Frustration with friend

[GeneD]

This is a fairly long story: at school I had 4 good friends, all girls. Somewhere in 8th or 9th grade our one friend started telling the most fantastical stories (euphemism for lies) about herself and her family. These included serious things involving abuse, (imaginary) guys and her family being real horrible people. We were quite naive, not to mention never suspecting her of lying, and so ate it up until eventually it was all revealed to be lies. Needless to say we were all very hurt and confused.

We got advice from our school pastor (I was lucky enough to go to a Christian private school) and confronted her about it. She came clean but we all find it very hard to trust her and have to stop ourselves constantly doubting the things she tells us. She is also quite emotionally draining and latches on to one person at a time, wanting attention and sympathy incessantly. Even when she isn’t telling lies she tends to feel very sorry for herself a lot and is very dramatic about her problems etc.

So this continued on and off for 6 or 7 years now, with better and rougher patches, although none of us are in contact with her as frequently as we are with each other since we finished school. Somewhere in between all this we joined a bible study group but, while she came a few times, she never joined permanently. I think we all were secretly very glad about this.

At the end of last year, I made a grave mistake: I invited her to our bible study new years party and our leader asked her to join. So now she has and all of us are pretty upset about it and don’t know what to do. The last few months of 2007 she was sms’ing (texting) us more and more with messages such as: “Hi. How are you?â€

[Danderson]

Will definetly pray for u guys....

[SP1]

There is a lot here to pray for. I pray that you can all balance her need to be connected (that is, not lonely) with your own Christian needs.

[kat-su-chan]

You know it sounds to me, that when people lie and make up things it's because of their own insecurities. She wants to be loved, clearly, and she wants attention. But she should be seeking attention from God.
I think it's important that you forgive her, ask God for patience and let him use you to get her back on track. She does keep comming back in your life after all.

[GeneD]

Here's a bit of an update: my friends and I are all still seriously upset and what makes it worse is that we all feel like rotten Christians now.
Our bible study leaders don't really know all the history and are just encouraging us to forgive her and have faith that she will grow and change, but is it wrong to forgive someone but then remove yourself from a situation/relationship which can potentially be hurtful again?
At what point do we let her go? Should we let her go? At the moment I think that's what we all want to do but we all feel really awful about it and that we’re not being Christ-like.

I (we) feel that our leaders just don’t get it and that in asking us to just forgive and forget they are somehow taking her side and leaving us to fend for ourselves. I know it’s not true but…

I know I can forgive her; I’ve had lots of practise. I just don't know if I can handle much more of the same without an end in sight.

I really just don’t know what to do anymore.

[K. Ayato]

Letting her go doesn't make you less of a Christian. If you know that right now there's nothing more you and your friends can do to help her, then it's the right thing to do in stepping back and letting God take over. You and your friends can assure her that you'll be available if she needs you (within limits, of course). Hope that helps.

[Tsukuyomi]

I'll be praying, Gene Just keep being her friend, but don't get to wrapped into her lies or whatnot. Show her that you're still her friend, but you won't take being lied to. When she realizes the distance that has formed... She'll consider keeping her old ways u_u

Not sure if that made sense 8(

[EricTheFred]

[quote="GeneD (post: 1192043)"]Here's a bit of an update: my friends and I are all still seriously upset and what makes it worse is that we all feel like rotten Christians now.
Our bible study leaders don't really know all the history and are just encouraging us to forgive her and have faith that she will grow and change, but is it wrong to forgive someone but then remove yourself from a situation/relationship which can potentially be hurtful again?
At what point do we let her go? Should we let her go? At the moment I think that's what we all want to do but we all feel really awful about it and that we’re not being Christ-like.

I (we) feel that our leaders just don’t get it and that in asking us to just forgive and forget they are somehow taking her side and leaving us to fend for ourselves. I know it’s not true but…

I know I can forgive her]

"Not seven times, but seventy times seven". You know the quote.

Forgiveness is the hardest and most draining part of Christianity, which is why it is easily the part we are all worst at.

Not being an arm-chair psychologist here, and this is not a diagnosis. I simply have to mention that this sounds very similar to a high-school friend who later turned out to suffer from Schizophrenia. I'm saying this because an awful lot of people weren't forgiving to him and turned their back on him. He eventually gave up on us, found his way out to California, and eventually attempted suicide.

He was a guest of the California mental health system for many years before any of us heard about it. He's still out there, but now he's back outside and beginning to work for a living again. I get an update from him once in a while, for which I'm grateful, since he hardly owes any of us the time of day, given how little help we were to him back then.

Pray for your friend, and for yourself. Above all, pay close attention to what is happening.

[SP1]

Forgiving does not mean forgetting. It means not holding a grudge for past wrongs. So, you don't have to dwell on the past, but you don't have to believe everything this person tells you, either. Your connectedness to the past, as you can well see, is not affecting this other person much at all, but it is creating havoc with you and your friends. So in a way, you need to forgive her for your own peace of mind, and not because you want her relationship with you to be "all better".

[Doubleshadow]

Not knowing more than basics, I have two thoughts:

1) She has a psychological disorder resulting in pathological lying and emotional dependency or weakness. If it seems like more than attention seeking (and excessive attention seeking and need for approval are also signs of a psychological disorder), she may need a shrink.

2) You never said whether or not she was a Christian. If she is, then she should be expected to behave accordingly. Whether she means to or not, it seems she is sowing discord and tension, she's probably grieving the Spirit the whole time, which in turn hurts all of you. Let her know what's expected of her, in a loving way after prayerful consideration, then stand your ground. 'Christian' doesn't equate 'doormat'. Look up verses in the Bible about how to learn (quietly and with submission) and how to deal with a a fellow believer who refuses to be corrected.
If she's not a Christian, then you still need to set down some rules, that the amount of time she wants focused on her is too much, or however the situation actually is.

[GeneD]

I just want to say thank you for all the prayers, support and advice I received from everyone, both here and in the chat. So we had quite an interesting time, but I’m glad to say that we’ve all reached the point where we have forgiven my friend (again) and are okay with her coming to our bible study.

The second week she was there was real tense. Nobody talked about it and our leaders just played us a teaching dealing with offence and such. This made me really angry at them too. I think I was upset that I was hurt and everyone was just like “Get over it and forgive herâ€