425- Toxic friendships: Unhealthy boundaries

Trigger Warning for mentioned DV and cult related stuff, and also, this is a long one - 2,401 words, hereafter. 

Toxicity is something which, in my opinion, should remain only with toxic products. Yet, many people in our lives can prove to have toxic effects upon our well-being ; they are those one-sided relationships where you don't ever get any sort of equilibrium in benefits ; they are those where a person abuses the kindness, energy and time of the other, for their own selfish goals. 

By more specific definition, a toxic partner's actions will be emotionally, and/or physically damaging to their partner. These often drain us emotionally and/or physically, most often diminishing our self-esteem and making us question what we've done wrong, and yet, it is these people who should ask themselves these questions. 

In post 424, I turned the clocks to my childhood, and discussed how I was, inadvertently and unknowingly at the time, a one-sided user friend. To better understand this, I'll go back to the very roots of my formative years. 

I've gone through many toxic and one-sided, abusive non-friendships. The first one, with my father, was abusive on all levels : he had the parental authority, off course, but also, at the time, a spiritual one, abusing me emotionally, psychologically terrorizing me, and physically punishing me to reinforce his ascendance and further depersonalize me as part of his religious dogma. I discussed many of those points in my cult-related experiences, and today, I'll focus more on the resulting relationship difficulties I had in friendships. 

(post 351 quote)  Due to any of my mental illnesses and lack of self-esteem, I had accepted one-sided, abusive, toxic, pseudo-friendships with people, several times ; this was the direct result of specific traumas, and mirrored in accepting the unacceptable from people, partially because I had no frame of reference and partially because I was repeating patterns that had been forced upon me as a child. It took many years to learn any measure of self-worth and requesting minimal respect and equality in friendships, through many hardships. 

In post 375  based on Lilly's entry,  I mentioned how, through my lack of frame of reference, and being a child abuse survivor,  that I lack healthy boundaries ; I did let toxic people in, first unknowingly, then knowingly, before learning to discern, and stand up for myself and create these boundaries. 

I also said that I'd been putting this topic off for a long time, so today I decided to do it, and connect these aspects. 

Friendships have been affected by my traumatic experiences as well as my mental illnesses. Not many understood/understand my introvert nature, and even less my anxiety and avoidance of social situations, but this isn't only due to people's lack of understanding of it, but my own misunderstanding of what I was going through - again, out of lack of any frame of reference. 

Even once I learned and knew better how to explain my situation, most people didn't want to bother with me, and this goes even with some of the online friendships I made in the mental health community.

In my teens, I unknowingly held the position of the user in 1-sided friendships. I have to discuss this elsewhere, to remain on topic of toxicity. After I came back to my home country, however, this changed. Upon returning, I knew no one. I had to get acquainted with my maternal family : my mother, her sister, their parents, extended family. 

Psychologically broken at that point, I wasn't able to take the steps to find friends, so through my mother and her own friends, I was introduced to my first friends, including my first male friend in this country. We became friends, but in a very rocky, unbalanced, and mostly 1-sided, with the balance tipping severely to his benefit and to my ever-growing discomfort. 

Indeed, for 14 years, he was supposed to be my best friend, and knew almost everything about my past, my struggles in making friendships, in going to places, finding romance, jobs, and so on. In those 14 years, we had several break-ups, following my first attempts at creating healthier boundaries, and standing up for myself after he'd been disrespectful. Each time, I'd forgiven him, but one day, he went too far. After all those long 14 years, where he'd only complain about his failed romances (there were numerous - he wasn't respectful to women at all) ; he'd also complain about his family, and/or his ill-health. He'd complain about money, all the whilst showing me his expensive attire, glasses, trips to restaurants, his car, his stuff... Totally ignoring the fact I either didn't have a job, or, at other times, I only held a part-time.  In 14 years, I'd offered him many birthday gifts, and he had offered only one. 

When he'd message me, it'd be almost always to start talking about himself ; he seldom asked how I was ; he seldom offered any advice for my own wishes to meet and fall in love with a woman ; he seldom asked how my health was. Sure, he drove me a few times to do shopping, but that was the extent of his returned favors... on the ride, he'd revert to his own selfish goals, by complaining and centering the entire conversations on his own ego. 

One day, he saw that a baker was flirting with me, but he was between relationships, and so he stepped in, not to help his buddy out, oh no! he went and flirted with her too and that was the end of that... (But this is ok as I did find and marry someone later on, keep reading). 

When he underwent surgery, and was at odds with his family, it was us (my  mom & I) who sheltered him. I nursed and fed him. One day, he transposed his issues with his own brother unto me, personally attacking me for my refusals to like Madonna (I have my reasons, and he didn't get it). In the same breathe, he attacked me for being vegetarian (at the time ; now am vegan as you may know), and hence, "I was cultish"... Disrespecting me, and my healing journey as he knew that I'd left my father's cult. 

I had to stand up and tell him that he shouldn't take it on me but with his brother... Let me tell you, this didn't go well... I couldn't take it anymore, nor all the other instances of his abuse and disrespect that he'd scattered toward me the previous years... I broke up and sent a very long email, with my reasons... he turned it against me, and to this day, I'm sure he had barely read any part of it, just the beginning and the gist... 

After a while, he came back, apologizing. We started over. He once again caused strife. I broke up again. On the following apology, I said ok but this is it, next time you're out... How do I regret having forgiven him and let him step on still non-existent boundaries... I asked him to be my best man for my wedding, and you know what ? he betrayed me by trying to break my wife and I just 5 or so years into our marriage. Right under my nose, might I say! Well, this, and all his other single-minded actions and words, such as refusing to listen when I said that I didn't want his visit, after I'd been limping for months; and all his disparaging remarks about my vegetarian or vegan lifestyles , too... Well, I broke it once and for all. I sent the shortest email and I never looked back. It's been about 9 years, and even if he came back grovelling, I wouldn't accept any kind of applogy.( In fact, I didn't even respond to his birthday wishes, which he sent on my facebook private message a few months ago, and well over 8 years after I'd broken our friendship up!). 

Being around him, listening to his complaints, or his self-ego stroking comments, his mere presence, were always emotionally, psychologically and physically exhausting. I'd feel very sleepy after his visits, but, since at the time, I simply had no clue, I had clang to him and and his apparent friendship, accepting his numerous flaws and abusive, exhausting, toxicity. 

From this article about toxic relationships, I can tell for sure that this case in particular was a type 7 toxicity : the user.  All those years, he was my sole, or so I thought, male friend. I was missing out on more balanced friendships, and more respectful ones. This was due, as I said in the introduction, to my trauma and lack of frame of reference, and the fact that even after I realized these, I continued to cling, out of fear of ending up alone, friendless, and also, as a form of emotional self-punishment. I accepted the unacceptable, because I didn't think I was worthy of being treated better. This is where you see the damage of trauma in a religious cult.

In parallel, I had bonded in other friendships, on and off, even through this long 14-year period, and also after it ended - meaning for the past 9 years.

Often, I had other 1-sided relationships, with some toxicity, but never as much. I'd often be the one to make the effort in contacting the other person - despite my social anxieties. The person would say 'oh am glad you called' but wouldn't be the one to make the call to me... I tested not contacting, and weeks, months would go by, with nothing from them... 

I sometimes accepted abusive remarks, as I lack/ed self-esteem and always felt a beta, disliking confrontation. This is due to my witnessing domestic violence ; I struggle, even to this day, to really stand up for myself - even though I made some progress. Usually, I just give up. I delete the person, erase all trace as if they never were part of my life - at least in physical sense (throwing, shredding or burning letters, deleting emails and so on). But the mental presence remains, at least for a while. 

There were people for whom I was always present, available to support and listen. Yet, when I needed them most, they weren't anywhere to be found. 

I'd struggled after each of our hamsters and dogs had passed away. Very few people ever checked on me, or offered condolences. At the last occurrence of lacked support, I had a 90% turnover in my friendships : I deleted almost everyone I'd known at that time from my Facebook list. 

I was even told by someone I thought was my second best friend of over 15 years, that she hadn't supported me because she was also struggling but expected all the other people around me to take over. Had she told me at the time that she was struggling and sorry that she couldn't be there for me, I'd have accepted it, but the fact that she didn't say anything, ignored me for nearly 3 years, and then pretending that she might have accidentally deleted me (when I was the one to grow tired of being ignored by a person supposed to be such a close friend as we'd chatted almost daily for 10+ years, and supposed to be a professional therapist!)... 

That really blew it for me! Furthermore, she said she had no time to be online - yet her Facebook was full of memes and links to funny radio shows she'd been posting about almost daily during that ENTIRE period she'd been ignoring me. I didn't accept her highly selfish invitation to officially inaugurate her office, nor responded to her half-explanation why she hadn't been there for me.

Another one with whom I'd been friend for 4-5 years, very close, chatting and talking on phone, skype, and had exchanged snail mail a few times, had one day become a mother. In itself it's ok. She came back once her baby's age progressed enough that we could chat. We resumed. But very partially and one day , she just disappeared. Her Facebook was gone. Months later, I received a message, that maybe she'd accidentally deleted me, and here she was, back. 

However, I suspected that her boyfriend was jealous and he was the one who deleted me. What troubled me was that she had my phone numbers (landline and mobile), my snail mail, my skype and email. I refused to accept her non-explanation as well, and dropped the curtain. It's a weird instance, where I thought, during our entire friendship, that we had been balanced. But, her odd disappearance and not contacting me when she had 5 other ways to do so really irked me. 

For a long period of my life, I'd had been interested in many subjects that I no longer consider part of me. At the time, I was happy to offer my advice and expertise in them to my friends, but, more often than not, this ended to be a 1-sided ticket for free help. So few of these people ever returned favors or even bothered to contact me if they didn't need my advice. 

Some of these friendships might not have been toxic in the sense of abusive, mean exchanges, but they were toxic in the way that they were so 1-sided and imbalanced. It has always been so hard on me to step up, confront people and tell them that they overstepped my boundaries, because I hadn't really established them for so long. Thus, I had quite a few uneven exchanges of mutual benefits, and I'm still not really done in erecting healthy boundaries. It's so easy to say "but you can do it" and it's so hard to actually do it. 

I feel that I always have to push and shove my way through, as I tend to feel totally transparent and invisible to most people. I'm a beta by nature, and trying to be a gentle alpha doesn't seem a realistic middle ground between being naturally effaced, and going against my nature towards alpha nature. It's all about finding a healthy boundary between me and others, between beta, and an affirmed but not over the top alpha like some people can be... 

So, for the time being, I'm learning to affirm, to remind people that I'm here, visible, so please look, and oh, these are my boundaries, please respect them as much as I respect yours. But, as everything in the healing process, it's a work in progress. 

(2,420 words)