Hi folks
Synchronicity happens. Vunil put up a post on Longtire's thread about how awareness of NPD and BPD and so on is changing her view of people and her choice of friends & acquaintances.
I had been thinking of posting about this, but that clinched it. I think my earlier thread has served its purpose and I'm putting it lovingly to rest... will start new ones for new thoughts. [This is progress, folks.]
Vunil - my sympathies - and admiration. To watch you see all that you see and move in a different direction is really inspiring.
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Vunil is absolutely spot on, when we are raised by NPD or BPD or whatever people, we tend to attract and be drawn to similarly ill individuals. It feels like home, and even if home was a screaming nightmare, it's still the only home we've ever known.
Oh, how my head knows this. And oh, how little good it has done me.
Until lately.
I've had one romantic relationship in my entire life that did not involve a narcissistic or abusive or addicted man - sometimes a combo of two or three of these. Always, the dysfunction was concealed until I was committed to the gent, and then the mask was dropped. When I was younger I tried to figure out what I'd done wrong, but by my 30s I could see that there was a bait-and-switch going on. However, I still didn't know how to recognize 'bait' from the genuine good stuff.
Now I think I know how. Wait. Watch. See how he treats waitresses and waiters. See how he responds to your small triumphs and victories. See how long he can let you talk on a subject that interests you without diverting the topic back to himself.
I did say there was one fellow who wasnt N/abusive/addicted. Unfortunately, he was gutless. We were very young, and he ran with some fellows who really, really, really did not like women; they were all dating Barbie dolls, and resented the hell out of me for having a quick mind and a sense of humor... exactly the things this fellow really noticed and liked me for.
So his cronies started driving in the wedges. "Dropping in" when they knew we had prior plans to go somewhere [because he told them] and trying to get him to go to the pool hall, etc., with them instead. And so on. And the damn gutless idiot always, always, always picked them. So... I dropped him, and started dating other people. And he went into a tailspinning depression over it (we were very young). But I never went back, because I could never trust him not to abandon me again on a moment's notice if one of the guys came up with a 'better idea'.
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I have realized that most of the non-N, non-addicted, non-overtly-abusive people in my life - whom I've thought of as friends - will, like this fellow, abandon me the minute the going gets even slightly irregular, never mind rough.
Right now, I'm disengaging from a friendship of nearly a decade. It's very sad, but I'm the only one who knows that. It's with a married couple. I met one of them through work and the other through shared interests as well as knowing their spouse. These people are kindhearted to a fault, and therein the problem lies.
They have both been through the fire recently - multiple serious illnesses and injuries among close family, major problems on the job, terrible advese reactions to supposedly innocuous prescription medications, and so on.
I've been as supportive as humanly possible, shared thoughts, suggested books and authors, told them about my own experiences and what worked for me, and have always validated what they are going through.
They, in turn, have almost never failed to let me down in time of need. There have been many, many occasions on which someone known to all of us has treated me inexcusably badly, sometimes in their very presence. Whenever I comment on an episode, these friends instantly leap to the defense of the person or people who are abusing me. They insist that because whoever it is hasn't abused THEM, they are really a nice person 'under it all', so my friends can't take sides or listen to anything I have to say on the subject. Or they claim that because so and so has a 'problem', they get a free pass on having to act like a decent human being [not quite this baldfaced, but pretty damn close.]
They call this 'being fair'. YET, when a mutual acquaintance is abusing THEM, they expect and have always received belief, support, and validation from me.
And they do attract schemers, and some very nasty people who make a hobby of poking others in the eye for pleasure.
I finally saw this pattern after several episodes of really egregious abuse by mutual acquaintances were blown off in the same way. And after I realized that these folks had left me twisting slowly in the wind, utterly alone, the entire time my kitties were dying and my parents were dying and I was dealing with my sibling's misbehaviors. They have helped me out significantly on two occasions when there were no third parties involved WHOM THEY KNEW. But that's the pattern. Always deny my pain, always defend anyone who harms me.
I finally confronted my pals about it, when I felt calm and was able to be clear and concise. There were apologies which I believe were sincere, in terms of their regretting that I was pained. But nothing real has changed.
Except me. I backed off, reduced the time I spent interacting, and totally stopped doing anything which 'put me out' on their account [we live some distance apart, and I no longer visit them. It's a two hour round trip, for very little; my car is old, gas is costly. No.]
I have watched and waited, to see if anything was going to be different. I expected it not to be, simply because of past history - and because I now see that one of these folks is still in extreme, severe denial about terrible abuse in their own past, although they can see abuse affecting them in the present. It would make sense that they would respond with denial to any abuse going on around them... if it doesn't affect them personally.
What floors me is that they are absolutely incapable - as a couple - of seeing the split between their own experience and perception of abuse when it happens to them, and their expectation of acceptance and support, and their utter, total refusal to believe that abuse ever happens to me at the hands of a mutual acquaintance, or to accept and support me in any way when it does.
It's really sad. Because, by declaring a refusal to 'take sides' when these things happen (although, again, that is clearly expected of me when they are on the receiving end), they ARE taking sides. They are, always and inevitably, siding with abuse and denial.
I have had virtually no contact with them while I've been out on leave. I talked to them this week, and the same patterns were there, at the same time they were expressing regret that we hadn't been able to visit [translation: I hadn't driven out; nothing whatsoever prevents them from visiting me] while I've been free.
It's sad, but I am going to have to let them go. Without a word, just let it lapse. Agree with them that it's a shame we haven't gotten together, and stop validating and supporting them overtly when they are abused by mutual acquaintances.
I hope I can do this without being retaliatory. They are well meaning people, and have done some things that are even heroic, on behalf of others. They just won't come through for me, in situations where they clearly expect me to come through for them.
