Emma Responds – My Comments
-post updated below, June / August 2022… post has been edited after publication to add more links and commentary –
The individual I wrote about previously, who decided, a week or so ago, she no longer wanted to be friends with me (after having first contacted me years ago online), contacted me again this evening via a private chat app. 
I referred to her as “Emma” in (Link): the last blog post or two, but “Emma” is not her real name.
I have no idea how “Emma” was able to message me again on this other app, as I unfriended her on there, but a message popped up in my in box there.
I will again be keeping “Emma” anonymous and changing any identifying details.
I may be sharing some of her comments to me so I can respond.
Emma wrote to me:
“You’re free to reply, but I will not be responding”
— end —
Okay, so I will be replying here.
Emma wrote:
“I had had a small hope that despite our disagreement, we could still somehow reconcile and salvage our friendship”
— end —
That was not my take away.
Emma made it sound clear in the last messages she sent me on this other site on which we were corresponding that she no longer wanted to be friends. She is the one who suggested that I de-friend her on social media.
I then responded to those messages on a Sunday night, but as she didn’t reply to those responses over the next three days, I did in fact defriend her.
I could be wrong, but it felt as though Emma wanted me to keep pursuing her and begging her to be friends with me again and to work things out – but that is not how I roll, not since I got into middle-age and de-programmed myself from years of Codependency.
I’ve been in similar relationship quandaries in the past with people like Emma, and the older I get, the less patience I have for the game playing and the bratty, petulant attitudes – so I am happier to, and much faster now at, letting people go and move on.
The more I think about it and realize Emma was more than likely a Vulnerable Narcissist, the more I see she had no genuine interest in patching things up – she had repeated opportunities to do so (I gave her opportunities), but she didn’t avail herself of them.
I’ve learned in my studies about Vulnerable (Covert) Narcissists that it is common for them to stomp off in a huff and refuse to talk through a disagreement.
They’re also known for manipulation through guilt trips and pity plays, and they will never take responsibility for anything hurtful or insulting that they said or did in a disagreement. All of that (and more) fits Emma’s reactions to me during and after this disagreement.
(Please see (Link): “Part 2” for more on this and other related issues)
Emma said,
“One last thing: You might want to be more careful in the future re whom you blog about and how you blog about them.”
— end —
What a garbage, dirt bag move. Unbelievable.
Is that a threat?
Well, I guess so, because “Emma” goes on to say,
“However one day you could find yourself facing a lawsuit, especially if that person has the devil’s own advocate for a lawyer (which I assuredly do not). Again, you might want to be more careful.”
— end —
So, you’re giving me empty threats? How classy.
As I’ve kept you Anonymous, you cannot claim anything about defamation or libel, if that is what you are hinting at. (She also cannot financially afford an attorney, so why even bother making such a threat?)
This was a weird component of Emma’s final correspondence to me – she simultaneously kept lashing out at me, threatening me, but would then revert back to depicting herself as a victim, then switch again to bully, back to acting like a sweet little lamb.
She simultaneously wanted to be the aggressor making threats at me while also holding a, “pity me, you were so mean to me, after everything I’ve done for you, but I’m the victim here, I just wanted to work things out (even though I basically ignored your even handed, rational replies to work through our differences)” attitude. It was very weird.
Emma said,
Despite everything, I wish you good things
— end —-
You signed off towards the end of your private message to me with that – you wish me good things… after trying to scare me with a lawsuit?
Are you serious? I’ve never done anything that nasty to you.
I told you years ago, “Emma,” when you began asking me over several months, to a period of a year and a half or two years, for me to friend you on other sites, to get to know me better, this is why I am reluctant to do this.
This sort of thing happens.
It’s happened to me before… you’re like some of the people I told you about who turned on me after I knew them for years, including people I met online.
You pulled the identical garbage on me that my other ex friend did whom you read about on this blog, and after you assured me you would never “burn me” the way she had.
You’re the one who spent several months or more pursuing me to get to know me better, I didn’t pursue you, and I told you several times I didn’t think becoming better friends would be a good idea – I was right about that.
You were looking for someone to pity you, not true friendship.
I don’t think you read most of my texts to you over the years – you had a self absorbed, obnoxious, annoying habit of 99% of the time only paying attention to topics I texted you about that you were personally interested in.
That’s unfortunate, because one topic I warned you and informed you about several times over the years – that you ignored, apparently, because you found it boring – is that I am tired of granting perpetually unhappy or angry people emotional support.
I told you in texts off and on I was a recovered Codependent who had spent 35+ years giving emotional support (to family, friends, co-workers … anyone and everyone) that was seldom reciprocated, and I was exhausted from years of playing everyone’s emotional support animal.
So no, after several years of giving you pity (it moved from “emotional support” to pity at some point), I was not interested in doing so any longer – it was a familiar place I had been in with previous friends or family, and I know from experience that it doesn’t work for either party.
I no longer grant indefinite, un-qualified emotional support to people such as yourself who show no willingness to makes changes or to work on themselves, their problems, or their attitude. It doesn’t help you, and it leaves me drained and resentful.
I did give Emma pity for about seven years before I began gently asking her to take more responsibility and control over her life and unhappiness, or sharing links with her to articles I had found helpful.
That was six years longer than I gave pity to my ex friend Holly (not her real name) who I had told Emma about.
Holly spent 12 months complaining to me about how lonely and friendless she was, I spent those 12 months (one year) giving Holly pity, but by the second year, when Holly continued to complain to me about being lonely, and when I began asking Holly what steps she was taking to make friends, Holly threw a temper tantrum, acted butt-hurt, and claimed she just wanted pity and empathy from me, not advice or pointers.
Emma laughed over the phone when I told her this; she said to me while laughing, “Holly just wanted to complain about her problems but not actually do any thing to fix them.”
Bingo! Correct.
Emma is Holly 2.0 but is oblivious to that fact, which is baffling.
From what I could ascertain over knowing this person for several years, Emma doesn’t want normal friendship, to make her depression go away, or to find solutions to the issues she complains about – she wants to be pitied.
I’ve fallen in to that trap before, of giving non-stop pity to people with victim mindsets, and it doesn’t heal them, and it leaves me exhausted. So no thank you.
I got off that crazy-making, Codependent merry-go-round years ago.
You cannot help or fix people who claim to be down in the dumps but who also won’t lift a finger to improve their life or attitude and who act offended if or when you start asking them – after years of having given them un-qualified pity – what they’re now doing to find solutions.
Emma said,
“I did consider you a good friend, and sad you felt that way about me all this time. ”
— end —
As I said above, my reactions would not have taken her by surprise if Emma had bothered to actually read all my texts to her over the years, and not skimmed over them to only get to the texts or links that discussed her favorite issues while ignoring the rest, which I suspect was her habit.
You’re unemployed and sit around the house all day, it’s not like you don’t have the time to actually read the texts someone sends you – all of them, not just the topics that strike your fancy. 🙄
As to the last part of it, I have previously spoken to “Emma” before that I cannot be around very negative people a lot.
I had to take a break from Emma about two years ago (three?), which I told her at the time.
None of this should be a surprise to Emma, but it sounds like it is.
I’ve already explained to Emma that I come from a family of very negative people.
I had clinical depression for years…
(yes, I did, and Emma never has apologized for continually denying that I was diagnosed with depression by mental health professionals,
all because it does not line up with her need to believe she is unable to do any thing in life because she has depression, while my sister and I were able to attend college and hold down jobs while having depression)
– so stop playing the victim, Emma!
You’re not an innocent party, here. Your victim mentality runs deep.
You cannot even admit it was slimy of you to keep insisting to me privately, “there’s no way you ever had depression,” even though I told you I was diagnosed by doctors, and I lived in the hell of depression for over 30 years.
Were you diagnosed with depression by a doctor as I was? Or is your depression self diagnosed?
I simply cannot continue to stay in close contact with someone who is very negative, who wants to keep thinking they are a helpless victim in life, which is how Emma views herself, as she’s previously indicated to me.
I’ve had to fight really hard over my life time to not give in to depression (or to anxiety). I’ve been moving forward in life.
It’s not good for my mental health to be around people who think in such negative terms (which I informed Emma of before).
Also, that someone who claims to be a friend (or one time friend of mine) but kept denying my medical history (ie., clinical depression), and continues to refuse to apologize for that (and keeps acting like the wronged party to boot), is not someone I feel I can trust or be friends with.
Emma said,
You appear to be obsessed (unhealthfully so) with who this “Donna Hazel” is (again I can assure you, it isn’t me).
— end —
I’m no more “obsessed” with “Donna Hazel” (which she’s said is not her real name) than I am with any of the other clowns who come on to this blog to argue with me, such as
(Link): The Incredibly Condescending and Presumptive Singles-Shaming Posts of Gladys Wisener
I have to hand it to Gladys that she at least never made veiled threats to sue me!
Or how about my post about this former commentator here:
As you can see, and as I’ve explained on this blog for years now!, I sometimes use this blog to express anger.
So… it’s actually normal for me to make a post lambasting Donna Hazel or whomever. It doesn’t mean I am “obsessed” with people.
If Donna Hazel makes another comment on this blog, and it appears in the Trash section, and I glance it over, I may yes, comment more on that in the future – or not. I don’t know.
So, Emma, you’ve not seen all the posts “Donna Hazel” left me, because they remained stuck in the “Trash” area of this blog – only I got to read them.
Donna Hazel is a condescending jerk not only in the one post you see published on the blog, but in the several (yes, she sent me SEVERAL) that showed up in the Trash area that were not published.
Emma, you don’t know what’s going on with Donna behind the scenes with me any more than she knows the dynamics of my relationship with you, as she seems to think she does, based off one post here.
She, like, you, “Emma,” is not willing to acknowledge MY struggles with mental health issues of 30+ years, has no sensitivity or respect for what I dealt with over the years.
Emma said,
…this “Donna Hazel” will no doubt be familiar with all the neurological interventions. S/he seems concerned only with your devices of portrayal and what it’s hiding.
— end —
I’m not “hiding anything.”
Christ on a cracker – as long as you continue to (Link): think of yourself as a victim (and you do, quite a bit!), and you essentially sit around home all day binge-watching Net Flix and complaining to people how terrible life is, your depression will never, ever go away or lessen.
Whatever treatment you use to correct any of that, especially your negative thinking, whether it’s with BA (Behavioral Activation) or CBT, or whatever, is irrelevant to me.
That is, I don’t care what specific treatment or change you make to improve your mental health as long as you try something new and different.
The status quo of complaining to people online (or in person) in private about how awful your life is, while spending the rest of the day watching movies on NetFlix, is not going to improve your depression, that much I do know.
Maybe your new buddy, Donna Hazel, can advise you as to what SHE thinks would help lessen your depression… but she’s likely to just give you a lot of “emotional support,” sans actual helpful links or advice.
Goodness knows if Donna Hazel were to give you actual advice on how to actually diminish your depression, (rather than her just telling you how sorry she is for you), you’d take her advice as an insult, and accuse her of giving “platitudes” and of “victim blaming.”
Me feeling sorry for you, granting un-ending emotional support, is not going to help you or make your depression go away!
(Emotional support has its place at times and in right doses, but it won’t heal someone of depression.)
And I did give you emotional support for years…
My mom used to give me continual emotional support for years because of my depression, and my mom’s emotional support never made MY depression go away.
I have been there and done that, Emma.
I spent years researching a way out of depression, not looking for ways to justify why I supposedly could not do ‘this, that, or the other’ and using depression as an excuse.
Emma, you’re like that Aunt I told you about – you get easily offended, see insult where none was meant, and you break off a relationship.
All I did was mention some methods that may help ease your depression, along with a news article I found motivational (that I thought you would too), and you immediately began framing all that as “victim blaming,” and dismissing any links and observations I sent as being “pep talks” and “platitudes,” when they were no such thing.
I was trying to help you but got kicked in the teeth for it, and now, you’re even sending me quasi- lawsuit threats, what in the holy hell?
Your depression will never ever go away if you don’t do something to change your thinking, attitudes, and any parts of your situation that you can change, (like wearing pants during the day, rather than pajamas, if you’re wearing pajamas all day).
No amount of me, or that clown Donna Hazel, pitying you, giving you emotional support, and so on, will actually get rid of your depression.
Are you or are you not interested in getting rid of depression? I honestly can’t say at this point.
I don’t think you ever really cared about me as a person; I think you are, or were, looking for people to commiserate with over negativity.
Any messages I sent to you about fun or happy topics over the years, like my plants (gardening hobby), you generally didn’t respond to those.
I was only trying to help you and got shafted, again!
And no, “Emma,” I didn’t tell any lies, “half truths,” or whatever you were saying in tonight’s private message to me, in any of my posts about you on this blog.
Edit 1. / Post Script:
To “Emma” – If you’re going to accuse me of lying, etc, then cite specific examples of where you believe I have done such, because I did not knowingly lie about you, exaggerate any thing, etc.
I was quite fair and honest in my posts about you.
I have no reason to lie about you, especially not under a pen name on this blog while using a fake name for you – so give me a break!
Also… you found my blog post about you all by yourself.
I did not e-mail you about that post, nor did I Tweet you with a link to it.
You chose to either lurk at this blog or over at my Twitter account. That is on you.
I find it interesting that though I did not use your real name or any thing like that, you read it and were able to recognize yourself in it.
If Donna Hazel is reading this:
You played right into Emma’s (Link): victim mentality. “Emma” saw your comment to me, and she is living for it.
Emma wants to feel sorry for herself, she wants others to feel sorry for her, to tell her she’s not accountable for her choices in her life, because she has depression and is therefore supposedly incapable of being held accountable or of making choices. And you bolstered those views she holds.
So congrats on you enabling her further! You’re not helping Emma, Donna, you’re hurting.
Edit 2.
I just re-read much of (Link): this several year old post on my blog, where I wrote about my ex friend whom I call “Ellen,” and I am astounded at how similar “Emma” is to “Ellen,” and how similarly both friendships fell apart.
Both women think of themselves as perpetual victims (“Ellen” especially had a bad temper problem) and both want consistent, non-judgmental emotional support (which I granted each for years).
Both ladies expect you to agree with them 100% on whatever topic that is their sore spot, and if you do not fully agree (or do not handle a topic the way they think you should), they get annoyed quickly and turn on you in a heartbeat – even if you’ve been a decent friend to them over a several year period.
It’s astounding how similar both women are, and how they both behaved.
I do have a life-long tendency to continually attract these same kind of people to me.
-Edit, June 2022-
So I’m Supposedly “Fraudulent” Because Emma Disagrees with My Comments
I installed the Facebook Messenger App for desktop a few days ago, but it keeps wanting to launch on boot-up, and so I went in clicking around to see how to stop it from doing that.
As I was clicking around looking for options on how to shut that feature down (maybe I need to go into my computer’s Start Up Options for that, but whatever), Emma’s old messages to me showed up in the app!
Looks like Emma sent me a meme at that time of Patrick Stewart as Capt. Picard (from the Star Trek show) with the text “Fraudulent Bloggers” underneath it.
I don’t recall previously seeing this meme when I was on the regular Facebook Messenger on my cell phone or desktop. (A screen capture of that is provided to the left.) 
Emma is clearly unhappy with me that I confronted her with the truth – that if she wants to get rid of, or decrease, her depression (which she claims to have), it will require change on her part.
I faced that reality for myself years ago, and once I did (part of that involved me consulting free, online mental health material, some of which I shared with Emma), and I made some changes in my thinking and some in my behavior, my own clinical depression began to dissipate.
Emma chose to frame me trying to help her as me being “victim blaming” or just “giving pep talks.”
But that is not being “fraudulent.” (Nor is it being “victim blaming” or merely “giving pep talks.”)
Just because my opinions differ from yours does not mean I am “fraudulent.”
Other than changing identifying information about myself and personal friends and family I’ve blogged about (to keep things private, to keep people anonymous), I don’t make things up,
and I don’t lie about my personal experiences, and my discussion of some of my personal experiences is one of the very things that drew “Emma” to my blog to start with,
and which caused her to keep bugging me for a year or more to friend her further on Facebook, and so on.
This reminds me of the kooky stalker guy, John Morgan, who found my blog several years ago.
Morgan began hounding me over a year or two to friend him on Facebook and under my real name via e-mail (one of my old blog posts about Morgan is (Link): located here).
When I politely kept refusing to friend Morgan off this blog, as I was not comfortable with that, he began telling me here, or over at his blog, that I am not a “trustworthy source,” and yet, he still continued to visit my blog and base some of HIS blog posts off ones I made here first! (He was using my blog as a resource.)
There are crabby, cranky, butt-hurt people who will depict you as untrustworthy or fraudulent just because they don’t like the truth you’re telling them, or you refuse to cater to their whims. You may not like my opinions or agree with all my commentary, which is fine, but I am not a liar.
I find it utterly bizarre and very frustrating that Emma could see how off-putting and self-defeating a victimhood mentality is in other people I was friends with who I told her about on the phone, or who she read about here on this blog, and yet, she is totally blind or in self-denial to the fact that she too is guilty of the very same “negative Nancy,” “Debbie downer,” “pity me,” victimhood type attitudes and behaviors she recognized in my other ex friends.
This video is highly applicable to Emma:
(Link): A Covert Narcissist’s Number One Tactic, Hands Down – 14 minute video
I had a platonic relationship with Emma – we weren’t dating (I’m straight) – but this woman’s (the blond woman with blue ends in her hair in the video below) description of her vulnerable narcissist ex-boyfriend’s “goodbye letter,”
and how he acted towards her, is similar to what I went through with “Emma” – in this comparison,
I would be the blond woman, and Emma would be the vulnerable narcissist ex boyfriend this blond woman was dating
(the lady in the video seems nice, but IMO, after having watched her parts 1 – 3, she gave this guy WAY too much time and effort than I would have):
(Link – video, You Tube, 22 minutes long): Dating a Vulnerable Narcissist Storytime – Part 4 – Delusional Break-Up Letter Response
(After listening to this woman’s video again, after listening to her describe her ex-boyfriend’s behavior of “push – pull,” up- and- down disposition of pushing her away, luring her back, pushing away again, etc, he may have BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), as I’ve read that is one common trait of Borderlines.
But then, I’ve read that there can be overlap;
that is, according to mental health professionals, people with one personality disorder can have another, or have overlapping traits from more than one category, so it’s possible that someone with BPD can also have Covert Narcissistic Traits, so maybe her ex is both?)
Part Two:
(Link): 10 Signs Someone’s Always Playing the Victim (6.05 long video)
(Link): The “Victim” Narcissist | How to tell who is playing the victim (17 minute long video)
This post has been edited after publication to add more comments.
Related:
(Link): Victim Syndrome (‘Are You A Victim of the Victim Syndrome’) – by Insead
(Link): Can She Bake or Not? (Emma The Ex Friend – How Honest Is She?)
(Link): Clinical Depression Doesn’t Make People Incapable of Making Choices or Changes
(Link): When Narcissists Fake Being Sick to Manipulate You – Re: Boundaries, etc
(Link): Pathologies of Victimhood by R. Gunderman – The Dangers of Victimhood Mentality
(Link): Mental Illness Doesn’t Make You Special by F. Deboer
(Link): Life Lessons After Recovering from Codependency – I Can’t Save You, and I No Longer Want To
(Link): Chronic Pain and the Self Pity, Depression Trap
(Link): People Using Fake Sickness or Hardship To Con People Out Of Their Money, Attention, or Empathy
(Link): An Experimental Depression Treatment Uses Electric Currents to Bring Relief by L. McClurg
(Link): Not all Narcissists are Grandiose – the ‘Vulnerable’ Type can be Just as Dangerous
(Link): Choosing Sadness: The Irony of Depression – article from APS – by Wray Herbert
(Link): Being Bitter and Blaming Others Can Ruin Your Health by Elizabeth Cohen
(Link): Donna Hazel Cannot Quit This Blog / also: Re: Victim Syndrome
(Link): Addendum – Mental Health and Treatment and the Goals of Mental Health Professionals
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