Therapy Writing Session: Mentally Abusive People

 

Therapy Writing Session: Mentally Abusive People

 

A note of caution: This is NOT my usual fiction piece. This is a therapy writing session that I wanted to start this morning, following a work incident that led to a whole lot of stuff bubble to the surface. The only fictional thing at the names that I have changed, because I do not want to hurt anyone that I am writing about.

 

(Josie Sayz: I don’t know what to call this piece or even where to start with writing it. Nothing I am about to say I mean in a negative way. I do not mean any negativity towards any of the people that I am about to mention. I am just trying to understand things. I have been bottling all of this up for so long, because I don’t understand it… any of it. If anybody out there, in cyberspace, can help me to understand the ‘Why’ in anything I am about to explain, I will be very grateful. I cannot let go of something if I do not understand why. It will play on my mind over and over and over again, forever.)

 

Why do mentally abusive people usually seem to have the biggest group of friends? Why do their friends defend them when they are mentally abusive to others? Why do their friends not see that they are doing anything wrong? Why do their friends always say that the victim is in the wrong or has misunderstood the situation? Why do the friends of mentally abusive people think that the mentally abusive person is as good as gold and doesn’t have a negative bone in their body? All of these questions I need answering. I’m lost and confused and genuinely want to try and understand so many situations better.

Most of the time, I am good at being able to see both sides of the story. I can put myself in the other person’s shoes and understand where they are coming from and why. I have helped many people, who I was friends with at the time, get along better and understand their boyfriend/girlfriend more, to the point where all of them are now happily married, when at some point, they were thinking about leaving the person they were dating, because they did not agree on something. However, I seem to have found myself in a handful of situations where I just do not understand why. This can lead me down a dark hole, where I contemplate if my friendship with them was ever real, and if they were faking it the whole time, just to mess with me and make me cry.

This whole thought process spiked up again, because of work. There are three people in my office (of 40 staff) who are very mentally abusive, and often have me as their prime target. I get shouted at, they threaten to report me, tell me I am the one in the wrong and talk about me behind my back weekly – and at times, daily. I can cope with them most of the time. I try to keep a brave and cheerful face around everyone, and if things get too much, I hide in the toilet to cry for a bit and return when I’m feeling better. I try to do the, “Fake it until you make it,” thing. It was when someone else became the mental abusers target that my mind started to think. A colleague approached one of my mental abusers and asked them why they, and the others, treat this new target so badly. The mental abuser was adamant that they had done nothing wrong and defended the others. This now brings another question: Why do mentally abusive people always defend mentally abusive people? Can they no see that what they are doing is wrong? Do they think it is okay to pick on someone who is in the right, because they do not like the rules, and tell them that they are wrong, that they will report them, then gossip about them, over exaggerating everything to make the staff member out to be a monster?

This sort of thing happens to me a lot – and I mean a lot. I guess, I am starting to wonder, is this all just normal everyday behaviour, but because of my Asperger’s and over sensitivity I just cannot cope and think it is worse than it actually is? I am genuinely curious and want advice/answers.

I do not like talking about this next person, and will make this as short of a section as possible, but my dad is an incredibly mentally abusive man. He would tell me that there must be something wrong with me, and I must be a horrible person, because I never had many friends. He programmed my brain to have me believe that everyone was always out to get me that so much was wrong to do or to think. I was too scared to talk to anyone. He always told me that I would never be able to do things, like learn to drive, because I would never be 1) able to afford a car and 2) I would never be able to understand how to do it. He would not allow me to study A-levels at college, because he said I would not be able to understand them and it would be too hard for me. He made me pick a BTec, where I got bullied so badly, I quit and the college guidance counsellor let me study A-levels the following year. Long story short, someone I met, just before my dad walked out (we will call him Peter) managed to reprogram a lot of my brain into seeing that they world is not such a horrible scary place and people can be nice and I could look forward to the future and do things.

When I was at college, doing A-levels, I would not say I had friends exactly, but there was a group of us that did not really belong to any other group, so we were often together. At times, some of this group would skip class to hang out for what I can only describe as a sex, drugs and rock and roll hangout. I would cover for them all the time. I never told lecturers where they were, I just said they didn’t feel a hundred percent and went home. The lecturers would always ask me to pass over any notes or homework to them and I would. I would type or re-write everything up clearly and neatly and hand it over to them as soon as I could. The thing that got to me was that they would lie to the lecturers and say that I never told them about the work and I did not pass any notes over, so they could not do the homework/catch up. I always kept quiet and never spoke of my frustrations, but it kept happening again and again and again. I don’t exactly like Facebook, but for college, we kind of had to have it. There was lots of group work and most of us lived far away, so we did all of our discussions on there. This was back in the day when status updates were a thing. One day, after being pushed and pushed and pushed, I posted the following: “I wish people would stop telling lecturers that I didn’t pass work on, when I did. It’s okay if you don’t want to do it, but please stop getting me into trouble.” My dad’s sister saw it and told my dad that I was a horrible person, I deserve to have no friends and he should take my account away. Maybe I should not have spoken out about the frustration and hurt I was feeling. Maybe the right thing to do was to bottle it up. My dad held this incident over my head all of the time. For years I believed him, but Peter helped me to see that I was not a horrible person for what I said and I was right not to bottle it up and my dad was in the wrong for making me think, all these years, that I was in the wrong.

I want to move away from my estranged father. The less mentioned of him, the better. At secondary school, I was friends with a group of girls, two of which I have since realised were very mentally abusive towards me. We will call the one girl Emily. At the time, I thought we were very close friends. We did everything together. I often let her take charge more because I was scared of everything and I felt safer when she was around. I helped her with her homework, her coursework and her self-esteem. I never felt like her equal and I was never treated as such – picture the popular girl walking around with her minion in toe. The minion was me. Teachers praised her. Everyone (staff, parents, other students) was always telling me how lucky I was to be friends with Emily, as she was such a perfect person. At times, things felt a little one sided, and I was made to feel guilty by teacher, her family or friends if I tried to distance myself for a day or two, just to have my own space. I gave and gave and gave, and she repaid me by spreading rumours around the school about me to make everyone stop talking to me and to this day I do not know what it was or why. My point is, now I understand the world better, it was obvious from fairly early on that she was mentally abusive and controlling of me. So, why did everyone praise her? Why did she have so many friends? Were they all oblivious to it – even the adults? Everyone could see what she was doing; it was never a secret, but I was the one in the wrong all of the time. I am still struggling to see what I was doing wrong.

The other girl I was friends with, we will call Darcia, had some similarities with Emily, but different ones too. School had a similar pattern to that with Emily, however Darcia and I remained friends until five years ago. After leaving school, we went to separate colleges, but would email daily. I would always ask how she was, what she was learning, how her classes were, what she was up to – and I would tell her how my classes were and I would share things with her about my day that she would find interesting. I always balanced sharing what I was up to and responding to things she had mentioned in her previous message and I always asked how she was doing. She had a big group of friends, lots of guys were interested in her etc. I was pleased that she still kept in contact with me. It was now that the things escalated (in hindsight small traces of these red flags were there from time to time, but it was from this point on that things got worse). In every email I sent her, Darcia would tell me that I was being selfish, because all of my emails used the word, “I.” I stopped telling her how my day was and things I was learning. I focused my sole attention on asking her how she was doing, what she was struggling with, if anything. I offered her help and guidance. She still told me I was being too selfish, because I used the word, “I,” and I wasn’t doing enough for her. I would always apologise, ask what she wanted from me and do it. I tried to never mention any of my problems to her. I gave and gave and gave. It continued on this way through college, university and after that. One day, her and her husband turned up to the restaurant that I worked at, as a waitress. They did not wait in the queue to be seated. They pushed their way past people and sat themselves down in my section, at a reserved table, that was not reserved for them. I convinced the manager not to interfere and talk to them and I arranged for a different table to be reserved, as I did not want to cause her any upset. Darcia and her husband happened to be sat next to the number one problematic regular customer and decided to share lots of photos of me and tell personal, private stories to literally the one person in the entire restaurant I would never want her to. I did not say anything to her whilst I was at work, but when I got home, I did email her and say, “Please, can you not turn up at my workplace like that, push through the queue, sit at the only table in my section that was reserved for another customer and share personal, private things about me with other customers. You could have got me into a lot of trouble today.” To which she replied that I am a bully and an abusive person and I make her want to kill herself with how selfish and horrible I am towards her. She claims she was and has only ever tried to be nice to me, be there for me and help me out in life, and I repay her by making her feel as though she should kill herself every single time. She repeated that I was a bully and said she was going to tell everyone how much I have bullied her over the years. Again, as with Emily, Darcia has hundreds and hundreds of friends. Every single person we say that Darcia is the nicest, sweetest, kindest person in the world and that I should be just like her, until they are blue in the face. The snapping at me was not limited to emails and did happen in person, it was just more frequent and easier to explain with the email example – my point is, other witness the way she treated me and would defend her, even though I have done nothing but wait on her hand and foot and give and give and give. Please, explain to me why I have done so wrong here? Am I supposed to just let Darcia take and take and take from me? Am I just that weak that I am the only person in the world that would struggle in that situation?

We then turn to the next person I befriended. This was at university and we shall call this person Melody. I learnt as time went on that Melody was going to become similar to Darcia (however the Darcia and Melody situations were happening simultaneously). Melody was never as bad as Darcia could be and Melody was there for me, on occasions, when I needed her. I think both of them changed a lot when they met their, now, husbands. During university, Melody was always the one that everyone wanted to be friends with. People would talk to me, but then see Melody and go over to her instead. She tried to include me at times, but we were never that close, until it was near the time to leave university. After university Melody became a house wife. She had no job. The house was in her husband’s name. They only had to pay just over £100 a month mortgage. Both hers and his parents would pay their bills whenever they needed them to, would buy their groceries, would pay for their holidays abroad 2-3 times a year and always paid for their regular weekends away and their weekly theatre/cinema trips. I, on the other hand, come from a lower working class background, my family have survived of benefits forever. I am the first to pass secondary school education, first to go to college, first to go to university. I am the black sheep of my family, hated and ridiculed by my dad’s side of the family, who wanted my parents to give me away as a baby, because I was ginger. As soon as I was out of education, my parents lost all of the benefits that they were claiming and I had to get a job and given them the majority of my money, just so we could scrape by renting. Melody did not seem to realise how good she had things. She would complain about the mortgage, complain about bills, complaining that she only got to see her husband in the evenings and in weekends, because he worked all day. Peter, who was my partner at the time, worked nights and we lived apart. I was lucky if I saw him for a few hours once every six weeks. We often would not be alone, as he has a housemate (who I will talk about later) so for the small amount of time I got to see Peter for, I had to share him. Both Peter and I rented (me with my mum and brother, after my dad committed adultery, and Peter rented with is friend). The prices Peter and I were paying, individually, to rent was more than five times time price of Melody’s husband’s mortgage. We had no family to help us with our rent payments or bills. In the four years that we were together, we only went on holiday once, and that was not abroad. I never complained about these things to Melody and I offered my sympathy to her every single time. The problem was, I was not doing enough for her, but I didn’t know how to. I would try to splash out on treating her at birthdays and Christmas, as much as I could. I would always offer emotional support and would tell her that she could always come to me for advice (which I always helped her out on) but I could not give anymore. On day, I needed her (in a situation I will discuss later) and when she did not respond to me, I got scared that I had upset her, that I had bothered her and apologised. She went ballistic at me 1) telling me that she only uses her phone to contact her husband when he is at work and I should have stopped contacting her that way ages ago (although she never told me this before) and 2) I was a bad person for going to her about my problems, when she was suffering. And I was a bad friends for never assuming that she was distressed all of the time and for asking for help when I should have been at her aid, because she was having a bad day, because she had to visit her husband’s family for a meal (which she did biweekly without any issues and got along with his family just fine). I did apologise again, for being so down and upset, and asked her if she was okay and if there was anything I could do, to which she told me I was a bad friend and never wanted to hear from me ever again. Again, I am at a loss here. All I have learnt, so far, is that as soon as you are in a relationship, you are supposed to treat your friends badly and push everyone away. That cannot be right, surely? I feel as though I gave and gave and gave until I had nothing left to give to her. My entire life had pretty much ended. I had nothing left, literally nothing.

I may not have dwelled on the previous point for as long, but I wanted to move onto this next one, while I still have the willpower. This is the worst situation I have ever been in. I tried to end my life, because of this person. This is Peter’s best friend and housemate. We will call her Sally. This is hard for me to write about, even now, four years later. I want to write it and free myself from it, but I am so scared. I hate that this whole piece of writing is me saying negative things about people, because I only want to say nice things about people and be nice. I keep telling myself that I am only trying to understand these situations and free myself of the troubling thoughts that I have bottled up for so long… so long that they keep upsetting me. I have never tried harder to be friends with anyone before than Sally. I tired more than anything, but she broke me and I am still being made to feel as though it was my fault. To talk about Sally, we also need to talk about the one I earlier called Peter. Oh goodness, this is hard. I am typing this during my lunch, at work, and I do ever so well at the ’Fake it until you make it,’ thing, by pretending to be okay when I am not. I can appear happy and bouncy the majority of the time, but I am close to crying and I have not even typed anything yet. Okay Josie, breathe.

Emily is eight years older than me, but her personality is what I can only explain as that of a 13 to 16 year old with an attitude problem, that thinks they know everything about the world, and no one can tell them what to do, when they are so far from reality. There is no seeing reason with them. They refuse to allow anyone to have an opinion about anything, other than their own, as every other opinion is wrong. I can get along with almost anyone, apart from people with this personality type. It is just so hard for me to get along with someone who constantly disregards everything that I say, especially when I am trying to connect with them. And I tried and tried and tried. Something else I want to mention, that is not necessary, but being as I am letting go of everything that I am bottling up, I might as well include this to. I do not think that Peter could not understand or would not accept that I can have a one-on-one conversation with anyone and be completely okay (obviously depending on the situation) but as soon as there is a third person in the room or conversation, I struggle. I do not feel comfortable, I do not want to be there and I often will do anything I can to leave, even if the other two people are both my best and closest friends. My mind has always done this. There is no way to change it. There is no magic pill to correct this. I have tried various therapy things, it makes other things that my brain struggles with worse. I have had a therapist tell me that the only way to help myself get over stuff from my past, is to move out and live with someone that I trust. It has to be just me and them, no third party, as I might as well stay where I am and struggle, because they say, “It’s better the devil you know.” My therapist said that whether it is a friend, partner or family member, it needs to just be me and them in our living space. Then and only then, within three to six months will I start to see an improvement. And then, if I do still have any significant struggles (which my therapist said is quite unlikely and with the right person in my life, I should be able to get by relatively comfortably) then after six months of settling into a peaceful and safe, structured living, then they can decide what help, if any, I might need.

Before I get on to the main thing, it feels necessary to mention this one thing that really hurt me. There was an occasion where my mum and I were having a clear out and we offered Peter and Sally a bookcase. Peter had no need for it, but he said he would take it for Sally. Peter picked me up that day, to spend a few hours together, and we brought over the bookcase for her. When Peter told her it was in the hallway, would you like to take a guess as to what her response was? I am not one for encouraging people to leave comments, or interact with my blog in any way, but before reading on, leave a comment, guessing her response. Completely ignoring that I was even in the room at all, she clapped her hands together and said, “Excellent.” That was it. Not a thank you to me or my mum for giving it to her. Oh and she knew I was there. I was sat on the other side of Peter, she had seen me come into the room with him. I was there. I was in the room. That hurt me. It still hurts me to this day. And what hurts me more is that Peter could not see that there was anything wrong in that. Please, tell me I am not the only one that feels that Sally should have at the very least, just a muttered, “Thanks.”

Okay, so now we are getting to the big thing. I ended out working for Sally. I did not want to. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew it was the worst idea in the world. I was out of work and Peter told me working for her would be good for me – I knew it would not be, but I he was instant and I had to prove to him I could do it. I know he was only trying to help me, as I had several failed job interviews after being forced to leave my waitressing job, due to third degree burns to my hand (long story for another time). Sally was a new manager and was short of staff. Peter thought it would bring us closer together and he could make everything be the three of us, which was what he wanted. To begin with, things did go well and I was able to get along with Sally and could cope with the dismissing my opinions occasionally and her agro, irresponsible outburst. It was when I became her deputy manager that things took a turn for the worst. She would tell me that I was not grasping things (when I was) but she would tell Peter I was. She would interrupt me talking to customers to tell me to take my break. I would continue helping the customer out before going, to which she would constantly comment that I was being selfish and ruining everyone else’s lunch by doing so. I would never take my break. I was entitled to 30 minutes. I would go to the toilet, eat a biscuit and be back down within five minutes. I would then be told off for taking too long, when I did not take a lunch break at all. She would tell me that I was not capable of doing any of the deputy manager related tasks, and would say that she would get a 14 year old volunteer to do it instead (I was 26 years old, at the time). She would tell me daily that I did not work hard enough or that I was not good enough. She went against all other places I have worked in’s health and safety and tell me to chase after thieves down the street – despite it being well known in the area that thieves employed the elderly to steal and the thieves would sit in cars outside stores, with machetes. She would throw things at me, swear at me – sometimes it was under her breath, sometimes it was out loud. I have several regular customers that would say to me, “Who does she think she is?” and, “Why do you let her talk to you like that?” People told me to report her and that they would back be up, but I knew that never could. She was Peter’s best friend and if I did, it would hurt him too. I tried harder with Sally than with anyone ever. One day, in the middle of the shop, in front of customers, she said to me, “Pete’s only with you ‘cause I’m gay. If I wasn’t, he wouldn’t need you.” Wow, I’ve been holding that in for the past four years. That felt odd to finally write it down. Again, I did not retaliate. I just said, “Okay,” and left it. Now Sally was not like this all of the time. It was almost as if she did not know that she was doing or saying these hurtful things. Moments later, she would act like she was my best friend. I am not sure if this was a caffeine thing or a medication thing or if she really was consciously going out to hurt me, but every single day, I felt attacked. I would go home crying every single day. When Peter asked how my day was, by text, at first I lied and told him everything was fine, but as this went on I would just say, “I’m struggling,” or, “I can’t do this.” If he ever asked why or what was wrong, I would have to tell him that I could not tell him, because he would never understand and I was right, because when I eventually tried to, later, he did not believe me.

Okay, so I tried and tried and tried to get along with Sally, I really did, but I could not last longer than six weeks (six full days a week, for six weeks). One day, she told me that she was making me a rota so that I only had to come in on the days that she had put me in for (I was only working part time). She purposely put me down to work the days that Peter did not work (he was not working days) so that we could never ever see each other. I asked her if there was any way that we could change it and she told me she was the manager and what she said goes. I cried to Peter, by text message, telling him that because of work I would never be able to see him again. He spoke to Sally who denied everything. She said to Peter that he and I could spend his days off together, but she told me that we could not. There was an outing with my our store and a neighbouring one, to which Sally made me feel even more uncomfortable, to the point where I ran away from the group, and went home crying. The next day at work, Sally called me into the office to yell at me for leaving and I could not take it anymore. I threw my store keys at her and told her I give up and I could not do this anymore and I never wanted to see her ever again. I went home and emailed the area manager, resigning, stating that it was a bad idea for me to work for Sally in the first place and the situation felt as though I was being bullied. Of course the area manager phoned Sally immediately, who phoned Peter immediately, who texted me telling me that I got it all wrong and I had to retract my statement immediately. I did not retract my statement, but I also did not take it further or give any details and told the area manager not to look into it further. Several days later of not talking to me, I got to speak to Peter about it for a few minutes. No matter how hard I tried to explain things, he just did not understand what I was saying. He just kept telling me that I was under a lot of pressure (both at home (things are always bad for me at home) and work) and I misinterpreted everything that happened and I should apologise. I couldn’t. I could never apologise to her. Sally ruined everything for me that day. When Peter did not believe a word of what I said and told me he was not sure if we could even be friends, because of what happened, I lost control of all of my thoughts. I lost control of my brain. Peter was the one who saved me. He was helping me relearn everything about the world. Peter had been there with me through so much, he was helping me to build my happily ever after, where I wouldn’t be mentally abused everyday by my dad. We had spoken of a safe future, something that kept me going when everything at home made me cry constantly. He was the reason why I could cope with now being the head of my household, having gone from being treated like I was five years old all of my life, to being in charge of keeping a roof over my mum, brother’s and my brother’s girlfriend’s head. The one person that I cared about most… that I wanted to be there for, in both the good days and the bad days… he was gone. Sally knew what she was doing; it was only a few days before that she said Peter did not need me, but he did her. I wrote Peter a letter, telling him how much he meant to me and I wrote Sally a letter telling her how I was not going to hide from her anymore and I was not lying, I was finally brave enough to be honest, I walked six miles to where they lived, posted the letters, then tried to drown myself in the canal.

Do I have a huge sign on my head that reads, “Please, mentally abuse me, until I can’t take it anymore,” or something? Or is that why they say, “It’s the quiet ones that you have to watch out for?” because the quiet people are the ones that cannot cope and eventually after you keep pushing them and pushing them and pushing them, they will snap, answer back and stand up for themselves. Or are all of the actions of the people mentioned normal and I just struggle to cope? I really am curious. I am wanting to understand all of this. I now have no one and, on occasions, my mental health is the best it has ever been. I struggle a lot. Following the 24 years of mental abuse from my dad, Peter saved me so much and helped me so much. I would not be the person I am today if it was not for all of the kindness and friendship that he showed me, up until the Sally incident. Not having Peter as a friend still affects me on occasions. I guess me not being able to get along with Sally ruined any possibility of us being friends. It’s funny, writing this has helped me to let go, a little, of every single situation, but it has made me miss Peter again. I had been fine lately leading up to writing this, well I had tried to be. For these things to always happen to me surely I must be the one in the wrong. Maybe I have caused all of these people to become mentally abusive? I cannot post this, surely. I do not want anyone to think that I am saying anything negative about anyone. I am so scared that this is all going to be taken the wrong way. All I want is to clear my mind and have someone tell me, for once, that I am not in the wrong. That I am not crazy. I want someone to explain to me why these bad things keep happening. I rarely let people near, and when I do, I value their friendship above all else, but they always hurt me every single person every single time. I just want someone to point me in the right direction. At least I feel better, having finally made the first step towards letting go of all of this I have been holding in for years and years.

 

- Josie -