When Your Friends Aren't Your Friends
Title does not involve me, thankfully, all my friends are still my friends, even if I'm ignoring some of the typical archetypes at church.
I'm talking about a friend of mine. I'm worried for her. We've talked a couple of times recently and she's had the hard awakening that not all the people that say they are your friends are actually your friends.
How? She went to take care of someone she thought was a friend during their recent surgery and it went haywire very quickly. I don't know for sure what the problem of her friend is, but I suspect it's parts mental, parts physical and could be medication madness of mixing of pills and potions. I only know that she hurt my friend with her behavior.
I hate that, because my friend is very sweet and helpuful to everyone, loving, kind, caring. But for now my friend is grieving and doing that thing we do so well as women, particularly women who have come out of spiritual abuse - Monday Morning Quarterbacking what happened. This is also how my sweet friend processes. I get it. I sometimes do that too.
There's not much that hurts quite as much as a betrayal by someone you thought was a sister=friend, closer than regular friends. When I left my old crazy toxic church I lost a great deal of friends, and yeah, it hurt. But not as much as a friendship I had online nearly twenty years ago with a lady named Gail.
So many huge waving fields of red flags during my few years of close friendship with Gail. She made sure to insult or attack most of my other online friends, isolating me, and demanding larger chunks of my time than was emotionally healthy.
I think the worst thing she did in that time was she made me seriously doubt myself, everything about my life. She was a photographer, living in a rundown tiny apartment in one of the biggest economically depressed areas in California. But her conservations with me after a while were all the same, only she was a 'true artist', those of us, like me, were not. We who have married after studying art in college and working straight jobs betrayed art and artistic sensibilities. It didn't matter than I had worked part time for years at the local art studio, taught lessons, taught art in the local public schools, still painted and other arts, or that I taught art in the homeschooling community. I still was no artist. I hadn't suffered for my art. I didn't live, sleep, eat, dream art. She said that I'd settled for mediocrity, middle class house and 2.4 kids with a literal Buick in the driveway.
Here's the most shocking part.I believed her. I felt bad about my lack of artistic drive and I started to question every single major decision I'd made in my life.
It was a miserable time. I grieved that which I'd not done.
We were close friends for a couple of years while she worked her poison into my brain. In retrospect I think she was jealous, jealous of the three bedroom Cape Cod house, jealous of the husband, jealous of the 2.4 kids, and (maybe) even jealous of the Buick. The serene normality of my life.
Quite ironically we fell out over a man, a man I didn't even want, that I didn't think was attractive. Another online acquaintance who had a dying 20 year old daughter. I'd started talking to him about a year into my relationship with Gail. He approached me, and during the times his daughter was in the hospital I talked to him and later his daughter Julie. I literally cyber held that man's hand and spent endless hours on the phone with him as his daughter slowly died of cancer. I did it because I felt like I was supposed to do it as some service to God, since I was still involved with my old church.
Naturally I'd told Gail about David and his daughter Julie and right before the end when I'd been hospitalized with another miscarriage she talked to both of them instead of me. I picked up talking when I was out.
I noticed that Gail had not very nice nicknames for the people in David's life, his wife, his ex wife and Julie's mother. I didn't say anything to her about being uncomfortable as she sniped, I just ignored it. I knew she was snarky, figured she was venting about the screwed up situation, and boy was it screwed up. David had a mess on his hands with family antics during Julie's last days.
Made the mistake one day of expressing to Gail that I was worried about David's relationship with his wife because he would not talk to her at all about what he was dealing with. He was instead pouring it out to both of us. I told Gail that if his wife wasn't careful in the aftermath of the death any sympathetic woman could likely snatch him up and end his marriage.
After Julie passed we did continue to talk, but less frequently. I did notice as time passed that David was increasing withdrawn from me. I thought that was a good thing, he was beginning to move on. Both he and his wife were in therapy to deal with what happened.
A few months more passed and I saw him pop up on my messenger. I sent him a message and asked David how he was doing. Big mistake! He went off on me! Turns out that Gail had told him a large batch of ridiculous lies. She told him that I'd called his wife nasty names and bragged I was going to take him away from his wife! I told him how crazy that all was, and that Gail was the one that was name calling, not I! I logged off, shed a few tears and could hardly believe anyone would lie like that.
I'd mostly stopped speaking to Gail around the same time. She was busy, my schedule was crazy, so I didn't think anything of it until David exploded. I sent Gail a message telling her I didn't appreciate her lies and heard nothing back.
The huge irony of all of this is that I was still living so religious that I normally would not speak to any man in messaging apps because I considered it a violation of the Pence Rule. I did not want to dishonor my husband. I only did with David because I heard what I thought was God telling me that this man's name was David and he needed a friendly ear. I still cannot explain how I knew his name, because it was sure not his chat nom de plume. One of those weird things.
FYI. I know there are tons of cancer fakers online, but this was not one of them. I saw the obit, I spoke with the father and the daughter.
I'm not perfect, I'm far from it, so when things like this happen I tend to do like my other friend is doing now. Endlessly runnng the tape on what happened, trying to figure out where I screwed up and how did I misjudge so badly. Torturing myself when I was merely trying to help someone suffering. My motives were good, so how did I screw it up so badly? It took a long time to realize I hadn't done anything wrong other than befriend someone with deep issues, allowing her to make me doubt myself and her to gaslight me. You hear that old expression with friends like these who needs enemies? Yes.
I did hear from David much later. Turns out Gail made a play to snap him up herself. She told him she's always loved him and blah, blah, blah with David recoiling in horror. He realized Gail had ulterior motives in demonizing me to him and he wanted me to know how sorry he was that he'd not believed me. Gail messed with his head too.
Gail died of cancer about 12 years ago, still furiously blaming others for not being committed artists like her, mad with the world, still gaslighting and slinging shit on others. What a miserable way to live and die.
Friends don't treat friends like disposible paper plates. They don't undermine everything about you. They don't try to destroy you. And when they start doing those things your best action is to get the hell away from them asap, and know it's really not you. It's them.
I'm talking about a friend of mine. I'm worried for her. We've talked a couple of times recently and she's had the hard awakening that not all the people that say they are your friends are actually your friends.
How? She went to take care of someone she thought was a friend during their recent surgery and it went haywire very quickly. I don't know for sure what the problem of her friend is, but I suspect it's parts mental, parts physical and could be medication madness of mixing of pills and potions. I only know that she hurt my friend with her behavior.
I hate that, because my friend is very sweet and helpuful to everyone, loving, kind, caring. But for now my friend is grieving and doing that thing we do so well as women, particularly women who have come out of spiritual abuse - Monday Morning Quarterbacking what happened. This is also how my sweet friend processes. I get it. I sometimes do that too.
There's not much that hurts quite as much as a betrayal by someone you thought was a sister=friend, closer than regular friends. When I left my old crazy toxic church I lost a great deal of friends, and yeah, it hurt. But not as much as a friendship I had online nearly twenty years ago with a lady named Gail.
So many huge waving fields of red flags during my few years of close friendship with Gail. She made sure to insult or attack most of my other online friends, isolating me, and demanding larger chunks of my time than was emotionally healthy.
I think the worst thing she did in that time was she made me seriously doubt myself, everything about my life. She was a photographer, living in a rundown tiny apartment in one of the biggest economically depressed areas in California. But her conservations with me after a while were all the same, only she was a 'true artist', those of us, like me, were not. We who have married after studying art in college and working straight jobs betrayed art and artistic sensibilities. It didn't matter than I had worked part time for years at the local art studio, taught lessons, taught art in the local public schools, still painted and other arts, or that I taught art in the homeschooling community. I still was no artist. I hadn't suffered for my art. I didn't live, sleep, eat, dream art. She said that I'd settled for mediocrity, middle class house and 2.4 kids with a literal Buick in the driveway.
Here's the most shocking part.I believed her. I felt bad about my lack of artistic drive and I started to question every single major decision I'd made in my life.
It was a miserable time. I grieved that which I'd not done.
We were close friends for a couple of years while she worked her poison into my brain. In retrospect I think she was jealous, jealous of the three bedroom Cape Cod house, jealous of the husband, jealous of the 2.4 kids, and (maybe) even jealous of the Buick. The serene normality of my life.
Quite ironically we fell out over a man, a man I didn't even want, that I didn't think was attractive. Another online acquaintance who had a dying 20 year old daughter. I'd started talking to him about a year into my relationship with Gail. He approached me, and during the times his daughter was in the hospital I talked to him and later his daughter Julie. I literally cyber held that man's hand and spent endless hours on the phone with him as his daughter slowly died of cancer. I did it because I felt like I was supposed to do it as some service to God, since I was still involved with my old church.
Naturally I'd told Gail about David and his daughter Julie and right before the end when I'd been hospitalized with another miscarriage she talked to both of them instead of me. I picked up talking when I was out.
I noticed that Gail had not very nice nicknames for the people in David's life, his wife, his ex wife and Julie's mother. I didn't say anything to her about being uncomfortable as she sniped, I just ignored it. I knew she was snarky, figured she was venting about the screwed up situation, and boy was it screwed up. David had a mess on his hands with family antics during Julie's last days.
Made the mistake one day of expressing to Gail that I was worried about David's relationship with his wife because he would not talk to her at all about what he was dealing with. He was instead pouring it out to both of us. I told Gail that if his wife wasn't careful in the aftermath of the death any sympathetic woman could likely snatch him up and end his marriage.
After Julie passed we did continue to talk, but less frequently. I did notice as time passed that David was increasing withdrawn from me. I thought that was a good thing, he was beginning to move on. Both he and his wife were in therapy to deal with what happened.
A few months more passed and I saw him pop up on my messenger. I sent him a message and asked David how he was doing. Big mistake! He went off on me! Turns out that Gail had told him a large batch of ridiculous lies. She told him that I'd called his wife nasty names and bragged I was going to take him away from his wife! I told him how crazy that all was, and that Gail was the one that was name calling, not I! I logged off, shed a few tears and could hardly believe anyone would lie like that.
I'd mostly stopped speaking to Gail around the same time. She was busy, my schedule was crazy, so I didn't think anything of it until David exploded. I sent Gail a message telling her I didn't appreciate her lies and heard nothing back.
The huge irony of all of this is that I was still living so religious that I normally would not speak to any man in messaging apps because I considered it a violation of the Pence Rule. I did not want to dishonor my husband. I only did with David because I heard what I thought was God telling me that this man's name was David and he needed a friendly ear. I still cannot explain how I knew his name, because it was sure not his chat nom de plume. One of those weird things.
FYI. I know there are tons of cancer fakers online, but this was not one of them. I saw the obit, I spoke with the father and the daughter.
I'm not perfect, I'm far from it, so when things like this happen I tend to do like my other friend is doing now. Endlessly runnng the tape on what happened, trying to figure out where I screwed up and how did I misjudge so badly. Torturing myself when I was merely trying to help someone suffering. My motives were good, so how did I screw it up so badly? It took a long time to realize I hadn't done anything wrong other than befriend someone with deep issues, allowing her to make me doubt myself and her to gaslight me. You hear that old expression with friends like these who needs enemies? Yes.
I did hear from David much later. Turns out Gail made a play to snap him up herself. She told him she's always loved him and blah, blah, blah with David recoiling in horror. He realized Gail had ulterior motives in demonizing me to him and he wanted me to know how sorry he was that he'd not believed me. Gail messed with his head too.
Gail died of cancer about 12 years ago, still furiously blaming others for not being committed artists like her, mad with the world, still gaslighting and slinging shit on others. What a miserable way to live and die.
Friends don't treat friends like disposible paper plates. They don't undermine everything about you. They don't try to destroy you. And when they start doing those things your best action is to get the hell away from them asap, and know it's really not you. It's them.
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