Dear Caroline:

“He has this habit of talking a lot and very long… He can talk for 40 minutes without taking a pause…  an hour or hour and a half… without taking any pause… He tells me everything, all the facts about him, his girlfriend, his mom, their health, everything, every detail… he again started talking about his bike, what repairs he did, exactly what, where, what day it happened, what he ate for breakfast that day, what he wore, that kind of details… that he talks a lot, very detailed, very fast and I sometimes don’t follow his stories, it’s too much, too long… It’s just overwhelming”.

–Wikipedia/ Pressured Speech: “Pressured speech is unrelenting, rapid, often loud talking without pauses. Those with pressured speech do not respond to verbal and nonverbal cues indicating that others wish to speak…  They are unable to listen to others, either talking nonstop until they run out of steam… The speech can be either intelligible or unintelligible.. People with schizophrenia, as well as anyone experiencing extreme anxiety, may also exhibit pressure of speech…  a feature of hypomanic and manic illness  Pressure of speech has commonly been observed in people diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder…Psychostimulants such as cocaine or amphetamines may cause speech resembling pressured speech”.

health line. com/ pressured speech: “It’s often a part of experiencing a manic episode. The speech will come out rapidly, and it doesn’t stop at appropriate intervals. It’s difficult to understand what’s being said during pressured speech. It’s also not possible to carry on a conversation because the person with pressured speech will not stop long enough for another person to speak…  A pressured speech episode may continue for more than an hour.”

Back to what you shared: “he had anger issues when he was just being angry all the time and projected this on me… I spent all evening feeling guilty and thinking about this. But it made ME angry.. I was always very polite, listening patiently… Lately I got really tired with this and a bit angry…  I was tired of listening to this. He replied angrily: forgive me but I don’t think I told you this story specifically… He called me out again that I don’t listen to him… He felt very much hurt and sorry for himself because I called off our meeting in last minute,…He told me he would never do such thing to me.. He said he was disappointed with me because I was always listening to him very patiently and he thinks I am rude and impolite…I know I should say directly things like I don’t wanna hear this anymore, this is too much details, stop talking. but I was raised this way and just keep quiet, maybe I’m good target for being treated like this…. He also said I didn’t text him all week… He started scrolling through the texts and asking: did you get this text? you didn’t reply. how about this one? and this one, did you get it?… I feel terrible but I also feel a bit relieved. What do you think? I wrote this to vent a little but also not always sure how I should feel. I was abused growing up“-

-My comments: he’s been taking advantage of your passivity (listening to him quietly for hours), being unreasonably demanding of you, taking on the victim role and accusing you for victimizing him, aka blaming and guilt-tripping you. He did not take any responsibility for his problematic speech and for projecting his anger at you:  so, yes, he has been abusing you is my answer to your question (in the title of your thread).

The wrongdoing on your part was not that you didn’t always, 100% of the time, listen to him quietly and politely. It was not that you got angry at him. The wrongdoing on your part was not something you did to him, but something you did to yourself: expecting and demanding of yourself to be a quiet and passive recipient of his guilt-tripping and of his pressured speech (which is very distressing to be exposed to, I know because my mother talked that way).

Seems to me that you are inclined to feel guilty when accused of a wrongdoing (even though there is no wrongdoing on your part, in this case) and he is inclined to blame and guilt-trip other people. A combination of a person inclined to feel guilty and a person inclined to blame is a disastrous combination: it is simply bad for your mental health. Do you agree?

anita

Dear Caroline:

You are welcome! Pressured speech is a symptom, so I read, and a condition I suppose: both words are okay. (No need to apologize for your English, it is fine. Mine is not my first language either: I still have a problem with when and us prepositions: at, to, from, for, in, on, etc.)

“I know the problem was not my reaction (to) this pressured speech“- the problem is his action (his pressured speech), not your reaction.

“I know I cannot meet him again alone“-  I agree.

“I’ve been thinking about telling him we need to give each other space“- good. Make it clear to him, if needed, that it’s not up to him to give you space; that you will be taking the space that you need with or without his consent.

“The only reason I did not say it was over for us was that I do not want to lose people around me“- it is a very positive loss when it comes to losing the distress involved in being exposed to pressured speech and guilt-tripping.

“But I know having people around who abuse me is not the way to live“- I agree.

“Most questions he asked I said I cannot give him answer“- if you want, you are welcome to list his questions and maybe I can help you to come up with answers that feel right to you.

“I think I will say that this friendship has become too intense…  and that I appreciate the calm life I am living for past few years, as well as my good mental health and my boundaries, and that I would like them to stay that way“- excellent! I can’t think of anything more important than a calm life, a good mental health and respected boundaries!

anita

Dear Caroline:

I read some of your recent post but I am not focused enough to read and reply attentively, so I will get back to you tomorrow morning (in about 14 hours from now).

anita

Dear Caroline:

“I sometimes need to have more time to understand what happened, I do not have immediate reaction to abuse and maltreatment. I know why is that and probably most victims of abuse have it, but how to overcome this, how to know right now: I do not feel comfortable, this is not right, someone is hurting me. I have to say I have those feelings but I do not trust them I guess, not enough to act“- I don’t remember ever reading a person express this. It fits perfectly with my experience: I wasn’t able to evaluate situations and figure out if there was abuse in the situation, or not. Sometimes days later, it would occur to me that something wrong happened days earlier, and in my mind, I would prepare a retroactive response that I should have expressed at the time the response was relevant. It was very frustrating!

As to why it happened: I think that it’s the Freeze Response to perceived danger. You know of the 3 Fs: Flight, Fight and Freeze, 3 natural responses to danger? While my mother was abusing me, as a child and onward, my brain perceived DANGER. I couldn’t run (Flight was not a possibility), couldn’t- wouldn’t fight her (Fight was not a possibility), so the only reaction left was FREEZE. My body froze (no movement) and my brain froze (no thinking). I just stood there until it was over.

Fast forward, in situation with other people, my brain was frozen: no thinking, no evaluating, and therefore no appropriate, sensible reacting. Do you relate to this? If you do, we can talk about how to overcome this (your question in the quote above).

“He asked if I want to be friends with him… Now we work together in a team of 5 people. That’s what worries me. Seems to me some people in the office do not like him because of his anger and talking. But still I need to make it work, so to speak… So the question if I want to be friends with him is tricky… For the past year he wanted to meet every Saturday… called sometimes every day… I do not think it is healthy and normal to be that needy and clingy. He has a girlfriend and he lives with her, I should mention“-

-I didn’t know that you are working together (if you shared it before, it didn’t register…perhaps my brain was frozen, lol). Given what you shared in the quote above, I think that it is very important that the only friendliness that you express to him would be strictly in the context of work, and that you should have no contact with him outside the work context, which includes not being alone with him: not privately and not publicly. Reasons: (1) the other 3 team members/ work colleagues understandably dislike him. If they think that you like him, being that you are his personal friend, they may think that you approve of his abusive behaviors,  (2) If the other 3 team members think that you disapprove of his abusive behaviors, and yet you choose to be his personal friend, they may think that you are emotionally dishonest and therefore, not trustworthy, (3) His live-in girlfriend (and others) may think that you are having an affair with him because, like you suggested yourself, it is not normal for a man (particularly one living with his girlfriend) to be this needy and clingy of another woman!

“What I see best it would be us staying as colleagues that see each other once in a few weeks, months, with a group of other people, not talking day to day basis about each other’s everyday problems (what has been the issue here) “- if I was you, I would not talk to him outside the work context, not day to day, not on any day; not about each other’s personal problems, not about anything other than work, within the work context (never being alone with him whenever it is possible).

“Not sure how to maintain this. I guess I could just say this to him“- how about telling him that from now on, you and him will be interacting only in the work context and not in any other context; that from now on, you are friendly work colleagues, not personal friends?

anita

Dear Caroline:

I just noticed that you submitted a post 14 minutes ago, but I won’t be able to read or reply for 7 hours or maybe for as long as 18 hours from now. Take care! I’ll be back to your thread later.

anita

Dear Caroline:

“I feel it is a trap that I fell into… He usually intimidates and bullies me. I regret I put up with this all these months and did not stand up for myself and now it became a trap I need to get out of“- I think that objectively, the situation is not as bad as you feel that it is. You can undo the trap and set yourself free if and when you stand up for yourself and create a new reality at work.

“my coworker asked my why am I not ‘in his team’ since we were best friends.  I think for past few days this is my worst concern because I know I will break up this relationship one way or another but worry about what people at work would think as they already think we are best friends (not 100% sure what he tells them – I am working home office, he and only one coworker are in the office)“- tell the guy that you and him are friendly work colleagues but no longer personal friends. Then tell everyone else at work the same thing. Be factual about it, don’t elaborate. And then, if he comes to your home uninvited, don’t let him in. If he calls you outside the work context, tell him that he is not to call you because you are no longer personal friends. Be calm and persistent.

It is a great opportunity, as scary as it may feel, to assert yourself and stand up for yourself: take advantage of this opportunity!

anita