u/throwawayandscream

It’s devastating to be honest.

So I’ve done a lot of work on myself in the past few years — including really difficult hard work through emdr — that I’m no longer codependent.

I had a friend who I considered a close friend. We hung out regularly and I was really happy as I felt like I found a good friend. We were friends for a year until things went really downhill quickly. Suddenly there were passive aggressive comments (I didn’t know they were passive aggressive as I’m autistic and don’t pick up on subtext easily) and pretty minor conflicts that I believed were resolved. For example, one conflict was when I had sent a smiling emoji to their casual question intending to immediately type out a message, but I got distracted (I’m also adhd haha) by something and forgot to send my actual response. They called me out for not taking them seriously. I apologized and explained. Pretty minor.

Anyways, it felt like minor thing after minor thing kept happening until they started distancing themselves, and when I questioned it, they blew up. Called me needy (I’m not), that they were icked out (verbatim, and wow what a really cruel thing to say to someone), said they hung out with me out of obligation, then cited a bunch of grievances — most of which were unknown to me until then…Just imagine someone you cared about, considered a close friend, pretty much telling you that you’re both not enough and too much at the same time. Incredibly painful. I’m not without fault, I own up to my parts, and ultimately we were incompatible…but wow fuck this was insane.

That was when everything clicked: the passive aggression, the sudden phase of never ending minor fights…not only did they not like me for months, but they had showed a bunch of codependent behavior:

- When we just met, it’s like they were trying to skip all the trust building phases of friendship and skipping straight towards really hard hitting emotionally intimate sharing (like wanting to share trauma stories). I have a shit ton of shitty trauma, & even when I’d done emdr, I am not sharing with just anyone let alone someone who I haven’t known for a year at least. Of course said I wasn’t comfortable talking about it in detail. I was vulnerable in sharing other non trauma related emotional happenings. It wasn’t often (only because at this time in life I’m pretty content), but I came to them for emotional support and them to me. I told them about how difficult and effective emdr was in trauma healing, but they eventually questioned — aloud to me — my healing because I wouldn’t talk about my trauma. I just didn’t talk about it with them on their timeline. Frankly, what an odd thing to say to a friend. I wish I clocked how cruel that was in the moment but I’m assured to know that that is something I’d never say or even think about someone who’s done some hard shit to heal from their trauma. Gross.

- Made it their mission to fix all my problems (assumed and unassumed) and took their own assumptions as fact. If I made an observational comment such as “there’s a lot of people here” (but I’m still enjoying myself), they’d offer solutions but when I declined support because I didn’t need it, they would get antsy. They’d assume that i would be mad or annoyed with them, but instead of asking for reassurance, they’d take that as a fact. They later cited this as a grievance and said that I didn’t know my needs and couldn’t bring up issues in our friendship as they arose. I didn’t bring up problems because I didn’t have many, but when I did I said it 😵‍💫 in hindsight, they did make a few comments throughout our friendship that they were working on not taking on others’ problems as their own.

- giving, giving, giving but declining taking. In terms of practical support, they’d offer to pay when we’re out (you know when people immediately take the bill and put their card down and signal the waiter…that) but when I asked to pay or at least pay my half, they’d decline. Every time. They’re rich so I just assumed they were being nice since money isn’t an issue. Aligned with fixing things issue, I struggle with eating due to adhd meds. Honestly it’s not a huge problem and I manage it. They took it on as their own problem to fix. At one point, they offered to cook dinner for me once a week. This never materialized, but I was excited because I thought they had just wanted to hang out and I offered to also cook for them/split labor. They declined. Anyways they later said they never actually wanted to do this and cited this as a reason I’m “needy” 😵‍💫 I again am autistic and I will take things at face value so how am I (or literally anyone for fucks sake) to know that they didn’t mean what they said. A good meal is a good meal especially with friends.

- Saw me as broken. I think this was a really hurtful realization that they saw me like this. Just all the fixing, questioning my healing, insisting I go to therapy again. What an awful way to see your “friend.”

I think I’m missing some but this was the gist. When they blew up on me, I said my peace and blocked them. Maybe I could’ve been better about it but I felt really hurt and angry that someone who I considered close didn’t fuck with me for months, and instead of saying the hard truth, they lied. I’ve honestly never been on the receiving end of this and it really hurt. For a little bit after, I felt insecure around my other close friends: Were they hanging out with me because they wanted to? Are they harboring resentment towards me? Did they mean what they say? Do they secretly hate me? I got over that shortly because my actual friends are wonderful. Honestly it’s been about 2 years now (yesterday was the death-a-versary to our friendship) and sometimes I think about it and if still makes me angry. To think, they people pleased to avoid being disliked, but that was exactly what happened because they avoided an uncomfortable conversation for so long. As much as I understand them and have done this too, I now dislike them and don’t respect them anymore and I grieve our friendship (or who i thought they were since they weren’t really showing up authentically).