Sometimes the right thing feels so wrong (aka co-dependent no more)

When I was in 8th grade we went on a class trip.  Not long before we were to leave my roommates dumped me for someone else.  I insisted I wasn't going.  My guidance counselor, who had long appointed himself my caretaker (seriously the man spent at least a year, maybe 2, watching for me in the hallway and every time my head wasn't up confidently I was sent to the other end of the school to walk correctly, then given a pass explaining I was doing a self-confidence exercise.  Worked though and is probably part of why I am able to make better eye contact that most bipolars) told me oh no, I WAS going.  There were 3 of us without roommates, a girl I'd always gone to school with and had nothing in common with, and a new girl who was attention seeking with overtly sexual actions, constantly.  I continued to say no and somehow I wound up on that bus.  Later I wound up in candystriper training with her, despite being frustrated by her frequent lies.  Somehow, probably because I was a fairly lonely kid who didn't fit in and also had no idea when I was being manipulated, mistreated, or used, we became friends, of a sort.  I never would have called her a "best friend"; I had those.  We had little in common.  I was not mature enough to see how she used me.  She tried to duplicate everything I did/had, right down to once bursting into my counseling session with CPS to insist she had to talk to the LSW right then.  I won.  I'd develop friendships and she'd shove her way in as far as she could.  She cheated on me with the only boyfriend I had in high school.  She'd break things at her home and tell her parents I did it.  She even went so far as to try to switch instruments in band to be with the trombone section, consisting of me and 2 of my best friends.  Once she ran away and after days of being questioned, crying, stressing, I overheard where she was and reported it.  She was home very soon after.  She had a miscarriage when we were 15 but was pregnant again by January of our senior year.  (Thankfully not with my ex-boyfriend).  Somehow that was how we spent more time together again.  She was living a few houses away from where I was cleaning out my grandmother's house after her death and so it was natural to be at her house, I guess.

Throughout college and grad school her out of control drinking resulted in many hours, often in the middle of the night, spent talking her down.  By the time we were 20 she was pregnant again.  I think it was about then that I talked her into seeing a therapist.  It didn't last long.  Soon after that I talked her into trying for at least an associate's degree.  She did well the first year and was accepted into nursing.  Sadly she also discovered the internet and suddenly all of my concerns about her drinking made her realize "oh, wow, there are AA chat rooms and some really filthy conversations!!!".  She got so into that she failed nursing school.  She did go to AA meetings for real and allegedly made progress, but well, one evening destroyed that illusion.  She called and asked me to babysit so she could go to AA.  Eventually it got so late I called my mom to tell her I wasn't coming home.  I was getting really worried when the phone rang.  It was a state trooper who franctically wanted to know where the kids were.  She started sobbing.  My "friend" had lied to me, driven hours to meet this internet AA person at a bar, and while driving drunk had a bad acccident.  Her car seats weren't restrained the they had been looking for bodies before her ID surfaced and allowed them to call.

So, back to court-appointed AA.  I think she maybe quit drinking for a little bit.  It's hard to know as I moved 10 hours away.  What I do know is that within the next year she convinced me her husband was hitting her (you'd have to know the man to know how unlikley; I've known him since I was 5.  But anyone can be an abuser so I believed her).  I found a shelter for her, helped her set it up, and then she went.  Without her kids.  This did tweak my antennae but for 2 days I believed her reasoning. The 3rd day the shelter said I talked to her to let her know she wasn't allowed back.  She'd simply taken off.  This led to phone calls from her husband, her parents (who accused me of lying) and the police.  I had no clue.  Nobody believed me.  Months later the phone rang and there she was.  She had gone to stay with random chat pals in NJ and was expecting everyone to accept her back.  I did.  But soon after the drinking, 3 AM calls and all the drama were too much.  I said no more.

Several times over the next few years I relented.  Each time I got hurt.  The last time I heard from her had to have been about 8 years ago and did not go well.  (That time she manipulated my email address out of my sister who was student-teaching her daughter at the time).  After that I got kind of hard to track.  She told me then she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (she is the definition of it) and bipolar.

Well, stupid facebook. She found me and messaged me.  I ignored it.  So she send a sad story to a friend of mine that she also knew in high school to get him to talk me into contacting her.  No go. So she sent ANOTHER message today, this one referencing "the good old days" and applying a lot of guilt about how she's had 12 surgeries in a year, etc.  Not once in any of this did she ask how are you, anything.  So I was going to let it go but I know she'll continue to bug me.  So finally I decided to say no.  I made it clear that any attempts to message me would be reported as harrassment, that bugging my friends is harrassment, and that any attempts to contact me in person would result in a restraining order (since my page makes it easy enough to find me).

I feel crappy but I also feel like I did the right thing.  I didn't let her keep going, I stated how it was, the end.

We'll see.