Why am I saying this?
Once in awhile I pick up a friend who doesn't understand boundaries. That person might not have a clue how demanding they might be, and how draining they might become dragging me into emotional quandaries that have nothing to do with me. That person might especially not get how difficult it gets to continue to be sweet when I'm juggling private stuff with family and responding to other stuff going on behind the scenes or underground about code fixing and touch bases with other webmasters. Even if that person has been friends with me for several years and there never was a problem before, sometimes things suddenly get super personal because they've somehow elevated themselves to bestie or even family status in their heads. I take the blame for that because super aspie is pretty blind to all the signs and assumes friends will heed all the warnings I post, forgetting that a friend here or there might not think it applies to them, plus I write so much it's just dang hard to catch it all, I'm sure.
I can't tell you how many times I've been through this. The next thing that happens is jealousy, backstabbing other people to me in private, backstabbing me to other people behind my back, and eventually some very hurt feelings as I keep trying to cautiously extricate myself from the growing amount of time I'm seeing one person out of hundreds is spending constantly making sure I'm the one they see nearly every single day.
I have no problem owning who I am. I have a legitimate diagnosis, I see a psychologist, and I am very open about it. I also have no problem with people talking about me. I've already been through the very public worldwide hamburger mill as a fansite owner, besides some very sad emotional abuse by several people both in real life and online who told me they were my friends, and I know this problem is actually about ME because I'm so bad for picking up strays in the first place. People say I'm nice, even when I keep trying to tell them I'm not. I repeatedly say I'm not a nice person.
When I first got back on twitter, I was NOT looking for friends. I cannot stress this enough. I'm not the sort of person who needs daily convo. I also cannot stress THAT enough. My feelings are NOT hurt when people talk smack about me, and I was born without a single empathetic bone in my body. I say all these things very clearly.
I learned to be kind. On purpose. Because it's logical.
What's not kind is someone bothering me until I can't take it any more, beyond weeks and months of asking point blank not to be contacted. What's not kind is someone trying to get me to take sides against another friend. What's not kind is someone hogging and puposely diverting attention away from something I write that is very important to me. And what's still not kind is that person passive-aggressively and very publicly using memes to keep flicking their wounded feelings at me after I finally put my foot down, which looks like prompt bait to get other people to ask what happened.
Definition of a friend is NOT grinding my day to a halt every time someone yanks my chain. Definition of a friend is NOT playing along with the head games when someone else chooses to be negative and whine. Definition of a friend is NOT being a two-face who says one thing in private and another in public. Definition of a friend is NOT someone who feels sorry for themselves as a gimmick to get attention.
A real friend is honest. I was honest. A real friend draws clear boundaries and marks where not to cross to start problems. I was very clear, over and over. A real friend doesn't walk away. I haven't walked away. I'm still here, lurking. Why? Because I actually care when I call someone a friend. Just because I'm not hitting a like or fav button, just because I'm not tagging, just because I'm not talking doesn't mean I'm not a friend and that I've abandoned anyone.
What is a lurker? A lurker is someone who quietly watches, doesn't wave flags to get attention, doesn't troll around starting problems between people. A lurker enjoys lurking, likes lurking for sport, does their best not to get caught lurking. The whole definition of lurking is lost on some people. You can't jump up and down waving where everyone can see and call yourself a lurker. You can't draw attention to another person and call yourself a lurker. Calling attention to stuff is the opposite of lurking.
A whole bunch of misunderstandings develop when someone making a habit of talking to me for the sake of talking thinks I'm a new playground to splash around in, a new toy to experiment with, something to poke and see how I'll react, and then when I do they run away wahwahwah to someone else saying I reacted and it wasn't fair and I'm mean and then passive-aggressively throwing hints out to the world that a big baddie hurt their feelings. This looks a little ridiculous after I've very publicly shared that I have a social deficit.
I *am* a big baddie. If you are playing these head games with me, you. have. no. clue. who. I. am. You have no clue how kind I've been allowing the head games to go on. You have no clue how many other people all over the world who know me are holding their breaths waiting to see how long it'll be before I make you bleed.
Let me be clear.
Everyone who sees me sees you interacting with me, because I've been around a long time in multiple fandoms and I'm watched by a lot of people all over the world. Everyone who sees me stomp you continues to watch you to see why I didn't kill or maim you, because in fandoms, that is a sport. Many of the watchers still lurking and not stepping in are the sort of people who pop popcorn and make bets on who's gonna crawl off and die. I know I have an audience, that is why I don't play the head games. Sometimes other people try to get a little attention for themselves hanging around with me, but sometimes they're just really thick and don't get how visible they are because lurkers don't pop up and high five them.
A friend would never post this after meeting someone who has openly confessed to struggling with this in real life and with a psychologist. A friend who would post this would be being meaner than I was, whinier than I've ever been, more judgmental, less forgiving, and strangely enough, way more egocentric. More sadly, that person would be lumping a genuine psychological challenge into a generic trash can, along with the friend they're whining about ~*~and never see the irony in this~*~.
I've said before that I'm not brave as much as I am brazenly stupid, because I'm easily led and I keep falling for people who say they're my friends, and I don't let the fallout stop me from being myself. You know why some people go underground and don't come back out? Because their 'friends' mock them in public and stab them in the back in private. I've seen this happen so many times that I can't believe in 'faith in humanity restored' at all. All I can do is say I don't know if I'm being brave or stupid.
It is a HUGE frickin' deal that someone like me is trying so hard, and especially that I'm sharing so much of my real life and so much private stuff. Every time I hit 'publish', I am taking the risk that someone on this earth will use my personal stuff against me, to hurt me. But since I've been picked on and even abused my entire life because I'm autism spectrum, and since I've actually been nicknamed a robot on twitter (which I like), and because I've taken all the crap and all the crap and all the crap since I was a small child, it's time I turn it around and just say it- If you want to be my friend, figure me out. All my REAL friends go through the mill with me. They don't walk away and start throwing rocks. I don't even understand that at all. Maybe I don't know what being a friend is supposed to be, but I sure don't act like that.
I do know that real friendship isn't about demanding my time and my attention and then whining if I get angry because I've had enough of the overwhelming demands diverting attention away from my very real SAD STUFF and SURVIVAL to butting in and making very off the wall remarks and jokes instead of actually validating what I've just said. You know how I know? I've been through it so many times. This isn't new to me. This is so familiar that it barely phases me any more.
People kill themselves over this kind of stupidity. I've been writing about depression and suicide since 2008, and the person I allow to come the closest is sometimes the person who will literally test every fiber of my being, and those are usually the people who don't understand when I can't take any more. This is why I say I suck as a friend.
I'm going to say this as simply as possible. Narcissism is what saved me from committing suicide, from drinking myself to death, from staying in toxic relationships with real guns and rape, from becoming an interstate drug runner, from abandoning my child, from so many other things. Every time I noticed I was epic failing, it wasn't good sense that saved me but being too proud to go down into those gutters. I really was there, too, all those places. I didn't like those places, so I changed things. It takes lots of guts to change your life (especially more than once) when you're stuck in between rocks and hard places, and the reason most people don't is because they don't believe they'll succeed.
I SURVIVED. If that's not good enough for someone who calls me their friend, then that person can stop following me around and whining about the way I survive another friend doing me dirty. You don't see me whining on my timeline. My personal blog is a different story, nobody has to go there and keep up with all that. I don't write on Pinky to get validation, I write to FOCUS.
I am public again because I'm a world rep for a fandom and I believe what I'm doing is important. What I'm doing is being a genuine person getting through real life problems and living out loud for other people who need to see someone making it out of the dark. If it takes narcissism to reach this level of cool, I'm good with it, because it sure beats hell outa wasting my life feeling sorry for myself and probably being dead by now.
People who don't get #TeamSpooge will never get ME. It's not about playing the convo games, it's about actually being real people sharing who we really are, not bugging and poking and playing blame games.
When my friend figures out what public passive-aggressive behavior does to genuine lurkers who want a friend but stay in the dark because of people behaving that way, when the self-inflicted passive-aggressive tweeting actually stops, then maybe the self defense barriers will come down. There is such a thing as friending people to exasperation, but I'm not going to look for a cute little chart to make a point and put it on my public timeline.
Aspie spoonie Lexx fan on a mission- and how embracing my narcissism is changing my life. Let's revisit that chart.
= Everything is my fault. I own my stuff. Narcissism actually makes this easier.
= I'm there for everybody who asks for genuine help. You guys never see how many times I've dropped everything I'm doing for a suicide run or to sit in hospitals and doctors' offices with people. Narcissism doesn't cancel out doing what one believes is right.
= I refuse to be the victim. I'm a survivor, thanks to narcissism. I want to WIN over all the stupidities that have haunted my life, and nothing's going to stop me.
= I see everything about you, your need, your love, your pain, your loneliness, and your accomplishments. I'm a lurker deluxe. Narcissism drives me to check on those who are 'mine'.
= Everything will always be about me. I feel this is a wise business decision, but you guys know I love you. Besides, the more I stand up for my stuff, the more I stand up for the lurkers who wish someone would stand up for them, too, in a world full of haters, blamers, and backstabbers. Narcissism doesn't mean I'm not afraid, but it does mean I won't hesitate to stand up in full view and take arrows and bullets for people I love, because I believe I'll make the better target.
= "My way or the highway." Yep, my blog, my timeline, my personal time, my life... "They never give an inch but demand a mile." Imagine if I didn't expect so much of myself. Narcissism is a demanding mistress.
= I admit I'm wrong all the time. I've been professionally trained to apologize, and I've won customer service awards for it. However, I'm not an enabler. Big difference. Drama addiction on social media is a genuine problem and needs to be addressed as such. Narcissism isn't always about drawing attention to oneself for the sake of attention. I have a bigger agenda than that.
= Frequent silent treatments yada yada yada. See drama addiction again. Narcissism actually compels me to establish my territory. What you might see as the silent treatment, I see as me saving your social media life with the Pond of Death. How many times have I said if I'm not talking to you, it's because I'm not eating your head.
= "When you finally leave..."- omg, I can't shake people off for weeks, months... I've literally disappeared off the internet to escape people contacting me. "...they spread lies and rumors about you." Well, actually, I'm being narcissistic and talking about myself.
What really cracks me up about this whole thing is this person has no clue I've actually blocked, with extreme prejudice, my own cousins on facebook. If this friend were my real family behaving like this on social media, I'd have already set fire to the internet.
Anyway, yeah, I'm sorry it's 'over', but I'm not the one counting it as losing a friend. I'm not the one still throwing rocks days later. I get the hint, though. Throwing rocks is what people do to dogs they want to go away. Fine.
Meanwhile, several thousand other people are actually keeping up with my stuff, and I really don't have time for this crap. I think this Pond was just a byproduct of me getting through the remnants of all that death stuff that I'm still kind of dealing with, and now it's holidays, and while I never expected a gut punch, I knew I had it eventually coming for attempting to be tolerant of a soul sucker. Tis the season for emotional vampires to refuse to admit they have depression problems like the rest of us.
