Unrequited friendships or low self-esteem?

Rowen13

How do I know if a friendship is worth it? I told my online friend that I really loved and cared for him as a friend. He told me he liked and cared for me.

After knowing him and sharing my darkest moments and secrets, it hurts that the emotional/energy level is not reciprocated.

I know I have an anxious attachment style and my last girl friend never loved me back either. He knows about this and I have explained how much it hurts and how I worry that the same friendship dynamic is repeating.

l'm tired of always being the one that cares more? Should I try to care less or just cut ties with my friend and move on? I'm aware I can't control his feelings but I find because I am going through a difficult time in my life already..it's really affecting my self esteem and mental health.

He says he wants the friendship but I wonder if it's better to just cut ties and work on my anxious attachment style. So I can find a friend that I don't continually chase and the emotional investment is more equal.

He use to reply and text all the time and now everything I say seems to irritate him and he never initiates contact. I try to get him to see the friendship is already over but he always repeats that he is fighting to keep me in his life.

I know in every relationship that someone always feels more but after everything we have shared and the level of trust I put in to letting him see the "real" me...it just hurts that I know deep down that I am disposable to him and all the time spent and conversations meant nothing.

Opening your heart and being vulnerable and feeling undervalued just hurts.

I know I am the only one keeping the "friendship" alive because, that's not a friendship at all.

Eagle Ray

Dear Rowen13,

If he is a covert narcissist they can be quite difficult to detect initially. I only recently came to realise a particular aunty and friend both fell into this category. I trusted them and thought all they did came from good intentions until cracks started to show and I began to realise everything about them and how they were relating to me was based on manipulation. What I have learned is that when a relationship is healthy you won’t find yourself questioning their intentions and you won’t feel uneasy or confused after interacting with them. Everything is clear, open and genuine. You feel nourished and enriched by the relationship and genuinely good and peaceful after spending time with the person. So what I’m learning to do is really listen to the body, because the body doesn’t lie. We may think someone is ok but if it feels off at a deeper level, then something’s wrong. I have relinquished all relationships with people now that feel wrong and I’m left with the lovely people where I don’t feel uneasy, weird or confused after spending time with them. Instead it is an enriching, mutually respectful experience.

I haven’t heard of Professor Sam Vaknin. It is interesting to get some insight from the inner world of a narcissist. It is apparently rare that narcissists seek therapy but they occasionally do and may make some attempt to grow and change behaviours. But so many never will and continue the same patterns always. I have realised they are people I find very difficult to have in my life now as I only want authenticity, honesty, kindness and gentleness. I want the simplicity of not having doubt and confusion and that trust is there without question. It does indeed take time to see and know clearly who to trust when things were not safe and trustworthy growing up, but there is a sense of peace and groundedness once you start to know and identify trustworthiness and genuineness.

I understand the feelings of loss and grief, including the “version” of the person you thought you knew. My aunty was someone I had mistaken as like a kind motherly figure, but little by little I realised everything she was doing was a manipulation of me. It started to become apparent when she would start trying to emotionally blackmail me and then attack me when she couldn’t get what she wanted from me, basically when I wasn’t serving her ego in the way she wanted. I was initially really confused and you can fall into the trap of trying to appease them when in fact you’ve done nothing wrong and you don’t owe them anything. I eventually saw through her completely and cut ties.

As you say, it’s hard to know the true nature of your friend when you’ve never met irl. But it does sound like you have been left questioning his intentions and it is an unclear and confusing situation, which aren’t great ingredients going forward. So it does sound healthiest to let go and move on. I really hope for you that you can find some future connections that are really healthy and nourishing with good people. I’m sure you can and those good people are out there and it can just take some time to find those connections.

Take good care of yourself 🤗

ER

Rowen13

Hello ER,

I'm so sorry that your auntie turned out to be manipulative in her relationship with you. It's scary that we cannot trust our own family and heartbreaking when we finally see their true colours. You showed your worth by stepping away from such an unhealthy toxic relationship. You should be very proud of yourself.

My mum and two brother's are narcissistic and both brother's are emotionally abusive and somewhat physically intimidating to me. They make my nervous system alarm bells go off just being around them. It's like I am holding my breath or walking on egg shells. I try not to show them my fear but I have been physically beaten throughout my life, so my anxiety gets triggered all the time. I never feel completely safe. I dream of moving to Melbourne or Sydney and changing my number and cutting all ties to people who have no respect for me.

In regards to the online friendship, I too think it's unresolvable and must be left in the past. It's terrible to feel such a love and bonding with someone who makes your anxiety rise. He was once such an invaluable source of security to me. But yes there was a lot of red flags and I forgot all of them since I was so emotionally disregulated at the beginning of our friendship.

Looking back I see signs of love bombing with numerous gifts, that I told him to stop because it made me uncomfortable. He is a rich guy and because he's so generous with all his online friends I thought I was being over sensitive and ungrateful. He continually said he wanted to be kind and help as many people as possible. On the depression app where we met he was put on a pedestal by so many members and moderators who idolised him. I guess in a strange way I finally wanted a kind man in my life. He often said he "saw me" and maybe he played on the fact my inner child never received the nurturing environment I deserved by my mum. It felt wonderful to be finally seen and validated as someone who was worthy. I know I am enough and the validation must come from me alone.

Sadly I know he used me in so many ways but would over look my guts response to keep him in my life. I continually accepted and went along with behaviour that made me feel guilty and ashamed afterwards. He didn't believe we needed boundaries in our relationship, which is the mother of all red flags. I know I have to forgive myself but it's hard because of course the strong attachment bond is still there.

He is a father to two children and I never had a father, it was something else that made me bond strongly with him.

But I was slowly left lost and unsettled by his treatment of me. He knows I love him and I think that was something he purposely made happen or at least encouraged.

He gave me so many promises but would fulfil none and when I asked on the progress or update of those "promises" he would become vague or make excuses. Most of the time he would just act like he never promised anything. I was never after anything from him, but felt like he was always dangling a carrot in front of my face to keep me hooked.

It's so hard with nice guy narcissist because they display so many wonderful qualities who can never fully trust your perception of the situation. I still am left confused to a degree.

Anyway if he was a narcissist, it was a game I was never going to win. And if he truly is a nice guy, I can no longer continue a friendship with a married individual with my feelings being non platonic towards him. Either way, it all leads to me ending our friendship. I will miss him and God that hurts because I cared so much.

Such is life...

A genuine thank you for all your help and understanding.

Take care,

Rowen13

Eagle Ray

Dear Rowen13,

I’m sorry you’ve had such an awful time with how your brothers and mum have treated you. Remember there is always 1800RESPECT you can contact for support if experiencing family violence or coercive control. You deserve to find a “family” in life who will be kind to you. I think it’s possible to have a non-biological family that gradually builds up over time as you get to know the right kinds of people.

In relation to the description of your friend, there is a type of narcissism that’s less well known but has been given the name communal narcissism. I’m not saying your friend is this because I can’t actually know, but I just wondered from your description. This kind of narcissist presents themselves as very altruistic - a pillar of the community. They will use a community, often a charitable one, to get their narcissistic supply. Others often view them as a benevolent giver and yet it’s not really genuine as the goal for them is to get the adulation and attention. But many fall for the performance and think they’re this wonderful person. If people were idolising him, as you describe, that’s exactly what they’re after. Giving “promises” they don’t fulfil can be part of their manipulative tactic as well. Love bombing and blurring boundaries can be ways they try to trauma bond you to them.

I think when a situation keeps feeling confusing with a person it’s good to step back and reflect on it. If you keep feeling an internal dissonance that something doesn’t feel right, it’s good to listen to that. The friend I mentioned above kept leaving me with an uneasy feeling every time I spent time with her. She asked me a lot of personal questions about my life. I found I was trying to answer her questions but feeling this quite strong and weird anxiety at the same time. Gradually I learned that she was extracting data from me to manipulate. I found she was gossiping my personal information to third parties and it’s a way she sought to gain control in the social setting of our shared friends. She was a former co-worker of mine and she also deliberately acted to destroy a meaningful friendship I had with another former co-worker that she was jealous of. She wanted control of me as “her” friend and control of my personal information. I deeply regretted ever trusting her and began to see clearly through her. She continued to try to manipulate me for sometime after I went no contact by sending lovey dovey text messages. Everything with a narcissist is transactional with a goal to gain from you to serve them. If you get in touch with your intuition this simply feels really bad and you begin to know and sense when it’s happening. Now when I get these vibes from someone my body screams no and I get away from the person and don’t re-engage. They, will of course, then go and seek someone else for their narcissistic supply but may still act to keep you under their manipulative control if they think there’s any chance of still using you. The aunty I mentioned above still does this by sending lovey dovey cards (totally contradicting her abusive phone calls she used to make). It’s a way to try to “guilt” me back into contact with her. Those cards go straight into the recycling bin.

Deciphering narcissism is really important, especially for those of us who experienced forms of manipulative abuse in childhood. I’m finding it does become easier over time to be able sense what’s real and genuine vs what is insincere and manipulative. My mother was a confusing one as she didn’t have full blown NPD but there were narcissistic traits mixed in with kinder traits. Her older brother had narcissistic traits and her younger brother has full blown NPD (was incredibly spoilt as a child while my mum was abused). Mum also fitted some aspects of what’s called Borderline Personality Disorder (a term I don’t like as it’s not really a personality disorder but a trauma manifestation) but she didn’t have all the traits. And she undoubtedly had C-PTSD as did my dad. It’s been very hard for me to decipher other humans over the years, but it’s gradually becoming clearer as I get to know more really genuine people who become like markers of normality and balance that help guide me to know when things are “off” in other situations.

Sorry, that was a bit of a novel I just wrote. Anyway, take care and it will get easier over time to identify good people in your life vs situations that may not be so good. I hope you have a lovely day ☺️

Hugs,

ER

Rowen13

Hi ER,

It's such a complex world we live in isn't it!? I feel highly traumatised by things I allowed in the friendship. I don't know if I can forgive myself and I can hardly stand to be with my thoughts anymore. Day 4 of No contact, so early stages I know but the withdrawals, shame, guilt and depression I feel is overwhelming. My emotions swing from knowing I'm doing the right thing, to missing him, to hating him, to hating myself.

Sam Vaknin is providing me with some relief in watching his videos. It's terrible that he is one of my favourite experts of narcissistic behaviour and recovery. I can't smile if my life depended on it. I have cut one narcissist out of my life to still be surrounded by my first narcissist...my mum.

I understand that pattern of information gathering, I was easy pickings as I was highly emotionally disregulated and vulnerable at the time he met me on the depression app. I know he won't seek me out, narcissists will simply go on to the next. I know what types of source supply I gave him to be picked as a target. But there's a corner of my mind that is worried because he's a cyber expert. I reassure myself that I am not no value to him but yet I get slightly anxious about my internet privacy sometimes.

I am not worth the effort but I wish I could assure myself that I had absolutely closed the door on him. Because of his line of work, I get slightly discomforted that he could track me down. But even if is a covert narcissist, I really don't see him making the effort. He has built quite the fandom or following on the previously used depression app.

Mentally and emotionally, I am reaching peak discomfort today and can't seem to stop feeling down or thinking about him.

I am exercising daily and forcing myself to eat but it's hard because for awhile he was a light in darkness.

I'm trying not to berate myself for not bouncing back quicker. I have tried NC with this guy so many times it's degrading. I thought it was my anxious attachment style so I would return to our friendship and apologise for him to take me back.

But what if I should of been running away from him all along to save my sanity?!?

Why am I so confused. I know I need distance for clarity but I wish the pain was over already.

I guess I hate that I fell for another narcissist after taking 8 years to get over my narcissistic ex boyfriend.

Being premenopausal and dealing with trauma bonding withdrawals is really painful. I feel so isolated. But I felt that before him being a carer for 10 years.

It's so difficult without a healthy non-judgemental support system.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

Hope you enjoy your day,

Rowen13

Eagle Ray

Hi Rowen13,

I have read that trauma bonding is like a kind of addiction in terms of how it affects the brain, so you describing the withdrawal symptoms makes a lot of sense. Given that, I wonder whether finding enjoyable activities that give your brain a dopamine boost but in a healthy way may help to break up the pattern of the entanglement with the situation. So maybe going for a nice walk somewhere new, listening to some new music or finding a new book to read that absorbs you. I’m thinking maybe it would help to shift your neural pathways. Apparently novelty and curiosity can be really good for us. When the curious parts of the brain are activated the trauma circuits shut down. The two can’t be switched on at the same time. For me I love photography and that can really take me out of the ruminating brain and it totally absorbs me.

I think with regard to forgiving yourself, there’s nothing really to forgive. You fell into a pattern that countless others have. You are only human and were doing your best. The number of times I ended up in unhealthy situations is huge and it just took a long time to develop awareness of what was happening. I had to first of all become conscious of what was happening and then develop the skills to know what to do about it. The latter part has involved me finally learning to feel self-compassion, because until I got to that point I could intellectually understand it but I still didn’t value myself enough to fully shift my own behaviour. The self-compassion was necessary to develop a healthy boundary.

I recently saw a video of Robbie Williams giving advice following his own struggle and recovery from long term mental health issues. At the beginning he says, “Ask for help. Surround yourself with good people. Find the others with hearts like yours. If they don’t feel right to be around then they’re not right to be around”. To me that is really sound advice. I think the goal is to be nourished by healthy relationships and experiences. Once that starts to happen life starts to really be experienced as a gift on a daily basis. You can see in Robbie he has reached that kind of point within himself now. If you want to see the short YouTube clip it’s entitled, “Robbie Williams reflects on career-long fight with mental health”. You can see the spark of joy in him at the end.

I feel you just need to find some new environments and new people who are the right ones who will help to shift things for you. In my experience you just have to be in the presence of such people and things automatically start to shift. The greatest value I get from my psychologist is her ability to simply be compassionately present with me. It can be anyone really, someone who works at a local store you get to know or someone you meet by chance at a cafe. Only yesterday I had a lovely chat with a complete stranger at my local Community Resource Centre where I went to get something printed. Today I had a lovely interaction with the staff I’ve got to know at the bakery near me. You start to realise there are gems of experience in daily life. I have struggled with loneliness in my town, but I do think something is shifting in me and a key component of that is self-compassion. And as that happens, my experiences with the world begin to lift and be uplifting.

So I think the nature of our relationships can change. As we walk away from that which is unhealthy we open new opportunities for different kinds of relationships and experiences. As our hearts open to ourselves we become more open to the world and the world more open to us, specifically the goodness in the world starts to reach us instead of the things that are unhealthy. The nature of our existence starts to transform. Transformation can feel uncomfortable initially. It’s very easy to revert to old patterns because it can feel safer based on the adaptations we learned in childhood to feel safe. But eventually we realise those adaptations are no longer needed and are not serving us in the present.

I don’t think you need to berate yourself at all. Just be kind and gentle to yourself and support and be a friend to yourself.

Take care,

ER

Rowen13

Hi ER,

Thank you, as always you are super kind and highly intelligent.

Yes I can't skip the grieving and I even told him it would happen. They I would cry the loss of him, grieve and eventually heal. But knowing the process doesn't make it easier or less emotionally painful.

It definitely helps to learn new things. I exercise daily and do yoga on Saturday's now. But I notice I can only find brief respite from my pain with new things, be it a new movie I can become engrossed in...but it has to make my mind "sit up and take notice". I have watched a lot of Professor Sam Vaknin and will admit he gives me hope. I found him memerising before I knew he was a diagnosed narcissist himself. He is such a brilliant man and I can't afford long term therapy but feel I his YouTube videos is a possible useful tool in my recovery.

I will check out Robin Williams too, such a big hearted, beautiful individual. I have really admired the man for ages, not for his comic abilities but mostly his kindness. At the time of Christopher Reeves' hospital stay, they could no longer financially afford it and Robin Williams paid for it. They new each other from college if I recall reading it correctly. I read a quote where he said something like " Reeves was the class and he was the ass" lol. It sounds like him.

I have hope and then darkness, but healing is not linear and it will take a while. Day 5...still counting the days. I guess when I no longer count it will be a sign of recovery for me.

I don't let myself cry anymore for him, I probably should. I feel heartbroken but I want to disassociate from it. Part of me is grateful because pain is life and pain is how we grow. The other part just wants my friend back, but the "friend" never existed so anger and pain well up. But still I don't cry. Not to prove I'm strong but I have been crying for 50 years and I am so tired of being so unhappy. Tears fix nothing. I will recover and heal. The world is not totally black and white, I also don't believe that all narcissists are truly evil but damaged. We move on for our health and peace not theirs. I know he doesn't miss me even as a friend, I guess that hurts the most. I could never mean as much to him, as he does to me.

But I am grateful because I am finally starting to wake up out of the 50 year ongoing narcissistic abuse and realise I need healing, to ask myself questions and heal my body and mind...so I stop repeating the narcissistic attraction pattern. I don't believe I am or ever was a helpless victim (except in my formative childhood years) but I don't believe adopting the "victim mentality" will serve me long term...well not for the greater good anyway.

As always,

Take care of you,

Rowen13

Eagle Ray

Dear Rowen13,

Yes, the grief is so difficult and I agree that knowing the process doesn't make it easier or less painful. It's really ok to feel it and just be tender and kind towards yourself with it.

I wonder if Prof Sam Vaknin gives you hope because he is a narcissist who has developed a capacity for self-reflection and I'm assuming has grown and changed his behaviours with it? I think when we have had people with narcissistic traits in our lives we still hope and wish for them to heal. As you say, trauma is often a basis for how narcissism can develop in some people. My mum did some terribly narcissistic and cruel things, yet she also did some incredibly kind and insightful things. When she was in the former state, she was dissociatively split from herself. It was like she was two different people. She described her own mother this way - as like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. She never quite knew which mother she was going to get and neither did I.

The Robbie Williams I was referring to is the singer Robbie Williams, not the actor Robin Williams. But I wholeheartedly agree with you that Robin Williams was such a big-hearted, beautiful soul. I read about how he really kept up Christopher Reeve's spirits in hospital with his sense of humour. If you want to see something heart-warming, I can really recommend a video of when he met Koko the Gorilla. It's on YouTube and the title is Koko's Tribute to Robin Williams.

I know what you mean about hope and darkness and that healing is non-linear. So many times I've fallen in a hole again after hope, but I think what I'm finding is that gradually the pendulation between those two things becomes less dramatic and you kind of start to find homeostasis in the middle. It just takes time, like grief does, and there's no set rule or timescale by which it happens or is meant to happen. It's more like an organic process that has to work its way through us.

It is really wonderful to begin to break patterns! I am only just beginning to break several of mine. It's truly empowering, especially when you really start to feel them fall away and they no longer have a hold of you. You are free. It's amazing how much the entanglements and conditioning of our childhoods can dictate our reality, and it's completely understandable that they do so for a long time, as it is all we knew growing up along with the adaptations we developed for coping.

I hope you have a lovely weekend Rowen13 and take really good care of yourself too,

ER