Article on Ostracism

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You know, I think you are spot on with that theory. I hadn't actually thought about that so specifically (as you have put it) before.

6th-7th grade was a horrible time and I got picked on a lot, but I wasn't ostracized. I still had friends and people talked to me.

Then I went to a private religious school. Some of the teachers there were really lecherous towards the girls, but it was excused. They taught us that men can't control themselves, females are responsible for male sexual impulses, it's a woman's fault if she gets raped, etc.

Right after I started there, the other kids started telling me I looked just like an older student who got expelled. They all thought it was unfair and told me what happened. She was an athlete and asked a coach to help her prepare for a big track meet. He interpreted it like she was hitting on him and "tempting" him. After she got expelled, they wouldn't even let her back inside to clean out her locker. They actually locked the doors on her and left her standing outside crying.

They would begin and end the story by telling me how much I looked like her and just stare at me. It gave me the eerie feeling that they thought the same thing was going to happen to me. I figured out this was an ongoing psychological drama at the school and I was somehow a likely target. So I spent my entire time at the school anticipating being branded with the scarlet letter and forced out the doors like that other girl.

Sure enough, I did end up in a similar situation, except I actually fell in love with a teacher, and I wasn't expelled. First I was sent for counseling, then eventually I was suspended. The interesting thing is, my parents had no idea what was really going on there, until the day I got suspended. When my mother came to get me, she saw one of the teachers brazenly flirting and winking at me. I was allowed to go back to public school after that.

So in the end it was my choice to leave, but I still felt like I had been branded and forced out. I was basically treated like a heretic anyway since I didn't agree with their religious views and I was very honest about it. I can't begin to emphasize how much psychological damage this place did to me.

Then back in public school, things were okay, until I guess word got around that I considered myself to be bisexual. I had only told a few close friends, but I guess at least one of them had a big mouth. I didn't catch on how bad it was until graduation and people were partnering up for the ceremony. All of a sudden people were avoiding me like the plague. There was one girl who was actually out as a lesbian, and they strategically avoided her too, so we ended up partnered together for graduation, and not only that had to walk near the back of the line. It sent a very strong message and what's weird is I had never caught on before that people looked at me that way.

When I was around 25, I had a falling out with an internet friend. I had known him for a few years and knew he had something of a messiah complex (and the corresponding persecution complex to go with it). I had seen him ban a few people from his forum for really weird reasons and accuse them of persecuting him. Then he suddenly turned against me too. He suddenly stopped responding to my messages, and the people on the forum stopped talking to me too. This went on for a few months until he finally banned me.

I never understood what happened and I was really distraught over it for a long time. A few years later I tried to go back to that forum and smooth things over, and they treated me like a pariah. This one woman would just go on and on lecturing me. It didn't make any sense at all. Pretty soon I got banned again.

But a few of my friends there started talking to me again, and I finally found out what had been going on. This guy had told everyone I was "stalking" him and said a lot of s**t about me behind my back. And he convinced this group of people up into thinking I was out to get him so they would attack me. Some of them eventually saw through it, but I guess most of them didn't.

Later on he actually apologized. I think by then it was about 7 years after he initially banned me. I was welcomed back on the forum, but I was never able to relax there again. They still had a lot of drama going on there, and every time it flared up, I thought I'm going to be attacked again. It was just inducing perpetual anxiety so I stopped posting there.

One more story similar to that one. An ex-boyfriend suddenly stopped talking to me and completely turned against me. It made no sense. He would only address me directly if he wanted to insult and humiliate me. Otherwise he just completely ignored my existence. And other people kept telling me the nasty things he said about me behind my back. Some did it out of concern for me. And others I guess believed whatever he said because they ignore me or turned against me too.

It went on like that for months and absolutely tore me apart emotionally. It finally got to the point where I had to cut off all contact with these people just to avoid hearing the s**t things he said about me. And I guess that was what he wanted all along, since once or twice he had told me something like, "stop talking to MY friends." I felt kind of like I was forced to ostracize myself. But in the end it was the best decision I ever made. Only one of them I thought I might stay friends with, but oh no not anymore. If those are the kinds of friends he wants, he can have all of them. I don't want them.

It is also somewhat common for people with bipolar disorder to do things like this. My ex mentioned above is bipolar, and after that situation did such a number on me, I did some research and read a lot of similar stories. They suddenly walk away and leave a partner or spouse (and sometimes also children) standing there wondering what the hell happened. Sometimes they also suddenly move away, change jobs, or become promiscuous when they were not before.

It seems like a dramatic, overnight change in character and the partner is concerned - like I was - that something is terribly wrong. But they tell family and friends they just don't want to be with the person anymore, and make it sound like the abandoned partner just has a problem letting go.

I was amazed by how many stories I read like this...and from both sides, the partners who were abandoned, and the people with bipolar disorder who abandoned their partners and later came to their senses. Some eventually do regret it, and they experience overwhelming guilt over the way they treated their partner/children.

Some also said that before they were able to face that guilt, they misdirected their anger at themselves on to other people...but in general, as you said of the narcissists, they knew exactly what they were doing.

Well, I must be in the other 1%...despite the long post I just made and the stories I told...I wouldn't say that I'm here because of any of that. I'm here mainly because reading what other people talk about helps me understand myself better and gives me some strategies for dealing with things.

..........................crickets*..............................

i thought it was funny.

shrugs*

I did too.

Not entirely sure what you mean, I thought it was fairly normal in a break up people who don't have any relation to that SO wouldn't likely keep up a reletionship. For instance I don't feel any need to stay 'friends' with my brothers exes he's had even if we got along ok in person...still my only relation to them is I am my brothers sister so know them if they are dating him but if that ends then I wouldn't go out of my way to stay in contact and be 'friends' that also more or less ends their relationship with me or any of my brothers other family/friends they only knew through him.

Also as for my parents they are divorced and neither side of the family really has contact with each other...never really saw that as ostracism per say, and only would really see it that way if say someone from my moms side of the family had made good friends with my dad and let the divorce end that....but then that is a friendship beyond oh you're my significant others friend/relative. Are you saying like when the significant other of an individual really becomes part of the family and then they break up and everyone including people in that family/frienship group they had formed relationships with just starts ignoring them like that never existed? If so that can be pretty difficult to deal with...never had a situation quite like that but I remember after it seemed like i had made friends in middle school, they all just suddenly more or less started ignoring me and where rude if they did acknowledge me never gave me any reason or enough acknowledgement...later through observation I learned the 'popular' group would 'befriend' the new kid and then if they where somehow deemed not cool enough or whatever the same thing happened to them. I guess at least then I knew I wasn't the only one...so it wasn't just me specifically they decided to turn against, so I could then see it as being more about them somewhat.

I was principally referring to the situation where one ex-spouse acts as if the other never existed at all, - a kind of total denial - when in fact they may have been married many years and were a very significant part of each other's lives, especially when they have children in common. People experience this as a terrible betrayal of their reality, when they are blameless partners who are suddenly abandoned without warning by a spouse who simply doesn't care what pain is inflicted.

I suffered this basically all through high school. It made me feel really isolated and miserable. All I had were my cousins, but when they got to a certain age they started spending time out with their friends. During school holidays I used to cry and cry to my mum, because I just wanted a friend to hang out with. When I tried to hang out with kids I knew from school, I could tell they didn't want me around, and would even sneak away from me when I wasn't looking. That was so hurtful. I thought NTs were supposed to have empathy, but it seemed that they had no idea how it felt to be this rejected. They just didn't care. All I needed was a small crowd of kids who were willing to let me into their group and perhaps taught me a few social rules, invited me to sleepovers, invited me to the movies, and made me feel accepted and dignified, and I know I would have learnt pretty quick and be one of them. It would have helped with my self-esteem too, and may have had a better influence on me socially as I got older and left school, and lead to more social success in all sorts of areas. That's all kids with any mild disabilities need, just more of a push from their peers, more acceptance, and we can learn to adapt to the world better, if that's what we wanted. But no, can't happen, can't work that way.

Here is a more obvious or extreme example: I had a friend in my last year of elementary school who lived with his grandmother. After his mother left his father, his mother never contacted him again. His father left 2 years later and never contacted him again. My friend never received any contact from them again. He got no birthday cards, no presents, no phone calls, and no visits.
Both of his parents ostracized him and his grandmother and went on to form new families and he wasn't apart of either.
He was also the only kid to be bullied more than me at school, so he had it very rough. He was a talented artist, but that talent went to waste junior year in highschool when he left this world.

In high school, by so-called "friends." And later, by my own family. It's okay though, I'm better off without them.

The day after graduation all the people who I thought were my friends, except for one, disappeared. They never responded to another text message or email.
My dad kept on asking me why I didn't go hang out with any of my friends for months... he maintained most of his friendships after highschool.

It's stories like this that make me sick!

Thanks!

I wouldn't be surprised if he went on to do some serious self-harming - suicide attempts, cutting etc. Being treated in this way by your parents is to be devalued and dehumanised in a really dreadful way. It's very hard for these adult children to recover. Some express it in very violent behaviour to others; some internalise it in very violent behaviour to themselves. Other forms of severe child abuse can lead to the parents facing criminal charges; this too is an extreme form of child abuse, and the victim has no recourse at all, the perpetrators face no sanctions. It saddens me greatly to see people in this situation, and I have seen them. It rarely ends well. Many go on to try to numb the pain with the big heavy narcotics which leads to addiction and then the usual disaster of self-destruction, prison or death etc unless they have some transformative experience that acts as a turning point - have seen a few make outstanding recoveries in NA, but they are a very small minority.

When I said, "he left this world" I meant he killed himself...

Same here especially when I was younger but I thought it was to be expected and I didn't care. People always want me to join in with them now but I usually don't because it's weird to me now lol