So, I have been gone a very long time. This is going to be a series of posts that explain what happened and allow me to say goodbye.
Physically, I am fine. I am healthy and safe.
Emotionally and mentally, I'm healing.
From 2007 until December 25, 2020 I was best friends with an emotionally abusive narcissist. In that 13 years, I allowed this woman full access to my child and my life. I ignored the abuse that my daughter was enduring and didn't realize that I was being emotionally trained as a lapdog. I did not know that I was being manipulated and erased.
It started like a normal friendship, but quickly became far more. B infiltrated my life like a cancer that I thought was a gift. B changed my life in some good ways too, but all of it feels tainted by who I allowed myself to become.
I don't want to write about 13 years worth of memories. Lots of them are in this blog.
My daughter told me for years that she was unhappy and needed to not have B in her daily life. I ignored her. I made excuses. I was so delusional that there are entire gaps in my memory of things that my daughter went through. She'll tell a story and I will truly not know what she is talking about. She's not lying. These things actually happened and I DON'T REMEMBER THEM! I don't know that I will EVER forgive myself for doing that to her.
When I met Chris in 2014, things started to change. All of a sudden I was doing everything wrong. I apologized constantly because it seems I was always upsetting B. We went over 3 nights a week for dinner and spent many other evenings there.
Chris came over shortly after we met for dinner and to meet everyone else. (B was there when I met him) B cooks. She cooks well. She is also very intense about people "disrespecting" her food. Chris simply asked to not have the sweet potato fries with dinner. He was polite. She cut her eyes over to me and I knew it was going to be bad. She "joked" with him about hating her food. Chris felt terrible that he had upset someone who had welcomed him into her home. He doesn't care for sweet potatoes. She says that's when she knew he was bad news. She "joked" that he probably had people buried in his basement. Every day became an exercise in how far she could go in disparaging Chris. These weren't the little barbs she flung at my daughter which I had stopped even thinking were strange. These were blatant and pointed insults. I took it. I thought, well, she's just adjusting. I made more excuses.
I tried to switch our Mon/Wed/Fri schedule to Tue/Wed/Fri because Chris had Monday's off. That started a meltdown of epic proportions, but it was a slow melt. One of the kids told me that they were unhappy about something but didn't know how to talk to B. I talked to her and the meltdown that had been little nitpicky things exploded. I was never there anymore so how could I tell her that one of her kids was unhappy? I no longer needed her because I had Chris. I was abandoning her, S, and the kids. I felt awful! How could I be doing this to one of my best friends? I backed down. Again.
A year after I met Chris, 2 of the kids (Kimberly and R) had a school concert. My father wasn't able to go and neither was Kimberly's father. B, S, the other 2 kids, and Papa came to see the kids. Chris and I came to the concert. There was ONE person in that room that was there especially to see Kimberly and that was Chris. Chris and I got there first. B and the family came in looking around. She saw us and went and sat on the other side of the room because Chris was there. Knowing how hard things for me in public were at that time. Knowing that I was having massive anxiety being in a crowded room, and I know she knew these things because she had anxiety as well. I was so upset. During intermission, R came up to me, hugged me, and thanked me for being there. I asked if their mom was okay. They shrugged. I was so angry. I managed, out of not wanting to disappoint my daughter, to hold back my panic attack until I got home that night. I fell apart. The next morning, I did not stop by. B called. We fought. Our friendship was over I thought. I was devastated. We kept a civil relationship so our kids could still hang out and I could see the Hobbits. I will never regret having the Hobbits in my life. I love those 3 enormously.
One day, early in our friendship, B told me that one day I would leave her because everybody leaves her. That was a little bit of foreshadowing that I let slip by.
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