A "friend"

I recently have realised i have made a big mistake by trusting somebody so much.

a person i work with, lets call him "S" and i have got on so well since i started there 2 years ago, we have similar sense of humour and we bounce off eachother. we do get on well. well after a year of working side by side with him i knew alot about him and i slowly began opening up to him about my past - abuse and all.

he knows all about my abuse, and who did it. he knows i was fired from another job for stealing when i was at my worst depression-wise. he knows it all. he has always made me feel i can trust him.

but recentyl he seems different. hes started turning what i have told him around onto me and making jokes in front of others about my past. no one else in work knows and he makes jokey hints all the time. it is really uncomfortable for me to listen to. i told him to stop a few days ago and he had a go at me saying i was "being grumpy" and i needed to get a sense of humour. we had an arguement then. but he doesnt seem any different since.

he doesnt give enough of a hint so people will guess what he means, its always in-direct but i hate the fact he does it.

the last few days i keep thinking "i wish i hadnt told him any of those things". i feel really let down by someone who i seriously considered a friend.

i am the type of person who has to fully trust someone in order to open up to them and i really trusted him. i feel let down and now it will be even harder for me o trust anyone else. i was sure i could trust him and even though he hasnt told anyone else he still uses the information he knows about me in a bad way...by joking about me in front of me and just showing me up.

what shall i do? ive tried to talking to him and asking him to stop, twice now actually. but he doesnt. i know he wont ever tell anyone but all it would take is for 1 slip of the tongue and people will know. he doesnt need to do it, so why does he!?

has anyone else experienced this with someone close to them. has someone ever let you down that you put all your trust into?

there is someone else in work i know i can trust and i have told her about things, and she hasnt let me down. these are the only people (apart from here at PC and my councillor) that knows about my past. S knows she knows but he doesnt talk to her, they dont get on. he once came up to me and said "how do you know she hasnt told anyone, can you honestly trust her" and i replied "yeah, i know her really well and i know i can trust her" to which he replied "well im not so sure, i overheard her telling someone else". he played on the fact he heard her telling someone and i got angry and demanded he tell me who she told he said "she hasnt told anyone, i was joking. i did it to teach you that you cant tell everyone about what happened. im teaching you a lesson by doing this". you can imagine i felt disgusted and the two of us (S and i) fell out for a few weeks. i told him exactly what i thought about what he did, i said it was cruel to play on someones emotions like that and i told him i thought he was evil by doing that.

this happened a few months ago now. we get on now, over time we began talking again but i dont ever talk to him about how im feeling anymore, its a shallow conversation i have with him now. but recently hes started doing this and i hate it so much. its unfair. i wish i could run away from it all, start a fresh and put myself in a situation where nobody knows about my past, and that is the way i want it left now because i cant stand this constant panic that someone else might find out.

the woman i told doesnt do any of this, she is fantastic to me, such a good person. she knows how i tick and she always stands up for me and we have such a good laugh together. we also bounce off eachother, but in a better way than me and S do. i started opening up to this woman after i told S about things. i just think S is jelous of the fact i told this women because him and her dont get on, but its not fair for him to treat me this way. i dont deserve this!

Simon as you said, you have to be very careful in who you confide in, it seems your lady friend is the true friend so just let your male work partner know you have lost faith in your friendship with him because of the cruel (sp) way he jokes
Angie

Since you have told him, the gig is up. You can't untell him. All you can do now is damage control. Personally I would "lighten" up and not feed his little sadistic thing he has going, would either ignore it or say something mildly putdown like, "you're just jealous you've never had a life and are trying to make one out of mine." I doubt he will go far enough to tell a whole story but if he does you'll just have to trust yourself and the people he tells (to be even more condemning of him for telling). The past is in the past and can't be changed; either the actions of your secrets or that you've told whom you've told.

I usually get most of my stuff out in the open as soon as I can at work since I find it too nerve wracking to know who I told what to. I've always had to leave early or show up late to go to therapy appointments so I act "crazy" in a funny, exaggerated way. People who tease can be being obnoxious or they can just be teasing or even making an observation (and not know how to do it so it doesn't hurt) and thus be giving one valuable information about how one comes across. I had a boss who, when I was quiet or angry/sad, whatever the day after my therapy appointment would make a comment about therapy and I'd stop and look at myself to see what I was broadcasting but not paying attention to. It was actually helpful as much as I didn't like the little references. It's your past, trust yourself with it rather than trying to divorce yourself from it. It's part of what makes you the wonderful person you are; we all have good and bad things going on, no one (as you've seen from your less than stellar friend) is perfect.