Help Me Understand What Is Going On.

[Fadeaway]

A few months back a woman moved into my building escaping a DV relationship out of state with her teenage daughter. We hit it off and became great friends super quick. I felt extremely comfortable with her right away which is practically unheard of for me. We both had similar traumas and our mothers could have been twins, so I felt like I was able to be myself and not hide my PTSD self like I do with my non-trauma survivor friends. We also had a lot of other things in common.

She is was in an extremely bad place No money, father passed away shortly after we met, while trying to file for her divorce papers. While my husband and I don't have much, we helped make sure she had gas in her car and food on her table. She reciprocated in driving me places and stuff.

Everything changed last week. My building has a roach problem, but we never had much trouble with them until a couple of months ago. In my lease part of my rent pays for pest control, but despite my numerous requests to my building manager, no one ever came out. Well over 20 times they told me that they had put me on the list to have someone come out, but no one ever came.

My friend was able to get them to come out so I asked her to help me talk to the manager because she is more assertive than I am and I felt very pushed around by them. The told me they would put me on the list. I got visibly upset, and in her words freaked out. I had been told they would put me on the list so many times, and my frustration with not being able to get rid of them while they seemingly didn't care really got to me.

So fast forward 2 days. (Last Friday) They finally came out. Having never dealt with roaches before nor experience with pest control, I was unaware that I needed to box up my food and take it with my husband and I and out pets out for the day while they sprayed. So they just laid down some bait and told me they would come back Monday so we could arrange to be gone.

This is when my friend started acting weird. I would text her and she would only reply TTL8R. I asked if she was mad at me but I got no reply. This went on until Tuesday, her birthday. I had wanted to do something nice for her birthday because she is a good mom but doesn't treat herself well. I got no answer from her so I sent my husband to check on her as I was worried about her.

She told him she was pissed at me because the bug guy told her I refused to let him in the door. Hubby came down and told me that. i sent her a text and the short and edited version of it was

Me~ he did come
Her ~ but you refused to let him in
Me~ He did come inside, I was asleep but my husband let him in.
Her~ Liar, you didn't let him in after I put my neck on the line for you to get them to come out.

(Multiple back and forths of me insisting he was let in, and her saying I was lying about that) I told her to let my husband and I come over and we could talk about it. She continued to insist WE were lying about letting him in, so my hurt over her false accusations turned into anger and I yelled, "so you are calling my husband a liar too?"

Her next statement floored me. She said, "Well the guy said you wouldn't let him do anything and that you had rotting meat in your kitchen." I was furious she had just changed her story and admitted he was in our apartment. Yes, i had a package of meat in my fridge that blood had leaked out of onto the kitchen floor (crappy seal) overnight that I was unaware of. The only way she could have known that was if the guy had told her he had been inside.

At this point, I was so pissed that she had not only accused me of something she had just proven she knew wasn't true instead of me being hurt that she was taking someone else's word over mine like I had thought previously. she completely changed her story. I told her she was f*cked and left. I got a text from her telling me that her issue was that I refused to let him doing anything, which as written above clearly wasn't true, there was no refusal, I was just unprepared out of ignorance, but I was done arguing with her. I sent her a message saying that I care very much about her daughter and I am willing to help with anything he daughter needs but I can't be friends with someone makes up false accusations against me, that is abusive. She just kept texting me that I was a liar.

I then proceeded to block her number and change her status on FB so she couldn't see anything unless i tagged her in it.

That was Tuesday, I have just been heartbroken confused and sick ever since.

I know this is long, but I really want to understand what happened. I know wasn't a saint but I maintain
my innocence in the fact that I did not lie nor did I refuse service.

Keep in mind she has undiagnosed PTSD, but has plenty of qualifying traumas and the symptoms to go with it.

 

[sedna]

It sounds to me like she feels like she may have made the building manager like her less when she helped you out, and she resents it.

Its also possible that the bug guy wont be sent back out, so the manager themselves told your friend he wasnt let in, to make it look like your fault it wasnt exterminated.


No matter what the friends problem is, if she's going to send bratty texts that say " Liar " over and over in the beginning of your friendship, then its not going to get much better in the future. Who needs that? Now the manager likes her less and so do you. It sounds like you feel a lot of empathy for her and were going to be a good friend for her also. If she didnt recognize that and treated you that way, seriously, it was going to get worse.

 

[Riot]

@Fadeaway, her actions accusations are really bizarre, given the information you've provided. What a weird thing to get up in arms about. Even if the accusations she made were true, that's still a shit-hole thing to break a friendship over and is highly judgy of her. She must've never heard the phrase, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you."

Honestly, she sounds ungrateful, PTSD or not. This doesn't sound to me like your problem, but hers. I mean, she did make it your problem in that you're confused and your feelings are hurt, but as far as the accusations go, nah, don't even think about them again.

I used to have a friend who used me a lot. She was my best friend for almost half of my life. We practically lived together and were closer than our respective families. Being with her was always riddled with what I called cusp doubt. What I mean by that, is that sometimes she would do questionable things, but I'd always chalk it up to something or other and deflect it because I genuinely liked her most of the time.

Really, that's human nature. It's how our brains instinctively work. You have to go out of your way and be mindful of that if you want to change it. It wasn't easy letting my friend go, either. It took me a long time before I actually took steps to make sure it was for good. I won't lie, either, it really hurt. I grieved--legitimate, hardcore, loss grieving. (Which is also normal.)

I'm not saying you'll necessarily be overwhelmed with grief if that's the way you go in this case. I don't know the full dynamics of your friendship. However, you should definitely remember this incident if you should decide to continue your friendship with her, as a reminder to yourself in case she pulls stuff like this again.


Best of luck!

 

[Casey_03]

Definitely her issue, not yours. Her behavior does sound really bizarre and I think even if her accusations were true, it's really a very trivial matter for her to freak out so much.. Even if you had not let the guy inside, I don't see why she'd flip out. My guess is there is another reason, some underlying reason that she got mad, perhaps something that she was too afraid to confront you about. Was there anything else that happened between you two recently that she may have been holding in anger about? At the end of the day, it's also possible that she had some pent-up anger over things you are not aware of -- if she's going through a divorce, it's entirely possible she is jealous of you for having a husband. It's also possible that her daughter made some remark to her that made her jealous of you. My point is there are myriad explanations for her behavior but in every scenario, they are her problem, not yours. So if I were you I'd just leave her on the back burner for a while and wait to see if she resurfaces with some sort of explanation. I've had a lot of friendships like this, in which the person would blow up on me for bizarre reasons, and each time I later found out that there was simply something else going on in their life that I wasn't aware of that made them act out. Also, if she hasn't gotten treatment for her traumas and abuse, she probably just needs someone to take all her anger out on .... sadly, that is how it works sometimes

 

[Deleted member 541]

Defiantly her issue.... Good riddens to bad trash I always say!!!!,

 

[EveHarrington]

I think you can spend a lifetime trying to figure out why people act the way that they do.

In most cases it doesn't matter. If someone is abusive, get away from them.