5 years later, should I confront him?
I (26M) was in a toxic "friendship" with a closeted gay narcissist who made me live a terrible life for 7 years.
I have never told anyone, and starting to put words to it now feels so hard since he literally brainwashed me into believing he was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Sorry it's going to be long, but I need to get it off my chest.
I will be calling the involved person L.
Background:
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When I was 14, I joined a group with a certain hierarchy (leaders and subleaders), and L (22M at the time) joined at a similar time as my group leader.
Shortly after joining the group, L started to give me and a small group of others preferential treatment while claiming that we were the most mature in the group. A few months after, I got more and more preferential treatment (things like going somewhere so he can buy me something nice to celebrate good grades of mine). At 14, I enjoyed this thinking that someone cares about me and has my best interest at heart.
A few months later, we got closer and closer, at which point L would consider me as his friend.
He playfully began to start physical fights (as a joke) between me and him, you know, just the harmless, let's carry each other around and fight type of thing. (This will be relevant later.)
After some time, he started to ask that we see each other (only the two of us), sometimes after school, sometimes after group meetings on the weekend, or sometimes just to play tennis. Except even when we were together, we would always carry each other and "fight" playfully because he initiated it all the time.
Victim behavior:
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Only shortly after becoming closer, he started saying how much I remind him of himself and that we are similar in many things. And then he started trauma dumping on me in an unimaginable way!
Stories about a closeted brother (which for him was the end of the world because we are in a country where being gay is seen as bad), a father that didn't care about him, even stories of him being SAed. And all these stories would make me really sad for him, and since he was always taking care of me, I always tried to make him happier by being there and doing things he likes.
L had a medical operation that took a bit too long (like two years), and he loved to use that as a reason to get everyone's attention, including mine. Two years later, when this was over, he started having severe pain in his back, and I helped him visit over 100 doctors (I swear), and none of them could find a reason behind the pain. So was it a way just to keep everyone's attention on him?
Anyways, not only did he have these medical and family problems, but shortly after, since we got closer, he started getting soooo upset at me over everything.
For example: one day I said I was too tired to play tennis with him and I wanted to rest --> this resulted in him not speaking to me and me having to beg him to forgive me while I cried my eyes out, and yes, this happened very, very often.
So basically the dynamic was: L has so many problems, and he's the victim in everything, and I should be here to support and help him because he's my bestie and he deserves it.
Physical touch:
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L used the setup above to make us have more and more physical touch.
For example, he would ask me to put oil on his back and do back massages for him since his back hurt all the time (but he wouldn't ask, he would make me propose by saying how much he hurts and a massage would be nice).
We used to hang out more and more alone, even sometimes do sleepovers, his or mine, and during those we would always carry each other as a playful game even though what he really wanted was the physical touch between us.
Some nights I was so tired I just wanted to sleep, but I couldn't, and I had to keep carrying him because I knew if I said I wanted to sleep, he would get mad, and I would have to beg him for forgiveness again.
So basically I was stuck in this:
Poor L, he has a terrible life --> I should do everything he wants --> I don't care if I like what I am doing or not because L is going to get mad if I stop, but I like him a lot, I don't want him to be mad --> I do what he wants.
Worse Physical Touch:
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One of the days when we were hanging out in an abandoned building after school (and yes, that was a regular activity he would propose), of course we were carrying each other, and at some point while I was putting him down, he kissed me on the lips... (I was 15 at the time).
I was shocked to my core, he instantly started saying that what "we" did was wrong and that we can't be doing that again, and he started giving a lesson on how carrying each other and fighting is cute and okay but kissing is not. And he kept always going on about how he wants to protect me and he wants what's best for me, etc., etc.
I fell for his trick, and I agreed that we would just carry each other, and then on a random night when we had a sleepover, when he asked me to do a massage as usual (for his back pain), he mentioned that maybe some kisses would also feel good.
Even thinking about this makes me sick, since I was stuck in the cycle above, and being dumb and young, I just agreed, and this became a regular thing.
Many times when I/he came for a sleepover, I would stay up for hours making him a massage with kisses until he fell asleep because he would say he's hurting, and then I would go to sleep after hoping that I wouldn't wake him up because if I did, I would have to massage him again until he slept. I swear sometimes he woke me up just to give him another massage and gaslighted me into thinking I woke up by myself.
A few months/a year later things got even worse because now the kisses were just "fine," and then he managed to convince me that it would be very relaxing to kiss him in the front too. And so I did. I started kissing him on the stomach and on the nipples for so much time, I would go for 2 hours sometimes just kissing him front and back, just wanting it to be over so I could sleep, but he was just enjoying it, so why would I stop?
It became worse and worse, at some point I was kissing his neck and ears as well, literally everything except what's between the legs and the lips because, you know, "that's gay."
Sometimes he would even say that dry kisses are not that nice and he was "teaching me" how to kiss better (in a sexual way).
He would sometimes ask me if I wanted to switch places, which, of course, I refused because he would kiss me in such a weird sexual way that I would just rather kiss him until he says he wants to sleep.
My position:
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He trained me to never say no, he programmed my mind that saying no to him = him getting mad = my life becoming worse for a week until he forgives me.
So I could never say no, I always said yes to sleepovers even though I knew I hated them. Always tried to say I was tired early on to try to say that I just wanted to sleep, but of course this never worked.Tried even sometimes to say that my parents didn't want me to do a sleepover, and then he would get upset, and I would have to convince my parents otherwise, he's mad for a week again.
This kept going for 7 years.
How I escaped:
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I had a girlfriend (let's call her K) when I became 20, and things started getting worse. L would get upset if I went to see K, and K would get upset if I went to see L.
Since L trained me to do whatever he wants, I started doing the same with K because, to me, this was how you love someone: you say yes to EVERYTHING!
At some point, I couldn't take it anymore, I was so stressed and almost depressed because there was never a time that both were happy... So I wanted to see a psych, and it took me 10 minutes on the first session when she asked, "What's making you stuck?" where I realized that I DON'T HAVE TO CARE.
I talked to both K and L and said that either things are going to go my way or we'll just never talk again. Of course, L took the victim position and started putting the blame on me, but this time I was aware of his play, so I just didn't care, and he felt, after 7 years, that for once I know what he's doing.
Shortly after, I traveled abroad to continue my degree, and so I stopped talking to L, not even a single message for 4 years!
New events:
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Last year, I (24M here) came back to my home country for two weeks, and I went to chill in a restaurant with some old friends of that same group.One of my friends told me he would take me with his car, so I agreed.
By "coincidence," while we were there, one of my friends happened to get video called randomly by L, he picked up and talked about a random topic, and then L asked where he was and said that he would join.
I got so stressed, and I directly asked for the bill to leave (they felt it, of course, but I didn't care). Unfortunately, the bill took some time to arrive, and L got there and joined us.
We stayed for like 15 minutes chatting, and then while we were leaving, L asked the guy who drove me to leave, and he insisted that he would drive me home.
He just asked about my uni and superficial things, then he randomly mentioned that he opened up a business and wanted to show me the place, which was on our way. Didn't get much say in this since he asked so nicely, we went there and again were alone there.
Then he said he wanted to talk to me about what happened, and I SAID NO. I was never so proud of myself, I WAS ABLE TO SAY NO. And he insisted, AND I SAID NO, and he insisted again, AND I SAID NO AGAIN. I didn't know I had it in me, but it felt so good (I know for some it seems so easy, but for me it was one of the hardest things I could do).
In the end, he kept insisting, so I said I'm not ready and we could meet the week after to discuss whatever he wants. Then once he drove me home, I sent him a message the day after saying I won't have time before I have to go back abroad.
Guess what he did here? He decided to write me a huge paragraph explaining the whole thing (even though I explicitly said I don't want to talk) and saying that he discovered he's gay and he apologizes for the behavior (btw, he never even said he's gay, he just talked in an abstract way to make me understand it). I didn't reply....
Me today:
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I am a happy bi man now, I didn't let this experience make me fear people or relationships, and I have learned a lot.
I have never ever told this to anyone, but some days I just have this urge to reply to his message and explain that he's a narcissist pedophile because I have no doubt that in his brain, he has an explanation for everything and he wanted "the best" for me all the time. Cause I have even heard stories from common friends that he's saying bad things about me and that I did him wrong (of course he is the victim).
Which brings me to where I need advice (after so many paragraphs sorry):
Should I reply and tell him how much of an asshole he is? Or should I just continue living my happy life and forget about him?
I
feel I want to scream at his face and even hit him until he's heavily injured :) (I won't do it though, dw).
For those (if any) who read until here, thank you so much! I feel so much better writing everything, and I hope if anyone reading gets stuck in a similar cycle, they take this post as a wake-up call..
TL;DR: Lived a terrible life because of a narcissistic asshole for 7 years; should I confront him 5 years later or no?