I think I just had an aha moment regarding this friend, Marissa. What I’m experiencing is delayed anger.
She is a hyper-controlling person who thinks she is right and the rest of the world is wrong. In other words, like a cult leader, she believes she is “god,” and she is so sure of it that you buy her shit. I fell for it, when I was backboneless and insecure.
She annoyed me, yes. But the annoyance was a vague feeling that something was wrong. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. Looking back, I see that when she said, “Go right,” I went right. She had a lot of power over me. She looked so together and smart. Even three weeks ago I thought she had it together and had a method to her madness.
But then I went there and lived in her house for a little over 4 days, and all of a sudden I noticed the bunch of stinky bullshit. She lives like a homeless and speaks as if she lived in opulence. Going for what she says, you would never believe that the kids behave like beggars when they see a jar of yogurt. Imagine if I’d had candy!
What I am is angry that a clueless narcissistic bitch tried to run my life once and is still trying (going for how hard she tried to convince me to go back to Christianity). I can’t believe that she is presenting herself as the Virgin Mary of motherhood, when she should be jailed for neglect.
These days I daydream of telling her that she is a domineering abusive mother who has lots of children because that’s her only way of getting friends. I wish I could go back to the times when she looked down on what I was wearing and scream at her, “Who are you to tell me what to wear, you who dress like a homeless.”
Today, I remember how she was nice to me, but she also controlled me, and I hate her for it. I suppose it angers me that that’s exactly how she’s abusing her children. With lots of hugs and kisses she has convinced them that they don’t need food, or new clothes, or a clean house. All they need is mommy and she is “god.”
I wish I could go through her house showing her how dilapidated her house is and tell her that she has no right to bring any more children into this world, because she doesn’t know how to take care of them. I wish I could scream it at her.
My eyes have been opened, and now I see the past with different eyes. I am reprocessing all my past experiences with her and moving them from one compartment of my brain to another. She just went from the slot for past good friendships to the abusive-relationship slot. I will be angry for a while, very angry, no doubt about it.
I don’t know if she already clued in that I had the gloves off during my visit. It is possible that she did clue in after I left. For her sake, I hope she did notice that I am no longer the person I used to be. I am no longer abusable or manipulable. She can forget about me even trying to swallow her shit with a straight face, ever--not for a long time, anyway.
I suppose I should have some compassion on her for being so clueless and misguided. But the time to have compassion on her will come. For now, I need some time to have compassion on me, for having put up with such insanity for so long.
I wonder how many other friendships I need to re-process, even if I am no longer in touch with those people.
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3 comments:
this reminds me of a friendship i once had. when i was first in college i had a very low opinion of myself. i thought i was damaged and broken and had no idea about healthy relationships. and i had this friend who seemed like she had it all together, and seemed very confident. and i told her how i felt about myself, and she seemed all too happy to show me and teach me "what healthy was" :)
of course you can guess that as time went on i discovered that i wasn't so unhealthy after all and that she had a problem or two of her own.
i don't regret handing my power over to her or blame her for the dynamic of our friendship. i know that's where i was at the time.
i felt sorry for her once i realized how troubled she really was. and one thing i became grateful for in myself is the ability to ADMIT i don't have it all together. people who think they are perfect are in far worse shape i think, because their denial makes them blind and then they don't get help.
so one thing i think now, is watch out for people who act like they have no problems. and especially if they say they don't.
i'm also starting to think, watch out for relationships where you find yourself holding the other person above yourself. i've been thinking about this one lately.
we're much better off with people who are able to be completely human. and who we feel we can be our complete selves with. and that our complete self is good and smart and just fine the way we are.
i wish you continued healing from this relationship. it sounds like you have a lot you're dealing with here. complicated and deep-rooted feelings. i think you are so healthy to be facing it all and figuring out how you really feel about this person and your history with her, and determining where you want this to go from here.
we're much better off with people who are able to be completely human. and who we feel we can be our complete selves with. and that our complete self is good and smart and just fine the way we are.
Yeah, I think I know, like, two people like that. But, like my counselor says, they're out there. I will find them by "Law of Attraction."
I believe in that stuff BTW, but I remove all esoteric part and leave the practical: we tend to find like-minded people and feel-comfy-with situations along our path. Our subconscious hides everything else.
No wonder when we see a long lost friend we see aspects of them we hadn't seen before.
yeah i don't think true, good, balanced, mutual friends come along every day. i think we're lucky to find one at all.
hope you're feeling better about your friend.
i hope i didn't sound patronizing at all in my previous comment. i meant to identify, but i know you're upset about this person, and i hope i didn't make it sound like it was easy for me to deal with that friendship i had, or that it was really comparable to your situation.
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