Reply to Breaking up with my toxic mom group (Ashley Tisdale essay)

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Reply to "Breaking up with my toxic mom group (Ashley Tisdale essay)"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't know one womens group that doesn’t eventually break up or splinter, for various reasons.

Even if they get together on occasion they are one big happy organism feeding positively off each other. They are many groups of 2 or 3 loosely connected to others.

Also friendship wax and wane that is life.

How do you get past 25 years old and not understand this. [/quote]

Yeah.  I kind of thought she really shot herself in the foot here by breaking off with every member of the group.  She should have just spent more time with the people she got along with and less time with the larger group.  [/quote]

It’s weird to be half in and half out with a group. Better to have a clean break.[/quote]

No group does everything together. We have a large friend group in our neighborhood and not a single event has everyone at it because people do have other things going on in their lives. I can also do things with some of the members of the group if I want. It's not a monolith. [/quote]

This isn't really that deep. The other women were just not good enough friends to want to tolerate any BS. If she felt slighted or ostracized she doesn't owe friendship to one or two of the women who were basically acquaintances or randomly sent her flowers then ignored her. This was not a lifelong friendship. It has run its course.[/quote]

That's fine. I just think it's dramatic to say you have to break away from the entire group because some people don't like you. Just don't hang out with them then. [/quote]

If your "friends" are planning a group outing at your kids birthday right in front of you, not including you, they aren't very good friends. These people suck and the posters bending over backwards to explain it away or blame the people who don't stand for poor treatment sounds a little nutty. It's ok to move on and make new friends, these people sound pretty awful. [/quote]

It's fine if you want to read the more dramatic version of events. The way she wrote it she didn't explain how she "knew" they planned the other event while at her daughter's birthday party. I think she was being overly sensitive (which I get, she had a young child/children at the time and that's exhausting/draining). That doesn't mean she has to be friends with these people. If you don't want to spend time with them, then don't. I just think she, and many of the posters here, are being very dramatic. [/quote]

I have seen people plan events right in front of me. I am not deaf and I doubt Ashley is either. I didn't expect to be included because I didn't know the group that well but they were literally planning it so I got up and walked away. People are so wrapped up in themselves they do things like this. Why are you cutting the friends slack but not Ashely? She has to explain how she "knew" vs just taking her at face value? [b]Why are you finding it so hard to just take her word for it?[/b][/quote]

She said in the article that she was seated at a party all the way down at the end of the table. Do you think the table sat 30, there were 20 people in attendance, 29 of them sat at one end, then they had 10 empty chairs, and then Ashley was at the other end all by herself? Or do you think she was mad that she wasn't seated near whoever she deemed to be the most important/famous at the head of the table? If the table seats 12 and there were 12 people in attendance, someone had to sit at the end of the table - why did she take that as a slight? Things like that are why I have a hard time taking her seriously, among other reasons. [/quote]

That’s not her daughter’s birthday party that she was talking about. Maybe read it again because you’re seeing what you want to see.  This was happening more than once so she noticed a pattern. But somehow you’re desperate to see her as the bad person.[/quote]

I couldn't care less about Ashley Tisdale. I've never even seen High School Musical or anything else she's been on. I'm not desperate to see her as a bad person. That's weird.

Here is what she said, cut and pasted from her article:

Another time, at one of the mom’s dinner parties, I realized where I sat with her — which was at the end of the table, far from the rest of the women.

The person asked why I am having a hard time taking her word for it. The above is why. Do you really think she was seated from from everyone else? Or was she just not seated close to the hostess, in which case she felt slighted. Someone has to sit at the end of the table, and it's obnoxious behavior on her part to be so wounded that it was her. Would she have been worried about the feelings of whoever was seated down there had it not been her? [/quote]

DP. I interpreted that part of the essay to mean she was at a seated dinner party with a few members of this mom group and a bunch of other people, and the host seated the other members of the group near herself, but sat Ashley at the other end of the table next to other people who were not members of the group. I did not interpret it to mean that Ashley was seated at the end of a table with a. bunch of empty seats in between, which makes no sense.

If that happened to me I also would have assumed that the host of the party viewed those other members of our group as close friends but perhaps didn't like me or didn't want me to be part of the group. Also if I hosted a party and this happened accidentally, I actually would say something to the friend who wound up far away like "I'm so sorry, I hope you found people to talk to -- I didn't realize until we sat down how far away you were" or something like that. Because I think the dynamic would be obviously a little hurtful.[/quote]

But they were all invited to the party! If I host a dinner and I invite my friends from work, my friends from college, and my friends from the neighborhood, I can't sit next to all of them. But you think the friends who sit down at the other end of the table from me should be upset? If she's the one seeing the lines of this "group" so closely that it means others are excluded from it, then she is part of the problem. And that's my issue.[/quote]
Let’s say you were hosting several groups and when you were planning the seating, you sat all of your mom friends together except for Ashley, who you stuck between your college friends and your work friends. It doesn’t matter where you sit. What Ashley cares about is that she’s the only one sandwiched between people she doesn’t know. [/quote]

No, if you read what she wrote, she was complaining about being seated far from the queen bee. [/quote]

Yes, part of a growing pattern of being excluded, ostracized, and left out. She also tried to explain it away as you're doing here but it became obvious. Not sure why you're so dismissive of her experience. [/quote]

It was a growing pattern but she kept going back for more exclusion... why? just recognize these people are different values than you and move on.[/quote]

It's an abuse pattern. It's the same reason someone will stay in a relationship with an abuser. The abuser makes you feel dependent on them emotionally. The tactics are pretty well known. "Lovebombing" is a common one and very prevalent one and you can see how it's especially effective with women in new motherhood, which can be a time when you just feel unsure of yourself. Then when they are mean you don't trust your own judgment. Are they actually being mean or are you being too sensitive? They'll tell you you're being too sensitive, even if you just have this nagging issue where whenever you are around these women, you don't feel good. This is gaslighting. If you try to separate, they'll gossip about you. Since these are friend groups and not just one person, trying to get away from the one or two women who are the instigators doesn't work because if you try to hang out with others in the group, you will be accused of being exclusive. This is DARVO. And so on. That's why people linger in these toxic friend groups for years, just feeling vaguely bad but also feeling like if they leave, they'll lose all their friends and be alone. It's emotional abuse. It is really not dissimilar to an emotionally abusive romantic relationship.

TL;DR: People don't leave because they have been convinced that their value is dependent on being part of the group. That's why it happens most often when women are in life transitions where they are likely to feel insecure, like new motherhood. It's vulnerable people falling into abusive patterns with people who are narcissistic and manipulative, not unlike people who wind up in emotionally abusive romantic relationships.[/quote]

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