Hi again, I was waiting the past couple days to see email telling me of any new posts in this thread and I saw no email so assumed there hadn't been any new activity. I have my "Thread Subscription Mode" set to Instant email notification but it doesn't seem to be behaving that way? I just stopped by and found a couple new posts but no email notifications.... not in junk either... anyway, just a peripheral issue I guess, but any suggestions welcome...

On the other hand, the central issue of this thread continues to perplex me. During the 6 years I've been living in this woman's home I've experienced countless occasions where I've stood back and tried to see the situation clearly and I have very often found myself entertaining some pretty dark suspicions about what's really going on with this person. Everything from varying degrees of neurosis all the way to a full blown sociopathic or even psychopathic condition, although, I have to acknowledge I don't really even know what those terms mean exactly. So my suspicions have only been from a very laypersons perspective. At the same time, though, I've tried to evaluate my own mental and emotional wellbeing, and I really can't say with absolute certainty that I, myself, am entirely squared away in that department. In fact, I imagine that there are conditions in that realm that the individual inflicted by them might be entirely unable to see in themselves, that they're blind to. I've concluded with my friend, that if she is in fact inflicted with anything along the lines of the conditions that have been suggested in this thread, she does seem to honestly be blind to it in herself. In complete and utter denial of there being any truth whatsoever to anything of the kind when I've attempted to articulate seeing them in her. Any effort to get her to acknowledge or recognize any of these things in herself have been futile and I really seem to have settled on the belief that she is blind to such things and simply unable to see them in herself.

The thing is, though, on the occasions we have managed to try talking about these things, it does seem very often if not always as if her perspective is a mirror image of my own only exactly opposite, where I'm the one who is unwilling or unable to see what's true in me. I'm the one who is blind to myself, in denial.

If that's the case, how can I know with any certainty that it's not me who is blind to myself? Here's a video clip she sent me during the past couple weeks: NOTE: Just discovering I can't share a link until I have 10 posts. Can anyone please help me understand how this rule benefits anyone? Shouldn't the objective be a clear and concise communication between all the participants in a conversation such as this. Preventing links to what might be very insightful and/or relevanbt content seems counterproductive. Anyway, If you have a moment, it's pretty short. The title is "How Emotionally Immature People Distort Reality" (if interested try searching youtube) And when I asked her about it, it was clear that she believes this to be true of me. How can I know if this is correct or not? Of course when I first saw the clip in my inbox, my first thought was totally wishful thinking that maybe she sent it as a realization of seeing this in herself. But that notion vanished from my head quickly and the fact she saw this in me was quickly confirmed when we spoke.

I see the feedback in this thread is pretty consistently leaning into the views I myself am leaning hard toward believing. And of course my natural tendency is toward grabbing and embracing such feedback. After all, it generally seems to back me up, validate my point of view and identifies my friend as the source of the conflict. But what if I'm the professional so adept at manipulating the perspective of others to suit my objectives?? If there is any truth to that then will I not have come into this forum knowing how to tell my story so I would get the validation I need and want? How do you all know with certainty that I haven't played you all with my story In just such a clever and devious manner as to garner sympathy for myself while painting my friend as the villain?

If I am afflicted by blind spots that I'm unaware of and simply cannot see, how can I know what is true?

PS. this 10 posts before I can share a link rule is very lame, I'm trying to share a very relevant link and cannot,. Well, the short clip is called, "How Emotionally Immature People Distort Reality". If you copy and past that into the youtube search field it should come up

PPS. please forgive any typos and the like in the above, I need to just send without proof reading, hope it makes some kinda sense....