To answer the phone, or to not?

[Elly]

The following post may contain triggering material

So, a friend of mine called. I consider her a friend because she seemed to be the only one in the world the year before last who knew and remembered what it was like to live with emotional abuse and to have built up hatred for the person. I was trying to escape my older sister, who unlike me has a complete education and so more de facto rights to the money and property left by our mother. So, I obviously didn't have any plan or resources, and our social support only saw that I was angry and rebellious for no reason and would keep reminding me that she's family and we should stay together and I should make more effort to put aside my anger and reconcile because she's trying (when, in the way of becoming more honest and considerate and less silencing or robbing-of-agency or gaslighting...she wouldn't even begin to try.)

This friend took me in, we railed against the injustices of the world, mine with my sister, this friend with her drug-addicted ex-husband and a child that she had to support after the dissolution of that marriage and his wily ways of escaping paying child support or alimony...

And, I understand her "splitting" because shades of gray are what get us hoovered every time. I even understand too much to ever call her oversensitive, because the last thing anybody in the world needs is their perspective invalidated by the only person who can relieve their pain...

But the personal perspective that I stand by is that discouraging me from meeting with my extended family just because my sister uses the extended family to tell this friend of ours that I'm the one who's not right in the head...isn't as helpful to either of us as this friend thinks it is. It's not the extended family's fault that my sister annoys our friend. It's my sister's fault. And if our friend told me to be careful of the extended family in case they truly were being two-faced, then I would be careful. Instead, she went on for hours about how they extended family were such awful people...and she's only met them in person one time for a couple of hours.


There was also the matter that I was getting on my feet financially while I was sleeping on her couch. But whatever little I earned, I would spot for meals for all three of us when I could, and even the electric bill. I considered she and her son the family that I never had.

But when I mentioned an invite to a movie from another friend who was back in town after years of living abroad, which was why I would be gone one evening, and she snapped back that I should have asked my richer friends for help instead of the single mother struggling to provide for her son, but at the same time I shouldn't trust my richer friends because they're "rich" from having family support in bases abroad and wouldn't ever think of me as one of their family, so I shouldn't go to the movies with them, and it's selfish of me to keep on working all the time and cutting her off when she needs to complain about her husband more because she can go on for hours about that...when I could be earning money for us, for our expenditures, except that she "knew" that I wouldn't do that because I selfishly...bought a small pack of biscuits all for myself one time.

This was all so confusing that I left, because I had found a dirt cheap place with a phenomenally friendly proprietor.

A few weeks later, she calls me on my celphone because I don't have a landline, and asks if I'm okay. I lie, "I'm okay. How are you?" And she hangs up.

I lied because I actually hadn't eaten in four days and was stealing drinking water from the franchise cafes and fast food restaurants, because I didn't have money.

Things have gotten remarkably better since then, but it still really rubbed me wrong that she only ever wanted to have a one-sided conversation.

So, every time she calls now, I don't answer. She could send me a text message, and I have answered those.

This time she called, and I just don't want to answer in case it becomes a one-sided conversation again or a minutes-devouring rant. It could be her 13-year-old son borrowed her phone and called me (as a last resort, I'm sure) for the millionth time that she threatened to just kick him out and make his way out in the streets because he can't keep to house rules and she can't abide that after all she's been through, maybe, I worry, she's followed through this time and I can't help him because I think that it's her calling. Or it could be that she's furious that I texted another friend asking after the title of a book that she told me about three years ago, another mutual friend that she had "split black" two years ago. Or, maybe she really needs a little cash to tide her over...and what would I be if I didn't answer? She let me into her home and let me sleep on her sofa for four months, and I didn't pay rent. Although, nothing will convince her that it isn't my fault that she couldn't pay rent because she chose to help me, and now I'm not doing any favor in kind but just shut her out when I didn't need her anymore (more like when I couldn't handle her anymore, but four out of every seven days starving through my freelance digital writing jobs is, I predict, something that she'll turn into a competition of who suffered more rather than evidence proposed to the contrary of that I used her.)

I don't know. I just don't know. I'm not punishing her for conducting that previous phone conversation the way she did; I can't even bring myself to tell her why I won't take her calls anymore, which would rather be conducive to any lesson I wanted to impart someone. It's really just that I can't face the threat of another one-sided conversation, even at the risk that I could have done something to help.

Right now, I've held down the fort financially well enough for the past year, I'm eating every day quite well and don't even feel guilty about succumbing to my deviant biscuit addiction once a week (but no, I'm a monster...a Sesame Street Cookie Monster...), it's just that I can't quite afford another session with my therapist where I could possibly get a push in some direction to point out why answering her call is really so impossible.

As I said, she called again, and I didn't answer, but I still feel like a wreck that she called at all. Not really a wreck, more like a fender-bender.

[keepfighting]

Hi, Elly,

the only advice I can think of is: Go with your instincts! If answering her call makes you uncomfortable, there's probably a good reason for it and you have every right not to take a call without feeling guilty about it.

Here's a link about narcissistic female friends that might be helpful: http://narcissisticbehavior.net/the-typical-narcissistic-woman-as-a-friend/

I have been burned by female friends and didn't understand how and why - and this article helped me get some perspective.

Kudos to you! 

kf

[Kizzie]

Hi Elly - I have to agree with KF re trusting your instincts.  It  sounds like you don't want to answer because you know on some level that the relationship is not good for you.  She has  a lot going on and seems to wants your ear and your sympathy rather than moving forward as you are doing.

FWIW I'd say treat yourself to another bisquit     and relish the idea that you are taking care of you (and that is a big part of recovery).   

[schrödinger's cat]

I agree, mainly because I had two or three friendships that followed a similar pattern: weird behaviour that starts out harmless and is easily ignored... but in hindsight, I wish I'd acted sooner.

It's not like you've got too much energy to spare on this. If you were CPTSD-free and had a thousand friends and a gilded rolls-royce and a PA and that sort of thing, okay, maybe you could invest your energy in difficult friendships. As things are, having CPTSD means being on a tight budget, energy-wise. So if you just ignore the phone, that frees energy you need for your recovery.

It's bad enough that even just her attempt to call you drains you of energy. I was in touch with a narcissist once, and we saved her phone number in our phone so we'd know that it's her who's calling. And ever since we did that, I could hardly scroll through our contact list on our phone - even just seeing her name there made me imagine she could call. (EEEEP.)

So, do you think your fender-bender could be an emotional flashback? Your friendship with her sounds like it was a source of great distress and constant unease.

...so I think you definitely deserve biscuits. All the biscuits in the world! 

[Elly]

Thanks, everyone, for your replies! I guess that I intuited that my friend's narcissistic behavior was something that came about because of a lifetime of trauma, and that recovery in an appropriate space should be possible, or else I shouldn't be able to recover from all the grief and anger of my past either--where I also had needs that my family couldn't (or wouldn't) meet, and accused me of selfishness for not being willing to be frozen in silence for sexual abuse (in my mother's case, even though I was still silent about that specific thing, I did talk around it very loudly) or not willing to compromise my physical safety in my sister's case (since my mother was physically violent until, as my sister says, I'd gotten some "dirt" on my mother that apparently made my sister think that I had some power over my mother but really dirt just kept me feeling dirty--duh. )

Support was definitely too much to ask for. While I'm concerned for my narc friend's son, but not enough to bring myself to get into that space again...narc friend, I believe, didn't develop complex trauma for me to be post-stressed by.

But if there's some connection to the deep well of awfulness that childhood was or bullying at school, I don't now it yet. It's not even at the tip of my tongue or the corner of my eye.


I do feel better having typed it all out here, though. I also spoke to an offline friend of mine who knew her, and while she doesn't seem to understand that this very simple thing is distressing, she did mention that our mutual narcissistic friend was hospitalized earlier this year. If she was calling me for that kind of help, it's really not something that I have the resources, financial or emotional, or the time, or the energy for, even if I'm in a better position than she is by not actually being ill or injured enough to be hospitalized. I still feel ambivalent. If this is the reason, then she'll only contact and use me when she needs me, which is bad; but a need is still a need. But I couldn't take my needs being cast as wants.