Breaking the Friendship

[Contessa]

Hi all!

Thought i'd start a new thread. Just recently went through a character assassination, and am now dealing with the aftermath. Have been isolated, excluded and the list of dirty looks from new people grows ever bigger; people I've known for years and people I've never really met before. Reporting this level of bullying has resulted in invalidation and threats of consequences for me due what I am doing to other people. The only thing keeping me afloat is the utter confusion of apparently these people being scared of me and I have no idea what I have done.

The follow on effects have been massive, unlike anything I have experienced before. Some days I can go with it, but it doesn't take too long before I get stuck in my own head going over and over things trying to trying to figure out what I have done that I can make links to. I can make some links, but for the most part I have no idea what is what. If I seek help, things get much much worse, if I don't... things just get a little worse.

I can't count on anyone or do anything, that's accepted now. But today I have spent most of the day crying. I honestly don't know why, just tired of the emotional taxation. Today I broke off a friendship with someone who is juggling tossing up time with me, and the minions of my assassin. Too - how I hate to say this word - triggering for myself, and not good for them either. Can't put them under that pressure any more, and I can't be the friend I want to be for them.

I guess i'm just sound boarding here to get out of my own head. Anybody know where the silver lining is in all of this?

[radical]

The silver lining is standing up to abuse.  I don't think there is any way I will tolerate being degraded again, and I'll always recognise the signs, maybe not in the moment, but pretty damn soon after. I know to take action to protect myself, to not be drawn into the force-field.

That people can and do seek to destroy others this way, Contessa,  that they are aided and abetted by others in doing so, that this is what is considered "winning" - it makes others so afraid and compliant.  We weren't - that must be a silver lining.  There are some lines in a song I don't particularly like "Everybody see you blown apart, everybody feels the wind blow".   It is beyond frustrating that others choose the soothing balm of wilful blindness.  I "knew" things before, but now I really know, and I won't forget again, not for any  length of time.

I often find it hard to deal with my rage, but  I was looking out the window  a couple of weeks ago, from a really good place in myself and saw the character I've called "Reverend Dingbat" a few storeys below, she was helping an elderly person out of a car and I felt warm towards her.  She's an ignorant fool who will never have the integrity or wisdom to ever admit to herself that she was a key part of mobbing a good person who had done nothing wrong, that she allowed herself to be used as a weapon in vicious social aggression.  She'll keep on blundering around in her comfortable bubble.  But that's what it is - a bubble - a safe comfort zone protecting reality from intruding.   When I saw her while feeling safe and calm in myself, I genuinely wished her well, because she's not a bad person, just a weak one.  That's a silver lining, I'm still human.

A couple of days ago, I spent some time with a couple of really good people and it felt great.  Then, I ran into someone from my Qi Gong class and laughed with him about navigating the Christmas supermarket frenzy.  I felt natural and open.  I wasn't trying to be anything, I was feeling stressed by Christmas, shared a moment, laughed.

I'm alive, I haven't lost my soul (whatever that is), part of going through this has been a greater appreciation of what's good and what matters.  If I can rally myself, I can trust my instincts, if I can rebuild, I know what I'm looking for and what I want to keep away from, even though it's just a feeling at the moment, I hope it will crystalise into solid plans and intentions.

I don't know what the future holds, but I made a conscious choice, I could have crawled away, instead,  I faced my worst fear. that's a silver lining. 

I've read a bit about mobbing.  It becomes an ugly contagion, it happens throughout the animal kingdom. Deliberately manipulating others to psychologically "stampede" and trample a perceived enemy into the ground, that is depraved.      We survived it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOWrpQP5JBw

This is a song that soothes me because I find it so heart-breaking.  It is a Bowie song from my childhood sung by Michael Stipe and Karen Elson at a memorial.  I don't know what it is about it, but somehow a song written about kicking heroin  "strung out in heaven's high, hitting an all time low" expresses something of how I feel.  Which makes no sense.
I wanted to share it because for some weird reason, it captures the loneliness.

[Contessa]

You always know what to say to make things feel better Radical!

That is an amazing response, I cannot add anything, or give a different perspective to anything you said. The thing about Reverend Dingbat (I remember them being mentioned before) is although I think the same thing about those people - in my case it is not just weakness but naivety being exploited - I don't ever want to see or associate with these people again to give them any head space to be wished well. Fundamentally they are not bad people, they just need to be left completely behind.

Have a few things more to say but feeling too ill to write them, so will come back to it another time. Merry Christmas Radical xox

Might add to this later, been feeling ill for a few days...

[Joeybird]

As I've gotten healthier, with the help of my therapist, I've come to realize that a lot of the people I thought were my friends were actually toxic. I have slowly started disengaging them, one at a time. That part feels good.

But I'm 70, and it is hard to make new friends at my age. I think I'm hesitant to trust new people. I'm basically a loner, and I'm okay with that. I get along very well with my daughter, and that is a blessing.