It’ll be two years this September since I first met Erica’s friend Kerrilynn, who I met for the first time when she came to Nanaimo to visit for the weekend.
While she was here, Erica wanted to take her out on a bike ride and introduce her to the world of E-biking, a sport I introduced Erica to and that we frequently enjoyed doing together. Only problem was, Erica only had one E-bike – the one she owned, her daily driver.
I really WOULD like to think that it was because at that point, Erica and I had been “together” for a little over two years that she finally wanted me to finally meet one of her best friends, but I have a deeply rooted suspicion that it was because Erica felt she had no choice but to invite me. She knew that I would have been upset if she’d asked to borrow one of my E-bikes while excluding me from joining a bike ride around town. She did it because she felt she had to, not because she wanted to.
Maybe I’m wrong – maybe her primary objective WAS to have her friend meet me that day. But it’s hard to know for sure because despite many conversations, fights and arguments on the topic, Erica never really made me feel like my presence in her world was welcome, outside of one on one time. I was never told “I really want you to come!” whenever it involved her friends. Throughout the course of our (incredibly dysfunctional) 3.8 year relationship, the few people in her life I met, I met through a collision of circumstances or necessity. Not because she wanted me to meet them, but because her needs called for it.
For example, I met one of her friends ONLY because at 11 at night, there were no stores open and her friend needed contact lens solution. Another time, while we were out on a bike ride, we passed near a restaurant where her friend was having dinner, so she decided to swing by and say hello, while I waited in the parking lot. After 15-20 minutes, I was invited in to join – by her friend. Not to say it NEVER happened, but I can count on half a hand how many times I met one of her friends based on her having a genuine desire for me to meet them. Excluding her Mom, Dad and sister, I can only recall it happening once.
The point is, I was rarely invited to meet “her people” or be included. Over time, that leaves a person feeling like they’re not good enough, a secret, or otherwise unwanted. Maybe for her peer group or even her generation, that’s normal, but from everything I’ve learned while doing this work, it’s a narcissistic trait to keep a partner isolated, compartmentalized and to be one version of yourself in private, and a different version in public. (More on this in an upcoming post) For my generation, being excluded and left out by someone you’re in a romantic and sexual relationship with is a huge red flag. And because of being sexually assaulted by her while at my most vulnerable shortly after we met and the resulting trauma bond that I didn’t recognize, I missed that particular flag, and so many more.
By this point of our “relationship”, we’d had several arguments because I had tried every way possible to express how it felt to be excluded from any opportunity to be invited to meet any of her friends, or be included in “friend” activities. I just wanted to talk about it, be seen, be heard and be validated. I felt like a dirty secret – and of course, now I see that that is exactly what I was – a side piece, a utility human and her dopamine dispenser – not a friend.
Even as I type this, I still feel that same “I’m broken and dysfunctional” shame that she instilled in me for trying to express how being compartmentalized effected me. Because yet again I’m trying to explain what it felt like to be excluded and never be invited into her world. To always be on the outside looking in where it really mattered.
I was conditioned to feel like my needs were somehow inappropriate, because every time I tried to articulate how the lack of them being met or even validated impacted me, Erica would lash out and make me feel like I was controlling, abusive, needy, or otherwise out of line for having those needs or desiring for them to be met. She was simply not capable of understanding the difference between “I want to be heard and to talk about the impact this is having on me” and “I demand that you accommodate my needs!”.
Which yes, makes me question her abilities as a counselor and therapist. Absolutely.
I mean, here was a woman I’d invited into my home for Christmas dinner, family dinner, backyard activities, hammocks, backyard fires, BBQ’s, who played with my kids, and was in every way, invited and welcome into our lives. But if her friends came to town, or went down to the river to swim, or go camping, I was left out. She’d either lie, hide it or preemptively pick a fight with me so we were not on speaking terms while her friends were here. There was ALWAYS a reason. ALWAYS an excuse. There was never a reason TO include me, only a reason to exclude.
Always a reason. Always an excuse. She was an expert at making you feel crazy for even bringing it up. Using phrases like “you are the ONLY one in my life that even ASKS for this” or “I don’t fight with ANYONE else in my life like I fight with you!“, or my favorite – “No one ELSE in my life makes me feel so small! Why do you make me feel like this!?”
She was so good at spinning reasons and excuses that to this day, I feel like a dysfunctional, controlling piece of shit because I even wanted it in the first place. This is where most of “the work” is being done in my recovery, is unlearning the idea that I’m a bad person for having needs or desires that were constantly being invalidated and neglected. I was gaslit into thinking *I* was overbearing and controlling because I had a desire to be included, and felt that it’d been years since we met, and yet I’d only met a couple of her friends, and only because circumstances kinda dictated it out of necessity. I was awful for thinking it would be nice if I was invited along because I was wanted there, you know what I mean?
One of the ways I am coming to understand that Erica gaslit and manipulated me was that every time that I tried to express my needs or talk to her about what I was feeling because of constantly being excluded, lied to or having things like her travel plans hidden from me, she would exploit my (admittedly) anxious attachment style to convince me that there was no difference between having needs and being needy. I’m now learning that having needs doesn’t make you needy. If I am in an emotional, sexual and romantic relationship with someone, one shouldn’t fear a fight or an argument to result from asking “what are you up to this weekend?” or “oh, you’re going on a trip? Where are you off to?” or “I miss you! I’m envious, I wish I was there with you!“.
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Yesterday, while going through drawers in my desk, looking for whatever remnants of Erica I could find – like movie ticket stubs, cards, photos, etc – to dispose of, I came across the following card that Kerrilynn gave me after we’d gone for that bike ride back in September 2021. Initially, I was going to burn it along with everything else, because I have little doubt that Kerrilynn probably despises me as well, in support of her friend. (And I don’t blame her for that.)
I sat down and read it again, something I haven’t done since I first received it. It was a really nice reminder that this? This is who I am. It wasn’t an act, it wasn’t me pretending to be someone I wasn’t to impress – in every way, who Kerrilynn wrote this card to is who I am. The person she got to know that day is who I am, and who I have always been. (Though, now I’m a bit more educated on narcissism, gaslighting and trauma bonding, so I guess something good HAS come out of all this?)
My impression of Kerrilynn was that she is smart, observant, intuitive and good at her job, and has been doing it long enough that if I was an abusive con man who was in no way who he presented himself to be, she’d have been able to spot it fairly easily. So when I read that card, I feel like genuinely seen and validated. I am all the things she saw in me, and I have – more than once – read it and been reminded that I am not the person Erica convinced herself and others that I am. Wanting to be seen, included, respected, worthy of honesty and not to be lied to, used and cheated on (with Ross at least, but I have very little trust that there wasn’t more) doesn’t make me a bad person. Wanting or expecting to get as much as I give in a relation – or even just a friendship – is not unreasonable or abusive.
So, thank you, Kerrilynn. Not that you’ll ever see this, but thank you for this card and the reminder that this version that you met and got to know that day is who I am. Thank you for seeing me, authentically.
~R
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