When you have been abused by a friend, or when you have discovered that your friend is a narcissist, or when you have discovered that your friend has a dangerous personality disorder such as narcissistic borderline, mutual friends may or may not believe you.
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It’s hard for me to deal with this. I avoid poking around too much in the posts of mutual friends, for fear that I’ll see them reply to Richard or Tracy, because I get a sour feeling in the pit of my gut when I see that.
There is still too much grief; there is still too much disbelief that Richard is a narcissist, even though I see the proof in his mug shots, the lack of remorse, the contempt instead of shame.
There is still too much anger at the injustice of Tracy’s projection of guilt onto me, at her abuses of me, at her gaslighting and vicious, nasty behavior.
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I’ve done all I can. I told Social Services what I witnessed and what Richard told me. I told my priest what happened, and though I did not tell him Richard’s identity, I believe he’s figured it out. I’ve tried to tell my friends the truth, whether mutual friends believe me or not, or even know who I mean. I suggested to my husband that he report the threat Richard sent to him back on June 28, 2010, but he doesn’t want to.
The rest has been done by their oldest daughter, who had the amazing courage to report her own step-father to the police, and by law enforcement and Social Services. I really should let myself rest with that, but I keep feeling like there’s something else I need to do. But what else would there be?
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What if my abusers join my church??!!
Richard’s church and mine are both very small and in financial trouble; the archdiocese has suggested they merge. The two churches don’t want to merge, since they’re in different counties, and somebody would have to move. But the option is still on the table.
If the churches merge, I will have to go to the priest with my concerns, and show him the proof that Richard is a convicted child abuser, to establish my credibility and prove that he is violent.
Because Tracy has bullied and verbally abused me as well, I will have to also show him an article I found on a contract one church drew up with a member who had been charged with molestation, a contract which was meant to help the member find redemption, but also consider the needs and fears of the victims. We could modify it for our own needs.
If Richard comes to my church again, my husband and I will have to address the elephant in the room (his unrepentant attitude for hurting me, and the conviction), and confront him with the child abuse case, tell him we know what he did and he can’t keep coming here, intimidating me and bringing up all my feelings of grief and anger all over again while I’m trying to worship God.
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I hoped that Richard now realized, thanks to his conviction and nearly killing his daughter, that he needed help desperately. I hoped he was full of shame. I hoped he would finally come to Hubby and me, and try to make things right. I hoped that good side I thought was there, would finally get him to do the right thing, and this grief would end, I would get my friend back….
But then I saw the five mug shots taken a few weeks after he came to my church, and they were full of contempt. Hubby says Richard also looks like the cat who swallowed the canary, like he got away with something.
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You will note that I stayed friends with Richard and Tracy even though I knew they were both being asses to Todd. Of course, Richard told me enough things about Todd to make him sound like a horrible person in general, even though he’d been close friends with Todd for years, so I began to disregard the crap being slung at Todd over the game.
So maybe it’s not so surprising that Richard’s other friends are still with him, even though I’ve exposed the abuse. If they’re still caught up in his web, they may not realize just how badly he’s acted, even with the evidence in their faces. I still stayed with Richard even though I knew he almost assaulted that lady.
As one person on the Forum (where we all used to post) wrote to Todd about Richard after finding out about the court case, “He always was an a–hole, but you were his friend and didn’t notice.” Several people on the Forum also said that Richard is a narcissist.
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Even though, during the time he lived with us, he made me feel like we had bonded and had a very special friendship, that I was standing in for his beloved sister since she was so far away–now I felt like just one of many.
He was my BFF, the one I confided in about everything, the one I most wanted to see, but I felt like he wasn’t confiding in me about much of anything anymore, like he wanted to see all sorts of other people at least as much as he wanted to see me. I didn’t feel special to him anymore, like I had to fight for his attention, which probably fed into his narcissism even more.
…Mutual friends, face the truth, or you’ll be next. Richard and Tracy are both unstable people, and without me around, they need a new target. Face the truth, try to get them to face the truth, do something!
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How can I fill that narc-shaped hole?
I feel like a shell of my former self. Yet another sign that I’ve been targeted by narcissists. That and the persistent feeling that I’m missing something, that Richard has to bring it back to me before I can be complete again.
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No other friend matches this. It just seems impossible to replace him, even with his disagreeable violence and narcissism. These were elements of our friendship which I found especially valuable and important, especially appealing, and these were the reasons I was so attached to him.
Where else am I to find someone like this? I try to remind myself of all the violence, the narcissism, the betrayal, yet I’m left with this gaping hole that it’s impossible to fill with anyone else.
And that, more than anything, is why I just have not been able to get over our friendship. That’s why I still haven’t let go of the hope that one day, somehow, some way, he will repent and come back to us.
But that saintly version of the narc is not real
Except that this perfect friend, the image I had of this person, which was molded over the two years of online/phone friendship and the two months he alone stayed with us, diverges so much from the way he acted, and the things which came out about him, and the way he treated me, over the two years after that, that I wonder how much of this image was real, and how much was a carefully crafted persona used to attract me.