She crossed invisible boundaries, but it's not that simple. She seems to have been aware the boundaries were there in some sense, because she knew she held the upper hand and could control the relationship and cut those people off by freezing them out, refusing to take their calls, or changing her phone number. She invited these people in and befriended them to a degree I think was quite inappropriate, lulling them into a false sense of security. By crossing these boundaries she was being selfish, I think, and I'm not entirely sure she wasn't knowingly taking advantage of the situation, doing it because she wanted playmates and knew she made the rules and could end it when they had ceased to amuse her because these people had no power.
I had been treated in the same way by one of my best friends. I did something (although very negligible in my opinion) irritating her. She didn't speak to me for a long time, didn't answer my calls at all. Even I wrote her several heartfelt letters to apologize, but the response was very cold. Even she made it clear that she doesn't want to be too close to me any more. I really believed the friendship was over. Before I always believed she was the last friend of mine who would do this to me. Among my friends, she was most passionate and generous one, the nicest one. It's really hard to imagine such kind of person could be so cruel her friends. This unexpected betraying really hurted me. At that time I thought she was the biggest calamity ever happened in my life. I was so unlucky to know this person. At the same time I even stopped liking Diana. I knew Diana had did the same kind of things to her friends.
The friendship would be probably really over, if I didn't pretend to be very sick in front her one day. She asked me whether I was okay. And after some exchanging of some greeting words, we were back on the speaking term.
Now I think I know the reason of her cruelty. My friend suffered depression for a long time. Ten years ago she almost killed herself. I have experenced her depression state, just like a person who's inner energy has drained away, then the pressure from outside make her collapse. Like a star burning out of energy would collapse by the pressure from its own weight. But since last year I've never saw her in deep depression state, but instead she became more and more easy to be angry with people. Once I discussed with her about the anger, she told me that if she was not angry then she felt depressed. But the feeling of anger was much much better than depression. So she chose to be angry. I think the anger was always there, in depression, anger lied buried beneath the despair. Depression is something called " the anger turns inward. Let the anger burst out MAYBE a way to release the tension inside. In fact, my friend had a clear sense of her anger problem. After the reconcilation, she confessed to me she didn't talk to me because she was very angry with me, but she wanted me to be patient with her, give her time to release that anger. I felt some fairness when I knew she was not in the speaking term even with her mother for a while. Well at least I was not the only one who "sufferred" from her anger. But if being the target of my friend's anger can release her depression, then my "suffering" is definitely worthy. The same thing may happen again, but I will take it much easier next time.
My opinion of Diana developed a lot. Especially my experiences in recent years with my troubled friend give me first hand knowledge. Like my friend, I think Diana was definitely not the easiest friend, but rather a very tough one. It need more energy and dedication to cultivate the friendship. However Diana could be a friend saved for the raining day. One thing I am quite sure is if her friends were in big troubles, she would come back to their sides to help. There were some posts suggest that the affection Diana showed to ordinary people was merely a tool to build her good image, the reason they use from the allegelation that she sometime could be quite cruel to those close to her. My experience tell me there is not causality between that. Although my friend can be cruel to us--her friends, she definitely was the one of the most genuine, compassionate person who always want to help, to a extent that I would have to question her sanity. One time, my friend suddenly bust into tears in front of me because of a story of a very poor boy in iraq she read from the internet. My feeling about her over-reaction waw nothing but interesting. "Wow, what a person." Now although she has nothing except for debts, she is still donating 30 bucks every month to a little boy in Bosnia for his education. It's a common phenomenan that those people who suffer depression would have more compassion than normal person. It's said that they have depression because they are too much insisting on fairness. They always wish to change all unfair things, but are incompetent about that, so feels hopeless with world and then get into depression. At least my friend is very much this case. When I discussed about the world, she main philosophy would always be the world was so unfair, and she hoped she had the power to change that. I didn't dare to talk to my friend. But I think if she can take care of her own self, it already does a big favor to the world.