Feeling Guilty for Standing Up

[Nimi]

Hi guys, I have been thinking about writing about this for a while and I am still very nervous to write it, but I figure I should at least give it a try. Maybe someone has experienced something similar.

A few weeks ago I had to do a very difficult thing. I had been feeling for a while that I was being treated without respect by a group of people whom I considered my friends. I really cared about them, and I still do, so it was incredibly hard to realise that I just felt so... uncomfortable. I am afraid of talking about this because I am scared of being harassed online by them if I am found, so I am going to be vague, I hope that's okay and not too confusing.

I have had moments of severe depression and occasional anxiety attacks throughout my life, where I cannot cope and needed to speak to my friends for support. I always did my best to offer an ear in return to support them as well, because I have many other friends that have been through some intensely difficult times and really needed an ear, or a shoulder and were occasionally a bit blunt or negative because they were sad. I can completely relate to that position and I have always tried my best to put myself in other people's shoes.

For at least a year though, I felt that something was terribly wrong. Like a gut feeling. I now see in hindsight that there were red flags everywhere, I was spoken to repeatedly in a passive-aggressive manner, blamed for things that were beyond my control and for not doing enough, insulted in front of friends (and my own family!) at a major event and when I asked numerous times what was happening, telling them that our friendship mattered to me and that I was lost... I was accused of being aggressive or confrontational. I felt like I was going crazy and I still feel like I am. I could not support them when I was feeling attacked like this, which they then continued to blame me for.

I am so confused and hurt even now. Did I deserve that because I had moments of weakness and needed help? I was constantly apologising, and if they had told me that I was annoying then I would have listened and taken it seriously because they really mattered to me. It's really awful that as soon as I stood up and left I began to receive harassing texts accusing me of being passive-aggressive and a liar. I just felt so crazy hearing that. I stopped to think... did all the times I was trying to be genuine not matter? Was I not doing my best? Had I been making it up?

Thank you for reading.

[Nimi]

Hi everyone, I have been thinking a lot on what has happened and now that I feel a bit more self confident, I wanted to know if it would be ok to get an opinion on whether this treatment I have described sounds like manipulation or gaslighting? I am struggling a bit at working out where to go from here because I still feel largely confused and stuck.

I was told multiple times that I was too sensitive or bad at taking criticism. This is true, I do need to work on this, but it felt to me that a lot of the time I was being criticized for things in a very condescending way and that they had assumed a lot about how I felt towards particular matters without actually asking. I.e; being told I was too sensitive when discussing things that had genuinely made me feel uncomfortable. I was also often instructed to do things as if there was no alternative, or if I was busy and stressed that I was being selfish. When I became sad they would offer words of advice, but if I did not respond with as much gratitude or information as they wanted they became angry at me. When I said that I didn't like being spoken to a certain way, they said I was being too sensitive.

During a holiday, two people ostracised me and another friend by outright ignoring us and avoiding us. I became stressed and had a breakdown. They snapped at me. I thought that I was in the wrong for having an anxiety attack and not moving past it at the time, but now I am not so sure. If anything it shows that I needed to be assertive. During the next year after this I had become totally unsure of where I stood. Something as simple as "wish you well" they claimed was not genuine.

The way they would twist my words to mean things I genuinely had not meant, then accuse me of things like manipulation and abusive behaviour made me confused and even more stressed - which in turn would make me feel more unable to cope! I worked hard to try and put together an apology (even though they never apologised to me or acknowledged my hurt) but the more I look at this I feel I have been manipulated or gaslit to think I am the problem. On the other hand, they say that playing the victim is a classic sign of manipulation and I desperately do not want to excuse myself from faults. I have asked for much advice from close friends and family to see if I was cruel, and they say that it doesn't sound right, but I am so confused!

I hope it's ok to ask an opinion on this! I feel stuck.

[Nimi]

Hi!!

I'm writing this post as an update/closure on this and also for anyone that might be browsing these servers feeling the same way as I did before, so that hopefully you can feel that it will be okay too! I want to say a really big thank you to all the kind words here and wonderful advice. Thank you so, so much. Joining the online forums here has been one of the best decisions I have made so far this year!!

I just wanted to say that it does get better, and that my journey was made easier as I began to be self-confident and branch out, meet new people and not be afraid of pursuing my interests and hobbies. I think the hardest part of losing such an important part of your life is forgiving yourself for trying to move on, in a weird way. I hope that anyone else who experiences these feelings or a state of confusion like this will not give up on themselves and believe that it is okay to be who you are, to pursue happiness and forgive yourself and others (we are all human!) but also that it is okay to recognise when you feel disrespected, hurt or uncomfortable and when things must change. I echo a lot of what has been said before in this thread, please do not feel guilty if you must speak up about things that are deeply affecting you! Journalling works wonders, as well as meditation, counselling and learning grounding techniques for when negative thoughts creep up on us. My therapist gave some great advice, saying that it is important to allow yourself to process these things. Don't shut it all out, but at the same time do your best to not let those thoughts and feelings consume your day to day life if possible.

It has now been a long while since it all happened, and I already feel like a whole new person that is now more independent and ready to go out and experience the world and share compassion with others! So, I truly hope that should someone else have felt or experienced something similar, they will be able to read this and know that it does! Trust yourself, love yourself, love your life.

Thank you! Wishing all the best.

[therising]

Hi Nimi

Your post is incredibly inspiring and I am so happy to hear that you are evolving so thoughtfully and so confidently.

The enormous challenges we rise to meet will definitely challenge us in many ways. It is so important that when the next one comes along, we remember how we met the last. It is important to recall both the struggle and the triumph, for this proves to us how capable we are. Mastering life is a gradual process. We don't master it all at once, we graduate, through every challenge.

I know you will be a positive guiding light for others because you are thoughtful and sensitive and you question that which needs to be questioned. I wish you well in your new life, as a new you.

🙂

[Nimi]

Hi guys, I feel bad bringing this up again but some stuff lately has been really hard.

I'm in a good place at the moment mostly - generally feeling happier and I have noticed that I am a lot less pessimistic. However, I have been receiving ongoing online abuse from these people. I thought it was over, but I keep getting emails because they are using my address to randomly sign me up to things. I know it sounds crazy, and I feel crazy, but I don't know if I can take this anymore. I don't understand why they won't leave me alone.

For a while I thought I had abused them, because they said that I had, but now I feel crazy again and I feel like this has been gaslighting the whole time and I am confused because this is continuing harassment. I feel trapped and scared and I don't feel safe.

I know emails can't physically hurt me, but I am so scared and I tremble when I get one. It just seems too coincidental. I'm sorry, I really needed to let this out somewhere.

[quirkywords]

Nimi,

I am glad you are in a good place mostly but sad you are getting emails that are upsetting you.

i know not much about emails but at the end if most there is a place that says unsubscribe. If they are coming from different sources you may need to unsubscribe to each one.
can you delete them without opening them up.

other here may be more technical and more help.

i can understand why it would be scary and unsettling.

as I said people with more technical know how may have more ideas.

Just because it is inline does not mean it won’t upset you.

I am glad you could tell us about how you feel and thanks fir the update.

quirky

[smallwolf]

Your post reminds me of 2 different times in my life.

The first was when the home email address was getting a lot of spam email. The only way we (wife and I) got around this issue was to a new email address from our ISP.

The second instance was more recent - about 3 years ago and which brought me here to BB. I had received some emails that were quite destructive and I could not handle the content contained in the emails. And each morning I would get quite anxious when it came to looking at emails. I was worried about what people were saying,

So what can you do?

1. get or create a new email account

2. mark those emails as spam

3. create a rule to delete those emails

I would think that getting a new email address would really be the best way of resolving this issue. Otherwise you could spending time every day deleting emails you do not want.

Tim

[Nimi]

Thank you Quirky and Small wolf, I really appreciate it. I hope you are both going okay and send you all the best.

I will try that. It has been hard, because they keep giving me a username for whatever they sign me up to that is offensive in some way and that I won't repeat here, and it sucks because my personal business is tied to this email... but it looks like it might be best to revamp everything and start anew.

Thank you so much for reading, I can't express how much I appreciate it. I already feel a lot better and more safe. Thanks for the insight.

[smallwolf]

if you want to have an email address that you can give away to other people, just setup a 3rd email account that can be used for spam? Just a thought.

You can also setup rules to ensure that delete emails before you see them.