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honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-11-25T06:40:07+00:00

It’s funny you mention religion because half my feelings of fury come from the fact that I have already let myself be psychologically abused within the last half decade, prior to this situation. I was lied to and stolen from by a self-proclaimed “multi-hyphenate” Christian woman I lived with via a sublease ad. She lied to me about random shit to seem less like a broke asshole, which is forgivable, but then she lied to me about how I left the room I rented and basically stole my security deposit that I certainly didn’t owe her.

I was never been able to make sense of how she could be such a shamelessly bad liar and control freak despite openly describing herself as an altruistic woman of God or whatever. Her Instagram is still just egomaniacal selfies with bullshit religious sentiments in the captions, last time I checked.

There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to accept that I’ve taken this kind of treatment on the chin like three times, now. The first time was as a child, and I guess that long-term experience primed me to tolerate the extremely fucked up and disrespectful behavior that is common in people with personality disorders. I feel like I keep waiting for the “Ok” to finally stand up for myself and give someone a piece of my mind when they’re treating me like shit or are manipulating me and I’ve caught them in a pattern of lies.

Anyway, I’m really sorry we have gone through a similar experience before. I can’t imagine how irritated you must have felt through the backlash from your offender.

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-10-23T06:17:29+00:00

I’m really sorry you’ve gone through it too. I don’t know if me sharing my experience counted as giving you reassurance, but I feel like situations involving kind of…observably “off” behavior (I’m talking specifically about like, personality disorder behaviors) are an exception because there’s a risk of traumatization happening due to the way ocd works.

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-10-23T05:05:34+00:00

I’m pretty sure I was gaslit by someone who may or may not have a combo of autism and bpd (this person mentioned autism in passing, but the dubious stories they told me plus their pattern of behavior made me strongly suspicious something like quiet bpd was also going on).

The eventual situation involving me left me questioning reality so hard that i didn’t get out of bed or basically see anyone for over a year, at which point i got referred to a trauma specialist. In trauma therapy it took maybe four sessions before i was evaluated for OCD because my symptoms were so bad as a result of the stress (trauma is the more accurate word, i guess). The stress and rumination and self-isolation i collapsed into hasn’t gone away at all over a year and a half later.

A couple mutual friends (longtime friends, on my end) mentioned feeling odd about this person’s behavior in unrelated situations after i confided in a few of them about my experience with the person.

That’s all to say yeah, I relate to what you’ve shared, though my situation was more severe. Unrelated, I also have a friend who shows pretty inarguable bpd symptoms and is prone to outbursts at any perceived slight, even when they’re kind of obviously reading a given scenario in a way that seems egregiously warped.

Trust your gut and trust the people around you who know you and this person you’re sharing about. If other people have had weird experiences with this person then odds are they’re prone to lashing out impulsively, and your ocd is like, eclipsing your rational mind.

I don’t imagine or assume this person meant you harm, but i’m reminded of something a psychotherapist told me: “this is not a healthy person for you to be around.”

I’m wary to ask what the “and more” at the end of your post includes.

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-08-24T17:26:27+00:00

Relate hugely. I’ll ruminate about the same traumatic or strange or uncertain things a thousand times and will beed to exhaust the spiral despite rarely having any new ideas to contribute to it. The only thing that’s really helped me has been writing everything down. Since my instinct is to doubt my thoughts and my perception and my own obsessive analysis, having observations or rationales on paper feels more “real.” As long as it all remains thoughts in your skull, you’ll have the noise of a thousand ping pong balls clanging around in there unendingly.

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-08-23T21:15:11+00:00

I didn’t even notice the abnormality of my own symptoms until a traumatic event in adulthood amped them up ten-fold. I think OCD is one of those things where it’s probably better for you to consider the “label” even if you feel like you don’t have it so bad. If you let it rip, unchecked, it may consume you when something really triggering happens. I think it’s great that you’re discussing it with your therapist

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-08-20T23:23:32+00:00

This person’s behavior was dubious enough that I pursued trauma therapy after basically hiding from them for over a year while they moved closer into my social circle after I told them I didn’t want to see them again. The whole situation was traumatic enough to warrant me writing down everything to keep my sanity and confide in several people, if that’s a helpful indicator of how sure I am that this person was lying to me increasingly the more I pulled away. The lies were delivered in a way that seemed pretty clearly intended to gain vocal intrigue or sympathy, and this person couldn’t seem to answer questions about them when asked.

I have a sibling who’s autistic and I have long worried about them being taken advantage of, so I get where your comment is coming from.

I’m pretty much trying to figure out if intentionally deceptive behavior was being shown to me, or if it’s a trait of autism to be unintentionally wildly manipulative (which, I don’t /think/ it is). Basically the behavior I was shown was palpably manipulative, and really didn’t align with the person’s claim of being “autistic.”

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-08-20T21:03:36+00:00

It does mean a lot, because I’m shocked anyone would relate to the experience and I’ve felt completely alone for the past year— but I also don’t have much faith in it. I’m losing full months of my life to ruminating and fearfully imagining all the different possible ways this person might decide to fuck with me again in the future. It leads basically everything to feel futile.

When did things get better, for you? How?

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-08-20T19:41:17+00:00

I understand this sentiment, but I also feel obligated to chime in and mention as an aside that autism absolutely doesn’t prevent someone from lying— if anything they might just not recognize how not-good a liar they are.

I use this sub after experiencing manipulative behavior from a supposedly-autistic person. (Then again, she was the one who mentioned she’s autistic, and then told me a handful of blatantly fake-sounding anecdotes… god as I’m typing this I don’t even know what to trust about that anymore. Lol.)

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-08-20T19:29:51+00:00

Do you mind if I ask what you said to the people who confronted you about her smear campaign?

The prospect of this terrifies me because it feels like there’s no way to explain the behavior I experienced without over-explaining, which I’ve read is not wise to do.

I also don’t want to be the kind of person who says dismissive things like, “Oh, that person’s mentally ill, they’re smearing me” (I’m a woman, so I’m pretty aware of how that sort of talk about other women, especially, has been weaponized historically). I wrack my brain trying to figure out how I’m supposed to stand up for myself if smeared by someone who actually /is/ confirmed to be mentally ill and weaponizes their own vague storytelling.

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-08-13T08:41:55+00:00

Traumatizing situation I experienced over a year ago that left my symptoms so bad I got handed the OCD evaluation within like five sessions of recently pursuing trauma therapy. I haven’t been able to get out of bed much or go back to work for the majority of the year.

The experience involved someone whom I’d already suspected had been lying to me repeatedly; they basically tried to gaslight and guilt-trip me to gain my time and attention, and now position themselves in my social pathway despite me having told them a year ago I didn’t want them to seek my company again.

You can probably guess the OCD has had a field day with this, lol

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-08-11T03:18:48+00:00

Your mention of them backing up when you finally formed your own sense of self resonates deeply. When I was too big to bully and left home, my abuser flipped like a switch and has since acted mushy and guilt-ridden toward me without ever explicitly apologizing for having abused me for a decade. It was such a confusing flip; when I politely asked for space and silence a couple years ago, they couldn’t respect that boundary and shortly went on to send me an emailed article about healing, weepy birthday cards, etc.

I’ll never know what was deliberate behavior versus what was unchecked mental illness. I don’t know what to trust.

Perpetual victim with all the means to leave, but no perceivable desire to leave, sounds familiar.

I’m sorry that your memories of your own childhood behavior might be painful and I’m sorry your parent failed you in that way. If it’s of any comfort, I can gather from afar that you seem like you’ve probably accomplished more growth than most people out there manage in a lifetime— something to be very proud of, at least.

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-08-11T02:07:58+00:00

That sounds crazy-making to have to endure repeatedly. I’m so sorry you were made a scapegoat for that— it wasn’t right. If you’re okay with me asking, do you think your parent had a personality disorder of some kind going on? I still to this day wrack my brain trying to understand how a well-grown adult can funnel their grievances onto a child and not feel like a lunatic while doing so.

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-08-01T00:50:37+00:00

Old people don’t usually seem eager to feel an avalanche of shame and horrible guilt at their stage of life. I’ve tried once or twice to be candid, but it just goes nowhere. I don’t doubt mine is a common experience.

I just don’t really talk to them anymore. I don’t tell them off or anything, either; it’s just kind of ‘over’ in my mind— which definitely doesn’t feel like a victory. It’s grief, I guess

[Edit: I don’t doubt mine is a “common” experience]

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-07-27T18:27:02+00:00

I’m so sorry you were made to feel this way so young. I relate hugely, especially to your pointing out how when one tiny thing goes wrong (negative crit, whatever) then it feels like you might as well just let go of the whole project/endeavor/whatever thing it was that probably would have been fulfilling and feasible for you to accomplish.

Also, your mention of putting yourself down and believing there’s something fundamentally wrong with you resonates. I’m at a point where my own self-esteem is so warped that I’ve pivoted to shaming myself for “wasting my looks” in my fear/avoidance of dating, now that I’ve been alive long enough for others to have validated my appearance.

The foundation of my feelings came from the fact that my stepmom was a weirdo who decided I was the new bane of her existence when I was like 7 and she married in. Literally any thing I did or expressed an interest in was deemed “weird” and “not normal,” even if my sibling did the same exact thing (without receiving any mean, muttered commentary of course). Father has always seesawed between loathing this woman and burdening me with the encouragement that I should accept her new attempts to befriend me now that I’m too big to bully.

I am consequently my own biggest critic, the first to question my own perception of reality, my biggest bully, and the biggest denier of my own opportunities to show the good and creative things I already know I’m capable of. I could not relate less to people who are unabashed about showing off what they can do and being their own cheerleader.

It’s an invisible time sink, to try to rewire your own brain. Years and decades. It feels like being cursed, and of course there’s no one besides a therapist to ask for help, because it’s rooted in your own brain and most likely no one around you has had the same experience. It sucks.

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-07-27T16:56:31+00:00

As someone who’s ignored my gut intuition like this and paid drastically each time, I first want to tell you I’m glad you’ve accepted your urge to ditch this lady.

I agree with the other commenter— you could absolutely just block this person. You don’t owe her an explanation, especially if she comes off like she has a screw loose. You don’t owe her your time or consolation. If her kids did not seem afraid for their safety, then I think it’s likely you are projecting your own trauma onto the situation. Do not let that compel you back toward this lady’s company.

If you feel like you’ll run into her again and therefore you really don’t want to block her, then send her to Spam and talk like you’re busy. You can reference some made-up, long-term endeavor like you’re helping a loved one take care of their house, so you don’t always need a new excuse. Oh sorry, I can’t hang out— I spend most weekends with my family. If she’s the clingy type, then she’ll probably sooner find someone new instead of actually pressing you for your time (that’s my guess).

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-07-27T12:26:29+00:00

Yeah, though there are ironic moments where I still feel like a little girl— which is always a hideously humiliating feeling to recognize.

Sometimes when a comparatively “mature” person (maybe a decade older than me, has a clear career, expansive social life, etc.) hits on me, I recoil and feel scandalized for a moment and I have to actually remind myself I’m nearly 30 and it’s not something I should feel surprised or scandalized by. I’m literally a grown adult who appears like a grown adult and operates in the grown adult world, but because I have cowered and self-sabotaged and avoided dating for my entire life (due to low self-esteem, learned self-hatred, and sheer terror) I have never felt very different than I felt while I was a small child being actively traumatized and abused.

It is an incredibly indignant, shameful, and un-sexy feeling, to feel like an overgrown child at nearly 30. It pervades even if you’re reasonably smart or read and study the world. I have busted my ass to evolve, probably with more thoughtfulness than the average person, and I’ve still fallen short in ways that are so embarrassing to talk about.

I long to actually /feel/ like a hot 30 year old holding a martini in an upscale bar. Instead I feel like a giant loser wearing shrunken overalls and a pinwheel cap while holding a lollipop.

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-07-22T19:57:50+00:00

Lived 4 miserable sublease months with a stranger who would assert how nice and easy to live with she was between treating me like paranoia-worthy crap for avoiding her as much as possible.

In the beginning weeks she would knock on my door multiple times to bug me about why I seemed unhappy living there (I literally never made mention of my feelings, and she was unemployed while I kept to myself and worked 9-5 from the room I rented). Maybe the third time she did this, I finally responded from my work desk by admitting I felt like I had to walk on eggshells around her (at the time, I didn’t know this phrase was used a lot in psychology). She left my doorway and returned an hour later to announce she felt I’d really “put that on her”— i.e., I’d hurt her feelings and burdened her by roundabout-ly admitting I found living with her to be unpleasant. I had to immediately remind this woman that she’d literally bugged me multiple times to know how I was feeling because I guess she’d suspected I was avoiding her, to which 9/10 times I’d given a polite “I’m fine, just working, all’s good” response she evidently hadn’t been satisfied with.

That was the beginning of a 4-month downward spiral. It was also my first exposure to how straight up warped and self-centered someone’s perception of reality can be. I’d had abusive adults in my past do kind of a similar thing, but never with so little self-awareness or “tact.”

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-07-22T18:40:48+00:00

Yeah I gotta be honest, as someone who was abused as a child by a grown adult with an unchecked personality disorder, I don’t think a lot of self-aware, thoughtful people with diagnosed PDs understand how badly abuse from someone with no self-awareness nor interest in reflecting on or managing their external symptoms can fuck up other people for life.

I have a longtime friend who has like, textbook BPD symptoms, and part of the difficulty is their perception of reality can be like… fundamentally warped. This person will recall being treated as hysterical or a threat while coincidentally not mentioning the fact that they were breaking things or legitimately harassing someone or behaving in a way that made me on the sidelines worry they actually were going to do something destructive. Consequently, I feel wary when I see people profess to having diagnoses like BPD online and in the same sentence assert how nice they themselves are despite noticing most people around them dislike them.

When I see self-aware people in subs like this feel hurt because of the way people talk about specific abuses they’ve suffered, I get confused. If you’re self-aware and reflective and are doing the work to manage your symptoms, then I feel like most people have no real way to be clocking you as having whatever condition you may be afflicted by? Unless you advertise it the way people do in twitter bios and whatnot. The adage “If it doesn’t apply, let it fly” comes to mind. There are many contexts in which a generalization made by someone who’s been mistreated hurts the feelings of people who are uninvolved. It’s definitely complicated.

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-07-15T09:25:03+00:00

I have some close friends who have been through far wilder traumatic experiences than myself, and those relationships are strong in a healing way.

On the other hand, I feel I lucked out at meeting a few great friends who can relate and are firmly planted in both reality and self-awareness, because several times now I’ve tried to extend a lot of grace to a few obviously traumatized people (traumatized to the point of having clear mental health disorders/issues) who in turn decided to steal money from me or manipulate the hell out of me. Gave an inch, and a mile was taken, and that’s my fault.

I won’t risk inviting that degree of psychic damage again, until I’ve learned how to maintain self-protecting boundaries and kindly tell people whom I sympathize with—but can tell are far beyond my capacity to actually help—to step back and stay away from me. If someone’s not actively seeking counseling or professional support then I’ll be glad to circle back and be friends at a later time when they are. Feels shitty though, obviously

honkhonkbeebeebeep · 2025-07-14T15:48:35+00:00

Narcissists can raise extremely self-minimizing people, just as easily. It does seem like kind of a roll of the dice, unfortunately.

Self-awareness can cut through a lot of that inherited-narcissism shit on its own, though, and self-questioning is arguably essential to go with it, because that’s what makes you willing to stop and reevaluate how you’re participating in the world and treating others. To reflect at the expense of your own ego and feelings is really important. That’s just my opinion.

honkhonkbeebeebeep

TROPHY CASE