424- Turning back the clock : my earliest one sided friendships

In attempting to compose an entry about toxic friendships, I realized that I had to turn back the clock to my earliest ones, where I ended up being the 1-sided person, because of my circumstances. 

Here, mild trigger warnings apply, for content about religious cults. 


Indeed, when I was young, I grew up in my father's religious cult, or, I should rather say, survived in it. I was sent to school due to legal obligations, and on the first opportunity, I was pulled out. But I had a different schooling path to any norms, and one of the many rules I was obligated to respect within the cult forbade having proper friends and social interactions. 

Thus, I was put into situations where I had to be shallow in interactions with my classmates, one of whom was M. - that bestie I had at school, already mentioned on the blog. Now, because I couldn't talk to him about what was really going on behind closed doors and windows, he helped me even though he wasn't fully aware of the consequences, and on my part, I was in a partially 1-sided friendship of interest. I could barely help him in anything, as he was in a loving family, but he never complained, nor did I know that I was being 1-sided with him. I did help with homework, like most students did, back then. But, after all, we were teen-angers, and friendships at that time were quite different in bonding. We did spend a lot of time together, but sadly, a few years after I came back to my birth-country, we drifted apart. 

During my entire youth and teens, I only could count on M. As I was in a small school, with small classes, my access to more potential friends was severely hampered. 

Outside of school, I connected with a few workers in the local supermarket ; a few being the baker, and 2 of the cashiers, all 3 were women. Our interactions were also limited, but somewhat deeper in some ways. I had eventually befriended also a couple men there, but spent most of the time in company of the women, as they were kinder and we seemed to share more tastes in common than with those two men. 

No matter how I look at it, though, all of these friendships were shallow, as shallow as my age and especially emotional age allowed - as I can now be sure that part of my trauma, including physical, psychological and emotional abuses in that cult had delayed my growth and blurred my capacities as well as my field of view and action. My frames of reference on how relationships in general and friendships in particular were severely lacking, as my sole examples were those in my father's cult : he was the leader, with absolute authority over each one of us who were supposed to be his followers, his disciples - and this included his wife (my step mother) and his biological children - as his followers were also his children, in his superior, spiritual position over us all - as he self-declared as the last messiah and savior on Earth. 

I used to feel quite guilty about having been a one-sided user, but can, on hindsight, forgive myself this kind of one-sided relationship, simply  because it can be explained with my particular circumstances, not knowing better, and not having do so with malicious intent to cause harm or to abuse anyone's kindness. I simply needed that limited and yet life-saving support in a critical period of my traumatic childhood.... 

Returning to my home country after all those years abroad, where I survived my father's cult, left me psychologically scared, with a stunted emotional growth. I lacked self-esteem as a result of my upbringing, trauma in general, and specifically depersonalization. From these, I had let myself into many toxic and one sided friendships, which I'll discuss in my next entry. 

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