‘nah’cissists

I’ve been friends with most of my friends for over a decade now. We went through high school together and have remained by each other’s sides during the uni/TAFE/whatever-comes-next years that have followed, through unaligned schedules and time zones, boys coming and going (literally, and good riddance), men coming and staying, babies entering the world, and relatives leaving the world.

I think the longevity of all my friendships is a testament to our mutual commitment to making time for each other in an ever-chaotic world. It’s also because of my superior organising skills and repeated insistence on getting together on a semi-regular basis (you’re welcome, guys).

Unlike romantic relationships, which are often unfairly emphasised, we cannot live happily without friendships. Seriously, there’s a shit tonne of research to back up the importance of strong (but not necessarily romantic) social connections to happiness, better mental and physical health, and increased life satisfaction. A famous (and the longest) study on this topic is Harvard’s Study of Adult Development, which has been following 724 men since they were teenagers in 1938.

Researchers have collected all kinds of health information over the years, and every two years, participants are asked questions about their lives and their mental and emotional wellness. Over the decades, the study has consistently reported strong associations between happiness and close relationships, including spouses, family, friends, and wider social circles.

Where I don’t fear being without a romantic partner, I deeply, viscerally fear being without friendships. Which is why I’ve always prioritised maintaining friendships, perhaps more than the average person. I’m terrified of having no support network to learn from, love unconditionally, and vent to about serious (and trivial) matters.

Unfortunately, this fear also led me to tolerate one-sided friendships with narcissists that wrecked me emotionally, because the prospect of a friendship failing seemed worse than the emotional neglect and manipulation I was being subjected to.

You see, my Achilles heel is being someone’s first choice. Not in a romantic sense, but in a ‘you’re the first person I think to call in a crisis’ sense. Which is why the title of ‘best friend’ was so tantalising to me – I wanted to be important enough to be relied on. To be the go-to person. The shoulder to cry on. The loyal supporter.

Until I learned how to read the danger signs and say ‘nah, kindly fuck off thanks’, I was easy prey for narcissists – I didn’t have a fight or flight response, I had a freeze response, which allowed them to sink their teeth into me and rip me apart to feed their cavernous craving for validation.

The LIE: I see you, this shy, innocent girl who just wants to be accepted for who she is. I see the real you, and I’ll be your best friend forever.

Between the LIEnes: I see you, this shy, innocent girl who’ll do anything to feel accepted. I see the you I want to see, and I’ll be your best friend until you become confident and self-accepting, and your success and happiness starts to threaten my self-worth, at which point I’ll do everything I can to bring you back down to my level of insecurity. Because when you feel shit about yourself, I feel better about myself. 

The LIE: I see you, this bright and self-assured girl with aspirations that deviate from the norm. I’m inspired by you, and I’ll be your best friend forever.

Between the LIEnes: I see you, this bright and self-assured girl who’s lonely in her aspirations to deviate from the norm. You inspire me to change my self-destructive ways (i.e., relying on men to ‘love’ me instead of loving myself), and I’ll be your best friend until you hold me accountable for defaulting back to the way of life that I’m too afraid to contest (i.e., accepting ‘love’ from men as a substitute for the love I can’t give myself), at which point I’ll deem you judgemental and pity you for not understanding the importance of a man’s ‘love’.

After being bled dry by toxic ‘friendships’ with narcissists, I eventually learned to stop rationalising away disrespect and emotional neglect for the sake of a fragile peace with people intent on warfare. Of course, my confrontation was never received well – I didn’t expect it to be. After all, it must’ve been a rude shock to be confronted by someone who’d once been so emotionally malleable.

Do I regret these parasitic relationships friendships?

Short answer, no. I don’t regret the ‘friendships’ or ruthlessly terminating them. These experiences, although painful, helped me build character and find the courage to stand up for myself.

I think of exposure to toxic people like narcissists as a form of vaccination (I am a scientist after all) – you get exposed to something, like a virus, that can harm you, so your body can learn to build immunity to it. Then, if you encounter that virus again, your body will recognise it and fuck it right off.

And like viruses, narcissists are very good at disguising their harmful contents. They tactfully infiltrate your heart and mind with false promises of friendship before detonating and releasing their toxic bullshit into their host, i.e., you.

I consider myself fully vaccinated against toxic friendships and narcissism: I recognise the signs quickly, and deploy my ‘immune system’, i.e. I get the fuck away from them.

But like viruses, there are lasting side-effects to toxic friendships, even after they’ve been eradicated. Like trust issues, hyper-independence, shame and embarrassment at having been taken advantage of, and second-guessing whether a genuine person’s intentions are actually genuine. 

One of the side-effects I deal with is an overabundance of empathy. It’s infuriating. Well, as infuriating as something can be for someone who’s trained herself to not let fury overcome her. To read between the LIEnes of narcissistic bullshit, I had to overcome my tendency to blame myself for others’ shitty behaviour towards me. So, I started trying to understand why these toxic ‘friends’ treated me (and probably others) the way they did. And I came to the same conclusion every time: they have a deep fear that they’re not good enough to be loved. 

Which is a fear I can relate to. I think we all can. But we’re not all narcissistic sociopaths, are we?

Still, it’s hard not to empathise. And it was even harder to walk away from them knowing that they’d see my doing so as reinforcement of that belief. But what was the alternative? Letting them continue to eat me alive with their lies?

Nah, I’m good thanks.

I’m still working on drawing the line between putting my needs first and being understanding of others’ shitty behaviour, but I’m better at combatting my fear of losing friends. I try not to let it drive me towards accepting conditional ‘friendship’. When I feel myself choking on this fear, which still comes up from time to time, I remind myself to trust that the friends I have are stable, loving, and have my best interests at heart, as well as their own. What more could you possibly ask for in a friendship?

And if I didn’t go through what I went through with toxic, narcissistic ‘friends’, where else would I get my inspiration for the insufferable villains in my books?