Betrayal
It's coming up on five years since the big incident, and it's really been stuck in my mind lately, so I just want to get it out there...
This is a long story and will be continued in replies as needed.
This story involves three people. For the sake of keeping their identities anonymous, they will be called Ino, Pinya, and Myrl.
Ino was my best friend for 12 years, from the time I was 9 to just after I turned 21. I was an awkward kid with undiagnosed Asperger's, and she was pretty much my only friend. For that reason, I overlooked a lot of her abusive behavior. She would physically hit me and insult me, and if I was having an anxiety attack, (which involved bouts of anger), she would completely invalidate my feelings and tell me, "You don't have anxiety, you're just an a**hole." But because she was my only friend, I ignored it.
Around middle school, I met Pinya, and she became a second friend. While we didn't click quite as well, I appreciated the fact that she was nicer than Ino, (she wouldn't hit me, at least). This made Ino insanely jealous, and at some point, she even slapped me in the face because I had followed Pinya to a class instead of waiting for her to get out of class. This resulted in us splitting up our friendship for about three months, but I eventually forgave her, and we were friends again.
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As time went on Pinya began to change. I'm not for certain, but I think she may have had narcissism. She began to go around acting as if she was better than everyone else, putting others down, and if I disagreed with her on absolutely anything, I would get verbally abused and insulted. She was especially manipulative as well, even going as far as to threaten to kill herself if she didn't get her way. At the end of our friendship, I told her how abusive and mean she was being, and she told me to my face, "At least I know I'm better than you." We haven't spoken since.
Beyond that, I didn't learn until about 2 years ago just how bad Pinya was. She and I had a mutual friend, (my now best friend), who I will call Save, (who prefers they/them pronouns). Save lives overseas, about 7 hours ahead of us, and they told me that Pinya would tell them that, if they weren't online to talk to her when she got home from school, she would hurt herself, and it would be their fault. It would be around 2AM for Save by the time Pinya got home. Eventually, Pinya's abuse put Save into a massive panic attack, and they were finally able to build up the courage to block her and cut all contact with her.
Fast forward to around sophomore year. Ino ended up with a medical condition that made her drop out of high school, and for a little while, she was living in another city, so I was only able to talk to her online. We were still fairly close in that sense. After I turned 18, graduated, got my driver's license, and got my first job, I was able to hang out with Ino in person again. By that time, though, she had moved back to the city I lived in and never even bothered to tell me. Regard, I still wanted to hang out with her, and we began to do things together on my days off. Eventually, I learned that she had made a new friend, which was Myrl, and once Myrl found out that I was hanging out with Ino in person, she became insanely jealous and hateful toward me.
When it comes to Myrl, I tried to be friends with her. I put forth the effort for it and got no reciprocation. I even bought her a shirt, and she didn't even say thank you until Ino told her to. Needless to say, we did not become friends.
As time went on, Ino got to where she had to mention Myrl in every conversation we had. This upset me because of the amount of hatred Myrl had for me. When I confronted Ino about it, asking for just a little bit of loyalty, she threw it back in my face, saying I was "jealous and possessive" and that I "didn't own her." Honestly, I don't think a little bit of loyalty is too much to ask for. If someone hated her, I never would have been friends with them. But because I was afraid of losing my best friend, I did my best to overlook it, even if it did still make me angry at times.
The last time I saw Ino, we went to an anime convention together in another state. It was a trip that I had saved up for for 2 years. I paid for the entire hotel room, let her bring two of her friends to stay in the room with us, paid for all her food, everything. For the whole convention, Ino is very distant. She doesn't want to participate in the activities, and all she wants to do is sit in the hotel room and text Myrl. At that point, my gut instinct was telling me something was up, so while Ino was in the shower, I took a look at her phone. I know it's a terrible thing to do, but I'm glad I did it. I saw her conversation with Myrl in which she was complaining about being there the whole time, and the last message I saw said, "I wish you were here instead of Tealinia."
I was absolutely heartbroken. It was the worst betrayal I had ever experienced in my life.
I was a broken mess, crying in the hotel room, and when Ino got out of the shower, I eventually told her what I saw. Ino told me that it was just "ego pandering," trying to make Myrl feel better about not going to the convention, (which I later found out was a lie), and like an idiot, I believed her. Looking back on it now, I wish I would have kicked her out of the room and made her find her own transportation back home... Since I gave her the benefit of the doubt, we finished the convention and went back home.
When we got back home, Ino didn't talk to me for two weeks. I confronted her about that, and she told me, "I can't trust you because you looked in my phone." Like an idiot, I kept trying to hang on, but eventually, I said, "If you don't want me in your life anymore, just say so." So, our friendship ended.
Immediately after our friendship ended, she began to spread lies about me. She told people that she ended the friendship because I had "views that made her uncomfortable," (that I was racist, sexist, etc., which is an absolute lie). I later found out that she had been planning to end our friendship all along, and that what she was saying to Myrl was true. Even further, I also found out that she became friends with Pinya. Birds of a feather, right?
But anyway, that entire experience left me with some serious trauma... It's become an intrusive thought, it's destroyed my self-esteem, and it's given me some terrible abandonment issues that I'm currently trying to work through with the love and support of my current friends.
@Tealinia
That really sucks, I'm sorry to hear. It just reminds me how hard it can be getting over these things, I had serious issues with a sister that sounded just like Pinya.
The funny thing is that you get over the narcissist's behaviour as you realise they just can't help it, but after that you have to deal with other people around you who are still in love with the charming side since they haven't experienced the abuse first-hand. As someone who finds loyalty extremely important, i find this incredibly hard to accept. I've had trouble with my eldest sister because she never took what I said about the abusive sister seriously, and put me in uncomfortable situations as a result then got angry and spiteful when the situation turned stressful as a result (mainly from the abusive sister's moaning and being unreliable and leaving all the work to eldest sister, plus I'd been gradually getting unwell.)
So now I feel alone as my family has taken over 5 years to get on board and let me make my own decisions and validate what I'm saying, It's hard.
I think sometimes we gravitate towards the wrong types of people, luckily I now have started to gravitate towards healthier people and very firmly away from those with narcissistic behaviours. I guess all we can do is try to rely on our better relationships more, try to meet more people and focus on our hobbies/work to make new or better bonds with them. I recently had my first christmas with a friend and her friends, and it was the best one I've ever had and probably one of the best social experiences in a while! And that friend wasn't even that close, but when you meet with welcoming and accepting people, it's so easy to feel at home.
I guess nowadays I just try to remember that feeling so I can embrace it when it comes and form better relationships with those people, but it can be hard to open up and trust. I was triggered just yesterday and felt like curling up into a ball and staying away from everyone. I don't even know why I still get upset as it was three years ago and I felt like I came to terms with it mostly since then, but I guess I'm having a pretty hard time at the moment and it's hard when everyone around you is busy or you don't feel you can trust. The deeper bonds are the hardest to get over, and I'd been close to her my whole life I guess - similar to your relationship with Ino.
I guess I also try to take advantage of my good moments when I feel up to reaching out to people, so even if I am generally tired and introverted I still have my good days when I will organise get-togethers with new people.
(Also if you're still at school, bullying is absolutely the worst because you're all crammed together all the time. the way I dealt with it (apart from moving) was being really focused on my main hobby and making really good friendships through clubs outside of school which helped me feel accepted. Rumours are horrid, and I just tried to disengage with it and made friends with other outsiders through my whole schooling, or others who are focused on their studies/hobbies. They're usually much less interested in the rumour mill, and if you're lucky you will forget it exists too! And remember that school isn't forever and people have a lot of maturing to do still. Also there's always adults who are more helpful than you think if things are really nasty and you don't know who to go to. If one person isn't sympathetic then they are part of the problem, just keep looking until you find someone.)
I hope things get better and that some of that was helpful, all the best.
Just rereading I am glad you have some friends helping you through this, but a therapist really is the best thing and at some universities and schools they are free. It felt daunting to me every single session I went, but I always felt so much better afterwards so as long as you have the right therapist it is definitely worth it. Even with an average therapist they still help you get things off your chest and learn to deal with things better (as long as you don't stop going when things start getting uncomfortable as it's always worse dealing with the tricky uncomfortable stages of your emotions on your own!)
Good luck