To think that when you've got a trail of people in your past who you've fallen out with, chances are your the one with the issue?

[JellyDiamonds]

I am referring to a specific person here. Doesn't speak to various family member due to a falling out, fair enough it happens. But this person has also fallen out with numerous friends over the years, has many acrimonious and broken relationships and has either walked out of or been sacked from every single job they've ever had.

This person has a real woe is me attitude, "it's not fair, everyone I meet turns on me", but the thing is not hard to see why. They are overbearing, bossy, they undermine people, take offence over the most ridiculous things, hold grudges etc. I've also witnessed some rather unpleasant behaviour regarding this person completely freezing someone else out for no other reason than the fact they dared to disagree on something. The other person was genuinely distraught over this and still is. But the protagonist in this story is playing the victim once again....

As someone who can count on one hand the number of people I've genuinely fallen out with in my 30 years on this earth and I'm going right back to childhood, and as someone who also can't be arsed with grudges, I think it's unlikely in this scenario that the other people are the ones to blame.

Apologies for being cryptic but I'm taking about someone specific here.

It's pretty hard to be tolerant and understanding of people who leave a trail of broken relationships and hurt in their wakes momie. Accusing people who fall out with them of being "bullies", when actual real bullying can destroy someone's life. It's insulting and belittling to the real thing, to real victims.

See I dont think (or at least I hope not) its always the person who gets fallen out with's fault. It'd be easy to look at my past and make this assumption about me before you've actually spoken to me.

My best friend from school craved drama and attention. I was ill in college, and because all of a sudden she wasn't the centre of it all, she blanked me and accused me of cyberbullying her when I finally responded to her passive aggressive posts by asking what I'd done wrong. I was nearly kicked out until I could show them proof I'd never bullied her. She moved to a new college and told people I'd beaten her up repeatedly.

AnAnother friend in college, I helped her a huge amount with work and coursework. We went to uni together and she dropped off the radar, wouldn't answer texts, was going crazy spending all her student loan but never turning up to class. When she came in for the day in the March, she had a go at me for finding new friends. She and her boyfriend then attempted to lure me out alone at 1am by pretending he'd attacked her and she was hiding from him - thankfully I called the police non emergency, who found them waiting together in a deserted car park. Since then she's told as many people as possible that I bullied her, and her sister, who I supported through a (now it turns out potentially faked) late miscarriage, threatened to kill me.

Ex was a lovely person to everyone but me. I was subjected to horrible emotional and sometimes physical abuse by him, as I wasnt pretty and thin enough, in his own words. When we broke up, he told everyone I was lying. Lo and behold, of course they believed the charmer.

And yet, an outsider could look at all this from the outside and think I'm the problem, whereas I'd give anything for the quiet life and don't understand what I've done to deserve people using me for drama and attention.

I don't inow. Maybe you'll all read this and know exactly why I desrdeserve it.

Don't take this the wrong way Moomin but your attitude is almost exactly the same as the person in my OP. "Why does everyone turn against me?", if she were to ask me this and allow me to give her an honest answer without flying off the handle, I could give tell her immediately. She's over sensitive and takes constructive criticism very badly, she refuses to see other peoples points of view and takes it horribly personally if people don't agree with her all of the time.

She sees slights and digs where none were ever intended, she has to be the centre of attention at all times and gets very upset if people don't give her the attention she desperately craves (think cartwheeling in the middle of the road), she needs to in control of every situation and throws epic tantrums when her authority is challenged. She can't take instruction and has no respect for authority. In fact, I could probably go on and on...

Now Moomin I'm not saying you are like this because I don't know you, and yes genuine uses and bad people exist and we all get burned on occasion but I honestly find it really hard to believe that one person could accumulate so many "users" over a relatively short space of time.

I honestly find it really hard to believe that one person could accumulate so many "users"

Then you haven't been listening to all the posters, only the ones agreeing with you. Of course this happens. It's well documented that an episode of abuse leaves the target vulnerable to further abusers, partly because their confidence has been badly shaken.

Tiggy, I took 'moving away' to mean distancing themselves socially?

Moomin, I don't agree with Jelly and took your post totally at face value and I hope you have/will cross paths with lots of lovely people too

Jelly, I wasn't vindicating bullying in my first post.

It will be more of a 'move on' than move away - they live / work in two distinct areas so there will be no flouncing though no doubt some will be made up.... The have a very normal CV as it is - movements for promotion or sidewards for experience but much has been made of their history.

It can be viewed both ways that's all...

In fact we were discussing our CVs and I was saying mine with experience in one place, doing the same thing was a huge negative and was holding me back! It's only now I am doing something different that it's beginning to look better.

Lucy

Move away was actually meant in many different ways but yes socially too.

A friend who is a psychologist told me that a sign of a well-adjusted and insightful individual was one who evolved their friendships through their lives. Her reasoning was you changed and grew as you aged and found like-minded people to suit. In effect you grow out of people.

That is different to a wake of destruction but I suppose if you grow faster than someone else it might appear that way, especially if the other felt hurt when you moved on.

She's over sensitive and takes constructive criticism very badly, she refuses to see other peoples points of view and takes it horribly personally if people don't agree with her all of the time.

I think that is a pretty accurate summing up of people like this. These do seem to be the defining traits they all have in common.

I wouldn't say grew 'faster' or 'out of' people, at least not after your mid-twenties or thereabouts. People grow differently, and most accept that compatibilities will change as life moves on.

I have some friends with whom I've nothing in common any more - except the fundamental similarity of spirit, which made us friends in the first place and makes circumstances irrelevant to our connections. Others, yeah, we're still friendly but the relationships were based on shared activities so we no longer have any real commonalities.

There seem to be several different things being discussed in this thread under one general heading. Some folks have distinctly unusual emotional wiring (to put it calmly!) which leads to their various relationships showing a cataclysmic pattern. I'd say I used to be one of them - though my issues were acquired rather than built-in, hence some enduring friendships and ability to change with guidance. Quite a few of the posts here, though, I think are about people simply misunderstanding one another.

I think growing apart is different to freezing people out altogether. Growing apart happens more gradually over time, there's no fall out but people change, if you were to see the person you'd grown apart from in the street you'd still greet them warmly. Freezing someone out usually happens suddenly, often without any explanation and often involves the freezing out party completely blanking the victim.

jelly I don't think I'm that kind of person. I have a lot of lovely friends now, and the rare times we do have disagreements, we work through them.

I hope I've just been unlucky, as I've never had an issue with taking criticism, and ive never played the victim - ive never actually talked about/written about all of that before, other than to my parents and my DP when he asked. Whereas the others chose to share it all through Facebook.

YY, Jelly. It's really upsetting until you grasp that the ex-friend is "not as others"

I remember sending cards & leaving messages asking what I'd done wrong, how I could make up for it, and so on ... until it dawned that, if she wouldn't say, it didn't matter. She'd done it for reasons only she could know: slammed a door, and standing outside knocking was disrespectful to both her and myself.

These days I'd maybe send one card. Then that's it; a shut door is a shut door.

I think you probably have just been very unlucky Moomin. In my experience most people are nice, honest and genuine. I can honestly say that I've only ever met one person like this in my life, the person I'm talking about in my OP.

I agree Lucy

For one reason and another I think I lot about my relationships past and present and I think I have a mix too.

I try to be insightful and I try and be non-judgemental towards others no matter what but appreciate that might not be extended my way

But Jelly you need to be careful....

I think I have met someone like this fairly recently and it has been a bit of an eye-opener, initially though I blew it out of proportion in my head. It was like 'Oh my god - is everyone like this? Have I totally misjudged people my WHOLE life'

No I havent - it might be a one off, it might be how she reacts with certain individuals (not those people fault necessarily- like a personality clash) or might be something they are not managing in themselves.... Others will flock to the drama and the intrigue leaving you wondering what on earth is going on.

However, lives are NOT full of them and in fact these people may not stay that way their whole lives. Keep it in perspective - it's a passing thing, just learn from it.

Yes, I agree with PP, when I started to state my boundaries to friends and family, the shit hit the fan for them.

Cos I was fed up of my fault, being too soft their selfishness and taking all their problems on board. never there for me tho in a similar situation

I am happier not having all those emotionally/financially abusive/whinging people around me.

If that makes me "the problem", so be it.

My grandmother is like this, and my MIL was quite like this too.

I agree with drifting apart. I don't contact friends that much, and some people I haven't seen for ages, but we are always very friendly when meeting up and it's a joy.

Oh, I forgot the upstairs neighbour. It seems that she's not speaking to me (according to the last two times we crossed paths), but we were never friends, so it doesn't really register.

You get them on here sometimes as well, people who post about how all of their friends are awful and let them down, how they don't speak to their mother and their sister and their cousins are all bitches, and they are bullied at work and all their boyfriends leave them. And you have to wonder just what their is about the common denominator in that situation, especially when you can tell from their attitude that they are the ones with the issues.

On the hand their are people who are continually getting themselves into relationships of all kinds that are dysfunctional in whatever way, and it can be that they are repeating bad patterms learned early, or have such low self esteem they don't think they deserve more than such bad relationships, or whatever. While this is not at all the same thing as the above, the person who is creating the drama and blaming it on everyone else, it does still need to be recognised and dealt with, because otherwise its going to carry on for ever.

I used to be the type of person described in the OP. I fell out with friends and housemates left right and centre. I never lasted in a job more than a few months (I went through 12 jobs in 3 years once). I did realise that I was the common denominator, and therefore it must be my fault ,but I didn't know what to do about it. I was suicidal about it, actually - god knows how I am still here to be honest.
Eventually I had a lot of deep, powerful therapy and managed to change. Therapy can really work in these kinds of situations. Now I am a lot more self aware and a lot more tolerant of other people. I'm a lot less needy, so I don't get so easily offended by perceived slights and I have a much more relaxed attitude to friendships. Situations before that would make me feel rejected, angry and hurt now don't seem to matter that much at all.
I do feel sorry for anyone in this boat, although that's not a reason for anyone to stay friends with a toxic friends. Anyone on here who is reading this thread and recognises themselves as the one with a problem - there is hope, if you are willing to do what it takes to change. Self awareness, whilst painful to admit it is you with the problem, is worth it as it's the precursor to change.

I am nodding along to the first part of your post countessmarkyabitch.

If over the years you have argued with a couple of relatives and have lost a few friends along the way then that's just life isn't it?

But when you have fallen out with most of your family and you don't speak to your inlaws and you hate all your neighbours and you can't keep friends then they just can't ALL be bastards and bitches

To be honest I think the underlying problem is an awful lot closer to home than your 'twat' of a next door neighbour or your 'cow' of a mother-in-law.