Dear Tee,

Thank you so, so much for your advice and kind words. I am sorry to not been able to respond these past couple of days, as life got in the way and I wasn’t able to respond until now. But I’ve read your post and I am absorbing its wisdom.

It seems you ended up in this group of “friends” who were quite toxic. In the beginning you bonded over the common sentiment about the changes in the online community you belonged to. You shared that sentiment and joined the “rebel” group, so to speak. But as you say, this rebel group was all about gossiping and criticizing the people in the main group.

It honestly amazes me that they did not stopped at criticizing the other people from the destroyed online community, but pretty much everybody else in their lives, too. Now that I’ve actually stop and thought about it over these past couple of days, I realize that they were the type to complain about their own family members, neighbors, people they work or go to school with, and so on. To them, if you’re not also this moody badmouther who hates anything peaceful or joyful, then you’re someone worth criticizing, and… honestly, you’re right. It was toxic. It is toxic.

As you say, this group behaved like helpless victims and focused all their energy on criticism and blame. Eventually, you became their target too…

You’re definitely right on the nose with this and to be honest, they did not liked it when I became happier and happier in general. Again, I don’t want to put out too many details, but as time went on and I slowly found my self-esteem rising as a result of personal healing… It was like a switch went off and I found myself being attacked by them at least multiple times before we stopped talking. I know that it’s always better to walk away the first or the second time someone disrespects you, but at that time, I thought it my fault somehow and that I just needed to try and see where they were coming from. Was it something I did?

But again, I’m happy we did not worked out ultimately because I don’t want to be as unhappy as they are. One in particular definitely had it out for me because I suppose there were certain things in my life that I was blessed with, and they felt they had nothing to have gratitude over. So of course naturally, I became the bad person.

Maybe your lack of self-love stems from your childhood, so you’d need to heal those wounds. Healing the inner child who feels unlovable or unworthy might be necessary. If you want more pointers on this, or you’d like to share a little bit about your childhood, I’ll be happy to talk about it.

The topic of healing the inner child was something I’ve explored with a therapist once before not too long ago. But I am happy to hear new ideas. The thing that helped me most was visualizing myself being able to talk to my younger versions and being like a mother figure to them, since I essentially grew up without one around me (emotionally speaking). It really does help tremendously, but I’m still lost on new ways to heal the inner child. If you don’t mind helping me, I’m all ears.

Our true self is loving and kind. And naturally, we want to be loving and kind to people. But not at the expense of our true, authentic self. We don’t need to be kind and loving to toxic people, to people who abuse us and put us down. Instead, we need to set boundaries with them. Likewise, we don’t need to be kind to selfish, self-centered people, who only care about themselves. You can be kind and loving, but wisely, with boundaries. Because there are people out there who will appreciate your kindness, and so, you can open up to them. But at the same time, you need to protect yourself from those who want to take advantage of you.

I suppose this is going to be harder for me to understand while I’m at this stage in my life. I wish I could have figured everything out by now, but sadly life is never that simple or always goes according to my personal timetable. I was once the fool one too many times with people who pretended to be wounded just so I could help them, and all so they could take advantage of me in other ways. I’m still not sure on how to look out for predators like that, though I feel more protective of myself naturally now than back then, thankfully.

I am super grateful for your help. If we don’t speak again, please, have a wonderful rest of your week.

– J