Dear Eva:

I want to re-read all that you shared and get to know you again. You (56 or 57 at this time) first posted on February 4 this year, exactly eight months ago. You shared that you had a partner, a Soulmate. The two of you were “a kind of nomadic people, so we don’t have a house or a car. He did art and I do creative work as well“. Back in the summer of 2021, you were living together in a tropical country, able to go out into nature during the Covid lockdown at the time.

You unexpectedly lost him that summer to an accident, an event that turned your life upside down in five minutes. In later February of this year, your mother became very ill and you travelled from Asia to Europe (for the first time in 10 years) to take care of her and of her brother (your uncle) who was also sick. A month later, your mother passed away.

You shared that you’ve been traveling a lot between Asia and Europe, never staying at one place for long, having no fixed home or job, but you check on everyone you know/ friends, asking about their lives, how they feel, being outgoing and genuinely interested in people, wanting to maintain contact. But people take weeks before answering you, answering your messages with long delays, and not asking about you. When you asked people what went wrong, asking if you said or did something wrong- you received no answers. You’ve been experiencing people promising things and not following up on their promises. And this has been happening years before the pandemic.

One friend used to tell you how much she loved you, that she admired you, that you could stay at her place at any time you were in town and for as long as you wanted to. One summer, you stayed at her place for a month. As her guest, you cleaned her place, did the laundry, ironed and cooked dinner. She told you that you could help yourself to anything in her fridge and kitchen. One morning, you noticed that she had five old honey jars with one spoon of honey left in each, so you chose to use that honey instead of opening a new jar. Shortly after, she was not talking to you and tried to avoid you. Three days later, she told you that she was angry with you because you “finished the honey jars“. Some time later, she removed your belongings from her flat and placed them on the street for you to pick up, “didn’t say hi, didn’t even open the door“. That happened six years ago.

My input today: when we discussed the honey incident back in Feb, I thought that maybe seeing those almost-empty honey jars in the fridge gave her comfort, and by removing them, you took away her comfort. It did not occur to me at all until this very morning, as I re-read your posts, that you may have overstayed your welcome in her flat, that the one-month long visit was too long for her, and she needed her privacy back, especially since her place is a flat, and not a big house. So, at first she loved you and admired you, and then.. she got tired of a visit that lasted too long.

You shared that you live a nomadic lifestyle (“I travel a lot.. I have no fix home or job…nomadic lifestyle… I understand that this kind of lifestyle is not everybody’s cup of tea“). If it includes staying in friends’ homes for long periods of time, it may be that people get tired of visits that last too long, and this is the reason they don’t keep in contact with you.. not wanting to have you stay in their place for too long, yet again.

Let’s look at what you shared yesterday, Oct 3 (I am adding the boldface & italic features to parts of this quote): “My concern with certain friendships is that they start to get closer, they invite you all the time, they tell you they love you, they offer their help or home, they say how talented you are etc. And then they let you drop with no understandable reason… They talk a lot about their issues… they talk more about their interpersonal issues, reporting the same stories, I still listen… Outside very kind, social, smiling people, you would think they love everybody,  but once at home, they tell you horrible things about the others, how they dislike them etc. And the next day they call these people and do them favors”-

– reads like you have a view of these people/former friends that’s possible by living with them: they talk to you a lot, you listen a lot, they gossip to you about people in their lives (who do not live with them), you observe how they (your hosts) behave outside their home (being kind to others) vs inside their homes (gossiping, being unkind to the same people) because you.. lived with them, inside their homes, overhearing to them calling those other people on their phones, etc.

“I am so confused and shocked because it has been happening for years… Very close friends stopped writing back without any explanation… Why do you say you love a person and then you do this? I am confused… I really need a bit of help to sort out this ‘vanishing thing’… No clue“-could the answer be that at first, your friends/ hosts were delighted to have you visit them, but as you overstayed your welcome, your hosts were distressed but uncomfortable telling you the reason, so no explanation given, and they chose to avoid future discomfort by vanishing?

anita

Dear Eva:

You are welcome.

The friend in Switzerland– “She had a boyfriend and stayed with him most of the time“- could have had relationship problems with him, angry with her boyfriend but unable to break up with him, she came back home (to the flat), and misdirecting her anger at you, breaking up with you (placing your stuff on street). This is only a possibility.. (I wonder if the honey, the almost empty honey jars in the fridge, had something to do with her relationship with her boyfriend.. a sexual play perhaps).

The friend in France– “She yells at her husband every day. Often because of small things like he ate a boiled egg!… she needed to get married because of an overstayed visa issue.  The relationship was not working at all but she had no other solution“-

– so, she wants to cut him off, but she can’t because she doesn’t want to lose her legal status in France, nor the “very big.. huge house.. the (huge) garden.. pool… travel“, etc. (?), so she cuts you off, again and again (“she just cuts me off… she cut me off again“) because she doesn’t risk her legal status in France, etc., when she cuts you off .

This may be part of the dynamic with her. But there is more: “I started to do the laundry, huge bedsheets, her and her husband’s clothes. I ironed everything. I was taking care of the plants… I fixed her pool…  I took care of her 2 cats. I help preparing food, serving to guests, cleaning up afterwards. She and her husband travel a lot, so I would stay in the house during that time. She tells me she can only trust me“-

– you wrote the day before yesterday: “what surprises me is that they want you so much in their lives, they tell you nice things and then they drop you“- telling you that she trusts you, and only you is a nice thing to  hear. Hearing it makes a person feel special, and it motivates a person to benefit the one saying it,  in such ways as to do her laundry, iron her clothes, take care of her plants, etc., for free. This manipulative kind of talk is not surprising once you understand the person’s motivation.

“When she is there, she tells me about all her childhood and marriage problems…  she suggested that I ship everything from there to her place in France, so we can start our business. That’s what she promised several times already. When I left, she stopped talking to me… Somehow we started to chat when mum died in March. She asked me on May 26th if I could fly to her place on May 30th. I said yes. I arrived and the next day they were gone for 3 weeks. I didn’t know that. We were supposed to work on our business plan. I am happy to help her out and I feel for her… I understand her frustration… she cut me off again. That’s why  I think she is narcistic”-

-Even narcissists feel frustrated, have relationship problems, etc. So, you feel empathy for them.. Problem is, empathy is not reciprocated, so she is all about herself, and none about you. When you accommodate a narcissist, you are all about her, and none about you.

In cartoons and very fictional movies (Batman comes to mind), the bad characters are visibly and audibly bad at all times, laughing in that evil way, always doing evil things. In real life, bad/ narcissistic people seem .. oh so human sometimes: they were someone’s victim in the past, someone did them wrong, they have problems you can relate to, so you feel for them. But these are only selected scenes in a real-life movie. In other scenes- which you shouldn’t ignore- they break their promises and easily! They say things for a purpose: to have you benefit them, etc.

“She is extremely friendly and kind when we are with others and that’s how I knew her. But at home it seems that she is frustrated, impossible to please“- the extremely -friendly-and-kind scene is an act that it too tiring to carry on all the time. When the guests leave, she can.. rest and be herself.

You wrote the day before yesterday: “My concern with certain friendships is that they start to get closer, they invite you all the time, they tell you they love you, they offer their help or home, they say how talented you are etc.”-  when you are dealing with a narcissist, it’s you who starts to get closer to her, made possible by you feeling empathy for her. She, on the other hand, does not get close to you: no empathy for you. It only feels to you that it’s close on both sides.

And because she is not a cartoon character, she was once an innocent child, so she experienced feeling empathy (for a parent, I am guessing), she experienced the need to be loved.. so, when she tells you things, part of her relates to what she is saying. But it’s only a part of her, not a part you can depend on.

“And then they let you drop with no understandable reason. That’s what confuses me the most“- she lets you drop when it suits her, because it’s not a big deal for her to drop you, especially if she knows that she can.. pick you up later, so to speak (lure you back in) when it suits her.

Still, from the day before yesterday: “I think that I might attract narcistic people. They talk a lot about their issues, I listen…  they talk more about their interpersonal issues, reporting the same stories, I still listen… They usually never ask how you are, what’s up with you“- my point: it’s all about them and none about you. When they remember to manipulate you, then they ask about you and add that they love you, etc.

Back to your most recent post: “Why does she tell me she trusts me and love me if once I leave, she doesn’t keep in touch. I think a friendship can be maintained even when we are in different countries“- it’s not a friendship. It only appear like a friendship if you remove some scenes of this real-life movie, and see them in isolation.

* The title of your thread: Why friends disappear? My answer: friends don’t disappear, not by choice.

“I am really confused what’s going on in her head.”-  me! me!.. me!

“I just wonder why I got into it again“- because you were confused.

“I won’t repeat it, for sure. She can tell me she loves and trusts me, I will stay away“- good thing.  If you time yourself as you say the words to no one, just utter the words with no one in mind:  “I love you and I trust you”: how many seconds did it take? How many calories did you burn? It was quick and effortless, wasn’t it? This is all it takes for a narcissist to say these words to someone who in their mind.. is no one.

* My mother was/ is a narcissist. I was her.. no one.

anita

Dear Eva:

You are welcome! “My Swiss friend…  was downloading all her frustration on me, telling me all kind of negative things about him and about all her friends. But later she went back to him and acted very friendly with her friends. Go  figure out..“- my mother did the same thing in regard to the people in her life: she would download her frustrations with them, on me, and then relieved, it was easier for her to go back to acting nice with them, extra nice, extremely nice.

She used me as a pressure relief valve (PRV), a device used to control or limit pressure in a system.

“You are right about my French friend as well. It’s all about her. You cannot finish a sentence, she interrupts you… Nobody else exists“- she is stuck in the narcissistic childhood development stage when a child (about 2-4 years old): will not listen to other children, will interrupt, will not share her toys, and will forcibly take from others what she wants.

Only that unlike a young child, she has learned to dishonestly manipulating people: she doesn’t use her physical force to make you do what she wants you to do, she uses instead the force/  power of words (“I love you”, “I trust you”).

“You are right about the lack of love in her life. She said her mother disliked her, she doesn’t have one single positive memory of their relationship. She is 67 now. She was apparently not loved by her first husband and she never loved him either… She doesn’t love her actual husband and she knows he does not love her either… she goes after money because her actual husband is extremely rich and she had made him change bank..“-

– No doubt that she loved her mother and couldn’t get her mother to love her back. Her mother expressed no empathy/love for her=> she experiences no empathy/ love for the people in her life.

Her mother disliked/ didn’t love her=> she believed (for sixty plus years) that she is unlovable and that people don’t love her (even when they do)=> she doesn’t love them.

She uses people not as sources of love and emotional support, but as sources of financial support, either by adding money to her accounts (ex., her first husband), or by making it possible for her to not subtract money from her accounts (free labor and services).

“All in all, I feel light and relieved to be out of her dramas. I am maybe naive and first I always believe what people tell me“- me too. I also believe what people tell me (in real-life). Even when it is clear to others that they’re joking, I automatically take their words literally, and as true. A young child- when lied to by her mother, or when witnessing her mother pretending to be very nice to others but very angry at them behind their backs-  is too young to process this disturbing dichotomy, so she becomes blind and deaf to it. Fast forward, the now adult (like me) understands that her mother lied and pretended, but when hearing a person talk in real-life (vs reading a person’s writing on a computer screen and having all the time to read and re-read), I cannot detect the dichotomy, I cannot hold in my awareness these two parts: what a person said and (if different) what a person meant

Good to be communicating with you again, Eva!

anita

Dear EvFran:

Thank you! “Yes, she probably loved her mother, although she says no“- I got caught up in so much anger at my mother that I .. forgot that I ever loved her. I remembered only recently, after years of no-contact with her when I felt relatively safe from her.

When in contact with her all those years, I was in a war-mode state of mind in which anger was a needed emotion, serving to protect myself from her, to  fight back, to survive the war. Love was dangerous because it is a motivator for the prey (me) to get closer to the predator (my mother). And so, love was pushed down, buried under my awareness while anger filled my awareness.  After years of no-contact, after being sure (I promised myself this)  that I will never be in contact with her again, no matter what, the anger dissipated just enough for some of the  early-life, buried (immense) love for her to partly seep back to my awareness.

“It’s just difficult to understand that someone tells you she loves and trusts you and when you are not around she forgets about you, you don’t exist anymore“- imagine that you didn’t exist (in her mind) while you were around her. For years, I thought that I very much existed for my mother, that I was the center of her world. I believed that because she told me so (that everything she does, she does for me, etc.) But in her mind, there was no sight of me other than a thing to feed, clothe, treat when sick, etc.

“I am  wondering whether she does it on purpose. Is she able to calculate how to use people ahead for months? Or is it spontaneous, she cannot help it“- I find that most often, outside the context of planned and executed financial schemes and such, people dishonestly manipulate others not in a calculated way, with a clear intent, and a laid out plan, carefully executed. Most often, people dishonestly manipulate others out of habit. Similarly to you tying your shoes out of habit.

anita

Dear Eva:

You are very welcome! To answer your questions as attentively and as thoroughly as I’d like, I’ll need to reply to you Tues morning, in about 16-20 hours from now.

anita

Your short note and emoji brought the first smile to my face, first in two days, thank you, Eva!

anita