Friend turned on me - really hurt me and I don't know why.

[shouldaknownbetter]

I have a friend, lives in another city. I was travelling nearby last week so arranged to go and stay with her for a couple of days.

We went out the first night and had some drinks, sat up chatting until quite late. Everything was going ok, she started telling me how she had not got any confidence as she'd not worked for a few years (due to a physical disability). I was trying to be supportive, giving her advice like maybe try some voluntary work, look at the things she'd done with her hobbies (she does puppetry), just trying to help. Everything was met with a no, the conversation was getting circular to everything I said she just replied she did not have the confidence. Then she started saying she didn't want to talk about it. So I changed the subject but she kept coming back to it. And then things got nasty, every time I opened my mouth she shouted at me to shut up. Said that I was going on about it - even though I had no stake in going on about it -it was not my issue - she was the one who kept bringing it up.

By now she was really shouting at me and this woke up her husband and school age daughter, her husband then started shouting at me that I'd woken him up, and told me to go to bed. I never even raised my voice! She started crying on his shoulder like I'm the bad guy.

So I went to bed all the time thinking 'I need to get out of here' but at 2 in the morning your options are limited.

Come the morning I thought I don't want to stay here and it's not fair on her daughter who by now was giving me a really bad vibe that she wanted me out. So I told her husband I'd go to a hotel that night, but we could still hang out if she wanted to see me and talk, just I didn't want to sleep there.

He tried to downplay it a bit, but I'd made my mind up. Anyway I told my friend, who was still in bed, that this is what I was planning and then all hell broke loose. She came out of the room and shouted at me- first to stop making a fuss over nothing, then when it became clear I wasn't going to back down, shouted at me repeatedly to fuck off and that I was selfish and to get the fuck out.

So I packed up my stuff and then she physically shoved me out the door all the time shouting fuck off fuck off at me. I've never seen rage like it.

I really don't understand what happened here. I sent her a message saying no one talks to me like that and we are not friends any more, she followed up with abusive replies and said I'd driven her to it. I said she'd passed the point of no return now.

We've been friends around 3 years and something like this (but not as bad) happened a couple of years ago, and I gave her a second chance then.

I guess I am still reeling a bit and feeling a bit shell shocked that she could turn on me like this. It's like -she could say whatever she liked but when I said anything she told me to shut up/fuck off and then blamed me for everything and made herself out to be the victim. And that's emotionally abusive isn't it.

But I can't help wondering why she's done this to me... I know I need to move on but it's left me feeling really strange.

Thanks Lizzie the amount of victim blaming on this thread is unbelievable. And it says in the sticky at the top of the board that we are never to blame for others' acts of aggression!

Yes, my mother is EA and has done things similar to my friend such as shouting/violent outbursts, never being wrong, getting angry with me if I say she's upset me.... So I am very aware and sensitive to these things and have a bit of a zero tolerance approach - you could say my boundary is set a bit too high but after years of dealing with my mother, I can see why that would be.

No, I said the friend’s reaction was extreme.

I don’t agree that the OP is ‘a victim’ though 🙄 and really? She’s just been moaning about friend’s ‘victim mentality’...

I think if you characterise people who are struggling with soul destroying structural inequality as having ‘victim mentality’ and then from a position of privilege try to repeatedly ‘give advice’ not picking up on what you are doing that is upsetting, then you can expect an extreme reaction is quite likely because what you are doing is revictimising them again under a cloud of smug superiority without any irony.

Ah ok, so your disabled friend has a ‘victim mentality’ and is always trying to make herself a victim and now rather than reflecting on what went wrong and why she might have been so upset that she reacted in an extreme way, you want yourself characterised as a victim of her ‘aggressive abuse’...

It’s not that simple IMO. It is clear that you should not be friends anymore and that her shoving you was completely beyond the pale though.

It sounds like she can't handle her booze to me. That's what drunk people do, sounds like she was at the unreasonable and maudlin stage, and you can never successfully leave a topic, they keep harping on the same thing over and over.

Probably could have smoothed it over in the morning by putting it down to the drink. But never mind, it doesn't sound like much of a loss.

But she kept talking about it, I'd have been more sympathetic if it had been the OP pushing it and her friend trying to drop the subject.

And believe me, I know all about disability! My DB has serious MH issues and my DM constantly plays the role of 'fixer', it makes him very aggressive too. He's done that with us, too, on the rare occasions when I've suggested anything. so I really don't get involved talking to him because it can really get frustrating at times - and I'm not even a 'fixer'! I'm pretty much NC with him, for other reasons connected with the past, but that alone makes him very stressful to be around.

And the OP is a victim in her own way. What the friend did to her was abusive, so that does make her a victim. She's also been a victim of her mother's EA, remember, so it would have been triggering for her to be lashed out at like that.

I also picked up on the fact that this 'friend' and her DH made light of the previous incident, joking about it afterwards, which isn't pleasant at all.

Totally different (in terms of saying I have a victim mentality,) as I'm taking action - removing my friend from my life. If I moaned about how horrible she was to me, then stayed around to be treated badly again and moaned about it some more - THAT's a victim mentality.

The difference being I'm willing to do something about my situation - cut contact in this case - and she isn't willing to do something about hers.

Massive difference between being a 'victim' in a one off situation and having a victim mentality overall.

And I was just thinking about how this is a loss for me - not just about her but mutual friends I will probably lose contact with now, festivals we used to go to which i probably can't go to now not easily anyway - but I'm determined not to be treated like shit so I'll give all that up rather than continue to engage with someone who is upsetting me to that extent.

She probably kept talking about it because OP wasn’t ‘getting it’.

It’s really unpleasant to say she isn’t willing to do anything about it. She was trying to talk to her friend about it and her friend turned it into an exercise about how much better than her she was.

No you don't have a 'victim mentality', OP, I meant that if someone is abused they are by definition a victim. You have a survivor mentality having coped with your mother's abuse over the years. That's probably why a 'victim mentality' is so irritating to you. I get that, too, my DB's victim mentality is totally draining. (Whereas DSis and I are survivors of our childhood abuse.)

I think there is a massive difference between being a victim of abuse, which you can't help, and having a 'victim mentality', which is down to you. IYSWIM.

I think you're projecting, @Offred trying to make the friend's behaviour acceptable. Which it wasn't, it was a drunken explosion of temper! Didn't you pick up on the fact that previously she and her husband joked about the outburst she made? It sounds like they wanted to again, saying the OP was 'making a fuss about nothing'.

She certainly has anger issues. And very likely MH.
Really life is too short.
You are better off out if it OP.

Offed it's not unpleasant, it's a fact. I'm not judging her for that, she's entitled to do nothing about it I was merely offering it as a reason for why we were not on the same page when having the conversation. It's her life - up to her whether she goes back to work or not - it doesn't affect my life in the slightest!

Lizzie that makes a lot of sense - the survivor mentality. I think friend and I must have been pressing each other's buttons big time and looking back - the rage she had at me, the blaming is EXACTLY like what my mum does and I've only recently come 'out of the fog' and begun to understand my mother and learn about how she operates.

Maybe that's why I've been quite quick to move to NC with my friend as I say maybe my boundary is a bit too high but understandable why.

At no point have I said the friend’s behaviour was acceptable.

Obviously there is a difference between being victimised and having a victim mentality. My point is the OP’s friend was expressing how she is victimised by being labelled ‘disabled’, the OP characterised that as ‘having a victim mentality’ and was really insensitive and arrogant re that.

OP’s friend is victimised by structural inequality, OP then revictimised her with her attitude of ‘this annoying victim mentality’.

It’s no different. It’s not victim mentality. It’s victimisation.

Friend’s reaction was extreme and has ended the friendship but it is really not a OP as victim, friend as perpetrator, OP doesn’t have victim mentality and friend does situation.

You do realise most EA parents have ‘survivor mentality’ driving their EA don’t you? As a result of abuse they suffered as children themselves.

No he did not apologise in the morning, why would he, nothing is ever their fault (I know this from bitter experience) it is always mine.

Then if thats your experience there is no real loss. He at the very least should not have had a go at you and should have apologised for doing so.

There is nothing wrong with high standards in terms of how you are treated. Whether the verbal abuse came from a place of frustration or not is besides the point. It was uncalled for especially to the extent it was.

While you are a fixer and thats frustrating sometimes OP, we have no idea if the friend would react any better to soneone who merely listened or was a yes person. Sounds like a bad combination of incompatible personalities, frustration and wanting to lash out, verbal abuse and stubborness.

The other incident involved a time at a festival (she does a lot of festivals) where she'd nicked off with some of my makeup and when I got a bit p'd off because I couldn't find it she got very very angry at me for being p'd off with her, said i was upsetting her ( I was not shouting at her but was clearly not happy and probably asked where it was a bit brusquely). So she clearly reacts badly to any form of challenge (which is a little bit EA?)

Her husband then came out of his tent in his underpants and chased me round the field shouting at me. This really upset/humiliated me but then became the standard 'pant chasing' joke for evermore. I can see that they wanted to make light of it but it did make me feel slightly mocked and like it was being used to excuse his behaviour.

I should have sacked them off then, I really should. We clearly have different standards as to how to treat friends.

And all the background re doing similar a few years ago and forgiving her - well you did ‘go back for more’ and you have been judging her re ‘victim mentality’ all that time. That’s not a friendship.

No - I forgave her. I just said I wasn't judging her Offred so why are you continuing to say I am when I just said I wasn't? Please don't twist!

It’s a ‘this is a toxic relationship’ thing where you have contributed to the dynamic by taking up a judgemental parent role and she has filled a rebellious child role.

And that’s what you can learn from, why you chose to contribute to that dynamic.

But when you're on the receiving end of someone getting maudlin about things, which sounds like the friend was doing, it's very hard not to feel impatient. When they moan about how hard things are, but don't want to do anything to help themselves, your well of sympathy runs dry after a while, and yes you can start judging them. It's exhausting. It's not right, and yes fixers can be irritating, but we're all human.

The friend must have known the OP's character by now? Why was she surprised that she wanted to help 'fix' things? Again, it sounds like she was picking a fight.

You still haven't addressed the fact that the friend has form. That she and her husband tried to make the last outburst into a joke. That isn't pleasant when quite clearly the OP didn't find it funny.

You do realise most EA parents have ‘survivor mentality’ driving their EA don’t you? As a result of abuse they suffered as children

Its very much a good thing then that the OP has broken the cycle with her mother, whether she plans on having dc or not. OP i ts good you are breaking the cycle, i wish my parent had. Its so much harder to do after dc or with dc, especially if as Offred says, you start down that path yourself. My parent is still very much in the FOG but will hopefully break away more in time. Sadly the damage to us dc was done and i see it repeated by one of my dsis. Ive had counselling too and a good dh who helps me.

With your update they both sound toxic if thats their behaviour. Not a loss then. So you gave another chance and behaviour repeated. As with your mother, best to break the cycle.

Yes, I already have DC Pilates two of them.

Its because my mother started to upset my daughter and I could see the cycle starting again grandmother-granddaughter that I've educated myself on all this EA stuff and set quite high boundaries.

Lizzie - It’s not the friend on here asking why this happened though. If it were I would be giving opinions re her behaviour.

IMO what the OP can learn is that her boundaries for crappy behaviour are not quite as high as she thinks and that actually there is no point ‘forgiving’ bad behaviour if all it does is perpetuate a problematic relationship without solving any of the issues - as it often makes things worse.

Offred

The point is that we are ALL responsible for our actions.......the OP's mother who was ea, the man who has ptsd from serving in Iraq and abuses his wife, the child who goes in to abuse their own children because they were abused etc. You could go on forever saying some people's behaviour is acceptable because of what they went through. Personal accountability is the key, regardless.