STRUGGLES

Narcissism and Abuse in Unexpected Places

How a childhood friendship has shaped my life.

This is a deeply personal story, and I’ve been in two minds about whether to publish it. But I’ve decided that it should be in the world. If it reaches anyone else who can relate even a little to my experience and helps them to feel slightly less alone, that will be worthwhile.

Honestly, I still can’t decide whether this is truly harrowing to read or just a pretty normal experience of growing up that I’m totally blowing out of proportion. I flit between the two constantly. Anyway, here goes.

The single most traumatic event of my life was breaking up with my best friend at school.

I’m quite aware of how ridiculous that sounds.

So ridiculous that right now I’m telling myself that everyone reading this is thinking, “well, she must have had a pretty sheltered life if that’s the worst thing that ever happened to her”, and I’m resisting the urge to justify myself by telling you about all the other “actually” traumatic things that have happened to me so you can understand that this is still #1 even in that context.

So ridiculous that almost 30 years later, I’ve still never spoken to anyone about what happened and the impact it had on me because I’m both ashamed of allowing it to happen and embarrassed to be making a big deal out of it.

So ridiculous that whenever I have thought about it, I have twisted it into some form which makes it all my fault, that I surely just over-reacted, that I was just too messed up already, that somehow my behaviour brought out the worst in her, encouraged her, provoked her.

I mean, sure, friendships can be tricky things, especially as a teenager, but it’s all just part of growing up, right? To call it traumatic is surely an overly dramatic exaggeration. And to refer to a 13yo girl as a narcissistic abuser really is just ridiculous.

But it was real. It was deeply traumatic for me, and it’s time for me to tell my story.

I can’t remember exactly when and how we started getting close. It was over the course of our 3rd year (of secondary school — so aged 13/14). She had been put a year ahead, so she was a year younger than me. On the face of things, we had a lot in common. We were both smart and nerdy, and both came from less privileged backgrounds, being on full scholarships and assisted places at our private girls’ school. We even had a similar taste in music. So I guess it was natural that we would be drawn together.

Before long, we were pretty much inseparable. Being at boarding school, we were together literally 24/7. We went to every class together, we spent all our free time together, and we shared a bedroom (dormitory).

My home life wasn’t happy at the time. My mother, who was raising me and my two younger siblings alone, had had a mental breakdown a couple of years earlier. She spent a lot of time as an inpatient in the psychiatric hospital, and I often had to spend the holidays with friends or relatives or home alone as the sole carer of my siblings. Whilst I got on OK with my other classmates, I didn’t really have any other friends. So my friendship with her felt like the only positive stable thing in my life. She became pretty much everything to me. I loved her deeply.

I do remember the first time she physically hurt me. We were messing around in an empty classroom, play fighting. I must have accidentally caught her too hard, and she just flipped. Laid into me with fists and feet until I was cowering in a corner. She may have been a year younger, but she was physically larger and stronger than me. And besides, I didn’t fight back. The line was drawn then. It was OK for her to hurt me, but not for me to hurt her.

It would be the first time of many.

I don’t think she ever apologised for her temper or for hurting me. It was always me who apologised to her for whatever I’d done to trigger the outburst. It usually happened when I won a game or excelled at something.

Looking back, the primary feeling I had following these episodes was shame and guilt. Shame that I had done something to provoke her, that I had failed to appease her, that I had done something to upset her, not recognised that my actions were hurtful, that I had allowed this to happen.

I was also ashamed of the physical marks on my body. Bruises served as a constant reminder of my failure. School uniforms often didn’t provide much opportunity to cover them, but I always had an explanation ready to counter any casual inquiry as to their origin. I seldom needed to use it.

However, far worse than the physical attacks was the ghosting. Any minor contravention of an unspoken rule could lead to being completely ignored for hours or days. Since we lived together 24/7 in unavoidable proximity, this was unspeakably awkward and unbearable. She would pointedly spend time with other people whilst refusing to acknowledge my existence in any way. Sometimes I would try to make amends, apologise, beg forgiveness, but this was usually met with further rejection or verbal abuse.

I grew to long for the physical attacks. At least it was attention. Contact. And they were usually the end of the matter so that we could go back to a semblance of normality.

When she decided she’d had enough, she’d just behave as if nothing had happened, with no acknowledgement, explanation, or apology. And I would gratefully fall back into line.

My life was a constant and unsuccessful attempt to walk on eggshells to avoid triggering her. And of course, even during the good times, she would constantly insult me, put me down, and call me names.

And then there were the raps.

In the days before the internet, free time at school was often filled by playing cards. We played a number of games, and often we played for “raps”. For those unfamiliar with this, it meant that the winner delivered a number of blows to the back of the loser’s hand, using cards. The pack was split to determine the number of cards to be used and the hardness of the raps (black soft, red hard).

The preferred technique involved bringing the cards down on the back of the hand near the wrist, then dragging forward off the knuckles. She, of course, played to win, and I got extremely good at losing. And she took obvious pleasure in inflicting as much pain and damage as was possible whenever the opportunity arose.

The worst damage was achieved with a small number of cards, which could be folded into a point that would gouge a channel down the back of the hand. Applying as much downwards force as the cards would withstand, and of course, applying multiple repetitions to the exact same spot. She was particularly brutal when I dared to join a group game whilst she was ghosting me. Yet even this was better than the alternative of being completely ignored.

If I look closely, the scars are still visible on the back of my hands 30 years later—little silver reminders.

I told myself that she was just immature; she was younger than me, after all. That she also had a lot going on at home. That it was difficult for her to deal with the pressures of keeping up with academic expectations. That it was better for her to be taking this out on me than on anyone else. That I was helping her by giving her a way to let off steam and express herself safely. That she needed me to love and accept her regardless of these behaviours. That no-one else understood her the way I did. That someone else might be less capable than me of dealing with her and get really hurt. That maybe my love and support could help her mature and learn better ways of dealing with things.

I never ever felt angry at her for the way she treated me or blamed her for it in any way. Not then, and not since.

As if all this wasn’t convoluted and confusing enough, we can add in some elements of emerging sexuality.

Naturally enough, as teenagers, a significant part of our conversations (when she was speaking to me) revolved around sex. We shared crushes on (male) members of rock bands and talked about fantasies in sometimes graphic detail. None of that is unusual, I’m sure. Neither of us had any actual experience of real-life sex or relationships.

At some point, I realised that I was becoming sexually attracted to her. I don’t think that we ever explicitly spoke about this, but she did often tease me, whether deliberately or not. Role-playing scenarios and then pulling away in disgust. It became another way to humiliate me and emphasise my unworthiness.

Confusion about sexuality, experiencing attraction towards friends, and experimentation is, of course, not unusual at this age (or any age, I guess). But the context of the rest of the relationship certainly compounded my confusion. It increased the depth of our shared experience and deepened the loss when her attention was withdrawn.

Was I attracted to girls/women in general, or just to her? Was it just because of the nature and intensity of our relationship? (Although I do remember that someone gave me (perhaps ironically) a pin-up calendar of Pamela Anderson for my 15th birthday. So maybe there were other signs…)!

And, of course, I would never have dared to actually speak to her about it or express my feelings. That would have carried the risk of the ultimate rejection. I had no reason to think she had similar thoughts about me or, in general — any fleeting moments of intimacy were only ever in the context of role-playing a M-F interaction.

All this continued for around two years. The periods of ghosting because more and more extended. Sometimes she would tell me that she couldn’t do it any more. That I was too dependent on her, that I wasn’t good for her, that she needed freedom from me. But after a few days or weeks, she would “give in” and start speaking to me again.

Until one day, from no-where, she decided that she’d had enough. She told me that she no longer wanted anything to do with me. And she never spoke to me again.

It was shortly before my 16th birthday, near the start of my 5th form year.

Now it was not just ghosting but active animosity. She would leave a room if I entered, slam a door in my face if I happened to walk down a corridor behind her. Throw my things on the floor if she came across them. Once, the only available seat for dinner happened to be next to her. So I sat on it. She flung my dinner tray onto the floor and screamed at me for daring to come near her. She became close friends with anyone in the class I had any form of acquaintance with and persuaded them not to speak to me either.

I managed to arrange a change of bedroom, so at least I had some space away from her, but we still shared every class and every common area.

I spent most of that year crying. Devastated doesn’t come close. It felt like I had lost everything—pure raw grief. I felt utterly and completely alone.

She left the school at the end of the year, and I have not heard from, or of, her since. Occasionally I look her up on social media out of curiosity, but she has a relatively common name and/or little public presence and/or has since married or changed her name, and I’ve never come across any trace, which is probably for the best. I’m not in touch with any other of my classmates from school either.

Over the years, of course, whilst they remain with me always, the intensity of these events has faded. I have learnt to pull myself together and get on with life. But the long term and ongoing impact on my self-esteem cannot be over-stated.

I have had very few close friends in the 30 years since school. I’d say I find it hard to trust people, but that’s not quite right. It’s more that I do not allow myself to depend on them in any way. To become emotionally attached to them. The thought of forming that kind of attachment and then losing it is too much to bear. So I keep my distance.

I can interact casually with people decently enough, but they don’t get to come close. Not really. All my relationships, even I’m ashamed to say with my husband and children, albeit to a lesser extent, are somewhat at arm’s length. I’m always thinking about what the other person will think about me, whether they’ll be upset, whether they’ll reject me. And I still get extremely anxious about winning games.

I remember an occasion very vividly when I was playing ping pong with my husband on holiday—a totally casual game. And I was winning. All these feelings just came flooding up. I realised that I was genuinely worried that he would be angry and reject me if I beat him at ping pong (to be clear, he has NEVER shown any indication of this kind of behaviour — and we had been together for 13 years at that point). I pushed through the anxiety and won the game. He was no more than very slightly put out and continued to talk to me, as any reasonable person would do. And I secretly considered it a significant personal victory.

I have been working through other aspects of my childhood in therapy recently, and there are clearly other factors that have impacted my self-esteem and mental health. But honestly, this consistently overshadows all of them. Nothing else has so thoroughly taught me that it is not safe to be myself, that winning is dangerous, that I should avoid upsetting people at all costs, and that loving someone means that you allow them to treat you however they want and accepting them regardless.

I’ve continued to make excuses for her and blame myself over the years. After all, she was just a child. She no doubt had her own problems. I allowed it to happen by not fighting back or standing up for myself. My dependence on her was an unreasonable amount of pressure and responsibility for her. It was an unfair situation to put her in, and she just dealt with the situation in the best/only way she could.

And then I find myself re-interpreting the whole thing. Did I, in fact, abuse her? By guilt-tripping or coercing her into staying friends with me even though she was uncomfortable with the dynamic. Did I put too much pressure on her? Did I impose unreasonable or inappropriate sexual expectations? Over the years, I’ve doubted my memory and interpretation of every single aspect of our relationship and the events that occurred.

I’ve only very recently realised that, in fact, the dynamics of the relationship fit the hallmarks of narcissistic abuse very closely. Her behaviour towards me was not justified, no matter the situation, and most importantly, none of it was my fault. I did nothing to provoke or encourage her. Physical and emotional abuse is not a reasonable or justifiable response to anything, especially someone who is overly dependent on you.

The realisation that has hurt the most, that still hurts every day, is that she never actually cared about me at all. She actually enjoyed hurting me. Her ability to look me in the eyes and watch the pain as she gouged the back of my hand with cards until it bled (and then keep going) should have told me that.

But that realisation has also been the route to allow me to begin to release some of my thoughts around this. I have realised that whilst my goal, my need, was to make her happy and to earn her love and acceptance, her goals and needs from the relationship were very different.

She needed the ego boost that came from me wanting to be with her and from her ability to control me. And that came through keeping me hurting and guessing and failing.

Our needs were fundamentally incompatible.

Nothing I could possibly have done would have made this “work”. Would have made her happy. She would never have loved or accepted me, no matter how perfectly I navigated her triggers, how carefully I engineered losing every game, how stoically I endured the pain she inflicted. Her interests were vested in me failing. There was no “enough” that I could even theoretically have achieved.

In a way, I guess I did succeed. I met her needs very well for a while. Until for whatever reason, I didn’t. And then, I continued to meet her needs by visibly suffering due to her withdrawal for an extended period of time. I can’t help but think that it never really made her happy.

One thing that bothers me looking back on all this is that it happened in the confines of a boarding school. There was not just one but a whole staff of supervising adults responsible for pastoral care. And whilst little of this happened in direct sight of adults, I find it hard to believe that there were no signs that things were not right.

I did little to hide my misery during periods of ghosting, or indeed during the whole year following her dumping me. Not to mention the visible cuts and bruises on my body. Yet, I don’t remember a single occasion where any adult offered any meaningful support. They would, of course, have been aware that things weren’t great at home and maybe assumed that was the reason for my unhappiness. But surely that would also have been reason enough to offer support. Perhaps I just was better than I thought at hiding it. Or perhaps attempts were made to offer, and I refused. I don’t know.

I’m not even sure what support could have been offered that would actually have helped. I certainly would have strongly rejected any suggestion that I should break ties or stop being friends with her. And I was so deeply ashamed of how I was allowing her to treat me and how I was to blame for it all that I doubt I would have been willing to talk openly about it to anyone. I guess it would just be nice to know that someone cared enough to try, you know?

I also sometimes wonder about the impact this all had on the other kids in the class. It must all have been pretty uncomfortable to witness. I somehow feel bad about that too.

But there is a light at the end of this tunnel. Now I have brought all this out into the light; I can press forward in the work of re-building myself in the light of these new realisations.

I’m working on building some new, stronger inner beliefs.

That it’s OK to be myself, it’s OK to win, and it’s OK to enjoy winning, even if someone else is upset at having lost. That no-one has the right to hurt me, no matter what. That loving someone does not mean giving them permission to hurt you. That love can co-exist with boundaries.

And that maybe I’m gay or bi-sexual. And that’s OK too. But that’s probably a whole other story!

Originally published at https://slaythestatic.com on March 9, 2021.