Today's Gift

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.
--Calvin Coolidge

There's really only one way to achieve self-respect and that is to act respectably. We can't go back and undo our past. But we can act and behave respectably today, so that when we close our eyes tonight to go to sleep, we can say we have self-respect. A day at a time or an hour at a time, it's our actions now that count. If we put our self-respect on hold, saying something like "I'll have self-respect when I graduate," or "I'll have self-respect when I get a good job," we are putting off what we should do today. But when we live in the present, knowing it's all we have, we can give our best effort to life today.

Today let me treat myself and all those I encounter with respect.

You are reading from the book:

Our Best Days by Nancy Hull-Mast

Our Best Days by Nancy Hull-Mast. © 1990 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the permission of Hazelden.

Toxic Friendships

02-11-2014 at 12:24 PM (23 Views)

So, my brother's wife TQ has recently buddied up with an ex-friend of mine, onyxlynxx, a very damaged Masochistic Narcissist. I think MasoNarc is using TQ for access to her horses, mostly, but they are also in the "new relationship high" where the N. puts the object of their supply up on a pedestal and assigns them every positive godlike quality, before devaluing/splitting/demonizing. They are both putting each other up on pedestals, idealizing one another to an impossible degree, and assigning mystical qualities to one another.

It is going to be a long fall as soon as one or the other stops being "perfect" enough for the other CB. I feel a little sorry for my ex friend, but not much. She continues to choose relationships and friendships where the other person treats her badly so that she can continue to tell her "poor sad mistreated victim me" story... so in a way, they're perfect for each other. (Plus of course, they have the shared bond of hating on me for all the wrongs I have done them. BONUS!)

Recently, MasoNarc was invited to a party. Her habit is to stay for 10 or 15 minutes at any social gathering, and then run away and blog about how terrible someone was to her, or how her anxiety made her have to leave, or she was getting a migraine so she had to go home, or whatever. Anyway, MasoNarc invited TQ and her followers without getting the host's permission. TQ showed up, MasoNarc ran off, and left TQ in a house full of strangers, where of course TQ put on her "Great and Wonderful ME!" show for everyone into the wee hours. And then MasoNarc got scolded by the host after the fact, and so she got to be the sad little victim of mean people. And of course it's all somehow my fault, because I "poisoned" everyone at the party against TQ before hand, by being friends with them. [I did not attend this party, I was actually not invited, the host was a friend of mine married to another friend of mine but things have been awkward since they divorced...bla bla.]

Friends who were at the party said TQ was dull and talked way too much, but at least had the grace not to speak badly of me when surrounded by people she knew were my friends. MasoNarc was described as "toxic" and still full of hateful things to say about me. (perhaps it is an indication of my own latent N. tendencies, but that kind of makes me happy. We haven't been friends in quite a few years, and yet she still has nothing better to talk about than me. I must be very important and powerful, then, right? hah.)

As usual, as always, I know I should have better things to do than listen to such things when my friends mention them. I need to be a better person and say "I don't want to hear about MasoNarc or TQ, how have YOU been?" or whatever....but I'm not there yet. I get better about changing the subject sooner, but I still indulge in gossip, even though for every minute of entertainment such mean spirited talk provides, it leaves me feeling bad for hours or days afterwards. sigh.