Hello /adv/. I have a problem that's honestly hurting me

>online friend
Stopped reading right there. If it's online then it's not a real relationship. It's just pixels on a screen, nothing more.

You didn't even finish the story but you're describing exactly what happened to me too OP lol

I tried to recover the old times, and for a while it even seemed to work, but then she became more abusive than ever, and many times had indirectly implied that my work is worthless thrash, with 0% positives.

She was (still is, I guess?) hurting others as well, but everyone was terrified of her. To the point some have became inactive now, and those who are active, and who actually agree with me (I did the venting with them), still seem to be squirming under her thumb, and seem to always be looking for her approval.
Some seem to have gotten it, by... basically agreeing with everything she says, not questioning in the slightest, and posting long sad rants whenever they can't fulfill the rules she established. Also, when talking privately to such friends, in search of support, a couple of them have told me "she doesn't do it because she's mean. That's just how she is". But narc friend even seems to take pride (she mentions it very often, and no one but me seems to have an issue with that) in that she is very abrasive and doesn't mind hurting feelings. She even admits to be full of spite and bitterness. She still has a circle of people who blindly admires her and think she's the most reasonable, and even the KINDEST people ever (and I've seen her talk down to some of these people too. NONE OF THEM SEEM TO MIND).

I pointed out to Narc friend that I will play by my rules (it does not affect anyone else: we're all part of an art site), uploading when I want, or when I can. She now doesn't give me the time of the day, except very occasionally, and even then her comments always rub me the wrong way. Am I being judgemental? Am I being paranoid?

And do you know what's the worst? that I recently commissioned her (she was in need of money) for a comic. Sent her a script and, a few days later, she made a journal entry about people being shitty writers.

What do I do?
I know I must take distance and hell I don't even care about the fucking money... but she's extremely influential and I'm terrified of losing the mutual friends. I am terrified of being publicly critised by them. I am terrified of ending up alone, of having that entire circle turn on me.


I know I was an idiot by falling into her game. I assume that responsibility.

>>18717531
This is a classic situation where you try to base your happiness on what everyone else thinks. It's true that you can be happy, like a sheep or a dog, when all you do is please others. But if you find happiness in what you do and your choices that is a much firmer foundation which nothing can shake.

People like this are masters of manipulation. You can't fight over the mutual friends, she will smear you and you already know, they will take her word over hers. The problem is they probably have not seen the sides of her that you have. This is why they still give her the benefit of the doubt because, what normal person who doesn't know any better would assume such an evil fucked up person could really exist? But they do. Usually you have to learn that the hard way by getting sucked in to a relationship with one and abused by them. You were a target, now you are wiser and are not useful to her anymore because she can't manipulate you. She will give that focus to someone else now. Then they will in time learn the things you have learned.

The best thing you can do is have as little contact with her as possible. Don't discuss her to the other friends. Pretend as much as you can she doesn't exist. If you have to respond, do it without any emotion. You already know your pain, confusion, frustration is what fuels her. So just don't give it to her.

>>18717524
Ouch, sorry to hear you're going through something similar, anon. Hope you can leave that person behind!

And yeah, I can understand what the last anon says. And it's not truly about basing my happiness i approval, is more about losing friends I genuinely care about.

>>18717543
Yeah, you are completely right. I thank you for your words! I admit the scenario of looking for new friends al together is scary for me, but honestly I can not see a positive outcome out of this. I feel alone, left behind, but I guess it's better to feel alone when you are alone, than feeling alone when you are surrounded by people.

>>18717566
I don't think you have to necessarily find new friends. But you need to go about maintaining a relationship with these people that involves the narc as little as possible, even bringing her up in conversation or anything like that. If that's not something you're able to do, for whatever reasons, then the friendship is probably a loss. But if these people genuinely did like you and want to keep you as a friend, it should be doable.

>>18717520
You're on 4chan, assuming you have been her for years you should have masters degree by now in "dragging people down to an idiots level and beating them with experience". Why you aren't just shitposting the shit out of her is beyond me.

She writes up a length pointless criticism of your work to spite you?
>"Did you know women are incapable of arguing without involving emotions?" And then just go offline.

She is busy filling your chat with a cascade of abuse
>don't say anything, don't even read any of it, wait till she is done, then simply reply "that's factually wrong" and again leave

Annoy her by overtly praising yourself towards her, but then ignoring any response she gives, instead just continuing to praise yourself.

Ask her opinion on something, the. Casually dismiss it as silly and inform her you'll be doing the opposite. If she tries to point out where you are "wrong" just start quoting The Dude ate her.

When she says something to you that is obviously intended to be hurtful, just say you agree and are happy she is trying to make you a better person but that her time and effort could be better spent on improving herself first.

>>18717591
This is good if you're feeling playful, so do this for yourself if it'll make you feel better and you feel like having fun with a psycho.

But if you really want to make a narc seethe, the most effective thing to do is ignore them completely. They will fucking lose their minds.

>>18717591
Assuming she is a narc (and she does sound like one) here are some more things:

Ask her opinion on some work related topic, then when she is talking about it keep pushing for details and more eloborate explanations, act like you are genuinely interested. The narc usually merely pretends to be an expert (and is quite good at this act) but when pushed for all sort of details they are confronted with the reality that they know very little. You'll know if this is successful if she starts getting annoyed or evasive.
It is like the father trying to impress his son with his knowledge of cars, but the kid won't ever shut up and keeps on going "and how does that work?" forcing the dad to realize he knows nothing beyond gauging oil levels.

When she is talking to you, just cut her of in the middle of the discussion and inform her you have an important phone call and that she'll have to wait, bonus points if you subtlety imply her discussion is of very little importance, then go play vidya for 15 minutes and come back, let her continue her dumb discussion and then just as she has started again inform her you are really sorry but need to run an errand, don't wait for a reply and simply go offline.

>>18717591
>>18717608
Oh another thing to consider about this, if you go down the shitposting route, she could use it against you to the other friends. Showing them the logs and whatnot.

>>18717608
In a sense those are all different variations of ignoring a person. It is actively ignoring a person, cutting off contact completely is passively ignoring a person. She'll be annoyed with that for a day and then replace OP with some other victim. Keep feeding her tidbits of interaction and she'll keep coming back.

She thinks she is going to be listened to, only to be ignored and dismissed, over and over again.

>>18717629
You're right but in this case I feel like that's not going to be as effective since she has a little harem of people to validate her. If OP was the only one it'd probably be highly effective. I can just see in this situation OP doing this kind of shitposting stuff to her, then she goes and whines to the other friends, eliciting sympathy from them and smearing OP at the same time. So, he might just be giving her ammo by doing something like that.

I am dealing with a person like this at this very moment. Sometimes I shitpost him like you're talking about, other times I feel like "why am I wasting my time playing this retard's boring game when I already know every one of his next moves" and I feel like even by continuing to engage with him, he has somehow won over me.

Anyway, OP seems pretty smart, they'll figure it out I'm sure

Yeah, I don't think shit´posting will do much. I don't want to ruin her life, just to... erase her away from my life. And honestly,I really hope that makes her suffer, because I really tried to be a good friend (on that topic, only very very lately she started caling me "friend", but I'm not eating it).

In any case, it's very true that ignoring her is the best I can do. To all anons, thank you so much! I've read all your words carefully, and you make some excellent points.