I’m Not You

August 7, 2023 12:24 AM

How do I deal with a long time friend who is suddenly projecting herself onto me really intensely? She is a close friend that I intend to keep, but right now talking to her is exhausting. She interrupts me part way through sentences to jump in with a response to what she thinks the end of my sentence would be (how she would finish the sentence) and it’s usually about 180° from what I am trying to communicate.

An example - about ten years ago had a hysterectomy and it was the best day of my life. Gender affirming and also saving me from really intensely bad, take a week off work every month, periods. Whenever it comes up that I’ve had a hysto she is all “that must be so hard! You must mourn! The connection to our wombs as women” etc etc. No matter how many times I’m like “no it’s actually awesome” there is no dissuading her from having that reaction the next time. She hears me in the moment and is all “oh! Good! Yay for you!” But it doesn’t stick.

Or another example - she has complicated feelings about her birth family and how she was raised, so do I! But she has chosen to remain in contact with them and I have not. My complicated feelings are nearly entirely in the past. I feel fine and settled about my decision not to be in contact with them. But occasionally they will come up because we live in a small town and that’s how things are. It’s not upsetting for me to hear about them, mostly just shruggo. But she is overlaying this complex emotional drama onto me that’s entirely her feelings about HER family and how much she is conflicted. It’s exhausting to try and get her to hear that she’s making up a narrative for me. I would like to be able to have a conversation with her where I say a full sentence without her rushing to fill it in with how she imputes I must feel with her own projected feelings.

She’s constantly trying to read my mind emotionally because she’s an “empath” but all she’s doing is overlaying her emotions on me and not listening to my actual emotions. The other day she tried to counsel me on what it would be like to lose a parent and how I didn’t know how I would feel about that. I have lost a parent. I do know how I will feel about that. She just sorta sputtered like a dying car when I was all “hold up, I know you are trying to bring the wisdom but actually yes I have lost a parent and I do have a pretty good idea of how I feel about that and it’s not like this.”

This is not how she has always been. She used to be a good listener in that she would let you finish a sentence and not jump to conclusions based on her own mental and emotional life four words in. I feel like I would like to say sometimes to her about this, but how do I even do that when she interrupts me four words into every sentence! She is recently quitting drinking, and I feel like this started around the same time. Like maybe there just isn’t room for anyone else in her life right now to the point where she can’t even have casual conversations without being in her own navel? (I know my examples don’t sound casual, but that’s kinda the point. Both topics would be 100% casual if she wasn’t rushing to fill them with DRAMARAMA. My family coming up is not dramarific for me, I have done a lot of work and therapy to be in a place where they are just some people. But because she feels intense drama about her family, automatically she puts that in about my family. And it’s not like I am going out of my way to bring up drama subjects with her. ALL SUBJECTS are now drama subjects. There is no casual conversation topics left! This personality shift is just really intense and exhausting.)

I just haven’t encountered such an abrupt shift in someone’s personality like this, where I feel I need to say something in order to even know how to keep being friends. But like I said this is a very small town and it’s not like if I stop being her friend there’s a whole lot of other people to fill in. She just needs to go back to listening all the way to the end of a sentence! I’m tearing out my hair here. It’s like she forgot everything she knows about having a conversation and has done a self insert. What do I do?

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (19 answers total)

This may sound like overkill, but this is a perfect time to involve a counselor.

I missed an opportunity to have a single session of "friend therapy" with someone who now, in an ongoing heartbreak, I cannot bring myself to be around or even speak with. I hope this situation changes in the future, but what I recognize is that there is value in an impartial third party of any sort. Is there someone like that who would seem safe and reasonable for you both? It's hard to find these sort of impartial mediators in today's world, I think, unless you're in a really strong community that has trusted social/relational advisors. But some people have that! If you do, who might it be, whether or not it's a therapist playing the role?
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 2:00 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

If this is new behavior, I would maybe take her aside once and ask her about it:

"Hey there - so, I've noticed that lately something weird's going on. The other day, when [insert example of something she did here], and it made me feel [explain how it made you feel] because [clarify how you felt]. And then [insert another example] and that made me feel [explain]. This isn't something you've been doing before, and I'm puzzled and sad. What's going on?"

I know it's weird and icky to speak to someone about how something they're doing pisses you off, but it goes well when you use the "I feel X when you do Y because Z" formula - because it's like, you're not ordering them to change, you're just giving them information, and letting it be THEIR choice as to how to handle it. Maybe they'll change their behavior because "wow, shit, I had no idea that's how you were feeling about that, I'm sorry lemme fix that". Or maybe they'll reveal something about themselves you never knew that would explain it and you can figure out a solution together.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:43 AM on August 7, 2023 [10 favorites]

I wonder if focusing on the issue that she's not letting you finish your sentences and that's a new thing might be helpful. She may well not realise that she's doing that, may not intend to interrupt so significantly, and because you can say that it's a new/recent thing, it's less likely to be interpreted a slight on her fundamental character or abilities as a self-declared empath.
posted by plonkee at 4:12 AM on August 7, 2023 [8 favorites]

FWIW most people I know who believe they are very empathic but do not accurately read my emotions have appeared to genuinely feel very strongly the emotion they believe I must be experiencing. I can see why they describe themselves as empathic, even if I consider that they lack real insight into others emotions. I've never been close enough to any of them to consider it helpful to challenge this view of themselves directly.
posted by plonkee at 4:14 AM on August 7, 2023 [9 favorites]

How old is she? Any chance this is brain fog or loss of memory related to perimenopause? Although I get that you're concerned/annoyed by the personality change (e.g., the interruptions and drama), it sounds like these really stem from her not remembering things about you that she realistically should (and has in the past).
posted by unknowncommand at 4:40 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

I wonder if turning it around might work?
You describe how she is overlaying this complex emotional drama onto me that’s entirely her feelings about HER family and how much she is conflicted. It’s exhausting to try and get her to hear that she’s making up a narrative for me
What If instead of attempting to get through that this is not at all how you feel you respond by addressing her feelings about her family? Eg she says how awful you must feel about what your mother did, instead of pushing back that you no longer feel this way, ignore the bait and instead you respond by asking how she feels about what her mother did to her. It may turn out that this opens a floodgate so maybe only try this if you are interested in listening. I do this with a person i don't see very often so it is okay for me, and listening to her problems is preferable to listening to her opinions on my life and how i ought to feel.
posted by 15L06 at 4:45 AM on August 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

Like maybe there just isn’t room for anyone else in her life right now to the point where she can’t even have casual conversations without being in her own navel?

Yeah, probably. Self-absorption can also be a symptom of depression, but I think at the moment you can just generally file this under Going Through It. We all take our turns Going Through It, and I think there are ways you can help you and help her at the same time.

I think when people get in this place the most straightforward way to call this out is flag it in the moment. "Hold up, you keep finishing my sentences like this instead of letting me speak and actually listening. What's happening there? I know you're doing a ton of processing right now and I'm happy to be a sounding board, but let's not do that by putting words and emotions in my mouth. So, did you want to talk about YOUR feelings about X? I'm listening."

And then on subsequent occurrences, you can simply redirect by saying, "No, those aren't MY feelings. Are they yours, did you want to talk about that?" Hopefully she accepts the offer and starts directly saying when she wants to talk about her feelings.

You may spend a lot more time in the near future talking about her than about you, and it's up to you how much of that you're willing to take, but I do think it is a gift you can give - with boundaries obviously! - to someone you generally care about, to give them a safe confidential sounding board during a difficult time.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:24 AM on August 7, 2023 [38 favorites]

Seconding Lyn Never here, and I think that's an excellent way to redirect. If this isn't how she's always been, it's entirely possibly it's not how she'll always be, and if you're up for her being pretty self-absorbed for the moment (dropping a major coping mechanism is HARD and it's going to take a while for her to rebalance) she'll probably get a grip eventually.

This probably is a distancing tactic for her - if she can talk about these feelings as if they're your feelings, she doesn't have to admit they're her feelings - and I think pointing that out is both kind and necessary for the friendship. But expect some static for it - if she's had a drinking problem for a long time, she probably doesn't really know how to cope with feeling things much at all.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:20 AM on August 7, 2023 [8 favorites]

Lyn Never's advice here is excellent. You can see that, whether she knows it or not, what your friend wants to do is talk about her own stuff. By redirecting, you can both stop the annoying projections in the moment and do your friend some good by giving her the therapy session time.

That's not to say that the interrupting stuff and projecting stuff isn't intensely annoying. It definitely is! Which is another reason the redirect method could be good: it lets you treat her interruption as a request for help, rather than just overbearingness for you to resent. And it turns the spotlight on her in a way that will hopefully let her declare her own feelings as her own, which you can then point out are not YOUR feelings.

If it continues, there's also "am I going to get to finish my sentence?"
posted by fingersandtoes at 6:51 AM on August 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

I have a friend who has done something similar (to a slightly lesser extent) while going through a major life change. My friend is getting better about this as they settle in to their new personal context a bit (and was quite proactive at getting appropriate and supportive therapy for themself), but there was about two years of kind of similar projecting their emotions on me. In our case, I think we both felt very aligned with each other before this life transition for my friend, so there might have been a bit of expecting that to continue, on my friend’s part? I approached it as something I was supporting my friend through. If there was something I needed to have my listening and sympathetic friend for that would have been particularly sensitive for me to have them jump in with inaccurate assumptions, I’d preface it by saying something about especially needing to just vent and have them listen (it helps that even before this time period, my friend and I had some experience with having the “do you want help problem-solving, or just comfort?” type conversations). But for the things that weren’t as sensitive for me, there was a period where I found myself saying, “no, not really” a fair amount.

So my advice would be to help your friend find a good therapist if they don’t yet have one, have a conversation about interrupting as other posters suggested above, but give the emotional projecting some time to work itself out. Give yourself a little bit of space from the friend by limiting duration of frequency of visits if you need to, in order to be able to be the supportive friend that your friend likely needs at the moment while you are hanging out with them. (If they notice and ask about that, be honest, but focus on your care for your long-time friend and that you want to maintain the friendship in the long term and be able to be fully present and supportive with them in the time you do spend together - but no need to offer up that info if they don’t ask.)
posted by eviemath at 6:52 AM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Nthing Lyn Never's suggestion to keep stopping her in her tracks and underlining that these are HER feelings, not yours. It sounds like you did that yourself re: losing your parent, which means being direct in this way is a workable strategy for you.

Would it also be possible, I wonder, for you to tell her directly that you've noticed this change in her behavior, after a few times of stopping her in the moment like Lyn Never suggested?

Possible script:
"Hey I wanted to talk to you about something. I've noticed that you've been jumping in to finish my sentences a lot recently? It's really throwing me for a loop. We've been friends for a long time, and you've always been a good listener. As an empath you are usually so open minded and curious to hear me out - it's really out of character for you to make inaccurate assumptions about my feelings before I even finish talking! I know you don't want to make me feel misunderstood and unheard. So what's going on? (PS: please don't feel pressured to respond right away - I intentionally sent this by text/email so we can both take our time to work this out thoughtfully and gently.)"

I would give this a try before you take any steps to withdraw from the friendship (even temporarily) as a form of self protection. You definitely have every right to do withdraw! But if you want to save the friendship in the long run, it's better to communicate issues directly and give the other person a chance to fix what is likely an unconscious bad habit, rather than to create distance in the relationship without any hint as to why. The distance will be noticed! And it will be taken as permanent rejection, since the other person has no way to read your mind and understand that it was only temporary.
posted by MiraK at 7:34 AM on August 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have an outlier sensitivity / extreme reaction to this kind of behavior. I actually experience it at emotionally violent and extremely triggering. I proactively share that with people who are close to me and thus need to understand my Personal User Manual. Someone acting like that and being my friend are mutually exclusive things. If someone was a long-term friend and thus a relationship I wanted to salvage, I would not mince words and I would put down a very firm boundary. You may not have the same sensitivity but you may find some of the script I use helpful.

"Hey, friend. You are projecting onto me, and I experience being projected on as an act of emotional violence. It is extremely distressing to me and will result in me withdrawing from you. I understand that you probably feel like you are being empathetic but to me it feels like you are forcing a narrative of a shared reality onto me that is not true for me (which feels similar to how gaslighting feels for me) and that I did not agree to (which feels non-consensual).

The easiest practical 'fix' for this in talking to me is: change assumptions to asks, as assumptions are a predicate for projections. Instead of saying 'you must feel X' ask me 'how are you feeling about this?' or even 'do you feel X?' is okay. If what you actually want is to connect with me, you asking me questions and being curious about my inner experience will result in me feeling open and safe with you. If you continue projecting onto me, that will make me shut down and distance myself from you, as I will feel that I need to protect myself and push back, lest I become an object of your story about me, rather than my own person with an inner world and reactions that I own and am capable of narrating myself."

I have successfully trained one friend, whom I wanted to keep, out of this behavior with me, to which she was VERY prone initially. Part of the success there was her being a self-aware person who could conceptualize in the abstract what was intolerable to me, and who was able to reflect on her cultural and religious upbringing, and how the expectation places on girls and women to anticipate and "discern" what others want without them having to ask for it cultivated this tendency in her.

I also had a romantic partner who I am not sure ever understood why this was as upsetting to me as it was, but he learned the "hack" of reversing "you are" into "are you?" and assumptions into questions, and this practical fix made communication between us possible.

More often than not, though, in my experience people don't understand and don't want to understand what is problematic and upsetting about projection, and then it becomes impossible for me to cultivate or sustain a close relationship with them.
posted by virve at 8:22 AM on August 7, 2023 [10 favorites]

It’s like she forgot everything she knows about having a conversation and has done a self insert.

I don't know what kind of drinking your friend was doing before she quit, but if it was quite serious and for quite a long time...this definitely tracks with my experience of newly sober people. There was a long chunk of time after my mother got sober where every conversation was just a little weird. Her memory had some big gaps and goofs, which led to some very odd conclusions on her part, and then also her emotions were super unregulated. And she literally cannot access her previous brain. She would need to be drunk to do that and she doesn't drink.

Time and actual psychiatric treatment have done a world of good, but every now and then it becomes clear that basically I don't know her? And she doesn't really know me? I'm like someone she remembers from 20 years ago that she just got back in touch with. The emotional equivalent of "so, are you still with Steve?" "What? Steve and I broke up ten years ago." "what! Oh no."

It's hard, and if you have only known her as a big drinker I'm afraid you may find your old dynamic is not available anymore. But as frustrating as it is, she's not doing it AT you, and will probably not be doing this forever.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:49 AM on August 7, 2023 [13 favorites]

Yes, this all very much tracks with my experience with a heavy drinker who quit drinking. You may be in some ways dealing with a different person, who does not remember important things about you or experiences that you thought were shared, who has poor emotional regulation and no access to coping mechanisms that used to work. It will take her time to learn and practice new ones.

If you can bring yourself to do so, to some extent, I'd try to give her some grace here for some of this. Presumably over the course of a long friendship there have been or will be times when each of you takes turns being the one who is not fully able to bring your best self to the friendship, and right now might be her turn.

But that doesn't mean you can't be firm with a straightforward "Hey, please let me finish" or "No, that's not actually what I think" as situations arise. You can and should do that as much as you need to.
posted by Stacey at 9:44 AM on August 7, 2023 [7 favorites]

I have better luck starting with one instance at a time, rather than saying something more general like, "Lately you've been doing this thing." Either let her finish and then say, "I wasn't finished," and then state your entire thought from the beginning; or stop her when she interrupts and say, "Please let me finish." If this happens a few times, then go with the "You have a new habit of jumping in when I'm talking." Immediately pointing out a tendency is an invitation for them to say, "Why didn't you say something?" so the subject changes to your mistake in not speaking up soon enough.
posted by wryly at 3:11 PM on August 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

Another thing with drinking, in addition to the memory loss, is that it's a way for people to avoid their own emotions, and quitting drinking can make those emotions come roaring back up. Since she doesn't have her previous coping mechanism -- drinking -- she may be using projection as a way of continuing to avoid her own emotions. Or using solving people's problems as a way of avoiding her own, even if she has to make those problems up. Or both, which is what you seem to be describing.

I'd give it some time and space because of that, and because it's new in ways that indicate that may be what's going on.
posted by lapis at 4:30 PM on August 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

Quitting drinking really does seem to be key here. It sounds like you aren’t in a position where you are needing a lot of emotional support (based on saying these are casual conversations and her reaction is what’s upsetting), so if you can I would just plan on giving emotional support to her while she goes through this transition and learns some new coping skills. Weird abrupt changes in personality can be circumstantial and resolve themselves with time and patience. If your bandwidth is limited, talk for shorter periods and it might help to not come in with the expectation of talking about yourself. This sounds really challenging, but I think there’s some really excellent advice in this thread. And good for you for identifying that this is upsetting you!
posted by Bottlecap at 5:39 PM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

If your friend was using alcohol in part to manage anxiety--which is pretty common--she might be dealing with a spike right now, and struggling to self-regulate. You can certainly gently point out when she's interrupting you, and let her know when the feelings she's talking about are hers, not yours.You could also ask her if she's experiencing more anxiety than usual and suggest she get professional advice on managing it if that's the case.

It sounds like she's a good friend who is not normally like this, so any grace you can give her will probably be well-rewarded. In the meantime, hold strong to your own boundaries, and remember that, annoying as this can be, whatever she projects onto you remains hers and doesn't change your own feelings about your family dynamics, or anything else.
posted by rpfields at 7:03 PM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I want to suggest you come up with a phrase or start of a sentence that you use every single time she does this. Like clicker training with animals (or whatever that is). Something you don't normally say. Something you can rehearse a few times so that, the next time it happens, you have this sentence ready to go without having to spend a lot of time thinking through it and so that you can react maybe with some less emotion. You can even try smiling when you say this. You don't need to say it unkindly (or at least try not to). Here's one take on something -- and you absolutely can interrupt her, or wait for her to finish.

"Hey now. You're doing that thing where you confuse your emotions for mine." Your hold up sentence was great, so maybe a compressed version of that: "Hold up, I know you are trying to bring the wisdom but those are your feelings, not mine.”

I do think it would be helpful to emphasize that they are her feelings. What if she says she doesn't feel that way? OH GOOD because it turns out people don't like to be told how they feel.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:42 PM on August 7, 2023 [4 favorites]