Reeling & Embarrassed by uNPD Friend

Started by RandomX, September 14, 2020, 08:30:16 PM

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RandomX

Hello, It's hard to know where to start, really.

Two and a half weeks ago, I evicted an uNPD friend, Dennis (name changed) who had been living in my guest bedroom for about 20 months. I'm 52, he's 22 and a former friend of my niece's. He was estranged from his family and moved cross-country to live with his sister and her husband, whose marriage was dissolving into domestic violence, mainly precipitated by her while drinking. After she was arrested for attacking her husband while drunk, I arranged for an airline ticket back to my area and let him move in until he got his feet under him. I confirmed Dennis' version of events through online court records.

I'm single, never married, with two amazing dogs and two wonderful cats, and I have a stressful-but-well-compensated career. I own my home, and my niece had lived with me for a couple of years, moving out about six months before the Dennis situation came up. I was lonely and slowly trying to build some better friendships. I had stopped seeing someone after about six months at the same time my niece left. I suspect Dennis picked up on that right away. And he was a great housemate at first -- entertaining and respectful.

Fast-forward a year, and Dennis is attending the local community college (I paid for classes) and shifted to working part-time at a local grocery store. I told him he could stay with me rent-free so long as he stayed in school.  Most of his classes are online even before covid, but I notice he's failing to attend his one in-person class. His part-time schedule seemed too random.  He had stopped attending classes about two weeks in and thus failed out. He also wasn't working. I'm not sure how many job he was fired from over the past several months.

I learned over time that he stole prescription medicine and cash from me, used credit cards without my permission, used my second car without permission, damaged my second car, and lied incessantly to me. He said he fell into a depression after being rejected by a girl on Tinder; he was an alcoholic; he was an adderall addict; he met up with people from an online kink community for sex and might be a sex addict ("but really, who isn't?" he'd laugh.). He promised to reform any number of times and also kept up a pretense of having a job. I found him sleeping in the back of my car or in the garage pantry closet when he was working a "night shift" at a local store that I later confirmed had no night shift. Somehow, this became normalized. He would gaslight me and say he had told me about taking my car (or whatever he did without my permission).

The day I snapped, this all clicked into place. I realized he had been lying to me for months about everything. That he was sneaking in and out of the windows in his room and pretending to go to work. That despite my begging him for months to stop lying, he had doubled down on everything.

I started packing his things away in garbage bags immediately without much care. I texted a friend who made plans to come over. I hopped online and reserved two nights at the local EconoLodge. I packed up the bags and brought them to the EconoLodge lobby, where a kind employee told me I could stack them in the corner. I took a photo of them and texted it to Dennis. He showed back up at the house later, begging to be let in and crying. I told him no, then my friend (whom he never liked and tried to drive a wedge between us) came over and scolded him away. His parents picked him the following morning and he's living with them, now, a few hours away. We've blocked each other on every platform.

I don't think I'll ever hear from him again.

My friends were shocked that I booted him.

The crazy thing is, I was in mourning over the loss of the friendship for the first week or so, even though I remained resolved that it had needed to be done. The house was SO quiet. Then I picked up a mini iPad that I had bought but he commandeered and put all his social media apps on. I logged in and saw a bunch of messenger notifications so I opened the app -- and realized that he was still logged in with his account. I failed my ethical test, and I read his messages from the day I evicted him.

I went from mourning to actual depression. The vicious way he described me and the lies he told his girlfriend and his family about me were horrible. The crazier thing is, though, that even though he is a pathological liar, his words tore through me. I realized that's how he really did see me, as a twisted dark caricature of myself, and that really hurt me. It still hurts me. I had been his friend, but he was never my friend. I'm still reeling.

I'm also so embarrassed to be taken in by someone half my age. I took him into my heart, as a member of my family. What a lousy judge of character I am. My family tells me not to be so naive.  I'm a successful professional but I got sucked right in.

I have a great therapist and know it's going to take some time for me to process the Dennis experience and work on building healthier relationships. But right now I'm still too down to figure out much more than going to sleep early and trying to get up again each day.

Does it get any better?

Thank you.








notrightinthehead

Welcome RandomX! What an experience! I am so glad to read that after having been exploited for 1.5 years you finally kicked him out. You are very lucky that he is not related to you.
Don't blame yourself for being a kind and trusting person. You made the mistake to assume your little friend was a 'normal' person like you, and that assumption would have been right roughly 90% of the time.
It's great that you have a therapist to work things through with, you could also start to explore when you began to ignore your warning signs in this relationship.  There probably were moments of unease, doubts, anger even, that you chose to ignore or suppress.  This is the valuable lesson you can learn from this experience, that you might have been vulnerable at the time you let him stay with you, that you felt a bit lonely and needy, that he promised to fill that need and then exploited your kindness, which you chose not to see or respond to for a while. In the end, you saw and you reacted wisely - protecting yourself and putting an end to this nonsense. Don't be cross with yourself that you feel hurt by his nasty words, that only shows that you are a feeling and kind human being. Now is the time to do some self soothing, some kind self nurturing, like a loving mother would do. And to get to know yourself better and find out what about you brought you in this situation - which voids he filled and how you could have behaved to faster admit to yourself what you were dealing with and leave this situation quicker.
I can't hate my way into loving myself.

Starboard Song

#2
QuoteThe crazy thing is, I was in mourning over the loss of the friendship for the first week or so, even though I remained resolved that it had needed to be done.

The vicious way he described me and the lies he told his girlfriend and his family about me were horrible. The crazier thing is, though, that even though he is a pathological liar, his words tore through me. I realized that's how he really did see me, as a twisted dark caricature of myself, and that really hurt me. It still hurts me. I had been his friend, but he was never my friend.

I'm also so embarrassed to be taken in by someone half my age.

You are doing great. Welcome to Out of the FOG.

It is right and decent to mourn the loss. You can make this seem less crazy this way: write a paragraph describing what you knew and believed about him a month or so ago (however far back you have to go), and write another describing what you now know and believe about him. The differences between those paragraphs are real losses, and are right to be mourned.

In the normal, mentally healthy world, any negative judgment is a bad thing, and it is a survival skill to always seek to avoid such judgments, and to fix them through discussion when they occur. it is decent and even wise of you to deeply wish you could fix his perceptions, even though you know that in this case you will have to let that desire go. Be so kind to yourself.

Please don't be embarrassed: you treated him with decency and kindness. Part of the cost of being kind is sometimes getting fooled. Don't lose that attribute, even while you rightly harden yourself against him.

I am so sorry you need us. But welcome to Out of the FOG. I hope this is a glancing blow from which you quickly recover.
Radical Acceptance, by Brach   |   Self-Compassion, by Neff    |   Mindfulness, by Williams   |   The Book of Joy, by the Dalai Lama and Tutu
Healing From Family Rifts, by Sichel   |  Stop Walking on Egshells, by Mason    |    Emotional Blackmail, by Susan Forward

freedom77

#3
I don't believe in telling others how to feel, but I'm compelled to tell you not to be so hard on yourself. Dennis' behavior says a lot more about HIM than it does about you.

Age has nothing to do with it, character has everything to do with it.

This situation could have been a whole lot worse if his parents hadn't come to take his trifling self in. He could have, in most states here in the U.S., invoked tenants' rights. And you would have had to let him come right back in. Look it up, and see what the laws are where you live. In my area, if you let someone "establish residency", a very broad term that can apply to someone who merely spends a few nights under your roof, you cannot kick them out, pack or even touch their belongings, change the locks or impede their access to the dwelling. You have to go to civil court and evict them the same way as any other landlord. By law they are your tenant whether they are paying rent or not, and you are their landlord even if you are in fact, a tenant yourself.

So I feel you're lucky to have gotten rid of him so easily. He could have made your life such hell. I know people who have gone thru this, and they not only had to let the person back in with a copy of the new key, but had to go to the expense, effort and time of the courts for a formal eviction. The person gets to stay put, and share space with you for at least 30 days. And if they file bankruptcy or come up with some other exemption like they have minor children, even if they don't live with them, or they are disabled legitimately or not, they can be granted extensions of up to 90 days or more. And in a bankruptcy case, could drag on even longer, and you can't even enforce any rent collections.

Meanwhile they make your life absolutely miserable. Yes, this heel of a young man used you, and is pathological on many levels, and you have to chalk up your losses and be more careful next time you consider letting someone in. Don't let loneliness cost you your peace of mind. It could have been much worse. Good riddance to a leech!

guitarman

You may like to find out about "idiot compassion". It's a Buddhist term. That explains a lot to me about similar situations in my life. I have been too loving and kind and been taken advantage of. You may find this helpful https://quotes.justdharma.com/idiot-compassion-pema-chodron/

When we are taken in by someone we can feel foolish and betrayed. We didn't trust our gut instinct, or weren't even aware of it. The con artist who took advantage of you was a good actor. They were so believable. You were being loving and kind and were taken advantage of. You can still be loving and kind again. Not everyone in the world is like the person who took advantage of your kindness.

I've just been watching a webinar and they talked about "My enemy is my friend". It can be difficult to do but that way lies compassion and loving kindness still.

You may like to look at the website of the Mindfulness teacher Tara Brach www.tarabrach.com she maybe able to help you more. She talks about RAIN Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture https://www.tarabrach.com/category/rain/ I've learnt a lot from her.

Be gentle with yourself.
"Do not let the behaviour of others destroy your inner peace." - Dalai Lama

"You don't have to be a part of it, you can become apart from it." - guitarman

"Be gentle with yourself, you're doing the best you can." - Anon

"If it hurts it isn't love." - Kris Godinez, counsellor and author