I think I posted about a month ago about something that was bothering me.  About a woman who moved to our area and just seemed incredibly needy.

It's hard for me to make a long story short, but I will try.  Two days after writing that post, I fell and had a bad accident and broke my leg.  I had invited everyone to come to my graduation celebration but I unfortunately had to cancel.  I ended up going with just one person from the group as what I really needed was just someone to help me with my wheelchair.  I wished that everyone could be there, but I even barely made it with my friend, as I woke up with a lot of pain that morning.

What ended up happening is that it looked like this woman who had already struck me as very desperate and needy was having a pretty hard time with the event being cancelled. I mean that I don't have proof that is the case, but given her behavior it sure seemed like it.  I needed a couple of days to cool off from the visit with them on Thanksgiving, as I had posted earier that it was really intense, everyone talking about the election.  Because of this I had decided that we would only go to the celebration but not to dinner-because the political situation just seemed to be hanging over.  I had intended to send out the email invite about ten days ahead.  I first had to go to an organizational meeting with the college on the 6th, but could not attend in person, and attended on the 9th virtually.  That still gave me ten days until graduation day.  The college had some pretty tight security, and incidentally had a 'no politics' policy, as well as a clear bag or no purse policy.  I was going to put all of these details in the invite, and try to word it as diplomatically as possible.  I was hoping that people would be OK with these standards that the college had.

I didn't go to the friends' zoom party on the 8th, because these meetings tend to be really heavy, a lot of trauma dumping and political talk. I made a polite excuse and declined.  I wasn't exactly prepared for what happened next.  One of my friends called me on the 9th and we worked out the details of getting me there in my wheelchair, and I was going to send the invite out to have everyone meet us there at 2 PM in the guest area. Graduates had to be there early so per usual everyone else would arrive earlier. That part was fine but this woman ended up calling right after I talked to her and she seemed pretty salty.

This woman is living with my friend. I find it weird how every time I have a conversation with my good friend via phone, she will call right after. I was just about to send out the invite to everyone when I got this very tense call from her.  I let it go to voicemail-she called and put someone else on speaker, in her voice she sounded quite upset and urgent and needed to know the details of my graduation-NOW.  It wasn't even so much what she said as the tone in her voice was off, she almost sounded angry...for context I really don't know her that well. She already knew that it was the afternoon of the 19th and I'm not sure what the crisis was. She insisted that I call one of them back immediately and make plans with them on how to get me there. Thing is I'd already done this. I was going to issue the invite in just a few hours and all she had to do was rsvp yes or no.  I was a little alarmed by her intensity as I was already in pain and very frustrated over not being able to walk.  I texted back our other friend and let her know that an invite would be coming out shortly and not to worry as there was just too much detail and that it would be in the email.  I was going to send out the invite in a day or two.  I needed some time to cool down as she sort of startled me with her intensity.

I talked it over and let a day and a half go by...and I was just getting ready to send out the invite when she called yet again, reiterating how much she wanted to be at my event and insisted that she wanted to go to dinner. During this the group text was exploding with info like it always does. I felt like I was going to start crying...she had been talking for a month about going to dinner...yet I had never invited her to dinner and didnt' want to because all I wanted to do was go to this ceremony and not make it a long day. There are people in this group who are paranoid about the covid virus still and demand that we sit outside...I don't want to deal with it.  I was at my wits' end. I was on the phone with the DMV who were being extremely rude to me and demand that I walk in and stand in line to get my disability decal...and I could not walk or stand. I was trying to put in some space by letting her first call go to voicemail, but she just kept calling. I couldn't retreat, I couldn't regroup, I was in pain, and panicking, and I was furious that the fact that I was in a terrible accident and really hurt just seemed to go right over her head.  She just kept talking about what SHE wanted to do for my event.  

I basically just broke. For the past couple of years I've tried everything I could to be polite, to not make waves, to try to work around people who are still paranoid about Covid and demand that I integrate social distancing into all the events that I invite them to...on top of that now we have a person who has moved here who seems to want events and invites to go the way that she envisions...I have already been feeling like my life is out of control and that I'm constantly bending to everyones' wishes.  It just seems to me that all circumstances and situations wind up being flipped around so that they become about someone else. I feel like I cannot have any time, plans relationships, opinions or decisions that aren't outside of the jurisdiction and supervision of someone else.  I remember three years ago when lockdown ended and this woman was living far away and not in my area, she was mad that I didn't want a virtual birthday and stay home...so that she could be there.

Beyond setting a boundary I basically flipped out.  My fuse just blew. I texted her and told her to stop pressing me for details, that I was exhausted-it hadn't even been two weeks since I had the accident. I went off basically and said that I would do how and what and when I want to for my own event-if I even had it at all. I was seriously considering cancelling because of pain, and was just really surprised that she expected me to go through this long day and then go out to dinner...I couldn't figure out what piece of this situation she was not understanding-that I had a serious accident and was incapacitated. Plus she has been trying super hard to be my big best friend, I toldher you know we really hardly know each other and if I would like to pursue a relationship, like I will, you know? I couldn't believe that I had to spell this out. She had been complaining to people over the past few years that I was "quiet" in the group chat. Well yeah...it goes off 24/7.  Like you didn't read my silence as slow the hell down???

Because of her behavior, I ended up cancelling with everyone. I just couldn't.  The doctor had read me the riot act, telling me that the break so so delicate that if I were to have it moved even a couple centimeters, I would have to have external hardware as well as internal hardware.  He told me to go to my graduation and nothing else-and that I was homebound for the next two months or so.  I was stunned that it seemed that all this woman could think about was how I was going to throw this party. It really felt like it was more about her having her social calendar filled and being entertained than anything else.  All of my concerns about her moving here were confirmed.

Apparently she is posing a problem to my friend, with whom she lives and is now totally dependent on. My gut instinct was that her being desperate to be the one handling me and my wheelchair was in scoping out my house and finding another house to crash at.  There had been talk floated about us moving in together-not my idea at all, and I just strongly sensed that there was another motivation here.

I panicked and left out group chat after being in it for five years. I felt cornered. I finally called my friend and said something that I'd been thinking about for the past couple of years but didn't want to say-that this group thing really wasn't working out that well and that some people were just way too dominant.  I said I valued our friendship and all that we had in common but that this was way too much and I'm in over my head. I said please just don't invite me to the zoom meetings. They just cause so much stress.  I felt like this woman kept calling because I didn't go to the zoom meeting and that she was going to refuse to let me go without a week or a couple of days even without interaction from her.  It scared the s*** out of me.

I didn't want it to go this far, I really didn't.  I wanted to try and maintain my friend group, to not overreact, and not burn bridges. I just felt after the past couple of years of having another person in this group also be rageful and threatened that I had other friends and plans and explode if I had other plans without her.  I just couldnt' deal with another person like this. After I effectively told her off she replied that she was just calling because she wanted to celebrate me. Well that is nice but it didn't feel like it or seem like it.  

I guess she was asking and asking my friend whom she lives with were we going to dinner, etc., and wanting to have her Christmas planned, etc.  It sounds tricky. I don't know if I would want someone like that living with me, it sounds difficult. I wanted to avoid at all cost becoming her next focus.