STRUGGLES
Narcissism and Abuse in Unexpected Places
How a childhood friendship has shaped my life.
This is a deeply personal story, and I’ve been in two minds about whether to publish it. But I’ve decided that it should be in the world. If it reaches anyone else who can relate even a little to my experience and helps them to feel slightly less alone, that will be worthwhile.
Honestly, I still can’t decide whether this is truly harrowing to read or just a pretty normal experience of growing up that I’m totally blowing out of proportion. I flit between the two constantly. Anyway, here goes.
The single most traumatic event of my life was breaking up with my best friend at school.
I’m quite aware of how ridiculous that sounds.
So ridiculous that right now I’m telling myself that everyone reading this is thinking, “well, she must have had a pretty sheltered life if that’s the worst thing that ever happened to her”, and I’m resisting the urge to justify myself by telling you about all the other “actually” traumatic things that have happened to me so you can understand that this is still #1 even in that context.
So ridiculous that almost 30 years later, I’ve still never spoken to anyone about what happened and the impact it had on me…
