false friends and never ending lies

Hello everyone,
Some of you may have noticed that though I continued to post throughout A to Z, I wasn't doing much else. I feel terrible for this and I will get around to visiting everyone's blog's and reading their posts, especially those who took the time to comment on mine, but April has been a rough month for me and had it not have been for all the people who were looking forward to me posting about their dogs, I would have bailed out of the A to Z all together.

Now that A to Z is over I wanted to take the time to explain just what has been going on.

I told you during A to Z that one of my friends had passed away and that another had been admitted to a psychiatric ward due to depression.

While he was on the ward, I was naturally unable to hear anything from him and his family, who are far from the nicest people in the world, were unwilling to tell me or any of his other friends anything.

This friend, has been my friend for almost 5 years now, I shall call him BOB so things don't get confusing. I believed that I knew BOB very well. I also thought that once he was out he would contact me straight away; however, I was wrong in this assumption. He didn't contact me until he had been out for a while and then chose to do so at 2 am in the morning. I put it down to the medication that he was on. As when I did talk to him he didn't sound all that with it. It didn't stop it hurting though, because I had been struggling to sleep and spending a lot of time very emotionally rung out, worrying about him.

When BOB did start contacting me again everything was different. He was constantly using his depression to make me feel guilty.

He was treating me and his other friends like dirt and when you tried to point out that his treatment of people was not fair he would instantly say I am just trying to figure out who I am, I am thinking about me. That's all well and good but you don't do that by hurting the people who are trying to be as supportive of you as possible.

In short he became someone I didn't know any more. He started running around on the game second life as a girl, going to nudist beaches which was something he had done before real life but which he had told me he now thought of as wrong, up until he started to do it again.

He was lying to people left, right and centre and just being out and out rude to all of his friends.

Now to give you a little more background, when I first met BOB I was a very different person than I am now. I was very social and I dressed like most people my age, not afraid to show a little skin, but never completely naked. I also swore quite a bit and had a lot of friends who had issues and weren't always perfect that I stuck by just as I have been sticking by BOB, because I know no one is perfect and we all make mistakes.

BOB made me feel terrible for the things I wore, using God, to scare me into changing pretty much everything about myself and whenever I was there for people he didn't like he would use his depression to guilt me into spending more time with him and less time with my other friends. He would constantly tell me how he wished he was dead and made me feel as if I had to be with him all the time, or he might kill himself.

In my desperate bid to keep him from harm and knowing that at that time I was his only real friend I devoted far more time to him than I should have and in the process neglected not only my other friends but my husband too. While BOB continued to make me feel bad about myself. some of his favourite things to say were:

 You shouldn't swear you will never be a professional author if you swear.  ( to be clear I like most adults was aware of what situations were not suitable to strong language and which were not.)

You shouldn't dress like that, you attract the wrong attention. (when really he just didn't want me attracting any attention, because he didn't want me talking to anyone but him)

You need to lose weight.

I don't want you talking to them, I don't trust them, they are trying to turn you against me. (this was about people who had never said a bad word about BOB.)

Last night things all came to a head. When he was incredibly cruel to a friend who had, like myself, tried to be supportive of him and all his new experimentations. Myself and Smithy went to spend some time with BOB and found him naked on a virtual beach on sl, as both myself and Smithy have young children we asked BOB if he would mind putting some clothes on encase they came in. To which he clad himself in a tiny bikini which left nothing to the imagination, as did his friend, who like him was a man playing a woman on Second Life.

This made things very awkward for me and Smithy but things only got worse. BOB trying to impress his new friend had no time for either Smithy or myself and this morning I also found out that he was telling a pack of lies to that friend in private chat about both of us.

I have suffered from depression myself, but it does not make you treat people the way that BOB is and I am really only giving you the very tip of the iceberg here, because despite all that he has done, I do not wish to hurt him or bad mouth him to others. So I am trying to only cover the more minor stuff here, just to give you some degree of what has been going on.

On top of this he insulted my husband and Smithy's partner. Our partners have struggled with us contining to be friends with BOB give his treatment of us both, but they have not aired their feelings about BOB to him, they have instead, stayed away from him and respected mine and Smithy choice to continue to try and support BOB regardless of his treatment of us.

 As this month has gone on more and more lies have been made clear, when it comes to BOB. Including the fact that he has been telling people my life story and claiming it as his own.

It has been such a complicated situation, and I have tried to stand by BOB because he has helped me with a lot of things in the time I have known him, including helping give me the confidence to get my book published and supporting me through the death of one of my best friend, when I had not long know BOB. I feel terrible for walking away from him but his controlling behaviour, lies and  recent treatment of all of his friends has left me feeling very low. I cannot change anything about myself or walk away from my other friends any more in order to try and keep him happy. I feel that BOB needs help that I cannot give him and hope that by walking away from our friendship he will think about his actions and get the help he needs as well as be more honest with his therapist, friends and family.

To BOB, who I am certain will read this, I have this to say.

I love you to pieces and I always will, but I can't continue to allow you to try and control me or guilt me for having other friends when you do not. I have always introduced you to all my friends, not only on second life, but real life also and they have always tried to be friendly and welcoming to you. You have said yourself many times that you are a difficult person to get along with and not everyone is as tolerant as I am of the sometimes hurtful things you say and do. I am sorry for that, but I cannot control others and would not want to.

I have tried very hard to support you through all of this but your treatment of me and others has become too much and is now effecting my own mental health.
On top of that I cannot continue to sit there and listen to you insult my husband. I know you cannot relate to him as you are a very different person too him, but he is a good man, with a good heart, who works hard to support his family and who is an amazing Dad. I do not need to hear how you would not encourage boisterousness in Kye if he was your child, because he is not your child. He is mine and Dan's child and we will raise him as we see fit and I'm sorry but I do not believe that a father play fighting with his child and playing silly games is bad. Especially given how much Kye adores his father and loves those silly games.

I would be grateful also if you could stop passing yourself off as me, by giving people my life story as your own. If you want to build lasting friendships it is best to be yourself and not to try to be things you are not, because no one can keep that up forever. Lies have a way of being found out, just as many of yours have been recently.

I wish you all the best in life and hope you find what you are looking for, but sadly I cannot be a part of your journey any longer.

Love and hugs
Joss xxx