To clarify, for a borderline person, I am actually quite good at making everyone think I am not a chaotic mess of emotions. Like, I almost make sense on the surface -- at my *worst*. 

 I wish I knew what a narcissist really looked like before this went down. My parent went NC with my extremely narcissistic grandparent, long before I had the skills to observe and learn from afar. 

My friend was a total nightmare. They were an unrepentant emotional vampire, and masterful at gaslighting and baiting. I was actually far less self aware, and was more naive while also being lonely and desperate for a change of pace in my stagnating life, at the beginning of this rollercoaster. So even when I looked, I didn't fully want to *see* what was going on for a few months. 

We ended up feeding each other's deeply ingrained self hatred and insecurities, ping ponging abuse roles, and it twisted me more and more. I started becoming outwardly sullen and withdrawn, and letting it show, instead of keeping it tightly contained, deep down inside. 

I finally couldn't take their abuse, my pain, good people's pain... I cut off my friend rather abruptly, with zero closure. I haven't actually said a word to them since. Although I did have some fun manipulating them to make a fool out of themselves, later, while I looked like the good person, silently "ignoring" it all. 

It caused them some mental anguish. I know it's ridiculous, and the pesky  "how are you any better, if you do this? Can't you just move on instead of giving them attention?" question arises... but,  just, uhm, yeah. They thought they had won. After all, I was the one with all the inner agony while we were friends. But I'm past that now. 


To conclude, avoid narcissists at all costs. They have a way of getting the worst out of you, unless you're very solid. And you try to blame them to the ones whose your moods affect, instead of accepting any accountability in the aftermath. 

It's all left me rather disturbed at myself. I no longer have... anger like I used to, but I learned rather uncomfortable things from the self-inflicted ordeal.