Identity theft, of a sort.
Losing your identity to them.
Feeling like you are not even yourself when you are with them.
Feeling like you are whoever and whatever they labeled you to be.
That is indeed exactly what it’s like.
And that’s why it makes you feel crazy.
And the person doesn’t even have to be an actual narcissist. It’s their stupid *behavior* that’s the problem.
That, and the way it makes you feel.
(Thank you to Renee for noticing that and for recognizing that. ☺️)
Grieving for the past few days for someone I once knew.
She was my childhood best friend, or I thought she was.
She was a good girl back then, most of the time.
At some point in her life or at several points in her life, something happened to change her or possibly several things, and she now does a weird kind of “looking out for number one” that is not what I think any *good* therapist would really recommend.
I think she has possibly maybe been abused and hurt too much and destroyed too much, but the way she takes it out on other people is not okay.
Anong other things, she pushes people away from her when she is not ready to deal with them, and then tries to *make* them come back into her life, whether they like it or not, later on.
She will then push them away again when she finds out that (because of her behavior) they do not believe that she is a normal healthy person whose only problem is somebody else and *that* person’s problem.
She *does not want* other people to *genuinely* know, understand, trust and believe in her.
She wants them to believe in *her version* of her and nothing else will do.
Her version of herself seems to be somehow getting all mixed up with things like victim mentality and complaining about everything wrong with her and trying to make herself seem healthy, all at the same time.
I can tell that *in some ways* she is probably trying to improve.
But in other ways, she really is not.
Have grieved for her as if she were dead, and worried about her because she is living and not necessarily in a good situation, at the same time, multiple times now.
Tired of it.
Wanting to move on somehow from this but as you say, these things do take time.
Feels different on different days too.
Not always sure what’s really going on with her but just sure that I really don’t want to be a part of it any more.
Only contact with her is long distance and that only very occasionally.
Total no contact forever does not really feel right either.
(At least, not to me anyway. Don’t really know for sure about her.)
It’s just a strange situation.
And hard for most people to ever really understand.
That’s why I try to find a few people who will know what I’m talking about.