I need some advice about somebody

[Ollie Declan]

I have this ‘friend’ who is extremely mean to me, but I’m not strong enough to stand up to her. 

 

I’ve known her for around 10 months now and every step of the way has been awful. She is overpowering and harsh on me, and always plays the victim card. She’s only thirteen and has already been in a relationship that was so intimate that when they broke up she fell into depression. She’s dated people who are around 18 too, and I don’t feel safe that knowing her she’s probably told these people what school we go to. She is a catfisher already, and it drives me up the wall. 

 

She is the most allo person I have ever met, and when I came out to her, she was accepting of me in a way. She always says that I must like someone. For a short period of time she was on the Discord Arocalypse server. When we had our 6000th fallout and I couldn’t deal with her invading my safe space, I kicked her from the chat. She’s been bitching about it since. When I told her that it was because she hadn’t gotten to a certain level (this was a lie but I don’t think she was high enough anyways), she complained that it was stupid. She indirectly called the other two admins on the server stupid also. 

 

She is also a loudmouth, and I suspect that it was her that spread the rumours about me being ace. Every time we meet someone she blurts out that I’m ace for no reason, and most of the time the possible reason she says it for doesn’t matter. For example, we had a writing workshop at our school with a few other schools also. A girl came up to me and said she liked my shirt, and from there we found out we all liked a whole lot of things. So we sat down and for some reason she told a girl we’d literally met for the first time 15 minutes ago I was ace. She’s also a filthy liar. She said she respects my preferred pronouns, but she doesn’t. 

 

Everything is about her, and I don’t feel safe telling her anything anymore. She’s very obnoxious and her opinion stands above mine, apparently. 

 

You most likely wouldn’t know but I’m an avid writer and character creator. She is too. I have over 170 characters, only 15 being heteroromantic, heterosexual cis people. You know what she said? “Why are all your characters queer? Can’t they just be straight?” No. I as a writer am trying to incorporate as many GSRM minorities as I can. It made me sick to hear she only had one trans character and one gay character before I came along. 

 

According to her, everyone in the world has to be with another. I feel that this isn’t supporting me or this community at all, yet she wants to be a part of it. 

 

She always tries to cuddle me and kiss my cheek and all of those things I’m extremely uncomfortable with. When I deny it, she always calls me mean. I need my personal space and her invading it all the time makes me sick. She knows I’m not like that and yet she continues to try. I just want to scream at her to go away. She calls me ‘baby’. This was not arranged at all. 

We had a market day yesterday and when she offered to buy me food she’s like ‘it’s like a date hey!’. I replied blandly with no. I’m romance repulsed and when she talks about ‘why don’t you do these things with me’ I just reply that I don’t want to. She doesn’t take this lightly, but when she’s trying to hug my arm or whatever and I pull it away or whatever she whines and says ‘you know I need comfort’. Why don’t you think that I don’t want it. I don’t want anything romantic with you and if you can barely treat me as equal to you I don’t understand how you could get me to like you.

What do I do?

Sorry about this being so long, I needed to get it off my chest..

[Philbo Wiseroot]

I'm sorry about this, I really am  

 

If I think of anything I'll let you know. Good luck  

[Tumblrweed]

Wow, that's a lot of stuff to deal with! You mentioned you're a writer and wanted to get this off your chest, so I'm really hoping that this writing exercise has helped you feel confident in your concerns with this person while making you feel better. You don't need me to tell you that writing can be therapeutic.

 

10 months is quite a long time to know someone, especially when they've been acting this way with you. Without knowing anything about you or them or the rest of the situation and how it came to be, I'd like to ask how you'd feel about going to someone like a school counselor to talk about your worries and concerns (you don't have to come out or talk about them catfishing, in case you're not comfortable/worried about actions being taken). A counselor would be more capable of making recommendations to resources, especially if your school has made an effort to be inclusive of all genders and sexualities.

 

Alternatively--and I know this sounds silly--have you thought about trying to role-play a situation in a safe place where you try giving them a talk about mutual respect? Because when it comes down to it, I feel like you have very valid, real concerns: you've asked the other person to change their behaviors in ways that would allow you to enjoy your time together, and they haven't been open to changing. Being stuck together in school makes it more difficult to get away from the other person, but I'm of the belief that if a person does not want to change, then you cannot change them. The only thing to do in those situations is walk away from the relationship, whatever that relationship be.

 

And ultimately, I hope you remember that whatever happens and whatever you/they do, there's always people out there who'll respect you without your asking and you're more likely than not to meet them in the course of your life. The other person badmouthing or outing you (not okay) won't stop them from getting to know you.

[Tal Shi'ar]

After reading and glimpsing over it, the best thing you can do is move on. This sort of toxic shit isn't something you need, and in some cases, it's almost as if you know better. You might feel guilty at first, but once the distance is there you might be glad it's there.

[Ollie Declan]

Thank you @Tumblrweed and @Tal Shi'ar. 

With seeing the school counsellor, this person has already visited her. She has talked about me to her, and I'm afraid to talk to her now. I'm not much of a talker about my feelings anyways. My school barely accepts bisexuality, so I feel that she can only recommend the same as she did to this person.
I could try to role-play a situation, but I highly doubt it would get to the person's brain. I could try to walk away but I have 6 subjects with this person, and they'd be nagging me all the time about it. Thank you for responding though.

 

I'll eventually seperate myself from this person, but I am horrible for getting over guilt.

[cute kitty Meow! Mewo!]

get her out of your life. she isn't your friend if she treats you like that. tell her goodbye and walk away from her. 

[techno]

Well, I don't know enough about your personal situation or this other person's, so I'll just tell you, from my own experience, what I think I would do in a similar situation.

 

It isn't by any means easy, but it's best to walk away. The healthiest thing to do is pull away, because if you try to hang on too long, eventually it's going to build up inside you, and that's when we say things we regret and things get more painful than they otherwise would have been. I know it's really difficult, and believe me, I understand the feeling of guilt -- but you have to remember that it's not your job to sacrifice your own emotional well-being for another person's, especially when you really haven't known them all that long (I know 10 months may feel like a long time, but that's only a tiny fraction of your life; there will be many, many more months with people who actually give you the respect you deserve).

 

I've been down a similar road before, and it's best to just cut ties and walk away. It hurts at first, but down the line I think you'll feel much better about it.

[aussiekirkland]

At first I was going to say what others have said, that is to cut her out completely but I understand that going to school with someone makes these things extremely difficult.

 

When I was at school I had some toxic people in my friend group that I had to spend a lot of time with, so what helped me was emotionally removing myself from the situation. This has been a really important skill for me to learn, and I'm even doing it with my best friend's best friend (who lives with her) right now. She thinks we're really close but I don't like her one bit, and she doesn't need to know that because I'm preserving my relationship with my best friend.

 

Sometimes your social wellbeing is somewhat dependant on the other person and that really sucks, but creating a relationship where she thinks you're close but you can protect yourself from her emotionally and detach yourself completely without her suspecting anything might be a solution.

 

This might involve keeping the conversations between you light and smalltalky, and refraining from telling her any further personal information. Other than that you continue to be nice and friendly.

 

I know that this can be a really hard thing to do, and of course it's not for everyone, so I wish you luck regardless.

[Cassiopeia]

Sounds like an abusive friendship.

Many of these things point towards a classic case of emotinal manipulation, and based on what you have told us about her, she is also a victim of it probably. (When you are thirteen, dating adults isn't going to be a balanced thing. I also have a pretty good idea why she thinks she is the permanent victim...) But your abuser’s trauma doesn’t justify them abusing you.

 

What she is doing is called gaslighting, when one does something abusive and then twisting it and reframing it until they are able to play the victim.

If your friend outs you without your consent, they are abusive.

If your friend riddicules you and makes you feel guilty for the things you enjoy, they are abusive.

If your friend touches you without your consent, even if its non-sexual in nature, even if they do it jokingly its still abusive. Especially if they keep doing it after you told them to stop.

 

Now its important to keep in mind that:

• She knows she is hurting you
• She is convinced that she is the victim, therefore you deserve it. Emotional manipulators feel entitled to comfort, even when they are hurting others.
• She benefits from this, and she won't give that up easily.
• She will try everything to isolate you from help and turn people against you.
• She will manipulate people's emotions to get them on her side.
• She won't stop. When she is nice to you, its part of the pattern.
• You can't save or fix her. 
• You can't provoke these behaviours. Its not something you did.
• You are not 'seeing things'. She is trying to make you question your sanity.

 

What I'd suggest is dealing with the situation very consistently.

 

Not just limit the conversations with her, but put them on full stop. Leaving won't be easy, as she needs you. She will fight for keeping you around, she will do everything to win you back only to start again. She will try to humilliate you, pit others against you, track down your new friends. 

Expect the same shitstorm but more intensively. You are not stupid for staying so long, they were sabotaging you. You should not feel guilty or ashamed. She has no power ower you.

 

Create a safe space for yourself they can't infiltrate. Befriend people she doesn't know and can't meet. Try a new hobby and don't tell her friend circle about it. Create a new blog, use another username. Dare to slowly trust your new friends, you may feel an urge to repeat the patterns she used on you...don't.

Focus on your safe space and try to heal.

 

 

 

 

[Louis On Air]

1 hour ago, Cassiopeia said:

Create a safe space for yourself they can't infiltrate. Befriend people she doesn't know and can't meet. Try a new hobby and don't tell her friend circle about it. Create a new blog, use another username. Dare to slowly trust your new friends, you may feel an urge to repeat the patterns she used on you.

Focus on your safe space and try to heal.

See that's a really good use of the word safe space and it is important to create barriers from the trouble (but cower behind them forever).

[Jade]

Hi. I've been in an abusive friendship before, too. You're not alone, okay? You're not crazy. She's hurting, gaslighting, and abusing you. Please, get away from her while you can. Don't let her back, no matter how much you want to. It's going to be hard, especially going to school with her.

 

PM me if you want to talk more, this is a personal topic for me so I don't want to spend too much time talking about myself here, but I want you to know that you're not alone because I've been there. I'm here for you. 

[SoulWolf]

You deserve better. I think the others have already given better advice than I can... I just wanted to throw in some support too. Good luck...

[Ollie Declan]

okay so:

been a bit since i wrote this post. i told her (in the nicest way possible) to get the fuck out of my life about a year and a half ago. 

i let her keep hurting me for a year or so after that because i am horribly self destructive and it was like a weird, awful addiction. she didn't redeem herself in the slightest; she made it clear to me the last time we talked that she didn't care if she hurt me because she didn't want to lose me because i "was such a good friend and irreplaceable". she has messaged me multiple times since because she has no one and really wants to make things right, even messaging me on the one account i didn't have blocked, going through side accounts, etc. 

the only problem? i have to deal with her 17 hours a week because we're in all the same classes. she's obnoxiously loud and self obsessed. she roped me in by making widely unacceptable statements that she was suicidal and hurting herself (she never was) just to get attention. earlier this year, she loudly exclaimed that there's no need to be depressed, that you should just "stop choosing to hurt yourself and get over it". 
i sometimes wonder whether she actually understands the damage she did to me, and the lifelong issues i now have with regards to affection and trusting people with my identity.

i'm not great, but i'm better. i don't live my life constantly on the edge when i have to be in the same room as her, but when my mental health gets worse, my ability to ignore her and keep myself calm plummets.

it's a long process, but i'm just so grateful i've found friends who actually care about me and don't treat me like shit.

[Coyote]

Wow. This person was only thirteen/is maybe fifteen, now? I don't want to ask your age, but I'm getting the impression that she's younger than you are. That's really scary the amount of influence she's had with her tantrums. From what you've described, it sounds like she's herself been exploited & taught the wrong lessons about boundaries, but I don't bring that up as any excuse because, unfortunately, it sounds like she's just trying to pass on the same lessons to you. It sounds like you have more than enough reason to block her on every account you have.

[treepod]

My gosh, all I can think is this girl should really be in therapy, for everyone's sake. People don't get that way for no reason, and I'm guessing her relationship history might have something to do with it. (so if there's any way to suggest that to her in a kind and nonchalant way, that might be the only productive thing you can do for her)

 

I hope the other friends in your life are lifting you up out of this. You deserve to have your identity and boundaries respected. And none of this is on your shoulders to solve in any way. I'm so sorry it's been so long now. Im sure at this point it feels like a worn out and pointless saying, but all things pass. I've been out of high school and in university at a large school for two whole years now, and this made me realize how much I now take for granted how easily I can ghost people if I need to. But I used to live in a small town with one school system surrounded by people I'd known since kindergarten; I understand how trapped you must feel. If you need someone to help bring you out of that space mentally once in a while, I'm here. And I'm sure everyone else on this site would say the same 

[Guest Chandrakirti]

On 11/20/2016 at 3:25 AM, cute kitty Meow! Mewo! said:

get her out of your life. she isn't your friend if she treats you like that. tell her goodbye and walk away from her. 

I'm with the above statement... 

[Ollie Declan]

19 hours ago, Coyote said:

This person was only thirteen/is maybe fifteen, now?

she's actually older than me, she's turning 16 this year.

[Coyote]

9 hours ago, Ollie Declan said:

she's actually older than me, she's turning 16 this year.

 

Oh, I see. That makes it easier to see how that dynamic could arise. Sounds like she thinks she can speak from more years of experience and tell you how things really are.

 

Well, I'm 25 and you have my word this kid sounds cruel and clueless.