Three Strikes, I’m Out
In most cases, it can sometimes take targets and victims of narcissists several times before they finally leave the abusive situation if they leave at all. Leaving toxicity and abuse is often a complicated process. There are trauma bonds, attachments, and other entanglements. There are even other people involved, and circumstances do not always allow for quick departures from narcissistic relationships.
As time went on in my toxic friendship with The Spoiled Bully, I did reach my limit … finally. There were three situations that brought me to the brink of deciding to sever ties. Those three things were just the accumulation of so many things that had already been repeated in small doses up until I no longer wanted to be in the friendship.
There was not enough prayer, patience, or time that I wanted to invest anymore in my friendship with The Spoiled Bully. I had reached my limit, and I realized that she was never going to change … at least not as long as I was around her. So I decided after those three huge strikes, I was out.
Strike One
The Spoiled Bully was notorious for evading my boundaries as an introvert. She frequently crashed my world of solitude by always inviting others to crowd my space. There came a point where I no longer wanted to hang out with her because doing so meant that I always had to give up my energy and allow my social battery to become depleted by other people.
The one thing I have noticed about narcissists that I was around was that they hated any occurrences of true intimacy. Once I had gotten to really know them for who they were – particularly without their masks – the narcissists would avoid spending too much quality time with me at all for fear I would ask too many probing questions or revisit topics that they most likely did not want to discuss with me.
I was always respectful not to push boundaries with narcissists because I did not like my boundaries pushed, but there was never any true intimacy with them. To avoid any time with me at all, they would always find ways to include the presence of someone else while around me. If no one else was available, then I would be inundated with a hosts of the narcissists’ tactics against me such as the silent treatment, music [playing loudly to drown me out], or anything else that could be used a distraction.
When a visiting pastor came to the church, The Spoiled Bully volunteered to host him with her group of flying monkeys. Since I lived in a central location not far from the church, they decided to crash my place without invitation. Normally, I do not answer the door for people when I am not expecting company. Even my family knows not to show up to my place without talking to me first, but The Spoiled Bully did not respect my boundaries. She showed up unannounced, and because the visiting pastor accompanied her along with her flying monkeys, I felt compelled to allow them inside.
I literally heard The Spoil Monkey loudly talking through the door that she knew I was home because my car was parked in the lot. Since there were witnesses with her who could attest to her facts, I had no clear escape. A simple “no” would not have sufficed, and I was not a good liar. Although I was not happy about being crowded upon on such short notice, I reluctantly opened the door hoping for the best.
I tried to be the most hospitable host, but I was on the outs with this group from the start. I felt as if the visiting pastor had already been told negative information about me based on his reception of me. My introversion for him was an automatic problem. I was the odd one out because comparatively, everyone else in the group were extroverts. Although there is nothing wrong with a person being either extroverted or introverted, an introverted person is more often viewed as the negative of the two personality types. I was mainly seen as the party-pooper since I already had an aversion to groups of any size.
In this instance, I had no choice but to entertain and “pretend” to be a social butterfly when I only desired to crawl away into my cave of solitude like a caterpillar. I hosted while The Spoiled Bully and her four flying monkeys sat attentively listening to the visiting pastor as he harped on (as if to give a sermon) how God sets the solitaire in families. This pastor specifically singled me out by telling me that I was going against the grain of what God wanted for me. I was not only confused by this pastor’s remarks, I was also disappointed by his remarks.
Instead of taking immediate offense, I used my wit to communicate my defense. However, my wit in rebuttal did not go over too well. The fact that I responded to the visiting pastor at all raised eyebrows of shock. It was obvious based on the stares I received that I was not supposed to talk. It was as if there was an attempt to silence my voice in my own home. I refused to be silent, however. “Even Jesus sought times away from the crowd … a lot. God set him in a family, but that would not have changed the fact that he might have been an introvert.”
The visiting pastor scoffed at me and then scolded me. He literally chastised me with a verbal profusion of biblical words while The Spoiled Bully and her flying monkeys peered on in seeming delight. I was stunned silent. Why was he so offended? Not only was he speaking to me in a condescending way, but he was outright verbally disrespecting me. I could not help but wonder where this pastor got off on being a guest in my home while flagrantly disrespecting me. It was apparent to me that he was accustomed to such entitled behavior based on the way he behaved towards me.
For a split second, it occurred to me that The Spoiled Bully got what she wanted in terms of devaluing me. She was able to devalue me by verbally downgrading me to this pastor behind my back. Then he took it upon himself to come to her defense that I was who she claimed me to be. Whomever that was to her … I don’t know. Even though I had never met this pastor before, he seemed to know a lot about me, and I did not discern at all that God had told him anything. In fact, this pastor had already decided offhand that I was a “lone-ranger”.
This pastor had decided based on my response that I was a person who could not take correction from anyone. It did not matter that I simply had a different opinion regarding religious matters and chose to exercise my opinions. All that mattered to him was that I should have obediently listened because he had the title of pastor. Yet, in my eyes, his being a pastor did not matter to me in the sense that he had any authority over me in my home. He was a visitor, and I was not a part of his “flock”.
Although this visiting pastor, The Spoiled Bully, and her flying monkeys cared, it did not matter to me that this pastor was “gifted” in several languages, evangelized a multitude of churches all over the world, or was regarded as highly anointed by the so-called right people within the congregation. All I could think was that when I saw a snake, I knew it was a snake. Even the shedding of old skin does not change that a snake is a snake. A snake is still a snake, and although I could not put my finger on exactly why I thought this pastor was a snake in that moment, he later did prove to be a snake [although that information is for another post].
Needless to say, I sat a moment in stunned silence as this pastor ran down a gamut of reasons basically to humiliate me for being a less than satisfactory human on planet Earth. Everything he said would seemingly have been prophetic except I smelled the very bad vibes of gossip gone wrong. I knew in that very moment that I had been set up for an ambush on my own turf, in my private abode, and within my sanctuary of freedom and safety. I had no choice but to defend myself, and drive him and his wicked sidekicks out. Instead of wincing in the face of attack, I fought back.
I maneuvered my way out of this pastor’s entangled web of words by standing my ground. His words to me were merely insults thrown at me to tear me down. Instead of cowering, I chose to make him aware of this much … that if God has not given me the spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind, then I need not feel like I must be condemned by the words of a mere man who thought it necessary to bring open chaos into my home of peace. This is one of the main reasons I hardly allow anyone into my space now. I want my home to be a peaceful one.
Looking back, I wish I had not fallen for the trappings of guilt thrown upon me for being an introvert, but now, I no longer do this. I told this visiting pastor a thing or two about who I really am as a person, and then I flipped the switch … [without apology] and told him what I discerned about his dirty agenda … that I could see through him, and that he might have been fooling everyone else with his greatness, but he was not fooling me. My words were bold, and once they were let go of into the atmosphere, it was too late for me to take them back.
I got up and told him that his disrespect of me warranted him a swift kick out of my front door, but since I was a Christian attempting to walk in the light of love, I would just open the door for him to walk out. Not only was he shocked by my announcement, but The Spoiled Bully and her flying monkeys were shocked too. One of them even gasped. Although they all attempted to reason with me, I told them I wanted them to leave. There was even a pronounced dash of words by the so-called prophetic guard of the flying monkey that I would regret my actions to which I responded, “The only thing I regret is allowing any of you to come in here and disturb my peace. Anything else you say as some type of pronounced curse of me is falling to the ground. I want you to leave.”
Strike Two
A few weeks after the situation with the visiting pastor, The Spoiled Bully stopped by my home again … unannounced and without invitation. When I opened the door, I could tell by her body language that she wanted to enter, but I stood guard blocking entrance to her.
She looked at me with offense in her eyes and said, “You really aren’t going to let me in?”
To which I replied, “No!”
What transpired was a lot of back and forth until I decided I was done.
Her: What? Are you serious? That’s not very godly to behave this way!
Me: It’s also not godly of you to disrespect me. I don’t know how many times I must explain that I prefer to be called first. You cannot just show up and expect to get in. You did this the last time bringing company with you … company I hadn’t planned for or prepared for. It just goes to show that you don’t respect me or my boundaries. You just do whatever you want when you feel like it. Not this time!
Her: So this is how you’re going to be? Fine. I guess I’ll have to tell the pastor.
Me: Tell the pastor? What am I? Five? I don’t care. This is my home. The pastor doesn’t pay my bills. I’m an adult. So are you. You’re being childish, and you’re crazy if you think I’m afraid of the pastor!
Her: You’re right! This is childish, but you are the one who’s being childish and unreasonable! But fine! Fine! Just be that way! Everyone is going to know what kind of person you really are … not as nice as you make yourself out to be. Who doesn’t open the door to let their friend inside?
The Spoiled Bully was angry, but I did not care. I refused to budge. I stood firm. We stared at each other as if to be in a staring competition. I made it a point to stare deeply into her eyes with unspoken words so strong that she finally broke her stare with me. I then watched as she turned around with a huge sigh that seemed to come from her entire body before she said, “Unbelievable!” When she walked away from the door, I closed it. I did not even bother to walk to the window to watch her drive off.
Strike Three
After the heat blew over regarding the visiting minister and some time had gone by since The Spoiled Bully’s unannounced visit to my home, she kept her promise and reported me to the pastor and anyone else who would listen to her about how unreasonable she believed me to be. I do not know what she truly expected for a pastor or anyone else to do to me – a grown woman, but when the pastor called me and attempted to admonish me, I simply told the truth about what happened and how I was mistreated in my own home with the visiting minister.
For all of The Spoiled Bully’s fussiness, I only seemed to gain the status of being a weirdo, but I was already accustomed to this label since childhood. So I was not bothered by it. As would be the case, I was treated like an outcast by The Spoiled Bully and her group of flying monkeys, but I did not care. I was also on the visiting pastor’s “bad people” list, but I did not care about that either. He seemed already determined not to like me anyway.
Plus, I had long learned to deal with those narcissistically isolating behaviors from The Spoil Bully and her group before. At this point, I had reached a the thought process of no longer caring to be around them anyway. So I avoided their circle, and fortunately, my other friends in the church began to see the truth about The Spoiled Bully themselves. Because of their experiences, they no longer attempted to push me to patch things up with her any longer. They were done with her too.
The third strike came much later, and I look back upon the situation knowing that it was The Spoiled Bully’s ultimate revenge against me. She knew that I was (am) an introvert, and for reasons I quite never understood, she despised this trait about me. I gathered this only because she was always so critical of anything dealing with the topic of introversion as it pertained to me. She acted as if introversion was a character flaw that needed to be changed about me, and she wasted no time trying to change it either. I also suffered social anxiety, and she knew I had to be prepared in advanced for social situations. Regardless of my struggles, however, she loved to force social gatherings upon me.
So The Spoiled Bully’s ultimate revenge was to thrust me into a situation that I could not get out of because she had requested me to accompany her on an errand she claimed would only take a few minutes. Yet, when this errand ended up being at someone’s home who was having a gathering of people over to his home, I became flustered by it all. I realized the moment that The Spoiled Bully said that to me upon our arrival that “You really need to come out of your shell, and I am going to help you do so”, I knew that I had been forcefully tricked into a situation under her control. I regretted ever going along with her on her so-called errand. She was such a liar.
I did not want to get out of her vehicle since she said she was dropping something off, but she forced the issue and then had the wife of the couple come out to greet me and invite me in. I was chided by her fact that I needed to do the “Christian thing” and be hospitable. I felt red and hot on the inside. I was flushed with a mixture of anger and betrayal, but tried to push it down because I pondered if I even had the right to feel that way.
The wife’s husband was someone who I perceived did not like me. He had quickly become one of The Spoiled Bully’s flying monkeys. He was also very arrogant, self-righteous, and disrespectful of women. If the way this man covertly mistreated his wife by speaking to her as if she were ignorant was any indication of how he felt about women, I had to wonder why he kissed the ground that The Spoiled Bully walked upon.
This man wanted women to be docile and submissive, and he had encountered me as [his exact words] “a very opinionated and noncompliant woman who could learn a thing or two about being put in her place”. His disrespect of me – particularly regarding my introversion – was maddening to me. I was speechless and humiliated in front of all of his guests as he made jokes about me and my personality. He talked to me as if I were trash all while The Spoil Bully and her flying monkeys smirked as if my presence was all part of a grand, diabolical scheme. No one came to my defense.
I was finally pushed to my limit after repeatedly being mocked and made fun of in condescendingly overt ways. I told The Spoiled Bully that I wished to leave at that moment or I would phone for a cab. She looked at me as if to be stunned and said, “Wow! I can’t believe you!” I felt as if I were going to hyperventilate, and I fought hard not to cry. I felt completely devastated and I tried to internally console myself.
I walked out of the man’s house without even waiting for The Spoiled Bully while I heard the man say, “Look at her! She doesn’t even have the decency to say goodbye. She came to my house, ate my snacks, and stood around like a dummy … not joining in on any of the intelligent conversation. [turning after me] You didn’t even say a mouthful! Where did you learn to talk? Thanks for adding to the conversation!” He then laughed while others joined in on the laughter with him. I was mortified, and I was not helped or defended by one single Christian present.
Once I was inside of The Spoiled Bully’s vehicle, I swallowed the gulp of tears that rushed their way up to my cheeks as if to erupt from my eye sockets. I knew that a sign of any emotion would show my defeat, but I was so angry and befuddled that I somewhat did not care. I knew I was done. Whatever bonds I had left with her were broken in that moment because I was emotionally done. The bonds were severed, and whatever she meant regarding her attack, she had accomplished … I was humiliated and betrayed.
The silence on the ride home was thick, and I discerned that The Spoiled Bully wished that she had reigned in her friend because he had gone too far. When she spoke, I could hear her voice crack in a way that showed some emotion but not enough emotion for her to cry. I instantly wondered if she was faking and attempting to make herself sound sorry because she realized that nothing else would suffice. I could tell that she knew that I was done, but there was still an arrogance to her demeanor that told me she did not really care about me more than she cared about herself. I still believe she thought that I deserved whatever happened to me. In fact, I felt her projection of this intensely.
Once she reached my home, I hesitated before getting out of her vehicle. My tears were all dried up on the inside, and I felt a great resignation within me. This was, in fact, my last ride with her. I knew I would never ride with her again. I was done. My hesitation was in the fact that there was a knowing that for me this was the last time I even wanted to see her or be around her. But, I waited for a short moment before I turned towards her, Then I uttered, “All this time, I thought we were friends, but you have never been my friend, and now I am not ever going to be yours.” Then I got out of the car and never looked back. Less than a month later, I also left that church.
My Voice Unchained 