Photo by sam bloom on Unsplash

My mother only ever wanted me around when I could do something for her.  Her close friend (our old mutual friend) is the same.  There are two reasons she calls me:

1) To gossip (which is a means to an end,  for her.  It has nothing to do with me at all.  It's something she needs: a human being to gossip to, the more the merrier.  I am just thrown into that bit. 

2) Someone to do something for her.  Which again, is a means to an end, for her.  Again, nothing to do with me.  Just a person to fill that role, a human being to be bought and used and soon, discarded for the more important person: the narcissist.

She will call my mother to go shopping, to go garage sale-ing, to go anywhere.  But she only calls me for these two things.  Funny, she used to do these things with me, but from what I can tell now, it was just to make my mother jealous.  I thought she was hanging out with me because she liked me, but I am sure the moment we got back she would tell my mother "Guess who I went to the store with?"  She was always upset my mother would never go to the store with her, and would always ask me.  BUT now, my mother will go to the store with her, and I never get one invitation.  So I feel it's safe to assume these things. 

It's just annoying.  Why can't she just stop asking me for stuff or stop gossiping to me?  And just understand we don't have that kind of friendship anymore?  But it's hard for her to understand anything at all, so how can I expect her to understand that the only time I want her to call me is when something bad has happened to mother?  I could just tell her outright, but I have told her MANY things outright and she just doesn't get it.  So I don't want to be stuck telling her that several times, over and over again (which is how things usually go with her).  I'd rather just ignore her.  I could half lie and tell her I sprained my ankle and I can't help her, but that only takes care of now, not future things she'll ask me to do for her. 

Today she called to ask if I would do yardwork for her, and she'll pay me.  I really did sprain my ankle a few weeks ago (and it's still a little swollen and hurts somewhat).  And the kind of yardwork she's asking for involves feet, so I really would not be able to help her anyways.  But I don't want to contact her at all.  I want her to stop treating me badly and that will only happen if she leaves me alone. 

I know if I tell her outright why I don't want to talk to her, she will run to my mother and my mother will convince her that I am making a big deal over nothing and she's a good friend and I am just a bitch.  And this will convince her, because honestly, this woman wants to believe nothing bad about herself.  And she only befriends narcissists and treats people who care about her like shit (even if unintentionally---I know that sounds naïve, but I truly do not believe she treats me bad on purpose, she has lower functioning aspergers and just doesn't get it). 

Sidenote: if you are not familiar with the different levels of aspergers, I am painting a different picture of her to you.  Have you seen Parenthood?  There's a boy on there with aspergers who's name is Max.  He has normal aspergers, not high-functioning.  My sister-in-law has that.  You can tell.  HF aspies are more quirky, but you can't tell by their speech or actions that they have aspergers unless you understood the high-functioning level.  Aspergers is high-functioning autism.  But you have lower-functioning aspergers (like Max) and higher-functioning (like Dan Ackroyd).  It's all a scale, and scales within scales.  I have it too, but I am very high-functioning, whereas this woman is lower-functioning on the high-functioning scale.  Confusing, I know.  This just means she's closer to a typical aspie, the kind that everyone knows about. 

See though, that's my issue.  Her ability to understand things when you tell her is compromised, so you end up having to repeat the same thing to her 50x before she gets it, and even then, sometimes it doesn't stick.  I don't want to hurt her feelings, but mostly, I don't want her to not accept responsibility for her actions towards me and use my mother to tell her that I am the bad guy here.  If that will happen, then what's the point of telling her at all? 

I know I sound like a used record.  But life isn't always neatly wrapped up with a perfect bow, with neatly placed compartments that do not spill into one another.  Life is messy, unpredictable, and pretty repetitive.  The same issues will keep coming up, over and over again until you figure how best to deal with them.  And when you don't know how?  It leaves that gate wide open for things to crash into one another on a continuous basis.  So I feel like I am always having to deal with this women, whether I actually deal with her or not.  That gate is left open because my unwillingness to take action, REAL action.  My inaction is an action, but it's not REAL action.

But, as much as it bothers me to not take REAL action, I have learned recently that sometimes there's a reason for that feeling...that pulling feeling that stops you from speaking your mind when you know you should.  Sometimes there's something bigger at play and your gut tells you to just stay out of it, even when you know the right thing to do is to say what you feel and stand up for yourself.  I've been learning to accept that feeling (it's played so many times in my life) and just roll with it.  So while it feels good to explore my feelings on this blog, about how I feel about certain people who treat me badly, there's something that's holding me back from doing anything about it.  And I have to be okay with that.  Because, when the time IS right?  It won't feel that way anymore.  That much I've learned. 

So, I'll just sit here and evade her as much as I can, and only deal with her directly when I absolutely have to.  Which I hope is hardly ever.