Half my posts about abuse mentality are posted, and there's a few more over the next few days to go. A few things to keep in mind...
There's a lot of context surrounding recent events that is pretty important, and it's possible I'm seeing things or seeing a whole picture here that others cannot. There is no doubt in my mind that the way my friend treated me was controlling, manipulative and extremely damaging to me.
Where others may see someone who tried to help me, became overwhelmed, and then needed to push me away and 'cut me off', I see a person who tried to 'Fix' me (more as a means to feeling good about himself as opposed to good intentions) and when he came to realise there was no quick solution to my problems or wasn't getting he wanted out of helping me (or perhaps changed his mind for whatever reason), his attitude towards me changed overnight into one that was dismissive, selfish, and uncaring. It was a pattern of silent treatment, invalidation, and shutting down any conversation he didn't like (more on that here and here) whenever I objected to how he treated me, especially after I asked him to not do it (I rarely set hard boundaries, but this was one for me and always will be.. AND it's easy to avoid hitting it if you take my How To on super anxious people on this blog to heart.) He promised to my face multiple times he wouldn't (but left it open that he could do what he liked if he felt okay with his behaviour). People truly sorry for hurtful behaviour would never continue it, and this is even true of those who have a hard time not hurting people unintentionally sometimes, such as those on the Autistic spectrum. If you care about the person you're in conflict with, you at least try to compromise or behave somewhat differently. He never did.
As has been posted on the blog before, abusers create an alternate private reality of the state of the relationship, so once he decided I was too dependent and couldn't self-regulate things, that was that. He was right, there was no arguing against it, and the fact I tried made me in 'denial' and 'violently defensive'. The truth was that HE was no longer interested in giving me the support anymore, and decided to frame it as being my fault and my 'problems' as the cause, because obviously there could be nothing wrong with him, he was always only ever trying to do things in my best interest. Every time we argued or I confronted him, it turned into my fault, my problem, and I was just too broken to see the 'truth'. It was 100% one-sided. Any talk of his behaviour and emotions was turned around into how I affected him in a negative way.
Anyway, I've talked about much of this before. But one reason I saw through it in a relatively short time and put my foot down over and over (which always was met with some form of 'punishment' from him) was because I'd just been through seven years of this sort of hurtful behaviour from the husband. I'd just escaped a suffocating relationship and that was difficult as anything I've ever done. When the person who was giving me a helping hand to get off my feet came along and emotionally kicked the shit out of me while I was down, it is an unspeakable level of cruelty. I was just beginning to crawl my way out of the deep hole I found myself in last year, one that nearly killed me multiple times. To have someone then repeat the controlling, manipulative behaviours and do it with ZERO interest in how it affected me (the husband did at least care somewhat even if I think we were caught in a very unhealthy pattern)... yeah, well, there's a reason my rage was so intense.
Don't forget that this level of cruelty has only continued even since we broke off the friendship. Don't forget that he gave me a chance to submit to his demands and continue our friendship, and I was the one who said, ENOUGH. Yes, when I attempted to establish a civil level of communication because we have so many mutual friends and he responded by continuing to ignore I existed, I did respond angrily because it hurt like shit. I do not and have never wanted to re-establish communication and friendship with him. The idea that I have is just absurd to me. And if you think I ever, ever had any of the Power in our friendship, you are just fooling yourself. When I took out some of my anger on him more recently, it was just frustration at the fact he cares about how he's hurt me not at all and won't ever take responsibility that he has. I just was venting AT the object of my anger in the only way left to me since everything else was cut off.
He's pulled the wool over his eyes of his closest friends that I would not leave him alone, because none of them have seen the side of him that I have. Because he can't silence me about the truth, he's punishing me, even after I left the state to find some sort of peace of mind about everything. Because I have 'behaved badly' but he's been silent and calm, it is easy to turn the tables on me as the bad guy. He is manipulating EVERYONE in his life as much as he has me.
And I will not remain silent and I will not stop trying to educate everyone I know about who he is truly, because it is the only way I can regain control over my life and defy what he wants from me, which is to be silenced and to be intimidated by his dragging me into court with this AVO (an Australian restraining order). I'm going to fight it even though I have zero desire to have anything to do with him, because I will not let him have any say in my life any longer. He's poked me (subtly) on his public Twitter to try to enrage me further, but I won't submit to it. I know better now. I also know he is at least keeping up on mine somewhat, with stuff he's posted recently, which is really odd for someone SO desperate to have nothing to do with me. He thinks I'm a joke, he thinks I am nothing and that my pain is nothing, he thinks that he can get away with what's happened because a few close to him are indulging his delusions, he thinks he can continue to hurt me because it amuses him to do so.
I won't stop until he's proven wrong.
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