Friends disappeared .. again.. do I?

[Windingroad21]

Long time poster who flounced and came back with a new username.. hello!

I’ve had a long term friend and really close confidant, let’s call her A. She has this habit of being really in and then really out of communication. I (stupidly) have not challenged this before, made excuses in my head that ‘it’s just the way she is’.

More recently, it’s really began to peeve me. A started a new business which on the face of it didn’t seem a great move (I work in this field and have a lot of experience). I supported A fully and her business partner ‘did a number’ on her (not sure if true with hindsight). Anyway, point is.. she stopped randomly replying to messages from me for the best part of two months. Then, all of a sudden, is back in touch when she needs help. Me being me, helped her massively with a series of complaints, tax issues and business law (when I myself have a lot on and not massive mental capacity to take on others issues, but figured she’s my friend).

Since then comms have been on and off. She’s been getting work done at home and I supported and helped her through this too, even helping with DIY myself.

Now, once more, she’s gone off the radar. This time it was mid conversation. Nothing at all to cause it and complete radio silence. I’m really pissed off. How should I approach this? DP says challenge her on it but I don’t see the point. I’m having MH issues myself and don’t want the conflict/ to be gaslit potentially to believe I’m somehow at fault (don’t believe I am).

This is enhanced probably as my other close friend, let’s call her S, has got a new job and has went from being unemployed to the chief of the world and lauded over everyone in her circle with self importance. Whilst I’m really pleased for her, she’s completely changed and not asked a single question about me in almost a year. I’ve got so fed up of it all that I want to just tell them all to get stuffed. Or go missing in action myself.

What would you do ?

Hi cf, I'm fine, but I'm busy. I really don't appreciate you getting my mother involved, please can you both back off now?

Both good points, I particularly enjoyed the bit about long periods of no contact, lol. I’m still adamant I’m not biting to respond to either of them.

They don’t get to carry on like this and I won’t dignify this type of BS with a response.

just thinking that as mynameisbrian says, be a pita if they contact the police. Hopefully they wouldnt go that crazy far!

True, it would be if they got involved. I’ve had to phone police only three years ago on both parents who abused me (physically) and refused to let me leave. I had to run to bathroom and call police to get myself safe out of there and get a train 100 miles home. That’s the type of people they are, and that’s on record. If they do phone the police, hell mend them.

Tbh I should have gone NC then. I’m a lot stronger now.

Do not respond - that is what they are trying to get you to do any which way they possibly can.
Don't fall for it.

You stay in control of yourself.
Do not let them have control of you - they simply have no right to try and force you into a corner.

Oh boy, with parents and friends like that, who needs enemies?

Tell me about it! That’s how I feel right now- not replying. It’s a game of control and I’m determined that I’m the one who holds it. I’ve found in the last few months I’ve been such a people pleaser and it’s like a light has gone on and I’m saying fuck off, no way now

I’ve been speaking to a brilliant therapist about this in general, and will pick up with her tomorrow on all of this.

In a different way, your 'friend' A is as much of a narcissist as your mother. You just didn't see it till now.

The other so-called friend who enjoys lording it over you and puts you down in order to boost her own ego? Pfft - stuff that for a game of soldiers, she ain't no friend.

Carry on with the MIA and ignore the whole ruddy lot of them. More power to your elbow.

Some friendships do have a natural end. When they become this much hard work to maintain, it's time to let it go. You're not getting anything from it but heartache. If you can't let her know directly, ignore her. She sounds the type whose ego would be hurt if you did and she'd possibly try and charm you back but remember that it's not genuine and will always be about her. The same goes for your other friend. Definitely time to go missing in action.

I’ve made a mistake. Thought I should text my mother (fear, obligation, guilt) and she’s replied asking me to justify my disrespect towards my mother.

I’m sitting here in floods of tears; because I knew this would happen and it would be made out to be my fault, and also that I didn’t do anything wrong other than be a complete fool again.

I’m so angry and frustrated at myself. She’s narcissistically used this as an opportunity to promote her position, somehow.

I’m such an idiot.

You mean you wanted comfort? normal, human comfort that anyone would hope to get from their mother?

It's incredibly hard not to keep going back to the place where originally all comfort comes from, when you're a child.

Paraphrase from a mid-1800's book by a very well respected author then: It's the parents who do least to earn it who demand the most respect. That's from nearly 200 years ago.

Don't be hard on yourself, winding. Everyone wants to go to their mum when they're hurting, by nature. It's a limitted or very unkind mum who will use that to grind you down further.

You deserve so much better than this, lovely.

Please block them both - A and your mother.

You can always unblock them later.

Time to send one final message, “Thank you for your concern, just busy.” Then block them both.

You have more control than you think. You don’t have to engage with their nonsense. Send a final message so they know not to send the police round or something, then just block them.
I’m sorry you have to go through this but you’ll really be better off without them pulling your emotional strings.

It’s so true @Ijsbear , I just want comfort. DP is getting fed up of me always crying and being upset, pretty much said so tonight. He says every time he comes off work I’m upset and that it’s daily. He’s right.

Can’t stop crying. I know they don’t deserve how I feel, but I feel so guilty. Horrid mother sent another message saying “a mother’s text is harassment- I cannot believe this”.

Amazing how she’s so hung up on the concept of mother and yet fails to be one.

And your friend knew about this toxic relationship and chose to involve your mother? That tells you all you need to know. Mute your mums number for now. Then look when you gave the strength otherwise ignore. You are creating boundaries. People who have been able to control you and break through your boundaries previously hate that. Stay strong XX

winding you said you were having a few mental health wobbles in your first post. Have you got some counselling or could you arrange some? At this point it sounds like you really need some extra support perhaps outside the marriage, from someone who's trained and skilled and can provide more insight and guidance than an untrained husband.

take care ... you got a fair bit on your plate, with a mum like that. She's more of a problem than your friend really, isnt she.

@stupiduser she did indeed know that and took the nuclear option anyway. Perhaps she was pissed that I wasn’t being her servant and wanted to inflict as much destruction as possible under the auspices of ‘care’ for me. Worked. I actually did mute my mother earlier, can’t deal.

@Ijsbear I do have a counsellor and very grateful for that. She’s well aware of my mother issues from historic, and more recently with the ‘friend’.

The mother is certainly more of an issue as I feel she has some hold on me. Rationally I know I’m an adult, on my own two feet and who has earned everything that I have, so I don’t owe her, or anyone. But when I read back her messages about ‘respect’ according to her (ironic) and ‘I cannot believe this’.. I realise how conditioned I am to always feeling like the perpetrator and that she can do anything as she’s my mother, and that makes it ok. I know it doesn’t deep down. Tbh I’ve defo had co-dependency issues from a childhood where a lot of people close to me died.

Ouch. Fellow feeling there, about the people close to you dying. It marks you for life deeply, doesn't it.

It is possible to extricate yourself from a demanding parent whom you love and desperately turn to for acceptance though. Honestly. My adoptive father expects me to jump and ask how high on the way up, and has a strong vested interest in putting me down at every opportunity. In the end with a lot of pain I've stepped away. It hurts, I don't think it will ever stop. There are consequences too, lack of confidence, an acute sense that if I fall, there'll be no one to catch me. But really there never was, and now at least it's the pain of absence and not the acute pain of someone telling me with the subtext of every sentance that I'm No Good and Worth Nothing.

@Ijsbear sorry for your loss.

I think the saddest feeling for me is that I don’t believe I love her anymore (mother). I feel such a bad person for writing this. I remember the person she used to be.. maybe it’s rose tinted, but she was alright! And then I think back to my childhood and realise at many times she just couldn’t be bothered with me. .

Maybe the mask fell as she got older and she was only nice when she had control. She was always intense and we used to text a lot. I did mainly out of obligation.

I watch tv and see people saying their best friends are their mothers and it makes me feel so desperately sad that I can’t imagine that, and that I don’t feel a certain way I should.

I loved my nana’s so, so much. Miss them everyday. And it’s been years.

I totally get what you’re saying about feeling a huge sense of failure; I do too. But rationally, I’m not. I’ve done ok and I’m very fortunate.

I do worry about the ‘all my eggs in one basket’ scenario with my other half though.I feel he’s all I’ve got in this world

Hey OP I think I remember you posting about your parents physically abusing you and you having to flee them. Great you’ve got a therapist and great that you’re seeing this ‘friend’ for who she is.

It’s foul she roped in your mother and your mother is just reverting to type.

You’re on the right path, keep going. The drama and hysteria involved in all this will make you cry and feel miserable so try to find some stuff to absorb yourself in for distraction. Your emotional system is inflamed with their toxins so anything you can do to cool yourself down then do it - meditation, telly, whatever. And keep writing here whenever you need to of course.

No one is in any danger, there are just two unhinged people behaving as if there is DANGER and PERIL and DRAMA and you are drawn into that energy but try to drop importance, it will pass, particularly if you ignore them and/or send bland messages.

In a way bland messages could work better. I know you wanted the revenge of not replying and I totally get that, but to cool things down and disengage a grey rock message could be helpful in future.

Anyway we are all rooting for you, stay centred.

@AtrociousCircumstance yes, that was me only a few years ago. I don’t know why I didn’t press charges (scared no one would believe me), then the flying monkeys (godparents) who after saying they loved me and supported me, said they couldn’t not talk to my parents unless I pressed charges. The inference being that I was lying. I showed them the police calling card and all the pictures of my torn clothes, red wine being thrown on me, bruises

3 months later they went on holiday with my parents. You see all that made me think it was my fault. I was never given validation by anyone and it’s all I’ve looked for I guess. I was and am to a degree a lot more vulnerable than I make out to be. They know that.

It is foul that friend did this to me, you’re right. Friend watched me cry my heart out and agreed how toxic mother and parents were, yet she went and did that regardless. She passed that control to my mother and now my mother is trying to laud over me.

I just feel truly like not replying to either again.

I’m also wondering how different my life would be if I’d gone NC with parents when I should have, three years ago. I had to call the police, I was thrown against a wall, wine poured on me, my top ripped, hit hard, refused exit and forced to stay when I was desperate to go. Writing this down to remember how bad it was. Why didn’t I press charges, why did I continue a ‘relationship’. It made them look good to godparents and to god parents I very much suspect that despite the evidence I had, they think I’ve exaggerated it all.

My actions don’t match with what happened. I’m doubting my own truth. That’s what it’s done to me. I’m going crazy.

You’re not crazy, you’re surround by nut jobs gaslighting you.

Detach now, go NC now. You need to clear a space and act in accordance with your own values and your own truth - fuck what anyone else says.

That’s just it @AtrociousCircumstance I’m being totally gaslight.

Yes it’s intense - all you can do is detach and withdraw. You cannot win an argument or fix anything with them anymore than you could put out a fire with lighter fluid. You just have to put increasing amounts of quiet and distance between you and them.