Interesting. I haven't had to deal with this in decades, since I became an atheist. I've heard that women deal with this stuff all the time, but I only saw it in my dysfunctional family of origin, and the toxic cesspool of fundamentalist religion.
You’ve described not my friendship group but my large extended family. I was excommunicated for not falling in line in exactly the way you describe. The ringleader? My mother.
Thank you Nathalie. You described my experience to a t.
The flying monkey friends had some lukewarm non apologies years later, but at the time fiercely defended their betrayal (and loyalty to the ringleader), painting the perpetrator as the victim and me, as the perpetrator, for creating distance after the mobbing incident.
I’ve been friendly with my ex friends but never able to recuperate the friendships. They were some of the nearest and dearest to me— in fact, my two best friends at the time— and one betrayed me to the perp, telling them that I had began therapy. When I confronted her about the betrayal, and told her the perp was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, she said she was “flabbergasted”. Lol.
The deeper, longer-lasting result of this kind of mobbing and betrayal is doubt about whether you can truly trust anyone in another group fully, or whether they'll turn on you the same way if manipulated the same way. People who can resist this kind of manipulation are few and far between.
I eventually figured out that the most trustworthy friends are the ones who are willing to call me out pretty much immediately on anything they think I'm doing wrong, and then talk it out with me (in case they might be wrong).
Anyone who won't stand up to what they think is my B.S. also won't stand up to a manipulator or gossiper. They're virtually guaranteed to talk about me behind my back to someone, some time.
The dominant figure may like you at first, but once you fallout no amount of mending fences is. going to bring you back in their good graces. As any narcissistic stucture it is stratified, to fall from the most inner ring you only need to do anything considered disloyal such as dissent and you will be pushed to the fringes of the group. The conflict with some of us is that we care about doing the actual job that we have been given and yet sometimes people want loyalty which is quantified as never questioning what the dominant figure says or what is the dominant narrative. When they ask you to jump you should only ask how high anything else is. Considered treason
Interesting. I haven't had to deal with this in decades, since I became an atheist. I've heard that women deal with this stuff all the time, but I only saw it in my dysfunctional family of origin, and the toxic cesspool of fundamentalist religion.
I love your titles - They hold their own without text and somehow tell the entire story!
Thank you so much Rebecca! Those titles sometimes take longer to develop than the actual article!
You’ve described not my friendship group but my large extended family. I was excommunicated for not falling in line in exactly the way you describe. The ringleader? My mother.
That's rough Dalarna. It's the worst betrayal.
Thank you Nathalie. You described my experience to a t.
The flying monkey friends had some lukewarm non apologies years later, but at the time fiercely defended their betrayal (and loyalty to the ringleader), painting the perpetrator as the victim and me, as the perpetrator, for creating distance after the mobbing incident.
I’ve been friendly with my ex friends but never able to recuperate the friendships. They were some of the nearest and dearest to me— in fact, my two best friends at the time— and one betrayed me to the perp, telling them that I had began therapy. When I confronted her about the betrayal, and told her the perp was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, she said she was “flabbergasted”. Lol.
Thank you so much for this brilliant writing that I needed to read.
Loved this 👌. This is the first article I have read about this topic - it explains perfectly why I don’t thrive in friend groups 👌
Yes, all of this.
The deeper, longer-lasting result of this kind of mobbing and betrayal is doubt about whether you can truly trust anyone in another group fully, or whether they'll turn on you the same way if manipulated the same way. People who can resist this kind of manipulation are few and far between.
I eventually figured out that the most trustworthy friends are the ones who are willing to call me out pretty much immediately on anything they think I'm doing wrong, and then talk it out with me (in case they might be wrong).
Anyone who won't stand up to what they think is my B.S. also won't stand up to a manipulator or gossiper. They're virtually guaranteed to talk about me behind my back to someone, some time.
The dominant figure may like you at first, but once you fallout no amount of mending fences is. going to bring you back in their good graces. As any narcissistic stucture it is stratified, to fall from the most inner ring you only need to do anything considered disloyal such as dissent and you will be pushed to the fringes of the group. The conflict with some of us is that we care about doing the actual job that we have been given and yet sometimes people want loyalty which is quantified as never questioning what the dominant figure says or what is the dominant narrative. When they ask you to jump you should only ask how high anything else is. Considered treason
You've pretty much exactly described the social dynamics of my friend group circa sophomore year of college.