Actually, when I replied to your quandery I ended up thinking about the friends I had myself and how they reacted when I needed help. Often what happens is we grow up stuck in a role before we even have the capacity to understand what that role is. We just do our best to fit in and figure out how to thrive in this family setup whatever that may be. What results from this is without realizing it, how we learned to thrive with these other entities in our family begins to attract the very same kind of people we often attach ourselves to in our lives too.

golden, what I have noticed about what you share is that you have a lot of these kind of people in your life. Both your parents are like this with you, maybe your older sister who was "daddy's favorite" is a bit like this. This talking down to was always there, however, as you have been healing and learning you are beginning to become more aware of it. Ugh, it's no wonder you have felt "alone" with a lot of things, that is what typically results when having too many "critics" in your life, other people that wanted you to do things THEIR way and failed to really SEE you.

What can happen with a lot of individuals that grow up in an environment where they have to play a certain role "before" they even have the ability to comprehend this role they are going to be put into, is how they don't get their emotional needs met. This tends to make certain individuals susceptible to being emotionally manipulated too. It's living one's life with emotional confusion and not really quite understanding how to overcome it.

These "old" friends know you pretty well, and they knew you long ago when you were still very naive. My guess is they always talked down to you at times, but now you are seeing it MORE. Recently, I got to know a woman at a place I get gas and she has seen me suffering through so much crap. I began to talk to her and it turned out that this woman also suffers from ptsd. I talked about how bad things were with my older sister and this woman looked right into my eyes and said, "Your sister was ALWAYS this way, you just did not want to see it". When I drove away, I began to realize how this woman was right. Honestly, I just wanted to love other people, I just wanted to get along too. I just really did not see the forest through the trees, and you know what golden? This is more common than most realize.

One thing I am most definitely learning myself is that I am never going to change my older sister. Instead, I have to change the way I interact with her. There are people in your life golden that you can't take your emotional challenges to. All you will get is talked down to and condescended to because that is what this kind of person is like as a person. And I am not saying that to you assuming you don't know, it's actually something I am coming to see myself about people more and more. After a while, as we are healing and growing as a person, we slowly come to recognize what people we can actually "safely" turn to when we struggle emotionally and what people will respond with condescension and criticism. Often having better boundaries comes from ourselves and knowing who isn't going to respond to us the way we would like and need them to. So, basically, don't reach out to these individuals in the first place.