wasn’t as close of a friend as I had thought. My bad.