"Sometimes, you have to choose between them and you. If loving them is hurting you, it's time to walk away."
That's exactly what I did when a friendship got to be way too much to maintain. A few months later, I thought maybe we could rekindle the friendship. My friend was in the 'healing arts.' She preached a whole bunch of self-help, forgiveness, and we are all one mantras. I thought we'd be able to have a discussion. Nope, that was never to be.She insisted on being the victim, even though she wasn't the victim of anything. She was a shitty friend. Rarely in touch. And, when she was, everything was about her. Sometimes, she'd realize she'd hogged the conversation, so she'd ask me how I was doing. She'd listen long enough to get an answer, then ask more questions. Her questions only required yes or no for answers. Then, almost as if she was reading from a script, she'd ask a question that would invite greater details from me, and once I started answering, she'd have some intense, fast, almost emergency reason why she had to go. This went on for years.
My dumbass put up with it for far too long. One time, I tried to talk to her about why she'd do this - get close, share things, then all of sudden, be out of touch, distant, and rarely call, or answer my calls, and slow to return them. She claimed I was "too attached." I never did understand what the hell that meant. Still don't. Everything we were doing was normal female friendship. At least that's how it was with my other friends, and none of them reacted this way. She didn't speak to me for 3 months after that, and the only thing that broke the ice was her calling to thank me for her birthday present.
We went 4 years without any sort of, as she puts it, "confrontation." Yeah, because I didn't challenge her or ask her any questions. I pulled away myself. My calls to her became infrequent. I was slow to return her calls. I did the whole 'being a mirror thing' but it didn't lead to anything. For a short while, it seemed to lead to an increase in calls from her, trying to reach me, but only because she had something intense going on in her life.
Guilt weighed heavily on my mind a couple of months after I stopped calling and blocked her from calls and texts, and on social media. I reached out, thinking a conversation would be possible. Like I said at the beginning, she wasn't having it. She insisted that she was the victim. She made it seem like I was the one who wanted so much from her. No, I didn't. I just didn't like getting taken advantage of and it took me 7 years (since we'd gotten back in touch) to realize she was just a selfish, self-centered, narcissistic bitch.And, it took me months to realize exactly what that meant. Because I fed into that. I called her, texted her, and practically groveled and begged for her to be my friend again. The pain was unreal. Slowly, though, it started to fade, and now? It's still there, but not raw, not intense, and only really hurts if I keep thinking about her. But, why think about a selfish, self-centered, narcissistic bitch?I'd thought for 2 weeks, I'd email, text, or call her for the big birthday she just had. I didn't. That's progress.
#bitch, #narcissist, #self-centered, #selfish, #shittyfriend, #timetowalkaway, #victim
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