Cutting a toxic person from your life thread # 7563

[Twit 2]

I once had a friend like this. She was a raging attention-seeker, thought it was really funny to embarrass people by saying inappropriate things, was incredibly self-centred, and had a knack of steering any conversation to being about her. She was also funny, charming, and a huge amount of fun to be around. Eventually I found her more annoying and exhausting than fun and drifted away, but meh, it was fun while it lasted.

I guess that's how the "superficial charm" you get with some personality disorders works. That said, I get very uncomfortable with the way people are swift to diagnose people with BPD and NPD these days, those things aren't uncommon but I don't think they're anywhere near as common as many would hqve you believe. I don't think my friend was a narcissist, she was just a bit immature, and I later found out she'd been through a majorly traumatic life event which actually went a long way to explaining why she was the way she was. I wouldn't want to hang out with her again but I have no hard feelings.

I hear you about the dangers of armchair diagnosis (I really like Jon Ronson's caveat about going overboard diagnosing everyone you know as psychopaths just because they exhibit some selfish or undesirable behaviour) but he's probably one of only two people I've known in my whole life who I'd bet money on having a serious personality disorder, the other being a boss I had. With my "friend", there's an enormous list of alarm bell behaviour going back 12 years. So I'm not throwing the term around lightly.

[Brundle-Fly]

i cut someone out of my life for becoming a centrist bore

Probably done them a favour then.

[bgmnts]

I am also wary of the rush to self diagnose or armchair diagnose. But then as someone who suffers from depressions, anxiety and hyper paranoia disorder I would think that.

I hope everything has gone well with the cutting off!

[Midas]

Probably done them a favour then.

we all have our limits.

[Jockice]

we all have our limits.

we all have our limits.

Indeed we do. I cut someone out of my life last year. There had been a death in her family, she phoned me up crying, I tried to comfort her, said she could phone me anytime and messaged her for the next three weekends asking if she wanted to meet up but on the final time saying I was only available for a limited period on the Saturday. I'd offered the entire previous weekend to her, despite the fact that I'd have had to cancel something. Later that evening she messaged me saying that she was 'deeply offended', that I should consider her 'circumstances' and it would 'take some time' for her to get over my apparent 'lack of concern.' So, I told her to go away and blocked her.

You may consider this mean but there were major things going on in my life at the time, which is why I was only available at weekends (she knew bits about it if not the full story) but apparently because I wasn't willing to disregard everything and just tend to her every need I was somehow the bad guy.

And we'd fallen out a few years ago over a similar thing, only that time it was because I couldn't say whether I could meet up for a coffee on a certain day because I hadn't been feeling well that week. Nothing had been arranged but she still threw a strop, And incidentally it wasn't her birthday or a concert or a special event. Just meeting up for a coffee. We only started talking again because she emailed me a year or so later and apologised. It won't work again. Leopards, spots etc.

What do you think about that? I realise she was grieving and depressed but one thing that really annoys me is when I try to help someone - if they ask. I don't try and force it on them. I have enough of that stuff done to me - and get it thrown back in my face. I'd just had enough of her conviction that the world entirely revolves around her and everyone else's lives should take second billing.

Incidentally a member of my family is doing something similar at the moment. Apparently the help I'm offering isn't good enough. Fine by me, I'll stop offering it then. No great loss to me.

[Rolf Lundgren]

Knowing when to pack it in was the hardest thing. You put up with behaviour for so long that each degenerative step is tolerated because of how much time and effort has been invested. My own case was a friend I'd known for years but towards the end his personal life was completely unraveling and he did nothing to stop it.

He hadn't worked for years with anxiety but took no steps to improve his mental health. I and other friends were totally sympathetic to the anxiety issues and kept suggesting he should speak to the doctor or visit a therapist but he refused.

While paying no attention to his mental health, he became obsessed with his physical health and was convinced that there was something wrong with his stomach. His diet shrunk to about five vegetables and rice. Endless appointments and tests showed nothing so every time we met I'd have to hear a rant about how useless the NHS are.

He had always been tight but soon enough he wouldn't spend a single penny on his social life, expecting his group of friends to pay for everything. It was tolerated to an extent as we knew he was out of work, one of my mates pretty much bankrolled him at one point, but when you realise every meetup is him moaning about his life without making any effort to improve it, having no interest in any other subject but his diet and you're paying for the privilege then it starts to get on your tits.

The final straw came when it was revealed by his ex-wife (his marriage broke down in between all that but that's another story) that every time he'd come out with us she had always given him money so he could pay his way. When I next saw him and pulled him up on it he completely doubled down. Didn't want to apologise, didn't feel ashamed, told me he'd got used to it and didn't know what the problem was. It was then I spotted the pattern of how much he had taken advantage of pretty much everyone in his life.

And that was it. Never spoken to him again from that day. The thing is if he contacted me to apologise or even showed an effort to improve himself then I would have forgiven him. At one point he was a good friend and I'd rather have a good friend than not but he's never made an effort which to be honest I shouldn't be surprised by.

[Jack Shaftoe]

Long term friend of mine seems to have ended our friendship over the first lockdown, although looking back on it, I think she was quietly winding it down for a year or so before then, taking longer and longer to answer texts and arrange meeting up for a coffee. We'd been platonic best mates since our mid-teens, shared houses through our twenties, all that and finally in our forties, we're both married and I guess maybe she thought it was time to knock it on the head.

I've genuinely grieving over it though, I lost two friends over the last couple of years (as in lost them TO DEATH) but this has somehow upset me on a far more profound level. All those private jokes going back thirty years, all those drunk evenings laughing at our own farts, hundreds of hours of telly we watched together - all faded away like they never happened.

OR - I'm the toxic person and never realised. Entirely possible.

Spoiler alert

No it's not, I'm perfect and always have been.

[close]

[bgmnts]

To be fair, knowing two people literally died just to not be your friend anymore would upset me more I think.

[Jack Shaftoe]

Yeah, but I'd never laughed at their farts, it's a whole thing.

[Jockice]

Knowing when to pack it in was the hardest thing. You put up with behaviour for so long that each degenerative step is tolerated because of how much time and effort has been invested. My own case was a friend I'd known for years but towards the end his personal life was completely unraveling and he did nothing to stop it.

He hadn't worked for years with anxiety but took no steps to improve his mental health. I and other friends were totally sympathetic to the anxiety issues and kept suggesting he should speak to the doctor or visit a therapist but he refused.

While paying no attention to his mental health, he became obsessed with his physical health and was convinced that there was something wrong with his stomach. His diet shrunk to about five vegetables and rice. Endless appointments and tests showed nothing so every time we met I'd have to hear a rant about how useless the NHS are.

He had always been tight but soon enough he wouldn't spend a single penny on his social life, expecting his group of friends to pay for everything. It was tolerated to an extent as we knew he was out of work, one of my mates pretty much bankrolled him at one point, but when you realise every meetup is him moaning about his life without making any effort to improve it, having no interest in any other subject but his diet and you're paying for the privilege then it starts to get on your tits.

The final straw came when it was revealed by his ex-wife (his marriage broke down in between all that but that's another story) that every time he'd come out with us she had always given him money so he could pay his way. When I next saw him and pulled him up on it he completely doubled down. Didn't want to apologise, didn't feel ashamed, told me he'd got used to it and didn't know what the problem was. It was then I spotted the pattern of how much he had taken advantage of pretty much everyone in his life.

And that was it. Never spoken to him again from that day. The thing is if he contacted me to apologise or even showed an effort to improve himself then I would have forgiven him. At one point he was a good friend and I'd rather have a good friend than not but he's never made an effort which to be honest I shouldn't be surprised by.

It's often a final straw that ends the degeneration though. Like the friend I mentioned above. I'd have preferred not to end the whole thing so soon after she'd been bereaved but her reaction brought back stuff for me like when a member of my family (who she actually knew. I've never met a single member of hers) died in the early years of the century, I sent her a message to tell her and she didn't even reply. I didn't hear from her again till the following year. And smaller stuff like expecting me to remember and take her out for her birthday but seemingly not having a clue when mine is.

She's always been very self-centred and needy though but she also has a nice side. And she'd definitely been a bit more thoughtful since I accepted her last apology. However due to my own circumstances at the time of our final fallout I wasn't prepared to have her trying to lay a guilt trip on me. So that's that.

[JaDanketies]

I was friends with my abusive ex after I ended the relationship and for the entirety of another relationship. But my fiancée questioned the integrity of my personality by remaining friends with someone who had damaged me in so many ways, and she had a point so I cut my ex off.

It doesn't surprise me that I form friends with shitty people. I had a hard time growing up with the divorce and split custody really impacting my ability to see friends at the weekend until I was old enough to go out by myself. Also clearly relevant is something that I mentioned on cab before where a guy I knew from 6 to 19 sexually assaulted me via blowjob when I was asleep. I think I'm over this now but that doesn't mean that I don't have long term friendship hangovers from when I'd take anyone who smiled at me

Actually since I'm drunk I may as well say that my mum didn't show any interest in me when I went round there and my dad, who was the custodial parent and built intimate bonds with me, would get really mad at some trivial childish bullshit we pulled, really cos he was stressed about work, and would threaten to change the custody agreement and would sometimes drive is to my mum's and drop us off there 'forever'. He stopped doing it when my big brother lay in front of the car. Nonetheless big bro moved to my mum's a few years later, yet he agrees with me re mum

In terms of mum not showing interest she would send us to this Boys Brigade CoE shit that was like some brutal bootcamp where older kids would be violent and younger kids would demonstrate they had been sexually abused by trying to touch your balls and on the next day she'd lock us out and maybe we' usually spend all day trying to get back in. Sunday was Sunday School and then back to dad's. No time spent with her building bonds. I knew I hated it but it got brought to the forefront with her being all loving to my son and her grandchild. She hugs him but not me.


Funny stuff tho #comedyforum

[Jack Shaftoe]

Bloody hell, some of you poor sods have had it rough. Have a big hug from me you twats.

[Dex Sawash]

YOUR BLOCKED

simple, really

[shoulders]

I was reading this thread last night and it isn't an easy read, hadn't prepared for the effect of reading it all in one go.

I don't have any examples other than some users over the years who were apparently never that interested in remaining friends or keeping in touch. For all my faults I tend to be loyal and try not to let time pass without checking in with people on how they are and if we can meet up. Once it becomes all one way traffic they have to be dropped really.

There's a continuous theme that people who are magnetically charismatic and funny and take you out of your comfort zone tend to be some of the least functional and most disappointing narcissistic friends in the long run. I guess they are just used to people orbiting around them that they never have had to proactively maintain a social life. It must feel hollow having so many loose relationships of convenience though.

[Jack Shaftoe]

I did find out one person in my life (a dad whose kids went to the same nursery as mine so we ended up having coffees together, our families going for country walks etc) who I discovered was a massive nutter after his wife threw him out. Turned out he'd been leeching off her for years, was proper gaslighting her (she kept losing her keys so they'd be late, he'd 'find' them with divining rods etc, she never lost them again after he left), had hit the kids etc and she just had enough one day. Then everyone who knew him compared notes and he'd borrowed sums off all of them and never paid them back, took advantage the whole time, told loads of stories that didn't quite add up, etc.

I didn't dump him exactly, just very carefully let the friendship fade away, politely said I couldn't lend him money, didn't engage when he started hinting his wife had been hitting him (which I already knew was a common tactic) and so on. Basically as soon as he realised he wasn't going to get money or attention out of me, he lost interest and eventually moved away altogether, thank god.

It was the first time I'd actually met a proper toxic personality disorder person though, it was quite eye-opening.

[Bence Fekete]

I feel better now all my friends are dead

[willbo]

There's a continuous theme that people who are magnetically charismatic and funny and take you out of your comfort zone tend to be some of the least functional and most disappointing narcissistic friends in the long run.

I read an article once that said this type of person feels magnetic to us because they don't follow the rules. Like you'll go to Starbucks with them and they'll put their feet up on the seat and steal all the sugar. And you feel like you're with a rock star rebel. But then they start disrespecting your boundaries subtly. And often you can't pinpoint what changed.

[Blue Jam]

I read an article once that said this type of person feels magnetic to us because they don't follow the rules. Like you'll go to Starbucks with them and they'll put their feet up on the seat and steal all the sugar. And you feel like you're with a rock star rebel. But then they start disrespecting your boundaries subtly. And often you can't pinpoint what changed.

Legend Gary innit?

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I had a falling out with one of my best friends from university after an unpleasant incident. Like some other stories here, mental health issues were a major factor. He'd been open about having clinical depression and I tried to be understanding, but I feel like I was actually just enabling his worse behaviour. There was a lot of stuff he did that I didn't like, but I bottled things up to seem supportive (and because I'm a fucking wet flannel, that can't handle confrontation). He frequently lied. Fancied himself an intellectual, but couldn't have an actual debate without losing his rag. He could be quite the hypocrite - e.g. passing himself off as a feminist, then acting very rum about women he wanted to shag. He was also frequently nasty to another friend of ours because they were religious.

After university, we all went our separate ways, but kept in touch. A few of us met up at a pub in London one day a few years later and that was where things went wrong: As drunken lads often do, I jokingly insulted him. Unfortunately, he didn't take it in the spirit it was intended and, turning on a sixpence, angrily asked what I'd said. I've gone over this moment countless times since. Maybe I should have de-escalated things, but in the heat of the moment, emboldened by alcohol and finally fed up with his bullying self-righteousness, I looked him in the eyes and repeated myself. That was it. He told me to apologise, or he'd drag me outside and beat the shit out of me. I stood my ground and he slapped me. My face stung for a bit, but what really hurt was everything that happened in the run up to it. All our years of friendship, cast aside in an instant because he decided I was suddenly his enemy.

He was almost immediately apologetic. I told him I forgave him and stuck around for the rest of the evening, but I never saw or spoke to him again after that. Part of me feels cruel for having ghosted him and I've thought about getting in touch to say no hard feelings several times over the years. It has been years though - far longer than I ever knew him.


Conversely some friends of mine continue to see and support a very mentally ill individual, despite him putting them through way worse than a slapped face. He terrorised one of them into a nervous breakdown a few years ago*. They allowed him back into their lives afterwards and he still flew into a rage, because they had the nerve to impose some boundaries.

*I made a thread about it on here at the time and got upbraided for not being sympathetic enough to the abuser. That still pisses me off to this day. I'm as liberal as you like, but any suggestion that mental illness excuses abusive behaviour can fuck all the way off.

[bgmnts]

I've just realised I was the toxic person people cut out their lives. I wish I was a bit more exciting like some of these folks though, I've been doing it all wrong!

[canadagoose]

*I made a thread about it on here at the time and got upbraided for not being sympathetic enough to the abuser. That still pisses me off to this day. I'm as liberal as you like, but any suggestion that mental illness excuses abusive behaviour can fuck all the way off.

This absolutely pisses me off, it's like in some people's minds it's OK for them to do whatever irrational shit they want but the moment someone admits that it affects them then they're punching down or being ableist or whatever. URGH

[Twit 2]

@Twit 2 how long ago was this?

He mentioned it once a year ago and one more time a few months ago.

[willbo]

my abusive mentally ill female friend was my journey into the right wing and sites like kiwi farms. It happened right around gamergate, and though I wasn't a video gamer, in my trying to make sense of the relationship I had gotton into websites about abusive women as well as MRA/mgtow stuff, so I heard about gamergate through that. It had basically gotton to a point where all the nice/normal people I knew were sticking up for her no matter what she did, and I felt that only the right wing/anti-woman "community" had any care for me or people in my situation, and the chatlogs of that particular young woman (the main target/obsession of gamergate) were very similar to my friend. Real or not, they depicted manipulations of the type she would do.

thing is I met some real saps online who were like "as men we deserve to take the punishment of damaged women, I happily take her bruises as payment for how men treat women" which was garbage IMO. Letting someone act like that isn't fair on THEM, let alone yourself. So I got dug into this state of mind that the right/kiwi farms was the only place to find sense and clarity about mental illness and abuse - it was a choice between their firm "they're trash, avoid them" and "let them hurt you, you deserve it" of the "nice" sites.

[Twit 2]

Please show us the list.

It's written in note form on my phone and a fair bit will not make sense without explanation or context, but it's things like other friends having cut him off, punching a friend, delusions of grandeur regarding a "business" he set up that's just a very expensive hobby, parasitic lifestyle, manipulative/grooming type behaviour, weird comments, attitude towards pandemic, being off with me if I've recently seen other friends, slating friends of mine he hasn't met or barely knows, having a cold "you owe me" transactional view of friendship, his parents in law hate him and when they helped with a deposit (they're rich) for his wife it was on condition he wasn't on mortgage, weird comments such as "I don't know whether to take your tiredness personally" (said last time I saw him, bit of a final straw), expects me to sit in a man-cave that's just a hovel (mountains of beer cans and fags, rotten food etc) while he is incoherently drunk, compulsive lying (of the "I beat up a guy down the pub who was in the SAS" [actual thing he said] type, and stuff that can be instantly disproved with Google), fired from multiple jobs, banned from multiple pubs...the list goes on...

[willbo]

he sounds like this other friend I had before the ones I already mentioned on this thread. Shit... I've just realised I must be a magnet for this type of person. But anyway, this guy was always trying to mess around and play games with people for fun, lying, doing what he thought were social experiments to wind people up, etc.

[Twit 2]

Got an apology message last night. Clocked it this morning but didn't open it and read as I don't want to be thinking about it at work today. It will need a careful reply. The temptation is to give another chance but I will have to let him down gently and make him realise it's final.

[madhair60]

It all sounds very difficult and stressful. Hopefully it can be navigated to a least-traumatising finale

[RetroRobot]

I avoid dating now thanks to the last person like this. Constant degrading comments, gaslighting etc. Yet I didn't leave them instantly after that thanks to my own hangups from childhood neglect. I need to value myself a bit really and I'm working on that now thanks to therapy cos otherwise I'll accept a lot for friendship or relationships.

[QDRPHNC]

Accept their apology, but make sure they know they're "on blast".

[Twit 2]

Yep, sent a message that said we're not going to be friends any more but wish him well, take care, bye.