Not a weight problem...but I have an issue I need your help and support with! I'm sorry this posting may be long...here it goes....

I took off work Aug 9th and 10th (thurs and Fri), a co worker, Leslie (also a friend outside of work....I love her mom to death...she kinda adopted me as her own daughter, since my mother passed away in 2002..anyway)...she came up to me Monday the 13th (my birthday...joy....) and said "I heard you told Katie and Lauren about my abortion before I had even told them....Our friendship is over and I dont want to have anything to do with you at all...and Mama says you are DEAD to her now!!" -she walked off....
I sat at my desk with an overwhelming variety of moods....sad...embarrassed...angry.....anyway...co me to find out...while I was off those 2 days Lauren, Katie, and Leslie sat down and for some reason got to talkin about me..(this happens if ANYONE GOD FORBID takes off work...you all know office gossip...I'm guilty...)...well...it turned into.. "Kristy said this about you...well, Kristy said this about you....blah blah..." I get to work and the air is soooo thick and there is soooo much animosity....towards me... I admit, I was guilty of talking to the girls about things that wasn't my place to talk about....BUT they, too, have said CRAP about the other as well to me!! Now, Leslie and Katie are sooo buddy buddy right now...and I just want to yell out.."Damn it...she's said WAY worse CRAP about you!" I wasnt at work those days to defend myself and say, HOLD UP....so it was bash on Kristy day. I went into Katie's office, the next day, and broke down...I didnt deny a word but I bawled!! I apologized for saying anything hurtful and totally owned up to my responsibility. I tried to talk to Leslie...since she is the one that I told the other 2 about the abortion...but she yelled at me and said "I dont talk to BACKSTABBERS"....let me explain something else....I didnt just go up to these girls and say "hey guess what leslie did...she had an abortion..." I am not condemning her for ANYTHING...her life is her life....I know why she had it so I am NOT mad at her decision. She told Lauren and me that she missed work one day bc she was having a miscarriage....she said the doctor told her to stay home.... HELLO...I'm not an idiot...I called her at home to check on her that day (this is before the bash kristy day of course...) and she said..."oh I am just sitting here having a miscarriage...it sucks..the doctor put me on antibiotics though" WTF? You dont just sit at home and have a miscarriage!! So, Lauren and I went to her house the next night to have some drinks and there was a bottle of pills on the table....Leslie hurried up and grabbed the bottle and took it to the kitchen...made us some drinks and we visited....Lauren asked Leslie, "should you be drinking on your antibiotics....??" She was like, "oh......" and got a pop instead....when Lauren and I left...we both were like..."uh...yeah miscarriage...whatever..." .... so when Leslie finally told me about it...I went to Lauren and CONFIRMED what she already knew....so...I didnt START anything...I understand I was in the wrong....I do....I shouldnt have said a word....but now...they are all emailing back and forth and treating me really crappy....so what?? What is good for the goose ISNT good for the gander....?? They can type back and forth talking SH*T about me but if I say anything I get the 3rd degree... Leslie said some CRUDE things too about Katie...but do you see me throwing anyone else under the bus with me...NO! I hate that I wasnt there to defend myself...but what's done is done...Now, for the past 2 weeks...I've stayed to myself.....the girls are coming around....being nicer alot now....it is just almost back to normal...(Leslie told me she doesnt like to fight and doesnt want it to be any way...so...) It is good that we are ok now...but inside...deep inside...it hurts knowing that they all could gossip but bc I was drug into conversation...I am the one to blame....The story is alot deeper..but I wont go into all the 'rumor' details....but I was an adult..I took responsibility and apologized....that is all I can do.... Please feel free to comment..any questions i will answer for you...this thread is long enough....let me know how I should have handled it instead of, mind my language, PUSSIN' out and letting all the pit fall on me...when I wasnt the only one in the wrong... I have a bad habit of not stickin up for myself...and I can not stand animosity at work...so I took the blame for it all...and let bygones be bygones....

huh I had kind of a similar situation to happen to me, but it wasn't at work. It was so-called friends that I hadn't heard from in about 2-3 months and I got emails from two of them out of the blue and I had moved on to other friends since I got tired of those girls badmouthing each other constantly whenever one of them wasn't around and I kind of figured if they did that to the other girls, they probably did the same thing whenever I wasn't around you know? Anyways long story short they dragged me back into a drama of theirs and accused me of a lot of stuff. Like you I did take responsibility for the stuff I did happen to say which was really MILD compared to what those girls would say about each other and a lot of things I guess I just kind of said things that could have been construed as me agreeing with what they were saying which wasn't true,most of the time I kept my mouth shut or would ask them why they said that or whatever. Apparently that wasn't allowed either for me to ask questions and I got called nosy and a lot of female part names. But also alot of what I happened to say was twisted around into a bunch of lies and really made to sound much worse by a certain girl but I did stand my ground on a lot of things CALMLY. I didn't give them the satisfaction of cursing or angry like they invited me to do. They invited me to actually email them back and curse them out and blah blah. She wanted me to do that so that she would feel justified in what she was doing. I found the whole thing kind of funny by the end of it since it really turned out they were mad about me/at me staying friends with another girl they weren't friends with. That's about all you can do is take responsibility for whatever your mistakes are. Sounds like these girls are immature like I figured out about these so called girlfriends of mine as well. All you can do is handle it calmly.

Kristy, I don't think you could have handled this situation in any other way that would have had a different outcome.
Your friend was angry and upset and you couldn't have stopped her from confronting you in that manner. I think what you did was the right thing.
I don't think your relationship will ever be the same again but at least you can be civil towards each other. Your other coworkers seem to want to bring you apart and it worked. You can continue being her friend but I don't think she'll ever trust you again.
The best thing you can do now is to continue on being civil to them all, including the backstabbing coworkers. You'll prove to your friend that you're different and she may start trusting you again.
I would also suggest that you stop participating in the gossip that goes around. If you sit down for coffee and they start talking about someone just try to change the subject or get out of there.
Hope things work out for you

I just wonder why you would discuss something so personal as your friend's abortion with others.

Make this a lesson learned- gossip is cruel, wrong and cold hearted. Think of how your friend felt hearing that you told people something very personal about her behind her back. What did you honestly expect? For her to understand? Let's be honest, if she didn't confront you about this, would you really have felt bad about gossiping? Do you realize how much you could possibly ruin someone's life by doing that, especially if you were to be wrong about what you said?

It doesn't matter WHO ELSE said anything- the fact that you participated in it makes you guilty. Not to mention, she obviously was trying hard not to reveal she had one, what right did you and your friend have looking around her place looking at her meds and telling others that she really had an abortion and not a miscarriage?

I hope you gain a little maturity here and learn not to participate in the future in such meanness. I hope you are genuinely sorry for this and not just upset because you got caught. What goes around, comes around unfortunately it's not always the best that comes back.

The best thing you can do now is to just put yourself above it. What's going on here reminds me of high school! You are better than this. Don't respond to their buddy-buddy actions, don't respond to their whispering behind your back. You are better than this and so you should act better than this! Chances are, if this is the way these girls operate, they are not true friends anyway, and they seem really destructive, so why would you want them in your life anyway if they only bring you down?

I would have to agree... completely. It was an incredibly private thing that you speculated and discussed and she is right for being upset.

I, too, have been guilty of bad gossip, whether I meant for it to be mean or not doesn't matter. I always came out looking bad. I have also been in office settings like that and looking back, I certainly didn't hold myself to a high standard being around people like that.

The best thing you can do is to learn from this. I have learned that most of the time, things are just none of my business and it benefits me and everyone else to conduct myself as such and that participating in spiteful conversation about others (whether they are guilty as well really doesn't matter) is just tacky.

I came around to that notion a couple of years ago. When DF and I started dating, I went back home with him to meet his best friends. One of them (his closest friend, actually) was dating (and eventually married) someone who no one liked. I mean, everyone was really out to flame this poor girl to death! I jumped right on, I think because I desperately wanted to be liked. The point when I came to my senses was when the particularly nasty wife of a friend said just awful things about her at her own wedding to everyone that would listen and later called her a "trainwreck" when she saw her at 5 months pregnant. I felt truly awful for my part in the gossip- not to mention this girl is actually really fun with a heart of gold. I adore her. Lesson learned.

I too wondered that. Please don't take offense, but the whole situation seemed like something that would occur in a junior high school cafeteria -- not at work between 2 adults.

First, I never make it a plan to form close friendships with co-workers. There's a wise Southern saying that says, "Don't sh-- where you eat." Friendships often consist of a lot of sh--.

Secondly, it doesn't matter what the other women said about Leslie. Their actions have nothing to do with yours so don't try to use the "but they did it too" defense. It doesn't matter and informing Leslie of their comments will do nothing, but hurt her further. Learn to just be quiet.

Thirdly, you were wrong. You need to admit that. Write a letter of apology to Leslie where you take FULL responsibility for your actions. State your shortcomings and your intentions to improve upon them. Earn her trust back.

Lastly, develop a "vault" system. Put any personal information that someone tells you in the "vault". If you have a difficult time keeping secrets, then ask your friends not to give you information so you won't be tempted to gossip.

Good luck.

First of all, I'm sorry you had to learn this lesson the hard way. We've all been part of office gossip at one time or another, either on the giving or receiving end. It sounds like the WHOLE office, not just you, have a particular problem with this.

Since you can't control what others do, the only thing you can do is control yourself. Stop taking part in office gossip altogether. If you are in a group, and someone starts bashing someone else, either excuse yourself or turn the conversation in a positive direction. Everyone makes mistakes, but let yourself learn from this so at least it will have a positive outcome. This is one lesson I've learned from many years of working in different offices.

And as a helpful suggestion, do you think it might help if you sent out an e mail to everyone at the end of the day, apologizing? It could be something like the following:

To all my coworkers...I would like to apologize for any part I had in hurting (insert name here) due to taking part in unkind gossip. We've all been guilty of gossip at one time or another, and I think we can see the real pain it can cause someone. I would like to take responsibility for my part in this and say it will never happen again.

I think it's good that you have taken responsibility for what you said. Even though it's unfair that you take all the heat, it's just how it is. Your coworkers apparently aren't busy enough and they must have issues with themselves if they have to throw you under the bus like that. Anyone who will gossip WITH you, will also gossip ABOUT you when you aren't around. Time will fix things, so just go to work and act professional.

And don't beat yourself up. Learn from it and move on. You're a good person! ((HUGS))

Well I was going to make some long reply, but I think JellyBelly said it just right!

Not trying to be mean here but seriously. You girls act like you are all back in High School gossiping about each other and backstabbing each other every chance you get. WHY???
I cannot stand women like that. Why do it? You know you are gonna get caught and feelings are gonna be hurt. I don't feel sorry for you at all. You deserve losing your "friends" (they are not really your friends, but you know that.)

I hate hate hate women who sit around bashing each other. Jealousy is an ugly thing and I hope you are so over the drama and get better friends. That is after you become a better person.

I agree with all of you. It was very immature on my part but I have since then talked to Leslie and she and I are good. I apologized whole heartedly about what I told Lauren (who in turn told Katie bc I never said a word to her about it). Also, they have all tried to congregate in my office to yet again 'shoot the bull' about others....but I asked them... "step out if you are going to talk...bc I am friends with you all and I dont wanna hear anything or be caught up into anything..."...I have learn my lesson the hard way...I am just thankful that they still consider me a friend...bc I dont want to be someone they can't trust....thank you all for your help...although some was harsh...but it was the truth....Thank you!

ps- one more thing....I wasnt AT ALL writing in my thread to throw the blame onto someone else... or make it a pity me thread...i did take responsibility in front of the girls...and made my statement...i just wanted to see if I handled it ok. I was in the wrong....no doubt about that. Again...thank you all for your help.

Zetachristy, I'm glad everything has worked out for you.

jelly Thanks Alot! Me Too!