could do with some feedback about a possible sociopath in my life

[freeatlast]

Hello lovely people, I could do with some advice. I am on this forum because I’ve had a 20-year relationship with a sociopath – what I would term the passive aggressive kind so would never hurt me but his emotional and psychological cruelty was something else. Thankfully he has left and I am now healing.

I have done enough reading on this topic to think I basically understand this enough to spot someone who is a narcissist/sociopath. Now I am having doubts about a friend of mine. I’m wondering if I’m reading too much into this (as in, a little knowledge is dangerous) or whether I am spotting cleverly covered-up red flags. I could do with some honest feedback and if it’s that I’m being too touchy then that is fine.

I have known this girl-friend (friend, not romantic) for just over 10 years. When we first met – just out shopping, actually – she followed up with extremely lengthy emails (literally the first day was writing and gushing at huge length to me). FIRST RED FLAG (Now I know what to look for!).
She has been a brilliant friend to me in many ways. However she is always the forceful one who sets the agenda – when we meet, how often, what we drink, what we do, what we don’t do etc. I have always gone along with it because it never mattered that much to me and I enjoyed her company. This is the SECOND RED FLAG – just being too controlling. You kind of know that you have to do it her way, and it’s not worth fighting.

THIRD RED FLAG was stealing my friend. That hurt A LOT.

FOURTH RED FLAG was triangulation – raving on about this friend every time I see her and mentioning all the lovely conversations they have.

Fast-forward to this summer. We’re both English and we’ve had some severe lockdown restrictions over here. One of her things is that she MUST socialise. She cannot stand being at home. So when we were in lockdown and she and I could not do our usual get-togethers she literally seemed to just lose it. It culminated in her attacking me verbally absolutely viciously and saying incredibly unkind and totally untrue things, such as I had cancelled our playdates. The truth was we were in full lockdown at that point and when I pointed that out to her and said I hoped that changed her picture of things, she replied, not much, because she FELT rejected by me. She was just so mean it was breathtaking. I have no idea why I even stayed friends with her after that. But somehow, because I am always so wanting to be constructive and value the relationship, I soldiered on. However, she still sees ME as the “bad guy” even though she never faced or apologised for her totally bizarre and unwarranted attacks on me. Actually, she simply refused to discuss it. Also, our children have been best buddies for 10 years and there are a lot of links going back between the 2 families. This whole scenario was obviously a MAJOR (FIFTH) RED FLAG that even I could not ignore.

So the latest thing was this week. We are back in strict lockdown and she is wanting to see me again. She left me a voicemail saying she wanted to meet up with me – “no pressure” – her words. She also went on about being in my bubble, which is not true – we have never agreed that. Plus I am in a support bubble with my elderly parents, and you are only allowed one other household in your support bubble. She keeps mentioning being in my bubble and I think this is gaslighting. I think she thinks that if she mentions it enough I will just agree that it is so. SIXTH RED FLAG.

When I said we weren’t able to meet up because of Covid rules she replied “Are you saying you don’t want to meet up with me?” (This sounded vaguely threatening to me) So I replied, no that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying we can’t meet up because of Covid rules, and sent her the links to the government’s pages on support bubbles and lockdown info. Her reply was to ignore my message and instead ONLY talk about her friend (the one who used to be my friend that she stole from me) saying what a lovely friend she was, and she couldn’t wait to see her because she felt so welcomed and cared about by her. That was it. She did not mention anything at all about the info I had given her and my reasons for us not being able to meet up.
I actually feel slightly queasy writing this all out because I have that feeling of being cornered. SEVENTH RED FLAG.
It seems to me that she used subtle threatening messages and manipulation to make me feel bad about not meeting up. If I review my other healthy friendships, her behaviour is way out of line. I do see that.

EIGHTH RED FLAG: After we patched things up after the summer, she started bombarding me with voice messages and texts. She piled on the charm. She kept apologising for not replying to my messages quickly enough and I realised she was grooming me by making it clear that I was expected to reply within a few hours to her messages. (NINTH RED FLAG) She would stress “I’m SO sorry it’s taken me this long to reply” and go on at length about how it etc. She’s clearly sending me the message that I have to message her when we are both busy single working mums and I don’t have the time to constantly text. I can send one message and immediately my phone will be pinging crazily and she’ll send me 8 in return within 5 minutes.

What do you all think? This is not right, is it? Healthy people do not behave in this way, do they? Are these unhealthy traits or is this within normal for long-term female friendships?

I feel like I’m a fish on her hook and I want to get off.

Am I over-reacting?

And how does one go about dumping a close-knit friend?

I think I have learnt enough about sociopathic behaviour to spot her behaviour as at least very unreasonable. But am I making too much of it?

Thanks for any feedback and sorry this is long.

[sept4]

Hi Free, well I don’t know if she is sociopathic but she certainly doesn’t sound very pleasant. There is no need at all to maintain a friendship with someone you don’t really like. It’s perfectly fine and reasonable to end a friendship if you don’t like someone’s behavior. In fact it’s advisable because the time and energy spent on her is better spent elsewhere like on yourself, your children, your parents, and any nice healthy reasonable friends.

So if I were you I would let that friendship go. There’s no need for a formal breakup, you can just be less responsive to her and less available and not schedule any new get togethers. That way she has a choice to let the friendship fade out or pursue you. If she does pursue you and confronts you about your unavailability then you can let her know that you are focused on other things at the moment and would like some space from her. Hopefully she will then just move on to other friends who are more available to her.

[freeatlast]

Hi sept4, that sounds like very wise advice. I’ve been turning around in my mind the idea of breaking the friendship off. But I think trying to allow it to fade out would be the wiser choice. It means there isn’t a drastic break for the kids either. I’m going to have to start putting up some boundaries around my need for space in the relationship, which will be hard. Like others on here, I seem to attract the controlling type. (Note to self: ignore anyone who bombards you with messages on first meeting!). She has already asked us to put dates in the diary throughout next year and I’ve said no on the basis that we don’t really know what will be happening. So that’s a start. Normally we have the next several months dotted with dates in the diary and at this point we only have one, just before Christmas. So now I have my eyes open a bit regarding this friendship, it’s up to me to do something about the fact that I feel railroaded into jumping to her tune, and start learning how to put some boundaries up.

Thanks for your feedback, it is greatly appreciated.

[sept4]

Free yes I think letting the friendship fade out is the best option. If she has any social skills and social grace then she will pick up on your decreased availability and will understand that she should let you go.

Although it doesn’t sound like she has good social skills or social grace, but she might then also let you go out of spite to move on to other friends who will give her more attention. This would work out fine for you too, that way she can think it was her decision to cut you off, and you can just let it happen and let her think that and let the friendship fade out that way.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by sept4.

[freeatlast]

That’s even better. Yes. She would not take kindly to be dumped. And yes, she doesn’t have those social skills. She does have other qualities and it hasn’t all been bad. In the earlier years there were the red flags and it has only turned weird ie extremely unpleasant since the summer. But I’m realising that healthy people don’t behave like she behaved, and I made me look back on the past with different eyes. There were other red flags too, that I didn’t mention above. And the fact that I feel like a fish on a hook says it all really. OK, project fade-out. I think next time she says something direct like “Are you saying you don’t want to meet me?” I think I’ll just reply along the lines of – “yes, I need my space.” Kindly. Thanks for your wisdom, sept4.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by freeatlast.

[Donna Andersen]

freeatlast – you have correctly identified 9 red flags. I think it’s fair to say that the woman is at least self-centered, definitely controlling, certainly not a friend to you, and likely disordered.

Letting the friendship fade away is a good idea.

[freeatlast]

Hi Donna,

Thank you so much for your feedback. It’s good to know I have correctly identified those red flags. I’ve thought of others since I wrote the above post. I think you and Sept4 are absolutely correct in that the best thing to do is let the friendship fade.

Apart from anything else, I thought after the summer that she would not treat me harshly again. But she did – that text the other day was incredibly mean. It’s hard to compute sending such a mean text to a friend. So my point is – she will keep doing this. She has “got away” with it and it will only happen again and again.

Me trying to fade out the friendship will no doubt be triggering for her. But it’s just not right to use manipulation and heavy-handed tactics to try and get friends to do what you want. She has put out a lot of messages about whether or not I care for her, but she is not caring for me, is she?

Anyway, it helps to write this out.

Many thanks again.

[Redwald]

Free, I certainly agree that you’d be best tapering off this friendship. Healthy people do not behave the way this woman has been behaving!

I agree with sept4 in that I don’t know either that I’d call her “sociopathic,” though in any case whether she’s “sociopathic” is not the point. With due respect to Donna, I think “sociopathic” to many people means more or less the same as “psychopathic”–as long as they understand what a “psychopath” is, that’s to say–and your erstwhile friend doesn’t sound like a full-blown psychopath. However, that doesn’t mean she’s not abusing you! What I do see in her behavior is elements of narcissism. Psychopaths are invariably narcissistic in their way, but people can be pathological narcissists (NPD) or have strongly narcissistic traits without being psychopathic.

It depends how we see these disorders, and what is central to them. What I see as central to psychopathy is a profound emotional deficit that leads, among other things, to an absence of empathy or concern for others’ rights, and therefore of any shred of conscience. This may not fit your friend. And she doesn’t really sound like a predator, as psychopaths usually are–except for poaching your treasured friend! So I can see why you’ve been hesitant to condemn her, although you’ve got those “red flags” nailed!

Narcissism on the other hand I see as an extreme absorption in the self, including the need to maintain a (usually false) self-image. To the narcissist, the whole world is just an extension of the self, and everything is about “me-me-me” and “my” needs and feelings–or if it isn’t, they think it jolly well ought to be, so there! Narcissists in a sense just don’t “see” other people, except as extensions and reflections of themselves, because they’re so wrapped up in their own self-image.

You might like to ask yourself how far that picture fits your friend. Perhaps it’s not as extreme as that, but as you said, everything you did together–where and when you met, what you did, and so on was all revolving around her and her choices, not yours. It all worked out fine as long as you tagged along as an extension of herself. When she stole your friend–who no doubt succumbed to becoming another compliant extension of her–she bragged about it without the slightest concern for your own feelings. And among all the conversations you’ve had, you might ask yourself how much time she spent listening to and talking about your own interests, problems or issues as opposed to hers. It may not be very much, unless they happened to mirror her own

Then when you canceled your playdates due to the lockdown, she took it personally, turned nasty and attacked you. This is what narcissists do. Actually there are two aspects to this situation. The first is what you said: that “she MUST socialise. She cannot stand being at home.” OK, so she’s an extrovert who needs company. Many people are. However, what I also read into this is that as a narcissist, she has a desperate need for “narcissistic supply” from other people to keep her ego afloat. So she can’t tolerate being alone for long.

Apart from that, in her mind you’re supposed to be a passive extension of herself who responds to her every need and whim. She’s very controlling, as you said. How dare you refuse to meet her needs, “bubble” or no “bubble”! That’s a insult to her, a “narcissistic injury” causing irrational frustration, anger and hostility. In her mind, your needs don’t exist; at any rate they’re totally eclipsed by hers.

I know she backpedaled and became somewhat more conciliatory afterwards, but when you do taper off this friendship as you need to, I hope you’ll be on the lookout for possibly vicious retaliation for “rejecting” her. That’s something narcissists can’t stand. They’re very fond of “D&D”–no, not “Dungeons and Dragons,” but “devaluing and discarding” people they have no further use for. But in their mind it’s their exclusive right to do the D&D. If someone else does it to them–even if they only perceive it that way, however wrongly–that’s another “narcissistic injury” that can make them blow up with rage.

In any case it doesn’t matter whether I’ve stuck the right label on her or not. The bottom line is always that if you’re being abused, exploited, controlled, harassed, or uncomfortable with a relationship it doesn’t matter what “category” the offender fits into. Often it isn’t possible to categorize them anyway. Your only responsibility is to yourSelf, to “take care of Number One,” and free yourself from them.

It’s a pity you have the additional entanglement of your kids being friends with hers, which complicates matters. I hope it goes all right for all of you.

Incidentally, while I appreciate your concern for “bubbles” and whatnot, I think it’s outrageous that an oppressive, overbearing government should go so far as to try imposing such onerous and rigid restrictions. I do have sympathy with people putting up with this hassle over there in Europe–it’s not just the UK, I know.

And in spite of it all, according to this “Worldometer” web site, the death rate from Covid-19 in the UK, for instance, is actually slightly worse–891 per million, or one person in 1122–than it is here in the US–858 per million, or one person in 1166. Yet here, we haven’t had (or downright refused) to put up with so many authoritarian intrusions into our lives. So it doesn’t look as if those needlessly heavyhanded restrictions did anything to reduce the spread of Covid in the UK.

A lot of precautions are just common sense anyway. Wear a mask when close to strangers, observe social distancing and avoid large public gatherings. Self-quarantine if you have the disease, and so on. Here we’re required to wear masks in stores and other such buildings, which is only sensible. I gather there have been a few people arrested for violating quarantine rules when infected, and others in the course of breaking up large public gatherings, but those seem fairly uncommon. Apart from that, in practice we’re free to go where we want, when we want. I think it’s preposterous that the UK should be persecuting people simply for being outside or traveling somewhere, especially in a car, when they’re not even close enough to anyone else to transmit any virus.

As for our homes, they’re sacrosanct. I understand the “bubble” concept, and it does make sense as a guideline to be careful how many people we’re mixing with–family, friends or whatever–at close quarters. But guidelines should be at the individual’s discretion, and I think it’s outrageous that people in the UK are not permitted to visit and do as they like in their own private homes! I can’t see that being accepted here. I suspect it would be found unconstitutional, contrary to the Fourth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…” They used to say “an Englishman’s home is his castle,” but it seems that isn’t true any more.

In any case, if anyone has a Christmas party in their home with people outside their “bubble,” how the heck is anyone going to know? The only way I can think of is if some odious neighbor starts snooping and making allegations to the cops. And that’s really disruptive if it means setting neighbor against neighbor. It doesn’t exactly make for neighborliness and social cohesion. Having spies on the block is just too 1984-ish, and Nazi tactics too. In Nazi Germany they had these nasty little snoops called Blockwarte to spy on their neighborhood and report any anti-Nazi activities to the Gestapo. Needless to say, these Blockwarte were hated like poison. When people are so frustrated with Covid in the first place, anger is likely to boil over. I imagine that if people in the UK start reporting neighbors to the police, quite a few of them, in rougher neighborhoods especially, are going to get their windows smashed, their faces punched in, or possibly worse: a serious threat to the “Queen’s Peace.” I hope it doesn’t lead to mayhem in the streets.

All I can do is wish you “the best of British luck” with this, as they say. And I hope it goes well withdrawing from that problematic “friendship.”

[freeatlast]

Hi Redwald,
Thank you so much for the long and detailed reply. I think you’ve absolutely nailed it. The “narcissistic injury” is definitely what was going on, I think. In her email rants she even said something very similar to this: “how dare you see other people and not prioritise me?” This was because I was having to self-isolate after seeing a friend who developed Covid symptoms a day later. She didn’t like it that I wasn’t staying away from everyone so as not to jeopardise our next playdate.
I can definitely expect more abuse I think because I am not going to be controlled by her. I was happy to go along with her before but not after being treated so unkindly. I need more space than she is prepared to give me so that will no doubt cause future conflict, as it did last weekend. When I asked her what she meant by her message she made some excuse such as she wasn’t thinking straight, she was so tired, it came out wrong. Feeble excuse really.
Anyway, project fade-out is underway! Whatever is going on with her, I am done on the inside, and it’s only a matter of time until we’re done on the outside too. It will be kind of interesting to watch how it plays out. Now I feel sure that her behaviour is totally unacceptable I feel stronger in my inner attitude about putting up the space I need around me no matter the consequences.
I read your comments on UK lockdown rules with some interest and a bit of a smile. I used to live in America (for about 10 years) and have experienced “culture shock” both ways – moving out, and moving back. Had endless fascinating conversations with Americans about how we are different. Mostly we can all poke fun at each other.
I think over here things are different because the government is footing the bill. Our hospitals – which are straining to cope with the number of Covid cases – are funded by the government. We don’t pay a penny if we are in intensive care for 6 months. So there’s a sense of shared responsibility to keep the NHS hospitals as free of Covid as possible. Also the government ran an extensive furlough scheme – basically, they told us all to go home, stay home and not mix with anyone else and paid all our salaries for the duration of that time. I was off work for months on full pay, underwritten by the government. At that point one feels a certain social responsibility to do what the government has asked one to do, to help keep the virus at bay. No one really minded, we just got on with it.
There was a great meme doing the rounds – Boris Johnson with his head in his hands saying, “OK, I’ve had it – you lot are all ****ing grounded!” Kind of like that, but with cash!
Anyway, many thanks for the amazing, insightful feedback on my friend.

[ina]

Throughtout time Ive learnt that even friendships are toxic. You dont have to be in an a romantic relationship to have people play with your emotional state. Cut it off.

[Author]

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