On Discard Until The Birthday
Rain kept me on discard for six months. She did not speak to me at all. She stonewalled me. She refused to take my calls. She did not respond to my messages. She did not engage with me at all. After about a week to attempting to reach out to her, I gave up and exhaled “good riddance” and went on about my life. In the past, I would have panicked and tried desperately to hang on to the friendship, but I had reached the point of no longer caring. Although there was still drama with other narcissists in my life, I had one less narcissist to worry about, and for the time being, I considered Rain to be the most dramatic narcissist of them all.
I had seen Rain without her mask on several occasions. I knew the real Rain. I had more than enough reasons to walk away from this so-called friendship. Yet, I hung on. I was a longsuffering fool. I was entangled in a trauma bond. I hoped that she would change. The fact that I had such high hopes was my great downfall because those hopes had me hanging onto her as if my life depended on it. She continued on with her life without me. She did not care. She did not care about me at all. Despite recognizing this fact, I still held on that all was not lost.
During the six month discard, I took note of how often the loud and annoying colleague checked up on me. She wanted to know how I was doing, but I knew she was spying on the behalf of Rain. I played it cool and acted aloof as was sometimes easy for me to do. I grey-rocked my responses to her. I gave her no more than what I felt she needed to know. When she steered conversation towards the topic of Rain, I would respond with “that’s nice”, “sounds great”, “wonderful”. Yet, it was all eating away at me on the inside because I could not fight the pressure of feeling so mean. I did not know that I was truly protecting myself by limited my reactions.
Some time before the six month discard was over, I received a message from Rain’s girlfriend, Snow. She wanted me to know that I was invited to Rain’s birthday celebration. I knew that by that point, Snow had to have seen Rain without the mask or she would not have reached out to me. I could be wrong though. Yet, I felt in many ways that Snow was the part of me that was willing to put up with Rain for Rain’s love. Snow was like a version of me in so many ways. She was styled like me in every way, and she had an empathic and humble personality. I liked her a lot. Yet, I found that she was much more tolerant than me of Rain’s behavior. I was a longsuffering fool to a point. I was not willing to live with Rain. I was not willing to do a whole lot actually.
I do not know what Rain and Snow’s personal life was like, but I could only assume that Snow had seen the darker side to Rain. Rain could bring about a downpour that would ruin one’s day, or she could easily dry up and let out the sun. There was no method to Rain’s madness, and it was all indeed madness. I felt a sense of commonality with Snow in a way that I did not experience with the loud and annoying colleague, but I knew that this might have also been fashioned by Rain’s design. So I was careful. Snow wanted me to be a surprise, but I mentioned that things had been very tense between Rain and me and we had not even spoken in six months. Snow indicated that Rain missed me, but I somewhat begged to differ. She had a funny way of showing that she missed me being that she refused my contact.
Yet, I agreed to attend this birthday get-together that would host so many of Rain’s other narcissistic supply and flying monkeys. I agreed because I wanted to see for myself if Rain was indeed missing me and had become a changed person. I was about to find out, however, that I was the one who was the changed person. I had changed a great deal, and the intended birthday invite might have been nothing more than a way for Rain to launch her smear campaign in front my my face with a complete audience of all the friends who I would learn did not like me based on things that Rain had told them.
I would have never imagined that Snow would be a part of the game plan being so sweet and all, but I should have known to never underestimate the cunning ways of a narcissist. It is beneath them to do anything less than bring sadness and chaos into someone else’s life. The narcissist has a heart set on chaos and destruction for others. Rain had a heart set on my destruction, and she intended for that destruction to occur during her party where she would have a front-row seat.
Birthday Disaster
The last birthday party disaster that I recall was my own birthday party when I turned three. There had never quite been another fiasco like it, and there still has not been since. The birthday party that was being held in Rain’s honor was sure to be a spectacular one, and despite the fact that I gave Snow my word that I would attend, the day of the party I was having my normal second thoughts. It was all too common for me to want to back out of plans the moment that they had been set because I had extroverted far too much up until the moment of the festivities. As was sometimes the case, my introversion had cashed an extroverted check all too quickly. I was not ready for a party. I had deep anxiety. The social context of it all worried me.
I had deep inner warnings going off within me that something was not right. I did not want to go, but I quieted down my fears because I reasoned with myself that it was for a good cause. I was attending the party of my best friend. That should have counted for something, but the truth of the matter is that I did not want to go. I did not want to attend the party of my best friend especially when I knew in my heart of hearts that we were even on speaking terms. How were we best friends? How was she ever my friend? I did not realize it then, but all of the warnings going off in my head were clearly warnings to stay clear of danger. I did not heed them. I forged straight ahead. I plowed right into danger. It was what the narcissist had planned on me doing in the first place.
What should have been a surprise for Rain was nothing more than a joke on me. Snow had claimed she wanted to keep my presence to the party a secret, but by the time I arrived to the party, it was clear that I was not a secret. It was evident to me that my presence had been expected based on the reaction I received when I entered the room. Clearly, I was late upon arrival even though my instructions from Snow were to arrive at the time I did though. It was evident to me that I had been set up. I was the butt of a very bad joke, and I was also a part of the punchline. I was the perfect birthday gift for a narcissist who must have been low on fuel. My face was flushed with embarrassment.
Rain made all types of sarcastic and catty remarks, but I have never been one to be short on wit, so I rose to the occasion to save myself since no one else would do it. If I was set up to be the punchline, then I needed to be a funny one. It was all for the birthday girl. I did not know if I was experiencing a form of reactive abuse or simply standing my ground. I do know that there was a certain point where the crowd that seemed to turn on me in the beginning as the butt of the joke was delighted that I had come and taken a hard cold chip off of the shoulder of the party. I took one look into Rain’s eyes and knew that what harm she had intended to cause me had backfired, and Snow’s own reactive behavior with Rain to smooth things over was a testament to this fact.
To make matter’s worse for Rain, I did not even stay the entire length of the party. She continued to give me the cold shoulder and seemed to avoid speaking with me whenever I attempted to have a conversation with her. It was at this moment I realized I could never go back to being her friend again. It was evident she was not my friend. So I gave up my futile attempts to have a reasonable conversation with her and left the party. I watched through the window as she continued conversations with others never once seeming to recognized that I was gone. I knew there was no turning back. I knew that I was done.
This type of immature behavior was too much for me to want to deal with when thinking about another adult. I just did not have the energy for it. It was time to say goodbye. It was time to let Rain and all her showers go from my life. It was enough. I was done. Rain was not such a wonderful person when her mask slipped. The light was shining so brightly that there was no way that I could not deny the truth. Rain was never going to change. She had discarded me and despite me being in her presence, I was as good to her as discarded trash. My presence did not matter to her.
My Voice Unchained 