Trojan Horse

 I used to think that I was a pretty good judge of character, I could, and still can, read people.  Have you ever missed the mark though and allowed a Trojan horse to infiltrate your inner circle?  At this age, I really thought people ( as a whole) grew out of these antics. That mean girls mature and become nice, that manipulators find their real value to others and press into the authentic ways to communicate. 

 Definitely naivety at it's best, but really its me always wanting to believe that people are better than that, that people grow, heal and desire genuine connections. An unfortunate reality, mean girls grow up to be mean women, manipulators only hone their skills and damaged people choose to damage other people.  It's sad! I can wish all day long that everyone is good to their core. That each person wants to be the best version of themselves and desires to do the hard work on themselves but there will always be wolves in sheep clothing amongst us.  I struggle here though, I need to know if they choose this behavior knowing full well each intention for the steps they're taking. Or can it possibly be that they don't know better? What does one get out of this kind of behavior?  Do they want real wholesome friendships or do they just want pons to play against one another? 

 Personally, I can't imagine operating in such a way that is so destructive to ones self and others.  To be so calculated as to already know how you want to mess with someones head, to weaponize knowledge, social media and other friendships.  Do these individuals think they won't be found out?  How long can someone continue these maneuvers before they have to move along to another set of friends? 

 Here's where it gets downright scandalous, speaking from personal experience, I've had to slowly create distance and allow this type of friend to think that she's phasing me out.  Unfortunately, this type of situation doesn't afford me to warn anyone or share the things I've found out, for a few reasons actually.  For one, I'm not the type to go around chit chatting about others, second I personally value my integrity and lastly because I need to protect myself and keep my name out of anything that could get her back to my front door.  My own mental health, the well being of my family and my other friendships cannot become entangled any further. 

I don't think anyone will ever truly know why deceivers deceive, manipulators manipulate or why bullies bully.  So often we hear that when someone is being ugly to you or saying things about you, that it's never actually about you. And while that is entirely true, it also enables these behaviors to be protected.  It's like walking into a national forrest and seeing the warning signs about wild bears and what to do if they approach.  Are we in fact allowing these behaviors to continue by coining phrases that essentially sweep their attacks under the metaphorical rug?

This leads me to my next question, how can we not only protect ourselves from such negative interactions, how can we spot these aggressors? 

I'd like to share a bit of my experience:

Let's call her Lucy.

Lucy and I became friends because we often encountered each other at our children's school.  We helped each other on projects and our children are friends. So naturally we began to see more of each other, even including our families.  Of course there were red flags. For instance, she always seemed to have some dilemma with past friends, other moms and staff at school.  But me, wanting to see the good in others, I excused it by thinking she was just misunderstood.  She was charming, quirky and blunt which was refreshing, at the time.  We got close!  We made plans for playdates for our kids and summer hang outs, it wouldn't last long though.  One particular afternoon another mom, whom Lucy had introduced me to, and I decided that with a free hour we had that we would lounge by the pool and catch up.  Lucy happened to ask me during that same time to grab a coffee, to which I simply invited her along to join us poolside.  I'm all inclusive and we were all friends, win win.  More like, game set and match!! She turned me down and days later proceeded to cancel plans we'd made. In my book all is well, things happen, stuff comes up, we'll plan something later on.  But it didn't stop there, a friendship that was made of daily phone calls, regular texting and sending funny memes on social media became distant and treacherous.  We'd never had cross words, never had a disagreement, nothing.  For me, I will rack my brain trying to piece things together. I will lose sleep at night if there's the slightest chance I could have hurt someone.  Each cancellation comes with an explanation of how she never sees anyone during the summer and she's too busy.  Totally fine, as a mom of 3,  I get that.  The issue comes in though when social media becomes her passive aggressive weapon to put me in my place. Every single day, even days that she canceled plans with me, she would post stories of all the mutual family friends and classmates she was spending time with.  I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt my feelings, but more than that, I couldn't figure out what had changed.  After straightforward asking her how she was and if everything was ok, I was told how insecure I was and that she couldn't be friends with someone who didn't trust her.  There were several other interactions that were quite frankly not ok, but reality set in when two other friends called me out and asked if I was seeing the same ugliness aimed at me that they were seeing. Oh I saw it but I'm not a reactive person and I will never play into these kind of antics.  I don't need to point out her behaviors or intentions when she knows what she's doing.  I may not have known why or what she believed my offense was, but I knew the reasoning ultimately had nothing to do with me.  It got to the point where my mental health was struggling, while I wasn't reacting, I was letting it wear me down emotionally and mentally.  I knew I had to walk away.  Another close friend finally approached me and told me that Lucy had come to her quite frequently mentioning how odd it was that I was friends with the woman she introduced me to. I felt very unprotected by these friends who knew my "supposed offense" but never said anything, I realize now that they too were protecting themselves from her. I didn't  know what to do with this information, that's all it took for her to decide to ruin me, I was friends with someone she didn't approve of.  I didn't deal with this kind of behavior in middle school, I AM NOT going deal with it at this point in my life. I am a 40 year old mom of 3!!  Even writing this, I'm still shocked!  I was basically made to feel crazy, thinking I had committed such an egregious crime against my friend.  Months of questioning myself and walking on eggshells,  and this was my crime.  It didn't take long for the distant I created there to be noticed by others, those who give her a wide berth when passing her in the school halls,  to take notice. Then they were coming out of the wood works recommending that I be very careful in my attempt to slink away.  I never asked nor do I want to know their experience but I do appreciate that these women are assisting my getaway.  If I were to further detail some of the occurrences that lead me to finally see Lucy for who she is, it would sound crazy. 

 Therein lies the problem, it seemed too far fetched so"'we" continued on with these friendships that we think we can help heal past hurts, speak truth and light into areas of their lives.  People have to want to change, they have to want to heal.  

Some of us are who we are inspite of our past hurts and traumas. While others master the behaviors that hurt them and caused their trauma, in order to wield the same weapon of destruction on others.