I Never Realized It Was Manipulation & Gaslighting

Back in January 2013, my sweet Grandmother passed. I decided to come home to see family. I packed my suitcase for a weeks stay. I was so happy to be around family and old friends. Especially my son who had just left college confused on where he wanted to be. I had spent 11 years in Seattle. During the time I lived there I had wonderful adventures, I loved the natural surroundings but while I was living there I was tortured by psychiatry, not given proper medical care, over drugged, mistreated. My 13 year relationship in Seattle had ended in 2011. I moved out and spent two years in Seattle on my own. One friend. No car. Living on disability. I walked everywhere. I took a bus. It was hard at first but I become very resilient. I would however call my Mother occasionally and scream “I’ve got to get out of here, I’m so alone.” I had to get way from that city that gave me PTSD and trauma. So I went back for visit. While home I spent a lot of time with my 20 year old son who seemed to be lost. A couple of days before I was meant to go back, I had huge panic attacks. I told my old friend, “I don’t think I can go back.” She said what about all your stuff and your apartment? My best buddy who was back in Seattle offered to pack up and sell myself. She was an angel. I knew if I had to go back and pack up I might never be able to offord to move. So I just didn’t use my ticket. Called my landlord and it was over. My time in Seattle was behind me but the natural setting and beauty of Seattle was in my blood. I was very fit. I would walk a mile for a goal and then go three more because I was having fun. I walked everywhere. To the grocery. To the bank. To pay my rent. Now I was back in Indianapolis. One giant strip mall. No forests. No real beauty at all. I found the only apartment I could afford that was near grocery stories. It was a horrible place. Crime. Broken down apartments that are often not fixed.

I didn’t have many friends. I didn’t get along well with my Mother. She was and had been verbally abusive to me all my life. She would drive over to take me to the store but she would scream terrible things to me (at 59 mind you) She would speak terrible things about my innocent son and when I would confront her she would say “then WALK HOME!” Which I would. My old friends and I had grown apart. The only goodness was my son. The only real miracle in my life. I was very depressed. I stopped walking because everything was ugly. I had no car the first year. I was very creative at this time and begin feeling like I have some psychic abilities. I had an old friend who was a well known medium in town. He and his peers got together one day to tell me they think I have special abilities and I’m afraid to look at them. (This was in 2000) Soon I would be under the controlling abusive industry that is psychiatry, who when I spoke about the experiences I had they indicated I was very mentally ill even though these experiences were always peaceful and wonderful and loving. I was over medicated for speaking about these things. These magical synchronicities had started at 20yrs old. They slowly over many years started to increase with prophetic dreams, visions, downloads and coincidences with Eddie Vedder which is another story on here. I also started a meditation practice which was helped by Deepak Chopra.

A year later I had a car. I really missed my spiritual home in Seattle. The Center For Spiritual Living was my refuge during hard times. I attended for a decade. Indiana is full of Christian churchs. Everywhere. Baptiste. Jehovah Witness’s that came to my door. No Buddhist temple for my medication practice. I didn’t want dogmatic Christmas bible churchs. Sin just didn’t work for me.

“Remember if you don’t sin, Jesus would have died for nothing.”

– Ricky Gervais

There was a Unity Church that I had attended back in the 90’s. I went a few times here and there but didn’t feel what I felt with CSL. One day, I don’t remember much, a woman came up to me and wanted to be friends on Facebook. Ok. I guess. She seemed nice. Don’t remember thinking of her after I met here.

I was hoping for some friends in town as some of my old friends and I had different lives when I lived here. I had one good friend from high school who was married and living out of town. One Saturday evening I think I was really weepy. I had the bad habit of sharing my state of mind with my family, who all ignored me because it made them uncomfortable that I was mentally uncomfortable. I must have put up a post that said something about being lonely and weepy. I missed nature. Something along those lines.

Early the next morning, it was Sunday, there was a knock on my door at 10am. No one knocked on my door and never that early. I opened it and there was this woman from Unity Church. I was confused and she said, “do you remember me from Unity?” I let her in. She said the following which is the first red flag I missed in this gaslighter and manipulator.

1. FIRST RED FLAG on Gaslighting.

“I saw your post yesterday on Facebook. I spent money trying to find where you live because I thought you might have killed yourself.”

Oh my fucking God! I thought. Are you kidding me? Then something sad in me said, well you don’t have any friends, maybe she will be one. Thinking to myself, you can’t be choosey because you aren’t worth much. I apologized to her. Can you believe that?

Let me describe this woman.

1. Obese
2. Bi Polar
3. Hasn’t worked in 3 decades.
4. Has never had a glass of wine.
5. Never been to a rock concert.
6. Reads a lot but the books are all really badly written love stories.
7. She is married to a wonderful man who has health conditions but is still teaching professor. Smart, very kind and fun to talk to. (She does not clean her home for him, entertain, go places with him because she doesn’t’ like to walk.
8. She is a hoarder.

What started to happen is that she would offer me money as she knew I lived on disabilty. She would say “I’ll pay you if you clean my house.”

“I’ll pay you if you take me to the grocery as I need you to push a wheelchair.”

“I’ll pay you to drive 16 miles to my house to water my flowers.” (Literally a 10 minute job)

“Would you like to go the Art Museum?” Once there she can’t walk anymore so she wants to leave after 30 minutes. This happened all the time. This festival that festival and she would ruin everytime.

Now this woman is not 500lbs, she is about 275. She sits in a recliner all day reading. She sleeps in the recliner at night. Her bedroom is undesirable. There is a stack of her clothes on the floor that have been there for a decade.

More gaslighting

“Will you come over and help me go through my clothes and we can give them away and clean up my bedroom” which her poor husband sleeps in alone and has to crawl over her piles.

Once at the house and 15 minutes into the cleanup she fights me. I’m not giving that away. I’m not giving this and that away and me confronting her on why she ask me there in the first place? I go home pissed that this the friend God sent me? Is it because she gives me money so she doesn’t’ have to be a fun friend to keep me. She would often ask me for advice and I’d give. Later, it was never taken and she would say “you are very bossy.”

cunt.

“Will you come over and help me clean my office?” The office has two feet of used paper, old old catalogs on the floor, old bills. IT’s frankly a fire hazard. She actually goes in there to use her computer.

I come over and

I’M VENTING it’s 8 yrs of her gravity that has been weighing me down….sorry if my writing is making no sense.

So here I am asking her to hold up trash bag to throw paper in and she stops me and says I need to go through it all. Oh my fucking god. This catalogue I say it’s from 2010, throw it out, no, she says I like to keep them just in case.

This is gaslighing.

This is what this woman did to me up until last Saturday.

So one day I’m pushing her ass in the Fred Mejer and she says, will you reach up on top shelf and get me 3 large chocolate bars? Oh my God. Who is this person? I can’t keep my mouth shut. I tell it like it is. I indicated I will never ever again take you to store for any amount of money so you don’t have to get up and face your addictions and laziness and general manipulation. I started looking around and noticing she had no friends. Only a couple of poor women she would give money to.

At one point she and I went our separate ways. I felt much better. It had been a year and then she sends me 1000$ the mail as she got some inheritance. Of course she was buying me back and I fell into it I guess because I am poor in general. She was on her best foot after that for awhile. Saying she wanted to exercise more.

One day she wanted to go to workout at place she paid for but never used. We met. She got on bike. I treadmill. Put my music and off I went. Loving it. I was watching her from far and it was pathetic. She got up after 5 minutes and came up to me faking being out of breath, which he used often. I couldn’t believe. Are you serious? You can do it. Keep going. She never liked me telling her what to do. That night she must have gone home and said in front of her son, “she’s really mean to me. She doesn’t like it when I’m not her.” So her 25yr old son hated after that.

2 Big Red Flag – Gaslighting w/ family

“You know, my son doesn’t really like you?” Hmmm? I said “Why is that?” I don’t know she says, but I’m working on him. wtf? He doesn’t like me because you have said something about me to him and acting like you don’t know why he doesn’t like me is really fucked up.

And I continue to be her friend. This is 2018 by now. To be fair she did help me many times when I was sick. For example I had bladder condition where I had to go to ER twice. She took me. She helped a lot one summer when I was ill with it for 3 months. See in some ways I see how she can be good to many but it’s a form of manipulation in away. I put up with it because I was scared of running of money one day or scared to have no one even someone boring to be with.

It’s very much my fault that I put up with it. I didn’t have another friend to say to me what some ahve now is “she loves being a victim.” She is always sick with something. Always calling her shrink if she has a moment of anxiety so she can take yet more pills to deal with life.

We started to just do the same thing. Do you want to eat lunch with me? I was starting to be fat myself. Granted psychiatric drugs do make people fat and lazy, I was not that kind of person. We would be for lunch and sit there and not talk. Oh look at those to fat ladies at that table not speaking. I was so afraid people would think she was my wife. She introduced me once to this one woman who was really weird. I mean like both were gaslighting together at same time.

She started going to this church where mediums go. I went a few times. Took a psychic development class and later the teacher told me what I was feeling was a lie? A medium tells another medium they are delusional? I never went back there. They weren’t people who I could relate to being clairvoyant myself. One day, the old minister who I really liked who she hangs out with were taking about me. Why they were talking about my psychic gifts I have no clue. Next I was at her house. She said, I was talking to Don about you thinking you have telepathy with (…….) Don said he’s just not that into you. omg. You are my friend and you just took the most vulnerable personal thing about my mind and dug you heals in. Laughing really. (Why I didn’t walk out that was my fault. All my fault)

One day last summer I drove my ass all the way to her house to weed her garden for cash. I was on my hands and knees and realized this is 10 minute job. She said do you want a chair to garden? A chair? To garden? I watched her stare at me while I did what she should be doing for big fat cunty ass. I felt so depressed. She never wanted to talk on phone for hours like one does with really great friends. (This is bad word I know but blame Ricky Gervais for getting me started.)

Another….time….promise i will stop soon. Another time

I have to breath for a bit because it’s upsetting me writing this but I must write it because

Last fall I stopped smoking, but didn’t start exercising. It’s been 7 months now but I have gained weight and I always thought if I hang out with a fat and lazy person, will I become that? Well yes if you never do anything active with said friend. Or your relationship is revolved around taking to you lunch. She did take me and my Grandson to see Nutcracker. She has been kind but when you say something like, “it’s really difficult for me to deal with you always being out of breath or not walking anywhere. (Again she is only about 275.) When confronted instead saying your are right, I probably shouldn’t do this or that, instead her so called nice self becomes very passive aggressive. She is what she would call a “flaming liberal” and I understand why Republicans would not like this one. She is blowing all her money she inherited.

I stopped needing money. I stopped smoking and I had more cash. She started to act weird when I turned down her money for this or that. That church she goes to with mediums. I believe in mediums. The minister is. Her friend started asking her to do the occasional sermon. i thought “what?” This woman is walking mess and they want her to do a sermon. She said “would you help me with my sermon?” I guess I thought maybe she thinks I might have to good ideas to talk about. No. She just wanted me to type. All her sermons consisted of is her copying pasting from the internet. The first one she did was nothing much to talk about. In fact me and another friend drove out asses down to watch her give it like she is some Chopra or something. Two more sermons followed. I typed the second. It was awful. This time I didn’t go see it. I did watch on zoom and it was uninspiring and pedantic. This last one was for April 3. She ask me in march if I wou8ld help. I this time said No. I think you’ve got it down. She was not happy. She did the and sent the link. I never watched because I didn’t have to. The next week she ask again. Did you watch my sermon. Oh no, I”m sorrry I forgot. I never watched it and I loved that I was listening to myself for once. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.

Last fall something significant happened. We were at her house and we had an errand to do. She was tired but I encouraged her. Her husband heard this and also said “you should go.” We went to Lowes to look at paint swatches. She said I want to paint my guest room. She ask for my advice on how to do it. We were walking about 30 steps to the front door and another 20 to paint department. She stood there making the worst noise like she couldn’t get her breath. I ignored. I’ve seen that before. Often it’s an act because her husband agreed she needed to go. She doesn’t like it when I get my way. She stood there trying to breath and I wanted to explode. THIS PERSON IS AN EMOTIONAL VAMPIRE. We got back in car Went to Kohls and she whined while she was walking. After I got back in the car and gave her the worst dressing down ever. Never had I said these things. Like what are you doing to do abo8ut your life? Your weight. IF yo8u don’t now when? You are 60. I lectured her for 20 minutes. She made excuses at first then agreed you are right. I should go on Nutrasystem.

She got home. Her husband agree and she started the program. For nearly 3 months she lost weight! She would call me and say over and over it’s all because of you. No you did it said. She was happy for awhile. She laughed. She wasn’t ever out of breath. She was perfect. Until…………………………….one day she called and said some woman met said those meals are full of preservatives so I’m going to stop eating. I have left if yo8u want them. They are really good. Hmmm. If they are really good WHY AREN’T YOU EATING THEM. Making me feel bad for the weight I had gained by quitting smoking.

I promise this is almost over. In January she wanted me to spend the night because her husband would be out of town. It makes me sick to my stomach to be at her house. Unkempt. I didn’t want to. I keep thinking I’m alone every dam night. I went anyway. When I entertain I make me house nice. I light candles and make sure I’m a good hostess. I got there and she was sleeping in her chair as she always does. The minute I walked into the room I felt panic. I said do you want me to leave because your looking like you8 want to entertain. I went back to her son’s room, who lives out of town but uses the bed occasional. I walked in and it was awful. The bed was completely unmaid! Old sheet crumpled up in corner. I was suppose to sleep in an unmade med of a person who hates me. I went back into the living and said. You didn’t’ even make your son make the bed last time he was here. She always says I’m sorry. She says it all the time. But what I didn’t say is “you don’t give a fuck about me by even putting clean sheets on the bed. She looked at like she was going to pop me in the mouth.

That same week she sent me an email asking me to tend her tiny garden. Nope I said. I think it’s good for you to take care of your own house. She said “well I bought those rose bushes so you would have a garden.” No I said in email It will be good for you to get out and take care of it.

She didn’t really talk to much in March. She knew I was starting to get her manipulation with money. She hadn’t given me money since the fall so now I’m not asking for any and suddenly she isn’t very kind.

Even my abusive Mother said, “she’s been manipulating you since day one.”

You have to understand, I’m not perfect but I’m tired of being treated as if I’m a charity case. I’m tired of a so called friend making me write this essay about her. I wanted to write about how she made me for last 8 years but she was so at paying me off, that I though I was ungrateful.

So last Friday, my birthday, she sent me a check and tore it up. She sent me an email that had a picture of a donut shop. Passive aggressive. She knows I hate being fat and she is sending me messages that say we should go to this donut shop.

She also sent me another email about a psychic fair at that stupid church knowing I think I’m better than that. I sent an email back and finally said you are a very passive aggressive person and you don’t give fuck about me at all. She shot an email right back ! Of course she did, saying “I think we should go our separate ways.”

The only way I can describe Christine is like this. Remember the old horror film called “Christine.” about a demon car. She is that but the premise is a bit different….

I was pushing an obese lazy woman my age in a wheelchair through a grocery store because she’s too lazy to walk. She asks me “will you get those extra large chocolate bars off the top shelf?” and I did. Enabling horror. Just horrible.

I’m free.

I trust my life will be better because I can’t afford to be have a friend who doesn’t believe in me. I’m love myself exactly as I am and if she did too none of this might never have happened. I do forgive her and appreciate the times she really helped me that had nothing to do with money, but I don’t want to spend time with someone who hurts me emotionally. I’m sure if she read this she wouldn’t be able to see any of it. I do recognize I have some part to play.

This was hard to write but I’m glad that’s off my chest.