WHEN A FRIEND ISN'T

the gospel according to george

If it wasn't already in someone's nature to be, well, the bad friend, then all the ADD in the world couldn't make them become that. But a lack of sleep can certainly amplify something you already are. Which is my armchair know-nothing psychologist's way of suggesting there is a case for setting boundaries and, yes, for figuring out where to draw the line.

May 18, 2001

George:

I needed a rest. A mental health day that turned into a mental health couple of days because the weather's been so consistently crappy I couldn't get out of town. I'm stressed out of my mind, and I'm now realizing 75% of my stress is somehow related to you. To whatever stupid, selfish, thoughtless, insensitive, self-absorbed, immature, unspiritual nonsense you've gotten yourself into this week.

And, I knew, inevitably, you'd start to blame me for your many self-inflicted wounds. 

There's a big relationship in my life that's ending. It feels like a divorce. I suppose, in many ways, that's what it is. Divorce is painful and difficult, but it is also hopeful. There is hope that you will emerge from the other end of the process a stronger person, a better person, a happier person. Because, if you were any of those things inside of the relationship, you wouldn't be ending it.

Moving some things off of my PC, I found a letter I'd written this guy, calling him on his behavior towards me and towards the people here in town. His personal behavior was way out of bounds with his calling as a minister. So much so that no one, absolutely no one, in town takes him seriously as a minister, which extends itself to me by association and diminishes the ministry itself.

I told him I'd need some time to sort through things and figure out what to do. He's a grown man, I can't police his behavior and I won't hold a gun to his head and make demands that he live up to my expectations. Who am I to make such demands, anyway? But, clearly, something had to be done.

I read over this letter and realized these salient points remained, that if anything, his personal conduct had worsened. I remember reading that note and thinking that not much had changed in six months.

Then I looked at the date on the note. I hadn't written it six months ago, I wrote it two years ago. Two years. The relationship had become toxic more than two years ago. But I've given the guy every chance, bought into every excuse, defended him and his inexcusably sophomoric conduct.

I'm afraid I haven't been a very good friend to you. Your pattern of self-destruction, of ruining every relationship and every good and precious thing God brings into your life, continues. And all I seem to do is listen to you whine and tell you what you want to hear.

You are destroying everything in your life. You find fault with everything and everyone. You are never happy, never satisfied, never fulfilled. You are incapable of sustaining any measure of intimacy or friendship. You have absolutely no loyalty. Your priority is always to your own comfort and the immediate gratification of your every desire. I'm embarrassed and humiliated to have been the conduit to your introduction to some truly fine and noble people, knowing as I do that you will leave a trail of hurt and damaged people behind you.

The older I get the more naïve I realize I am. As a wannabe intellectual, it is difficult for me to accept certain concepts. Evil, for instance. I have a hard time accepting that there are evil people in the world. I tend to hand out free passes to evil people because, well, they've probably got some environmental or medical or emotional problem that causes them to have such a twisted view of themselves and the world. I childishly assume that, given the opportunity, we would all choose to be, well, nice. I tend to suspect Hitler suffered tremendously as a child and could have been a much happier person if only his mom hadn't dropped him on his head so much.

I keep thinking of selfishness, narcissism, rudeness and meanness as treatable dysfunctions rather than character flaws. Most people think of themselves as (1) right and (2) good. Few people have the strength of character required to admit their flaws and even fewer have the courage to do something about them.

I suspect my friend's problem is purely chemical. It is a simple deal, likely something easily treatable. I'd imagine 90% of his problems could be solved if he could only get a good night's sleep. Chronically sleep deprived, this guy exhibits all of the classic symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder. A trip to the doctor and a low dose of Ritalin would probably change his life. But he becomes defensive whenever I suggest it. He takes it as an attack on his manhood, or that I'm calling him a child (he thinks ADD is only a children's disease). Another friend who has ADD told me, "You get so used to the dysfunction— to the emotional bumper cars playing inside your head— that it seems normal to you. You just kind of rebound from one thing to the next, and when someone calls you on it, your first impulse is to become defensive. After all, I can't be crazy."

Other friends who have observed this friend's social patterns suggest a more likely cause than ADD: Borderline Personality Disorder. Matt Adler forwarded this to me:

From Yahoo Health:

Borderline Personality Disorder
is a condition characterized by impulsive actions, mood instability, and chaotic relationships. Alternative names Personality disorder - borderline

Causes, incidence, and risk factors
Personality disorders are chronic patterns of behavior that impair relationships and work. The cause of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is unknown. People with BPD are impulsive in areas that have a potential for self-harm, such as drug use, drinking, and other risk-taking behaviors.

Risk factors for BPD include abandonment issues in childhood or adolescence, sexual abuse, disrupted family life, and poor communication within the family. This personality disorder tends to occur more often in women and among hospitalized psychiatric patients.

Symptoms
Relationships with others are intense and unstable, swinging wildly from love to hate and back again. People with BPD will engage in frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.

BPD patients may also have uncertainties about their identity or self-image. They tend to see things in terms of extremes, either all good or all bad. Such people also typically view themselves as victims of circumstance and take little responsibility for themselves or their problems.

Other symptoms include:

Frequent displays of inappropriate anger Recurrent suicidal gestures such as wrist cutting, overdosing, or self-mutilation Feelings of emptiness and boredom Intolerance of being alone Impulsiveness with money, substance abuse, sexual relationships, binge eating, or shoplifting

More on BPD

As a minister, my job is to understand. Or, even if I don't understand, to at least dress like I understand. Does God excuse  our sin if our poor choices were caused by sleep depravation? If we have some chemical imbalance inside our brains, isn't that His fault? Does knowing there's a reasonable and possible explanation for extremely bad behavior excuse the behavior? Joy Banks, a Christian counselor here in the Springs, says no. 

"If your friend has Borderline Personality Disorder, that's something that is imprinted on his personality," she says. "That is, literally, who he is. Your friend has likely developed dysfunctional coping skills; things that maybe worked for him once in the past, but he keeps using them even though they don't work anymore. It is entirely up to him to change, and he probably has to hit rock bottom before he'll even want to change— if then. ADD is chemical. It can be diagnosed and treated fairly quickly. Correcting BPD takes years of therapy, and most health care plans won't cover it because it is such a difficult condition to correct.

"If he's your friend, you are going to have to practice Unconditional Positive Regard, which is to say you have to accept him for who he is. Don't try and change him or rescue him, but also don't put up with any of his crap. When he is behaving badly, you have to call him on it. He'll either change or he'll leave you alone."

Matt suggested, "I think it isn't a matter of excusing or not excusing. Because, if your friend's behavior is affecting you badly enough, and you can't see any way you can change that, then it really doesn't matter whether it's his fault or not. You can end a destructive relationship without it being someone's fault. "

Which is my armchair know-nothing psychologist's way of suggesting there is a case for setting boundaries and, yes, for figuring out where to draw the line.

George, if you don't change and change immediately, you'd do better to pack up and move back home. You are killing yourself and your credibility out here just by being a complete weasel. The word is already out and is spreading rapidly. 

If you stop and think about it, you lie every day. Each and every single day you tell at least one lie, but, typically, you lie constantly and as a matter of course. You lie out of whatever crippling fear that drives you to ever greater extremes of bizarre behavior. Your inability to confront people has escalated into a cowardice of stunning and epic proportions. I have never known a man so afraid of his own shadow, one so willing to destroy everything he holds dear to him and trash every good thing in his life, rather than deal with whatever the problems are.

I am the classic textbook case of The Rescuer. The hero who suits up and leaps into action. Bruce Willis, who can never mind his own business but must poke around to see what's going on and ends up fighting for his life. The Rescuer is a giver, and he is almost always drawn to the needy dysfunctional Professional Victim. A Professional Victim is someone who never, ever takes responsibility for anything that goes on in their own lives. A Professional Victim is a whiner and a crybaby who makes excuses for even the most wretched behavior. Someone who spends far more energy finding someone to blame for a problem than fixing the problem itself.

Together, the Rescuer and The Professional Victim make one hell of a team. It is a co-dependent bond where neither is fully functional without the other. My friend is a personable and friendly and funny guy, a great guy to hang out with, but a guy who is crippled by deep insecurity and self-loathing. A brother who is so self-destructive he ultimately ruins every relationship in his life, and leaves a trail of wounded souls everywhere he goes. This is a man who cannot abide any position but the top spot, a guy who must be in charge and must be seen and must bask in the glory of applause and accolades, but who would spend seven to eight hours a day whining to me and seeking advice. Advice he'd never follow, and so would ultimately make his situation worse which would then lead to, yes, another seven or eight hours of whining and seeking advice that he wouldn't take and then would go and make things worse yet again.

I suppose most everyone, at some point or another, has a guy like this in their life. Or a woman. Someone who is ultimately incapable of running their own lives and who feed off of yours as though you were a Duracell battery. This kind of narcissism borders on psychotic. This kind of person can best be described as a George.

George Costanza, as I'm sure you know, is a character on the hit TV series Seinfeld. A short, balding, plump, insecure little man, George was a liar. He lied to protect himself and lied about virtually everything. George was a coward. He would create grand end runs around his personal problems mostly out of fear of, well, everything. George was absolutely spineless, completely self absorbed, thoughtless, insensitive, needy, and, ultimately, pitiable. Paradoxically, he was also funny, witty, clever, and a blast to hang out with. He had a great deal of positive attributes that almost made you forget the fact that George was petty enough and spineless enough to sell you out for even the smallest personal gain. 

So, yeah, my guy is kind of a George. And, while I knew he had problems, I hadn't realized how severe those problems were until he followed me out here to Colorado, having exhausted his possibilities and burned every bridge back home. Arriving in Colorado, he made friends with some of my friends and turned on me in the most vicious and puzzling ways. He acted as if he hated me, as if I'd done him some grievous wrong, and, his new friends in place, went about the business of sowing discord. This is George's chief export: discord. He is never happy unless he is gossiping about someone, seeking out secrets and revealing secrets and using personal trust as a weapon to destroy lives and cripple relationships.

George was once extremely popular. People, literally, pushed me out of the way in their fervor to get to George and be in his circle. And, the more active George's circle, the less I heard from George. George ingratiated himself with my friends, then attempted to move me out of the social circle, then tried to turn my friends against me (with varying degrees of success), and, by the time these friends got to George Critical Mass— the point at which most everyone in his life realizes, gasp!, He's GEORGE!— the damage has been done. Then George would inevitably turn back towards me and our friendship, and I'd just let it go and we'd be cool again.

You run your mouth constantly, which I regard as your greatest failing as a man. A man keeps his own council. You just talk incessantly, telling anyone and everyone who will listen your problems. Not that you are actually looking for help, but you just like hearing yourself talk. And, again, the word is getting around because YOU won't shut up.

George Costanza is incapable of maintaining real relationships. Despite what you see on Seinfeld, people like George quickly ruin perfectly good friendships because they sell their friends out to protect themselves. The sad part about it is, it's not even intentional. It's hard to even blame George or get mad at George. I mean, he's George. It's tattooed on his forehead, and we are all to blame for enabling George and for trusting George when we know he is not rational or functional. When we know he's George. Then we're surprised when he does something George-like, like sleep with our wife or not repay a debt or reveal our confidential information. Don't blame George, blame yourself. He's just being who he is.

And, I guess, that's where I am today, immersed in self-loathing for having spent eighteen years enabling George, while remaining terribly concerned abut him. The blood is on my hands. I mean, I can't stop George from following me around the country, but I should have had the courage to warn everyone about him. Not that people take my advice, I mean, not even George takes my advice. But, having at least tried to forestall George's, well, George-osity, I might have saved my actual friends some grief, and, maybe even helped George grow up.

George is innately and cripplingly immature. He is shockingly immature, with zero impulse control and absolutely no conscience. George is a guy who sees only to his immediate self-gratification. Who uses people indiscriminately and then discards them. Oddly, though, George is terrified of being alone. He must have people around him, he must have social contact and he must be the center of that social interaction. It's got to be George's party. George thinks we are all plotting against him because George thinks we are thinking about George twenty four seven. He thinks we are thinking about George twenty four seven because George is thinking about George twenty four seven.

This is not, by any reasonable and objective standard, normal behavior. This seems like classic BPD. My challenge is tempering my compassion for a sick friend by holding him accountable for his actions.

You sit around telling all your business, likely all of mine, and mocking me at the same time, when you're supposed to not only be my friend but be my fellow minister. And, after everything I've done for you, after nearly two decades of faithful service to you and your ego, this is my reward- you having fun at my expense with people you hardly know.

Since moving to Colorado, George has, in two years, created more drama than I could credibly list. And it's all of this Art Vandalay over-the-top sitcom stuff, kind of absurd and almost comical, that defies belief. All of George's problems are self-created. All of his wounds are self-inflicted. But he cannot see this. To him, he is ALWAYS the innocent victim, the hapless sufferer, all the while telling one incredible lie after another.

George is the kind of guy who invents scenarios in his head to justify even the most heinous behavior. For instance, if George came and burned your house down, he would blame you for having made your home so flammable. George was who I was talking about three years ago when I wrote this essay:

I know people so incredibly handicapped by emotional cowardice, they tend to invent surreal scenarios: Bizarro World latticework of a fragmented, delusional non-reality where they are the hero of their own story and whatever ultimately ridiculous and extreme betrayal of faith they commit becomes somehow justified by my motives- which they've invented in their head. Much simpler to walk out on your wife than say, "Sorry." Much simpler to invent some scenario where she had it coming.

I don't use the term, "Best Friend." Why should one friend be the "best"? How could one person be more "best" than another? It burdens the relationship with a responsibility: to live up to being The Best, a weight no relationship needs. Relationships- friends, family or lovers- are intrinsically evanescent. People we would die for today we hardly remember to call next year. And we all seem to be victims of a collective amnesia, passing through this cycle again and again in a misplaced hope of filling The God Hole with fallible, imperfect mortals capable of only fallible, imperfect relationships.

I've tried talking to him about this, about my suspicions of sleep depravation, ADD, BPD and so forth. But, being George, he becomes defensive and squirrelly and starts looking out the window, waiting for the topic to exhaust itself. He needs to seek professional help. Rational people do not live the way George lives. George Costanza is an invention of a marvelous comic actor and a staff of brilliant writers. My friend is a flesh and blood human being. And the hundreds of ruined relationships trailing in his wake is shocking. By any objective standard, this is simply not normal.

It is simply not normal for a man to be this shallow a creature. This is a man who feeds off of the goodness, the light, of others. He then weaponizes that goodness, turning it back on those who have shared themselves with him. George has turned against every single friend he has ever had. George does not have any close friends that he has known longer than five years. He is simply incapable of sustaining relationships of any kind, and he refuses to take a sober look at this, at the abnormality of his existence. George thinks everything is fine and that People Just Hate George. He's asked me again and again, why people "Turn on me." George doubtless thinks I've turned on him. I haven't turned on George, I've just decided to stop being George's enabler.

To George, that is a declaration of war. And George fights dirty, mainly because he's a coward. Cowards are often the most dangerous enemies you can have because cowards are, in the end, often more resourceful and inventive than people who have actual courage. Cowards invest way more energy in Wyle E. Coyote revenge scenarios. Cowards hold grudges longer. Cowards invest the time, money and energy to wreak havoc in your life, when a simple direct confrontation would take much less energy. Cowards will often dedicate themselves and their resources to getting even with you because getting even with you is the most important thing in their lives. Because, if they do not get even with you, they are nothing. They cease to exist unless they are standing on top of you. Standing on top of you is the only position they find acceptable, and whenever you stand up for yourself, they perceive that as an attack on all that they are. Simply asserting yourself is received, by the coward, as violence. As a declaration of war.

Cowards fight dirty because they haven't the courage to meet you head on. So George is now weaponizing eighteen years of shared confidence to use against me, and all I can do is brace for the ruthless attack of someone I've carried, literally, for nearly two decades. A guy I've bailed out and bailed out and helped out and helped out. A man whose confidence I still keep, while he tells virtually anyone who will listen intimate details of my life.

I cut George off last summer. I can't say why without hurting someone, because George was hurting someone and using me to do it. The sadder part of this is that George professes to be a Christian and a minister, as do I. The truth is that lying and cowardice and acts of betrayal and caprice all undermine his claim to the ministry. And being close to him undermines mine. Jesus was chastised for keeping company with tax collectors but these were reformed tax collectors. George isn't Simon or Peter or John. George is George. George is much closer to a Pharisee than a fisherman, a guy who basks in the glow of praises Sunday morning, feeding off of God's praises as though they were Praising George. But, in practice, George can't even bless the table. George has no testimony and no Christian walk whatsoever. He is a petty, vengeful, very small man who sees only enemies and conspiracy and hatred. This is not a person who knows God in any meaningful way. George is a disgrace to the ministry. And, when I enable him, I become a disgrace to the ministry as well.

So, yeah, I suppose I need some time off from you and your world of stupidity. At this point, I really can't be involved with you any longer. You are chronically backslidden, completely out of fellowship with God. The Holy Spirit could not possibly inspire or lead you to do the things you do, and the mind of God cannot possibly be in you. 

I beg your forgiveness for having enabled you for so long. That was ME being cowardly. It was easier to just tell you what you wanted to hear than to constantly correct you.

George recently accused me of being jealous of him. I think that was, probably the nicest thing George ever did for me because it really woke me up. It made me realize, this man knows absolutely nothing about me. I have spent nearly every day of the last eighteen years worrying about George and George's problems and George's needs and Is George OK and I Hope George Knows What He's Doing and doing George Damage Control and running after George and doing the thousands of things George had me doing. This is not the work of someone who is jealous of George so much as someone who pities George. Who thinks George is incapable of running his own life, which isn't nearly as true as it is that George doesn't want to run his own life. He wants to drift through it, having people come to his rescue and do things for him, so he has someone to blame for his failures while he himself takes credit for things he didn't actually do.

George has been claiming credit for work I actually did for almost two decades. A George Production (TM). Big Saddam Hussein photos of George and Look At All I Have Built With My Hands. When the truth is, I was the organizer, the originator, the creator and the executor of those ideas. The proof of this is, every time I took my hands off of some aspect of the Geocracy, it fell apart. George has never managed to sustain an organized Geocracy without me. I was always the first phone call, the hardest worker, the person most concerned with the Geocracy (more so than George himself). And, when I turn the reins fully over to George, he inevitably turns the whole franchise to mud. Finding fault with people, throwing people out who have helped him and volunteered for him. Who have been loyal to him. And then the Geocracy is gone.

George has built his Geocracy on business plans I constructed and creative elements I designed, while George, over time, re-wrote history to make me a bit player in the Geocracy , some guy in the wings watching George build and create. Like Tom Arnold in the mobile truck at the end of True Lies, I was the guy who actually did all of the work while George danced the tango with Jaime Lee. And it is absolutely vital to George's self esteem that this illusion be maintained, that nobody find out the truth: that what George actually created is wonderful and awe-inspiring, but it is not enough for George. George must take credit for absolutely everything, and ultimately turn on the people who actually did the work so they do not present a threat to George's enormous ego.

Which really makes this much more about my dysfunction than his. People who over-volunteer, who run themselves ragged and go broke supporting some cause that ultimately becomes a fruitless enterprise, are suckers. Kind-hearted suckers, suckers with ideals, but suckers nonetheless. Predators can sniff out guys like me, guys who will respond if you figure out the right tune, the right combination of lofty goal and high calling that gets me to suit up. I've been exploited by predators for years and years because people have figured out how to appeal to my whole Rescuer esthetic. This is behavior I am only now, late in life, starting to recognize and modify. So, as the fingers are being pointed at George, I have to remind myself that I have known, for more than a decade, this man was exploiting me. And I let it happen.

I have logged thousands of miles and hundreds of thousands of hours doing free work for the Geocracy, counseling George and following George around, supporting George, looking out for George. while George has never, not one time, ever shown up for me. George has never, in eighteen years, lifted so much as a finger to support the Priestocracy, any effort or program I may have been developing. George skipped my wedding because he claimed he couldn't find the church. George ditched out on my programs, after first agreeing to be there. He has never, and I mean never, even one time ever done even a single thing for me, while my entire existence has been Raising George. So that's my end of it. My dysfunction and my cowardice. I was being exploited by a weasel who gave me absolutely nothing in return. And for some psychotic reason, I kept giving him a pass. I kept making excuses, and I kept working.

Something terrible has happened to the man I used to know. I knew you were petty and selfish, but, honestly, G, you have sunk to lows even I could never imagine.

I had a pretty good life here until you decided to come out here. Now I've had eight months of ever-increasing stress. Having turned you off these last few days, my life has been considerably more quiet and a lot less stressful.

So, what do I do, take a hammer and whack George with it? Of course not. Because, ultimately, George is not to blame. I'm to blame. I'm the guy who enabled George, who fueled George's silliness and overlooked his dysfunction for two decades. George, ironically, may become a much better person if I just leave him alone. If he is forced to do things himself.

Whatever happens between us now is completely up to you. Brother to brother: you are in terrible trouble. You are a complete mess, and you are in grave danger of losing everything, including your immortal soul. Playing with God is dangerous business, George. Word is getting around that you are unreliable, untruthful, and unspiritual. And, idiot, you are taking me down with you.

You are destroying yourself, George. For my own good and my own protection, I've got to get out of the way.

As Christians (and, frankly, even if you're not), it would seem that evaluating our relationships would be a common sense thing to do. If you're around someone that makes you anxious, nervous, and stressed out; someone who is constantly taking while you are constantly giving, that's a toxic relationship. A simple list of the attributes of the relationship, not the person per se but the basic emotions generated by the relationship itself, should provide some common sense guidelines about whether or not it's a relationship you should be in. The harder part, though, is finding the courage to change. Not change George, but change myself.

Christopher J. Priest
13 May 2003
 

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