Got email from uBPD former friend - should I reply? what should I say?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I got an email last week from a woman I was friends with last year (from about March till September).  We haven't talked since then.  In this email she told me about a group therapy program she completed, that she thought I might benefit from.

(I have had different diagnoses, but GAD and dysthymia with some depressive episodes makes the most sense to me.  No PDs or traits that I know of, no one has ever suggested it anyways.)

(if I had to make an untrained diagnosis of her, it would be PTSD first, and either borderline traits or BPD. Her controlling tendencies - we'll get to that - I think are a PTSD "control others before they hurt you" thing, not narcissistic traits like the psychiatry resident told her)

We initially connected with one another because it seemed we were on a similar personal growth path, and as intelligent, astute individuals, had experienced similar difficulties with therapists and "healing" modalities being overly dogmatic, not empathic, etc.

I did get some red flags about her early on.  The first time we got together after the event we met at, was for lunch.  She was very particular with the waitress about exactly the changes she wanted made to her order.  (She was kind of obsessy about food, didn't have any other addictions or self-harm, but I think food might have been her "thing", not orthorexic but something close to that, obsessive attention to the effects of food on her body, etc.)  I sensed she was being excessively kind and polite to the waitress not for its own sake, but as a means to an end, to butter her up in order to get what she wanted, and I thought that was... .odd.

The second thing, she was soo grateful for our friendship, and I am sitting there not wanting to be awkward or hurt her feelings, but I'm thinking, yeah I like you, and I'm glad we connected, but maybe not *that* glad?  (Of course I now recognize idealization).  I thought of she and I as peers along the path, we could discuss our experiences and empathize with each other but it was neither appropriate nor possible for us to try to be each other's therapist.  And I have never experienced a friend being so gushy about me before and it just felt... .again, odd.

It was an unusual friendship, true, in the degree of emotional intimacy and self-disclosure, but to me that did not seem out of the ordinary given the modern trends towards personal growth, introspection and emotional healing. 

I will now try to describe the series of events that led to the conflicts that ended our friendship.

We were browsing in a clothing and leather goods store and an employee had an iPad on which she was taking people's email addresses for a contest to win $1000 to spend at the store.   My friend is in IT (although off work on disability at the time) and because of that, but probably also because of her coping strategy of control, she has very particular ideas about when and under what circumstances to give someone your email. 

I just said no thanks, not interested.  The employee said "but don't you want to win $1000?" And my friend, instead of saying "no" again and just walking away, which is what I would have done, moved physically towards the employee, feet spread wider than hip distance, arms straight back, and said "What part of 'no' do you not understand?" 

(my reflection at this point:  she is very self-righteous about her need to enforce boundaries, but she doesn't do it by distancing herself, she does it by... .getting closer?  Albeit she gets closer in order to be aggressive to the person, but she gets closer nonetheless.)

I said "come on, let's go" and was silent as we walked out of the store.  Outside, I said to her, it's the employees' job to be pushy, she is probably expected to be in order to get contact info so they can send you email newsletters about promotions and stuff."  (Of course I now see this as a "feelings are facts" BPD flag - she perceives the employee to be violating her personhood, so it's a fact that she is!)

As I am writing this I am even getting tired of thinking about all these incidents (!) so I'll just say that the second one involved a shoe repair shop owner who she got into a confrontation with, and she told me about it afterwards and I thought she was way out of line, both of them got triggered but then it escalated.  I didn't say anything to her about it though, I just listened.

She does Recollective Awareness Meditation which apparently requires that one take notes after one's session, try to capture everything that came up.  She was looking for a laptop to take notes on, faster than writing.  This conversation was via text.  I wrote, if this is the only purpose you intend to use it for, why not buy a netbook, you can get a refurbished one for a couple hundred dollars?  She said no, she won't buy one online without being able to try it out first, and the ones she tried at stores were too heavy.  And she can't tolerate the vent fan blowing on her legs because it triggers PTSD dissociation. (by this point I'm going "?"  I said, couldn't you put it on a box or something?  She said no, she's sitting on the floor after her meditation and absolutely has to be able to just grab the laptop and go, there can't be any interruptions like *standing up*.  So she had to buy a MacBook Air.

By this point I wanted to scream THIS IS RIDICULOUS! It was as though she set up this elaborate system of Jenga blocks and told me to sit there, don't move, don't breathe, don't touch it.  No friend or human in any capacity could meet that standard.  And what she considered to be her "needs" (she had done some Nonviolent Communication training) were, in my opinion, not her actual needs, but an elaborate system of compensation for trauma defenses.

And it wasn't just the laptop, it was many other things, and some like where we sit in the restaurant, or what route we take to walk somewhere, I would accommodate her because it truly didn't matter to me.  But when it became contradictory - if I say something that interprets her feelings or experience, I'm preventing her from clearly hearing her "inner voice", but if I don't say anything, that means I don't care - that's when I started reacting.

However, I knew I would not be well received if I did in fact tell her it was ridiculous, I was sure that I'd gotten triggered in some way and I really felt the lesser of the evils would be just to not talk to her until I'd had a chance to talk about it with my therapist and sort out my own trigger from it. 

Oh, but that was wrong.  Wrong wrong wrong... .to just disappear on her like that... .even after I told her why I did it, "lesser of the evils" as I said, I was intending to be fair to her by not inadvertently dumping my issues on her... .I still caused her so much pain.  And I had to sit there as she carefully articulated and rotated and described from all the sides of the dodecahedron how much I hurt her... .

So I didn't feel that issue was really resolved that day we got together to talk about it but I thought we'd revisit it.  That is, until I was leaving her to go into the subway, and a promotional guy on the street offers us free chocolate bars, and we said "no thanks", and we are hugging goodbye, and he shouts "Yeahh, hug longer!" and I am thinking to myself "I really hope that doesn't mean what I think it means" and just wanting to get out of the situation asap.  She, however, walks over to him, assumes the aggressive stance again, I would say she was about 1.5-2ft/45-60cm away from him, and shouts "Go f- yourself"

(I apologize for the profanity reference, I'm aware of the recent warning, I felt it important to my account of the events to include it as a direct quote)

What followed was them exchanging shouted further profanity and *personal* insults.  I think she (who remember is unemployed) told him to "get a real job", for example.  This continued until the "walk" sign came on and we crossed the street.  She couldn't let him have the last word.

I told her I felt uncomfortable and if it had been me, I wouldn't have wasted my efforts on trying to convince him of anything.

Later via text she made it into this whole feminist rant (I don't mean that term judgmentally btw) about street harassment and my failure to "stand up to abuse", both on her behalf and for myself, and somehow I was just as bad as her mother and sisters for "faulting her for complaining" because of that.  I don't even want to provide the details of this discussion but I can tell you that everything she was accusing me of doing, she was doing herself.

I don't even think this incident was about street harassment (or the politics around "males thinking they own public space" and women are there for their amusement) at all.  This man was upset that we weren't paying him any attention and he was trying to get a reaction out of us, and he knew that would do it.  She was not "standing up to abuse", the words she was saying had nothing to do with that topic.  Unfortunately I think any reaction was a good reaction in this case, and I stand behind my choice to ignore it. 

Alternatively, and I don't know if I could have pulled this off, but one could walk up to him and sweetly say "hey, what's your name?" and he answers, and you say, "So, Dave, I don't think your employer is going to be too happy that you're sexually harassing women on the job" and walk away.  Go home, make some calls, "Someone called ":)ave" was promoting x chocolate bar on Sunday September whatever around 11am on the northwest corner of the intersection of Y St. and Z Ave."  Doesn't really matter if it gets anywhere, because you addressed the specific problem and only the specific problem.

So, back to present time.  She says it was unfortunate, what happened between us.  I want to say, the standards you held me to were unreasonable, period.  But I think she's going to react to that.

That doesn't invalidate her needs, it means you just can't expect someone who isn't a therapist to do this for you because they have issues of their own.  Maybe a lover could do it, but even that's debatable.  She needed someone to re-parent her and that's not me. 

To be fair, she was compassionate and genuinely supportive of me on a number of occasions.  I've been biased in my account because I'm describing the problems.  I just... .it seems there was this double standard... .her triggers and her assessment of her "needs" can't be questioned... .mine, I have to set aside in order to "hold" her when she needs it.

What should I do?  Previously I had gotten tired of all the hypocrisy and the double standards.  Other friends or people in her life would do things that were way more insensitive than anything I ever did, but she would describe having said nothing to them... .but then come and complain to me about it. 

The problem is, I can't speak to her objectively or bluntly without being perceived as invalidating her needs, which I'm not.  I'm just saying I can't meet them. 

[eeks]

I got an email last week from a woman I was friends with last year (from about March till September).  We haven't talked since then.  In this email she told me about a group therapy program she completed, that she thought I might benefit from.

(I have had different diagnoses, but GAD and dysthymia with some depressive episodes makes the most sense to me.  No PDs or traits that I know of, no one has ever suggested it anyways.)

(if I had to make an untrained diagnosis of her, it would be PTSD first, and either borderline traits or BPD. Her controlling tendencies - we'll get to that - I think are a PTSD "control others before they hurt you" thing, not narcissistic traits like the psychiatry resident told her)

We initially connected with one another because it seemed we were on a similar personal growth path, and as intelligent, astute individuals, had experienced similar difficulties with therapists and "healing" modalities being overly dogmatic, not empathic, etc.

I did get some red flags about her early on.  The first time we got together after the event we met at, was for lunch.  She was very particular with the waitress about exactly the changes she wanted made to her order.  (She was kind of obsessy about food, didn't have any other addictions or self-harm, but I think food might have been her "thing", not orthorexic but something close to that, obsessive attention to the effects of food on her body, etc.)  I sensed she was being excessively kind and polite to the waitress not for its own sake, but as a means to an end, to butter her up in order to get what she wanted, and I thought that was... .odd.

The second thing, she was soo grateful for our friendship, and I am sitting there not wanting to be awkward or hurt her feelings, but I'm thinking, yeah I like you, and I'm glad we connected, but maybe not *that* glad?  (Of course I now recognize idealization).  I thought of she and I as peers along the path, we could discuss our experiences and empathize with each other but it was neither appropriate nor possible for us to try to be each other's therapist.  And I have never experienced a friend being so gushy about me before and it just felt... .again, odd.

It was an unusual friendship, true, in the degree of emotional intimacy and self-disclosure, but to me that did not seem out of the ordinary given the modern trends towards personal growth, introspection and emotional healing. 

I will now try to describe the series of events that led to the conflicts that ended our friendship.

We were browsing in a clothing and leather goods store and an employee had an iPad on which she was taking people's email addresses for a contest to win $1000 to spend at the store.   My friend is in IT (although off work on disability at the time) and because of that, but probably also because of her coping strategy of control, she has very particular ideas about when and under what circumstances to give someone your email. 

I just said no thanks, not interested.  The employee said "but don't you want to win $1000?" And my friend, instead of saying "no" again and just walking away, which is what I would have done, moved physically towards the employee, feet spread wider than hip distance, arms straight back, and said "What part of 'no' do you not understand?" 

(my reflection at this point:  she is very self-righteous about her need to enforce boundaries, but she doesn't do it by distancing herself, she does it by... .getting closer?  Albeit she gets closer in order to be aggressive to the person, but she gets closer nonetheless.)

I said "come on, let's go" and was silent as we walked out of the store.  Outside, I said to her, it's the employees' job to be pushy, she is probably expected to be in order to get contact info so they can send you email newsletters about promotions and stuff."  (Of course I now see this as a "feelings are facts" BPD flag - she perceives the employee to be violating her personhood, so it's a fact that she is!)

As I am writing this I am even getting tired of thinking about all these incidents (!) so I'll just say that the second one involved a shoe repair shop owner who she got into a confrontation with, and she told me about it afterwards and I thought she was way out of line, both of them got triggered but then it escalated.  I didn't say anything to her about it though, I just listened.

She does Recollective Awareness Meditation which apparently requires that one take notes after one's session, try to capture everything that came up.  She was looking for a laptop to take notes on, faster than writing.  This conversation was via text.  I wrote, if this is the only purpose you intend to use it for, why not buy a netbook, you can get a refurbished one for a couple hundred dollars?  She said no, she won't buy one online without being able to try it out first, and the ones she tried at stores were too heavy.  And she can't tolerate the vent fan blowing on her legs because it triggers PTSD dissociation. (by this point I'm going "?"  I said, couldn't you put it on a box or something?  She said no, she's sitting on the floor after her meditation and absolutely has to be able to just grab the laptop and go, there can't be any interruptions like *standing up*.  So she had to buy a MacBook Air.

By this point I wanted to scream THIS IS RIDICULOUS! It was as though she set up this elaborate system of Jenga blocks and told me to sit there, don't move, don't breathe, don't touch it.  No friend or human in any capacity could meet that standard.  And what she considered to be her "needs" (she had done some Nonviolent Communication training) were, in my opinion, not her actual needs, but an elaborate system of compensation for trauma defenses.

And it wasn't just the laptop, it was many other things, and some like where we sit in the restaurant, or what route we take to walk somewhere, I would accommodate her because it truly didn't matter to me.  But when it became contradictory - if I say something that interprets her feelings or experience, I'm preventing her from clearly hearing her "inner voice", but if I don't say anything, that means I don't care - that's when I started reacting.

However, I knew I would not be well received if I did in fact tell her it was ridiculous, I was sure that I'd gotten triggered in some way and I really felt the lesser of the evils would be just to not talk to her until I'd had a chance to talk about it with my therapist and sort out my own trigger from it. 

Oh, but that was wrong.  Wrong wrong wrong... .to just disappear on her like that... .even after I told her why I did it, "lesser of the evils" as I said, I was intending to be fair to her by not inadvertently dumping my issues on her... .I still caused her so much pain.  And I had to sit there as she carefully articulated and rotated and described from all the sides of the dodecahedron how much I hurt her... .

So I didn't feel that issue was really resolved that day we got together to talk about it but I thought we'd revisit it.  That is, until I was leaving her to go into the subway, and a promotional guy on the street offers us free chocolate bars, and we said "no thanks", and we are hugging goodbye, and he shouts "Yeahh, hug longer!" and I am thinking to myself "I really hope that doesn't mean what I think it means" and just wanting to get out of the situation asap.  She, however, walks over to him, assumes the aggressive stance again, I would say she was about 1.5-2ft/45-60cm away from him, and shouts "Go f- yourself"

(I apologize for the profanity reference, I'm aware of the recent warning, I felt it important to my account of the events to include it as a direct quote)

What followed was them exchanging shouted further profanity and *personal* insults.  I think she (who remember is unemployed) told him to "get a real job", for example.  This continued until the "walk" sign came on and we crossed the street.  She couldn't let him have the last word.

I told her I felt uncomfortable and if it had been me, I wouldn't have wasted my efforts on trying to convince him of anything.

Later via text she made it into this whole feminist rant (I don't mean that term judgmentally btw) about street harassment and my failure to "stand up to abuse", both on her behalf and for myself, and somehow I was just as bad as her mother and sisters for "faulting her for complaining" because of that.  I don't even want to provide the details of this discussion but I can tell you that everything she was accusing me of doing, she was doing herself.

I don't even think this incident was about street harassment (or the politics around "males thinking they own public space" and women are there for their amusement) at all.  This man was upset that we weren't paying him any attention and he was trying to get a reaction out of us, and he knew that would do it.  She was not "standing up to abuse", the words she was saying had nothing to do with that topic.  Unfortunately I think any reaction was a good reaction in this case, and I stand behind my choice to ignore it. 

Alternatively, and I don't know if I could have pulled this off, but one could walk up to him and sweetly say "hey, what's your name?" and he answers, and you say, "So, Dave, I don't think your employer is going to be too happy that you're sexually harassing women on the job" and walk away.  Go home, make some calls, "Someone called ":)ave" was promoting x chocolate bar on Sunday September whatever around 11am on the northwest corner of the intersection of Y St. and Z Ave."  Doesn't really matter if it gets anywhere, because you addressed the specific problem and only the specific problem.

So, back to present time.  She says it was unfortunate, what happened between us.  I want to say, the standards you held me to were unreasonable, period.  But I think she's going to react to that.

That doesn't invalidate her needs, it means you just can't expect someone who isn't a therapist to do this for you because they have issues of their own.  Maybe a lover could do it, but even that's debatable.  She needed someone to re-parent her and that's not me. 

To be fair, she was compassionate and genuinely supportive of me on a number of occasions.  I've been biased in my account because I'm describing the problems.  I just... .it seems there was this double standard... .her triggers and her assessment of her "needs" can't be questioned... .mine, I have to set aside in order to "hold" her when she needs it.

What should I do?  Previously I had gotten tired of all the hypocrisy and the double standards.  Other friends or people in her life would do things that were way more insensitive than anything I ever did, but she would describe having said nothing to them... .but then come and complain to me about it. 

The problem is, I can't speak to her objectively or bluntly without being perceived as invalidating her needs, which I'm not.  I'm just saying I can't meet them. 

[Suzn]

it seems there was this double standard... .her triggers and her assessment of her "needs" can't be questioned... .mine, I have to set aside in order to "hold" her when she needs it.

Healthy relationships are reciprocal, with room to discuss needs on both sides.

If she is BPD you will need to be the emotional caretaker, do you want that role?

[eeks]

Healthy relationships are reciprocal, with room to discuss needs on both sides.

I completely agree.  The problem is, she thought it was reciprocal, and that she was doing things for me and even told me once that I should be more appreciative of her letting me be myself... .

The problem is she in fact didn't meet my needs all the time.  I didn't have a lot of friends at the time and I wanted to go to more lively social events, meet new people but not have to go there alone, get back into the swing of things, but she couldn't, because things like a certain pitch of bass in the music set off her PTSD and made her dissociate (she says) so she couldn't meet that "need" for me.  I processed that disappointment on my own, though, and I think that's reasonable, you can't expect a friend to meet 100% of your needs! 

I also think that the "needs" she thought she was meeting for me, were more her doing for me what she wished someone would do for her.  Always the questions she asked me, would you like to sit here, would you like to go there, would it be ok if we discussed this, do I have your permission to request of you if it is ok if we discuss this?  OK, I'm being a little sarcastic there, but she was in this process of determining what her actual preferences were, separate and apart from those of her culturally strict and emotionally abusive and neglectful FOO, and that involved an (my opinion) obsessive monitoring of her own self and emotions, and... .I didn't require that.

And you know, I actually think I did learn something from her, that sometimes it's useful to know you have the option of asking someone for permission, there are times when it's good for the relationship to check in and not assume!

However, the fact that she had the "scaffolding" (NVC and other communication models) but an incomplete awareness of her own issues, meant, in my opinion, that she ended up feeling very self righteous about her "needs" and need to "practice self-care" about things that weren't really needs. 

If she is BPD you will need to be the emotional caretaker, do you want that role?

Good question... .no.  I want to be emotionally generous to another person but I expect similar from them.  Being honest with each other when we are not feeling able to listen or support, but yes, more or less reciprocity.

And I suppose I resented it that, when I was so empathic towards her in other situations where few people in her life had been, even professionals, somehow all that went right out the window in the times I let her down.  (well, there it is, painted white/black, classic)  And I didn't expound and write essays about the multiple ways in which her incidents of lack of attunement hurt me... .so I didn't think it was fair for her to do that.

It's tragic, her situation.  Posting here I got a sense of the tragedy of uBPDex's inner life and situation, and now am getting that sense about uBPD ex-friend too.  It is good because there is no blame associated with that.

She said the therapists at this group program were very "attuned" (and if she thinks so... .with her high standards they must have been!) and so she may have benefitted from that.  I want to be careful not to assume that the general is true about a specific person... .but I get the sense here that it takes people with BPD years of therapy to improve symptoms? 

[eeks]

I don't really see many instances in my life of me falling into the "caretaker role", I think it only started happening once my life crises started happening about 6 years ago and I investigated both conventional and "alternative" healing methods, read a lot of books, had several really not useful therapists but did learn some empathy "by osmosis" as it were from the ones who were good, even some of the time... .

I realized how much I disliked receiving advice when I was dealing with issues around anxiety or self-worth - I wanted someone to help me find my own answers.  So I set out to practice what I preached, with friends and family.

Friends say I'm good at it.  I've been told I was better than one friend's psychiatrist (I don't know if that says a lot about me or not much about the psychiatrist, ha!)  And it always starts innocently, because I really enjoy the intellectual stimulation and genuinely interested in the topic of emotional healing, and I like to be able to help friends, I benefit from the discussion too, and it doesn't feel that I'm doing it with "strings attached".

However, what seems to happen is that when I do ask for something in return, they have a reaction, and it's true that I really DID give without expectation of return, but when their response is such an extreme opposite to what I do... .like I had another friend, non-BPD, who responded to anxiety symptoms of mine with "Hang in there, you'll overcome it!"... .I have a reaction.  She has dysthymia and should know better than to give such pat answers!

So anyways, I find that I don't stay in these unequal relationships for long, so that's what I mean by not becoming a caretaker, but because they tell me I've let them down or I hurt them so badly or I'm the one being unreasonable, I'm left questioning myself and feeling guilty afterwards, like what if they were right?  And afraid of their reaction if I was blunt with them, because... .like I said, what if they were right?  Wouldn't I feel stupid then?

[Mutt]

but because they tell me I've let them down or I hurt them so badly or I'm the one being unreasonable, I'm left questioning myself and feeling guilty afterwards, like what if they were right?

Hi eeks,

You're not responsible for someone else's feelings.

Are you an unreasonable person?

You seem like you have awareness, empathic, intellectual.

How do you let them down?

[eeks]

You're not responsible for someone else's feelings.

I think, as a child, I was trained to be at least in certain situations!  This phrase led me to what I think is an important distinction, they FEEL let down, that doesn't MEAN I let them down.

They are over there feeling what they are feeling and I am over here!  What a concept... .

This might sound a little woo-woo, and I leave it up to anyone reading this how to take it, but I did a free consultation with an intuitive healer who works with empaths and highly sensitive people... . I was talking about anxiety and he said two-thirds of this issue is not mine, and that puts me in the "sponge" category (empath or HSP)  I was never really quite sure if I identified with HSP... . is it sensitivity, trauma defenses, anxiety or giftedness?  or some combo of the above?... . and I thought to myself, well I don't know if I'm that sensitive, I don't hurt people's feelings on purpose but sometimes I react without regard for how it will impact them... .

But you see even this questioning is potentially due to my mother's "exacting standards" (what my T calls them) for how to behave towards others! 

Are you an unreasonable person?

You seem like you have awareness, empathic, intellectual.

I'm sure I behave unreasonably sometimes, but I think you are right about those positive traits.

Maybe I give others too much credit?  Like, I assume their accusations are worth looking at because I myself would not say such a thing about another person unless I was quite convinced of it?  But they are not as self-aware so they can make accusations against others and actually believe it (projection), or they know they are lying in order to manipulate me, but that's not something I'd do so I don't even anticipate it.

How do you let them down?

Well, in the case of uBPD former friend, I let her down because I

a) suddenly "went silent" regarding the computer thing, and that hurt her because... . she then thought she'd misread our whole friendship, like I wasn't as close to her as she was to me

b) didn't give her a corrective emotional experience when the guy on the street made a sexually suggestive comment

I failed to be her ideal parent, that's how I let her down! (please note sarcasm)

Not my job, I know, but she was convinced it was and her reaction had me convinced too.

[Maternus]

I did get some red flags about her early on.  The first time we got together after the event we met at, was for lunch.  She was very particular with the waitress about exactly the changes she wanted made to her order.  (She was kind of obsessy about food, didn't have any other addictions or self-harm, but I think food might have been her "thing", not orthorexic but something close to that, obsessive attention to the effects of food on her body, etc.)  I sensed she was being excessively kind and polite to the waitress not for its own sake, but as a means to an end, to butter her up in order to get what she wanted, and I thought that was... . odd.

Is she uncomfortable in situations in which she is not the center of attention?

The second thing, she was soo grateful for our friendship, and I am sitting there not wanting to be awkward or hurt her feelings, but I'm thinking, yeah I like you, and I'm glad we connected, but maybe not *that* glad?  (Of course I now recognize idealization).

Did she consider your relationships to be more intimate than it actually was? 

I just said no thanks, not interested.  The employee said "but don't you want to win $1000?" And my friend, instead of saying "no" again and just walking away, which is what I would have done, moved physically towards the employee, feet spread wider than hip distance, arms straight back, and said "What part of 'no' do you not understand?"

Does she show self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion?

 

Maybe she is a little bit HPD, too?

[eeks]

Maternus, I wouldn't say she needed to be the centre of attention.  Just precisely controlling as a means of trying to get her "needs" met.  Like I said, she claimed she was doing a good thing, "self-care", paying close attention to her emotions and desires as they arose as she goes through her life, because she had been so chronically silenced in her FOO.  However, it concerned every little detail, and the contradictory conditions, it got tiring for me... . and that's probably why I finally reacted the way I did.  

You have a point though, it could be another disorder or trait.  I think that psychiatry resident said "narcissistic traits" because of what she called "self-care" but what would come across to an observer as controlling.  I think she did have some empathy but who knows, it may not have been real, just very carefully practiced Nonviolent Communication.

I am not concerned with the diagnosis, I just want to figure out if/how to respond.  

She had also said in the email it was unfortunate what happened between us, and if I want to talk she is open to it.

I'm not really sure if I want to talk to her.  That's mainly why I provided all the details here, for context.  I don't want to be rude, I want to thank her for the recommendation, but if I say I don't want to talk to her, I don't want to unearth old dramas and get an essay in response about the impact of what I said on her.  

I just... . I feel that things were imbalanced.  She expected me to give her unconditional love, or a "corrective emotional experience" (i.e. do what nobody did for her at the time of the trauma) when she got triggered.  Her reasoning seemed to be something like "Because I need it, you have to give it to me, but if you get triggered by my trigger and react then you're retraumatizing me."  However if I asked her for support she did sometimes say she wasn't feeling up to giving it.

I appreciated her support but didn't demand it, and I certainly didn't write her essay length emails about how I felt when she refused my request.  I was disappointed by it at times but I accepted it.  I think that is the difference between a friend, and a therapist.

At the time we last spoke, she definitely would not agree with my assessment that things were imbalanced.  She thought she was doing things for me... . and in fact that I should express more gratitude to her that she "lets me be myself".  huh.

Continuing to think back, some of the issues were ridiculous, but I guess I just am particularly susceptible to guilt trips for some reason.  Loaded emotional language really gets me, and so does the person being absolutely convinced of the truth of what they are saying.  

For instance, one time we were sitting around having a conversation and I was in a particularly energetic mood, my mind was kind of popping all over the place, and she said something about ice cream, and it reminded me of a very decadent dessert I had made myself a few days before, vanilla ice cream, chocolate brownie, pecans, Nutella, strawberries (yeah I went there)... . so I excitedly told her about it, the problem was, in order to do so I changed the topic... . and I am not allowed to do that because she was always interrupted in her FOO.  Well, doesn't she have some responsibility for managing her own triggers?  :)eal with the parental issues such that she can have a realization that most people are not trying to "deny her her voice" when they change the subject?  Or maybe like, she can bring it up with me that she feels bad when it happens, and the reason, and I can clarify my intentions but I'm not obligated to comply with her request?  Oh, but I fell for the guilt trip.

From one of my replies on the Personal Inventory board:



The problem is some of the behaviours my mother insisted I do when I was a child, because "this is the way the world is" or "this is how people are", things I had to do in order to "protect myself", that she rationalized because they were adults and I was a child, but it was all really from her own trauma defense dynamics and codependency.  It in effect created a one-sided dynamic where I had to "meet their needs", well, actually, compensate for their lack of emotional self-awareness and responsibility, but I could not expect the same in return from them.

I didn't find this out till I was an adult, but she thought that because I would be perceived as "blessed" (intelligent, educated, all material needs and many wants provided for) that I would have to give others a cookie first (that's my metaphor, they would expect some kind of offering from me, even a small one) in order for them to a) know that I meant no harm or threat b) for them to accept me as an equal.  What, like I owe them something up front?  I can't as one individual remedy the injustices of our society and of birth!

So yeah, this included appeasing angry adults who thought I had broken the rules.  My mother really thought this was the way to do it for some reason, rebel on the inside, perform on the outside (she forgot to tell me the "rebel on the inside" part though so I can hardly be blamed for thinking that if she, for instance, forced me to apologize, I must have done something wrong).

[Turkish]

eeks,

It can be hard to break out of our habits of perhaps feeling responsible for how others act or feel. There is a method which is useful in communication with potentially high conflict people: BIFF (Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm). It's recommended for written communication, though it can be applied verbally as well.

If you don't want to appear rude, a simple response could be,."thanks for the information." It's B&F. The "IF" might be not to respond to any subsequent messages.

As for friendship or talking it out with her, that's up to you. However, you're not responsible for her, and she's not responsible for you... .