londonvanpelt

I've been in recovery for 3 years. One of the things I have let go of is perfection and doing first things first. I was laid off a couple months ago and have been looking for a job. During this time I have picked up my friend's daughter from school, which is right around the corner from me. I picked her daughter up one day and had been doing laundry at home. There was a basket of folded laundry in my living room. The next day I was applying for jobs online and picked up her daughter again. She came to my house to get her daughter and saw the basket of laundry sitting there and used a shaming voice about my laundry still sitting there. One day her daughter asked to spend the night with my daughter when she came to pick her up. She started telling her daughter no because mommy would be lonely. I felt sick to my stomach. Her daughter was having problems with friends and now it was making sense whey her daughter was acting out. Things have gotten worse since then, so I have backed off from picking her daughter up from school and contacting her. She and her husband are separated and she would talk about him terribly. I thought it was him until she started this stuff with me. Now I can see why he doesn't want to be with her. It's gotten to the point where I don't want to be her friend anymore because her behavior is so intrusive and controlling. If she doesn't get her way with someone, she blows her stack. Does anyone have experience with this? I am starting to think it's best to sever the friendship.

GingerM

With that particular brand of controlling behavior? No. Different flavor, same behavior? Yes, I have a coworker who is like that. I have been working with said coworker (sometimes as her superior) for over 10 years now. I use the same recovery tools with her that I use with my parents, and I look at it as a way to practice my recovery skills.

If you want to, you can practice your skills with your 'friend'. If she complains about your laundry basket, you can set a clear boundary "I understand this is not how you would do it at your house, however, at my house I choose to deal with laundry when I feel like it." This would also show the daughter that 'mommy dearest' is not 'normal'.

Or if it drives you to the point of wanting to strangle her, then definitely sever the relationship with the mother, but make sure you inform the daughter that it has absolutely nothing to do with the daughter's behavior. I'm sure the daughter gets so much negative feedback that she would instantly assume that she'd done something you didn't like and that's why you don't want her at your house anymore.

My two cents.

londonvanpelt

I feel bad for her daughter. Her daughter knocked over a bowl of rice and she slapped her. I told her that I had to do some other things during the day, so I wouldn't be able to pick her up anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I am just to weak to deal with people like this or if I am doing the healthy thing by getting out.

GingerM

It is not written that you must save every person from themselves (although I, too, feel the pull to try to save the children - for blatantly obvious reasons).

If you are not healthy, you can not help anyone else. While the first rule of medicine is "First, do no harm," the first rule of rescue is "do not jeopardize the rescuer." Often, in our desires to help people, we forget that rule. In any rescue situation, be it a burning building or a crashed car or a collapsed bridge or a sinking boat, the rescuers are never supposed to put themselves in danger, as that only means one more person to rescue.

Chew on that a while - if you get sucked into this woman's emotional world, will it just mean that you will need rescuing as well? Can you stay separate enough from her to not need the rescuers to rescue you too?

It is a horrible decision to have to make (and one reason I never ever want to work in any kind of field involving rescue work - physical or psychological), but when it comes down to it, the loss of one person is preferred over the loss of two.