Confused about a person

[saraemerald]

I had someone come into my life and be a friend for me when I was a teenager. She was a little over a decade older than me. I came from a really crappy, weird home life and she seemed to have all her shit together, always busy, perfect house etc so I wondered why she would want to be nice to me and such. She would take me shopping, let me stay at her place, take me out to nice restaurants and pay for my food and help me when I needed help. It was common knowledge in my congregation, that I came from such and such family and eventually started manifesting PTSD symptoms and diagnosed. Apparently, all those years she was friends with me, she made me look worse off mentally than I actually was and had been telling people that I was suicidal but I was not. When I started healing my symptoms of PTSD, both the physical and mental, through extreme self care and therapy, which I paid for out of pocket, she noticed and started saying negative things to me about my recovery and was not happy for me.
What kind of person is this?!
When I used to hang out with her, she would gossip about people all the time, was always in a rush or a bad mood or PMSing. She did so many nice things for me but...
When I confronted her about telling other people I was suicidal, she told me I used to call her up in the middle of the night all the time because I was suicidal and that I just don't remember it.

 

[ladee]

Well hon, this is a classic case of 'gaslighting'... making you question your self on every level.

If this person was from your church, that explains a lot, wouldn't you say??

YOUR truth is the truth... (not church TRUTH).. And sounds like she has a lot of personal issues that have nothing to do with you... try your best to consider the situation and hold on to what you believe...what you KNOW happened..
Just let this be further validation for you leaving and having a life of your own...

 

[saraemerald]

Well hon, this is a classic case of 'gaslighting'... making you question your self on every level.

If t...

Thank you. This person made me feel so crazy when I was going though a spiritual crisis and that's when I started sabotaging all the hard I work i did to heal. Gaslighting. That's what I thought but wasn't sure. This is about the time all my friends stopped talking to me, the ones that were close to her that is

 

[blackemerald1]

What kind of person is this?!

A full on liar!
And your friends...who were close to her not really friends!

It is very undermining behaviour. I wonder what she got out of all this 'charity' work she publicly bestowed upon you? Made herself appear to be so much healthier and better than you and everyone else.

This Saviour type of personality are very messed up. There is always a pay-off and you have found out it was your reputation that got burned.

She will find another unsuspecting person to 'save'. Or people will get sick of her..

old on to what you believe...what you KNOW happened.

Yes this ^^^

You never lost touch of reality...she did. So don't buy into her story...ugh

 

[ladee]

And like I shared, very solid validation that you getting out of there, saved your life !! And if it's people she knew that was shunning you, that speaks about THEM, not you. I am so very grateful you got away from all that. As hard as it's been, you are getting some answers... and it wasn't you..

But situations like that breed this kind of mental illness, at least YOU hightailed it out of there... you made the right choice hon.. tell your self that over and over and over... very proud of you !!!! lots of hugs

 

[saraemerald]

It was so confusing for me to be going through all this. Now I'm putting pieces together so I can rebuild my self esteem and the aftermath of self sabotage and questioning myself. One hell of a minefield to go through at the same time of having a spiritual crisis and starting to doubt and leave a cult on top of all the other BS.
Thank you for your replies @ladee and @blackemerald1​

 

[ladee]

I know you were so confused and hurt at the beginning of your 'escape'... so confused as to why some things were the way they were.. but we get our answers hon, when the time is right... Now you know, it was absolutely the right thing to do... hope your life is getting settled and you have more faith in yourself and more trust, not one thing about ANY of that, was your fault. None of it!!!!

But it takes time for indoctrination to weed its self out... and that woman... goes against everything that is taught in that religion... yet she wasn't having to have a 'talk' with the elders... you did great hon.. now you get to have a good life, without all that noise in your head telling you how 'bad and wrong' you are.. just super proud of you !!

Lots of tender hugs, for all the ones you missed out on... :hug::hug:

 

[saraemerald]

So I wanna know why? Why would cause someone like her to do that to me?

 

[Friday]

What kind of person is this?!

KISA - Knight In Shining Armor.

They need damsels in distress. As long as you are one? They’re good. Once you aren’t? Ditto.

What their motivation is varies. Savior complex, martyr complex, rescuers, codependents, den mothers... list goes on. Some people channel this sort of personality into really healthy outlets... usually by doing it professionally. That way they keep taking on hard cases, but as people get better they can be happy for them, and move onto their next project. People who do it in their personal lives tend to get really attached to the person staying in need of them / not getting better. Not always, not by a long shot, but very commonly. It’s rare there’s any malice involved in it, to the contrary people are often genuinely scared/worried for their damsel in distress... but they’re stuck in that dysfunctional relationship, unable to “let” the person graduate to self sufficiency in their own minds, much less in real life.

 

[shimmerz]

Why would cause someone like her to do that to me?

Because she needed you to be seen as the poor lucky person that she was rescuing and when you got better and didn't look like that poor person again, she needed to put you back there so she could continue to look good. She went so far as to manufacture stories for others so that they could understand how incredibly helpful/saintly/heaven sent/competent/kind hearted she was.

Your ex friends seem to have bought into her engineered sense of reality. Hopefully they will figure it out along the way. I am hoping that you enjoy your freedom from this soul sucker.

 

[ladee]

All of what @Friday shared, but this woman has other things going on.. needing to know the 'inside story', in order to make her self feel important and 'in the know'... the fact she gossiped about others around you, well, that's always a sign she is doing the same about you... I run from gossips...

And you can 'why' this one to death, and in the end it doesn't matter. What matters is how you want to handle it.. How you want to transcend the feelings of betrayal. The whole organization is based on control... so why would this woman be any different.. ?? You just happened to be her target at the time.. if it hadn't been you, it would have been someone else...

So, if you need to ask the big WHY question... ask yourself the WHY's, why are you letting someone that apparently has ill intentions derail you? Why does it matter to you if she lied or not? You aren't around those people anymore. Ask WHY , of yourself... that's the only true answers you are going to get... try not to waste time on answers you or others can only speculate on...

Hoping you see the lessons here, what ever they are.. keeping in mind, the state of mind you were in at the time, not having any 'worldly' experiences to compare it to... and learning to spot people like this, and not get tangled up with them again.... Ask what YOUR lessons are... even if you find out why she did anything, how is that going to change what you still need to do to move forward..??

Sending you hugs, and I know how hard this is for you... but you have also come a long way from those days... :hug::hug:

 

[EveHarrington]

“Why” is a question that rarely gets answered when it comes to human behavior.