How do you cope when you find out the joke is on you?>B me>playing bo2z with friend>friend randomly says“Anon, the joke has been on you the entire time. And you didn’t even know”>multiple people snickering on other end>dude has probably been gathering intel for the old friend group for four entire years>continue to play and don’t acknowledge>text friend casually later>message could not be deliveredFor some background I had a pretty bad mental health decline, or I guess I went kind of insane. Used to get treated like shit by these people years ago but started sending extremely rude text messages to some of these people and avoided the fallout.Just blocked them and assumed it would be sort of obvious it didn’t come out of nowhere, considering the years of literal abuse beforehand.But no, I’ve been a topic of discussion. One of them talked about me during his valedictorian speech two years ago, and they laughed at his jokes. He reached out to tell me about it.I think theres probably entire compilations of everything thats happened, that I’ve probably been recorded by this one friend I didn’t stop talking to, and that every time we played games it was recorded.Which is why he always steered the conversation towards these events and pretended to have my back.So you get hit in front of everyone, including authority figures and nothing happens.Threatened, and talked about like trash for years, and you don’t have any healthy coping strategies with the rest of life.Substance abuse coupled in the entire time during your developmental years and bam.You “confront” these people when it boils over but it only makes you look like an insane retard. And they use it as fuel, knowing damn well what they did to make you feel this way.And in doing so, I become just like them. And “fair game” to attack.It’s crazy before I voiced any of this these people thought I was their friend and I thought I still could be too.
Im sorry
>>32331440Why?
>>32331397Subordinate animals engage in a number of behaviors in order to outweigh the costs of low rank. Dispersal is often associated with increased mortality and subordination may decrease the potential benefits of leaving the group. In the red fox it has been shown that subordinate individuals, given the opportunity to desert, often do not due to the risk of death and the low possibility that they would establish themselves as dominant members in a new group.
>>32331456Is the point that I’m a dumb weak animal or is the point that I did something good?
>>32331495Shhh, he doesn’t know!OK, but for real to stop fooling around and give advice, one of the takeaways is that that the beta/omega fox is an animal and you are not. So you can use that brain of yours and choose better, whether that’s to climb the ladder or find a different group. Bur maybe you won’t maybe you’ll stay right where you are and that’s ok, it’s really not so bad, you get all the same benefits as before just like the fox in the wild.
It's OK, op, sometimes desertion is what you have to do. In the olden times, defecting from your group and turning your back on them would mean certain death for you. Don't feel bad for not being like the rest of these dough-faced, malleable, manipulative, narcissistic pigs. The truth is, it is better to be alone than in bad company. Most people really don't have very much to offer you, in friendship-if the exchange of value is not obvious, there's a good chance they are using you, or want to exploit you somehow. People are flawed. Most of them gravely so. Most of them just act in their own selfish, best interests. That is why I don't really fuck with most people like that; they are flawed in a way that I simply cannot accept, and that I won't accept. Every human with a beating heart consistently disappoints me in their own, unique way. Just because someone is standing by your side, doesn't mean they are actually on it. You can't call someone a snake, if you never checked that their values and principles matched your own. After they fuck you over, there is no snake in the situation, only a fool (you) A real friend will fight alongside you until the last breath. A fake friend will abandon you, and leave you to die, in a pool of your own blood. Historically, men have always known that choosing the wrong friend could get us killed. Same rules apply.
>>32331397Take comfort from this: the kind of bullying you describe can only happen in closed communities, where a very few people "in on the joke" can seem like a critical mass. The usual site is high school, but it can also happen in a niche online group.But know this - it IS a very small closed group, and NOBODY outside it is aware of the "joke" or would be interested in learning about it. The minute you step outside that very small circle, you are free. Nobody knows about it and nobody cares about it. You start fresh with every new person you meet.Look forward. Don't look back
