#the use of my library card is sticking hard in my craw

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Even more former friend shit

I found a lovely perfume while out and about on Sunday, and I've been wearing it every day since. The former friend has severe scent issues, and so I just...stopped wearing perfume entirely. It wasn't even that I wore it a LOT. But I stopped wearing it except very occasionally to go out to dinner with Sean when I was certain we would not see the former friend at all because I was so wrapped up in taking care of THEM that I couldn't fathom just, you know, WASHING IT OFF IF THEY SHOWED UP.

See also: I did not make a hilariously creepy pillow with a plastic baby doll face in the center because the former friend said, "No, I veto that in your house," and my manipulated brain went, "Well, okay, then!" Rather than going, "Well, I'll put it in another room when you visit."

I remember explaining to them at one point that I get peopled out. Like, it's been a long week of people, so I can no longer people, and so I need to cancel our plans because you are a people.

And at some point they came back and basically said, "But I'm not a people; I'm [name]," and what I should have said was, "I love you, but no. I get to decide who counts as a 'people.'" And what happened instead was that I felt guilty I made my friend feel unimportant, and so I routinely pushed beyond boundaries I needed because I didn't want them to feel bad. Just like I was forced to do over and over by a lot of people in my life before the former friend. Just like the former friend knew because I told them everything.

Did I feel good after spending time with them? Most of the time, yeah. They can be very charming and engaging and fun; we were friends for a reason. But did it really recharge me? I don't know. I don't think so. I look back over the last few years and how routinely mentally exhausted I have been, and I think, no, I was not actually recharged. I was manipulated into caretaking disguised as a friendship, and I was fucking exhausted.

And speaking of absolutely obliterated boundaries, three more things have happened in all this mess:

Former friend texted Sean saying, "I don't want to interfere, but I found this cookbook for MCAS." Sean, who is not the angry person in this relationship, was LIVID. Not just because the text violated our very clearly stated boundaries of contact but because it was so clearly an effort to get Sean to talk to them and get some sort of hook in so that I might talk to them. Which. Fuck you into the sun.

This text came after they texted Sean thanking them for "keeping the storage unit open so long." Fuck you into the sun again. It wasn't for your benefit. It was our circumstances of cleaning up your fucking mess while trying to get through a series of personal shit on our end. To then send the text about the cookbook is especially insulting in all of this because it's so clearly a "I did everything on the checklist, so now we're cool right?" sort of thing. Like, no, I said don't make contact. Going through Sean is still making contact.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I got a new library card. I logged into Hoopla for the first time in a very long time and discovered that the former friend had used my account to-reread all of Sandman. After I'd cut ties. AFTER. I'D. CUT. TIES. And I know this because I can see the return date, and it's all 21-day check outs, and the math put the books checked out in August. And they weren't checked out all in one day, either. The former friend made SEVERAL decisions to continue to use my library account against my express wishes because it was more important to them to have access to re-read something than it was to show me even the smallest amount of respect.

#former friend #abuse #manipulation #abuse recovery #emotional abuse #the use of my library card is sticking hard in my craw #because that's one of the earliest moments i can say this all started #ugh