So yesterday, as I was writing a description of what I do as Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist on my new YouTube video, I added a fun little tweak to my motto.
If you’ve been here a while, you know that I say, “I.U.S.E. people. Inspire. Uplift. Support. Encourage or Empower… depending on which one I want to use that day… typically both.” Well, yesterday, I discovered a fun third “E.” Entertain.
So this is a true story that I’m sharing for entertainment purposes…
How do you forgive the unforgivable? How do you forgive a backstabbing b*tch who pretended to be your friend, comforting you in your face, while being the leader of the lynch mob against you? How do you forgive a fake friend who you called your sister?
I don’t know. But I’m hoping by the end of this we both found out.
So let me tell you the story.
I went away to college knowing what I wanted to be. I was on my journey to becoming a nurse. As a kid, I wanted to be a pediatrician, but enough adults convinced me of how hard that would be, and school was already challenging. The idea of being in school for way longer, with way harder classes, in the subjects I already sucked at…. yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen. So I decided to be a nurse instead. I’ll resist my diatribe on why adults should stop asking kids what they want to be when they grow up as a conversation starter. You can f*ck up a child’s dream, and life’s purpose, by simply introducing negativity and doubt, because your dumb ass doesn’t have faith in YOUR ability to do what THEY are dreaming of. But I digress.
So anywho, I go away to school, independent of all my friends, because I knew my major. I had an opportunity and a seat waiting on me at a school in state. We didn’t have the fancy money that allowed for an out of state option, like most of my friends, and I definitely wasn’t about to get a scholarship. My siblings all went to school at another state school. It would’ve been easier to head out there, but I don’t recall that school having my major. Plus, I didn’t need them. I’d make it on my own. Kind of an unnecessary sidebar, but necessary to set the stage for why I ended up alone.
So I head out on this adventure solo. Along the way I found two “friend” groups.
The first group was by default. My roommate came to campus with her friend group. I would always be in our room—being that I had no friends—and she and her friends eventually started to drag me out in the streets with them… because I was kinda pathetic and alone.
But don’t get all “Oh, she’s so sweet.” That biotch had issues too.
So this friend group was made up of what, at the time, I would call “heathens.” I was a “church girl.” I was not doing the “wordly” things. My roommate on the other hand was Satan’s mistress. 😂 I actually had to pause to laugh, both at the title I gave her and the accuracy.
When people entered our dorm room, there was always a noticeable pause in the doorway, as they processed the CLEAR divide. My wall was covered in Bible verses. Her wall was covered in… naked men. Yep. She had a Playgirl subscription. So literal NAKED men all down her wall. I was a sweet little innocent virgin living in my version of hell.
So one day I came across a kind soul—an extrovert eager to adopt me. She began talking to me and invited me to sit with her friends in the cafeteria. Eventually, I was eating with them all the time and hanging out in their dorm room… All. The. Time. I thought we were all really close friends.
At that time, I had no idea of my ADHD diagnosis. I had no idea about infodumping and oversharing. So I did plenty. I shared all kinds of TMI with them and they’d politely listen as if they were truly intrigued. Then came moment of betrayal #1.
We’d been hanging out for months (me, the extrovert, and her roommate), and had quickly become near besties. I was sharing with her (the roommate) about this annoying girl who would always hang out with us. She was younger and had some clear problems going on. She would constantly overshare, and the things she was sharing were way too much for me. I went on about how I was just exhausted from being the listening ear.
That’s when she (the roommate) chose to let me know that for most of the early part our friendship, she used to hate when I came over! The three of us were together ALL. THE. TIME. I was in their room more than I was in mine. And all that time, she could not stand when I’d come over. My infodumping and oversharing was too much for her. But being the good Christian she was, she looked at me as a charity case and pretended to be my friend. She was listening to my stories politely, hanging with me for hours. Then, I’d leave and she’d let out the big, “THANK GOD!” sigh of relief.
She shared this as her way of saying, “I got through it when you did it to me.” So I should be there for this young girl who was doing the same. Her intentions… good. Her impact… devastating. I had just learned that my dear friend was not really my friend AND she hid it so well. She tolerated… no… barely tolerated… my presence for months! But I was supposed to ignore that and grab the saving grace/silver lining of her story. I was supposed to block that out and focus on the, “But look! I got to know you and now I really love you, and we’re dear friends.” Dafuq?! No we’re not. I’ll never trust you fully again. You faked being my friend for the whole introduction and creation of our friendship. I don’t even know who you really are.
Oh, boy, I just realized I still haven’t told the main story. Just give me a minute. I’m getting there. It’s next.
So fast forward a bit. … or rewind… or… hmmm…. not sure.. Let’s just say… simultaneously, we were all part of an organization that did great work in our college community. I was the secretary of this group and did a lot of the graphic design/marketing to invite others to our meetings. Being that I only had those two roommates as friends, and they had jobs and classes, when they were unavailable I’d either just be in my room or I was working with the leader of the club. I began to spend a lot of time with him. We soon became dear friends.
And I know what you might be thinking. Oh boy, they probably developed feelings for each other. But nope. 1), I wasn’t in the least bit attracted to bruh. 2), I thought he was on the down low when I first met him. (I was wrong, but I did think it.) And 3) he was dating a friend of mine… another person in the wider friend group/organization. So he was off limits to me in so many ways. And… I friend zone a guy REAL early and he ain’t never coming out. He was just a female friend with a mustache to me. 😂 Anyway, again, I digress.
The point of introducing him to the story is that drama broke out in the organization as rumors began to spread that I was having a secret relationship with the leader. Since everyone saw us together all the time, they started to assume I was his sidepiece! (That uglass… okay…. let me be good. I’ll explain this later in the story.)
Anywho, so I’m devastated because I was a good girl who was just doing her job. I had no real friends, except the ones I found in this organization and now people within the group were accusing me of being a hoe! So what did I do? The only thing I could do. I went crying to the two roommates who I thought, at the time, were my friends.
So fast forward again. This is like a decade later. I have left school, we have drifted apart for various reasons, and I’m secretly holding this guilt about how I abandoned one of the friends, because she was going through some things that were emotionally triggering for me. I let her know that I was too deep in my own emotional episode (the end of my fake marriage) to truly support her through her heavy shit, because I was on the brink of “losing it” myself. And I couldn’t I couldn’t afford to break down completely. I was a newly single mom, raising a toddler. So we parted ways. I knew she had other supports, a loving husband, our other friend (the rooomate from college) and others. I just had me.
Okay let’s fast forward one last time….
So I’m out, at a bar, about two decades later, with two friends from the same old college friend group (some different ones that weren’t mentioned earlier). So we’re talking about the BS that went down in college. That whole people thinking I’m a hoe thing that ended up breaking down our organization.. because I was the PR person, the marketing person, the person who called everyone on our sign-in sheets weekly to remind them of our meetings. So when I realized these people were talking about me, I didn’t want anything to do with them. So the organization soon crumbled due to the lack of my presence…. I kept the two roommates and just distanced myself from the others… Over time conversations were had that gradually mended those fences and we all moved on from it. So this is how I ended up decades later, hanging out with two former members at a bar.
So these two begin to ask me about what really went down in college. Essentially, they were asking about the rumor about me being a hoe back then. (This sh*t is so crazy.) So I’m like, “Dude. I wasn’t a hoe. I was still a virgin and I didn’t even find him attractive. He was like a brother to me.” I was kinda appalled that they were even asking. But since they asked. I went on to tell them about how devastating that time was for me, having everyone thinking that about me. And I told them how back then I was in the other two girls’ room crying to them about it….
And, I kid you not, when I said that, the two of them almost snapped their necks looking at each other in shock and confusion. And guess what they told me…
They were like,”(_____) was comforting you?! She was the main one spreading the rumor and telling people not to trust you!”
WHAAAAT?!!!!!
Yes. Turns out that the same person that introduced me to the friend group. The same person who invited me to eat lunch with her friends. The same person whose room I hung out in daily, was the one who was pouring gasoline on the fire. I was being burned by someone I called my sister for YEARS! And I had no idea.
And you know what else? That’s not even the craziest part…
Guess who started the rumor. No. Really think about it. Guess.
Turns out, the rumor was started by the guy. Yep! The dude in the friend zone, the leader of the organization, the guy I called my brother. He’s the one who started the rumor!
So now, I bring you back to the original question, “How do I forgive the unforgivable?”
That’s a good ass question, because after sharing this story, I have no idea.
I’ll be honest with you. I actually thought by the end of this story that I would have some deep philosophical answer. I started out telling the story, to give you the backdrop for what I thought was going to be the solution to releasing years of hurt.
Every once in a while, I see the two roommates, who are no longer my friends, in my dreams. A few hours ago, it happened again. I saw them in my dream. Years back I made amends with the roommate so I hugged her. But the other, the fake friend, I had so many different emotions stirring. I couldn’t even look at her. For the first time, even the dude was in my dream. So I woke up thinking, “It’s time to forgive them, and let this go.”
I was certain by the end I’d have an answer. But maybe before stepping into forgiveness, I needed to sit with the realities of what they did. It’s not a story I’ve ever really told. Maybe bits and pieces have come out as someone asked, “How’s ______?” or “Are whatever happened to ______?” But I’ve never even told myself the full story as one crazy ass reality that I experienced.
Oddly, sharing it with you was a bit healing for me. I got to see that I had good reason for the mixed emotions and my hurt feelings. I was able to see why I was carrying guilt for abandoning a friend in her time of need, while realizing she was never really my friend. I got to see through informed eyes how ADHD was evident back then as I overshared and dumped so much TMI on people I had just met. And I got to see why it’s so hard for me to truly trust people, to get close to people, and really believe their intentions are genuine.
So maybe, the question of forgiveness of that fake friend (pick any one of them) is not the question for now. Maybe the true question is, “How do I retell this story to myself in a way that honors who I am, and was back then?” OR “How can I acknowledge my strength and character in this story?” “How can I honor my authentic and normal responses to the various hurts I experienced?” “How do reframe these experiences in a way that’s empowering for me?” And after I do all that maybe forgiving her/them isn’t the main goal. Maybe it’s about forgiving myself.
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