Known enemies. Unsuspected allies.

[Dutch Uncle]

Yesterday I had a nasty experience.
I felt incredibly invalidated by somebody. Not that this person had said anything bad to me, but was sympathetic to somebody else. I wanted that sympathy! 

A few months ago I had a similar experience, involving a dear friend. Then it took weeks to snap out of it, after I had felt bad about it, and in particular I felt resentful towards this friend, for weeks.
Now it only lasted for a few hours. So there's progress.

I guess it has to do with abandonment issues. Not that it matters that much, it's the experience of snapping out of it that counts.
With the dear friend it easier to tell the story, as some of the background I already shared here:
No X-mas with 'mom'.

So my DramaMom had send us Adult Children & Adult Grandchildren an invitation for her birthday-party. The invitation sucked. It was a set up for Drama, by drawing on everlasting ancient Drama: The wife of my sis can't stand DramaMom and has been NC with her for ages. She NEVER attends my 's birthday, ever. But what does the invitation say? "I want to invite you [Adult (grand)Children], for [some sort of event Y]. First I'm informing you, and then later I'l invite [sis's wife], [bro's wife], [bro's daughter], [bro's son], [granson1's GF] and [grandson2's GF]. Offcourse I would love it when everybody comes ...Let me know."
Now, I didn't need that big-a-push to not attend her party, but this invitation had me steaming the minute I read it. (took a while to see why, but that's probably the EF's dissociation or so)
I declined the invitation after half an hour (that really is much quicker than I remember, but time-codes on e-mail doesn't lie) with: "I'm not attending your birthday-party this year. I wish you a nice day and success with the further organization." (<--- I guess that's a passive-aggressive way of letting DramaMom know 'why'. Or an MC way of disengaging. In any case, it feels appropriate to me.)

A few days later I spoke with dear friend on this, and she blew up: "Do these people (=my FOO) ever respect ANY BOUNDARY?!" and then she was upset on behalf of DramaSis and her wife.  Aaarggghhh!!! I felt so invalidated. Yes, she was right, but I had to take all this crap too! I wanted to be validated for staying away from this mess, I guess.
I didn't tell dear friend this, I 'froze' (or 'fawned' ?) I guess. Rationally my friend was right, so I couldn't argue with it.

It took me a few weeks to see that in fact she had validated me (and my feelings) as she was as upset as me, for the very same reason no less. It is the DramaMom digging up the Drama for effect. And it is an incredible boundary violation of (first) my SiL, (second) my 'sis', and (third) all the rest of us: me, bro, the sons of 'sis'&SiL and everybody else 'attached' to us and 'invited' for Drama.
The fact that I was not specifically addressed in the anger-outburst of this dear friend was not a devaluation of my experience. Even if I felt 'left out' at the very moment.
After realizing this I could (internally) reconnect myself to said friend, and (internally) restore my bond with her, that had been under pressure for these weeks in between.
What did the trick for me in the end (or during the process I gather) was that I kept reaffirming to myself that this was a dear friend, who has validated me so much over the last past years, who has validated the obnoxious behavior by my FOO as dysfunctional when I told her about, who has been supportive of me through all this, so it simply couldn't be that she had now 'taken sides with' DramaSis and had 'forgotten' about me.

Yesterday I had an almost exact experience. Went through a same process.
But now within hours.

I have the feeling, which is also a hope and wish, that this is a step forward to reconnecting with trust in those who can be trusted. Instead of breaking of relationships with those who can be trusted over a 'small' and 'misinterpreted' faux pas. I was close to doing that, in both occasions. And I have done such in the past, I know.

Given the example of DramaMom above, that is no small wonder: I (or my Inner Child) do want and need to trust my mother. But she can only be trusted to create a train wreck.
I've been dealt a stacked deck.
And I'm doing well by building my own deck myself nowadays, through recovery.

Thanks for reading.

[Kizzie]

I can hear your need for care loud and clear  Dutch   Perhaps you are presenting the side of you that does not need/want that to your friends? 

Now that you are so well aware of your own needs (and isn't that great recovery!?), maybe you could invite them to respond by being outward about your feelings in these situations with your FOO.  That is, after explaining the situation talk about how it makes you feel so they know you are in need of comfort/ understanding. Sometimes when I think things inside should be obvious to my H, I realize that it's not.  It's not that he doesn't care, he can and does put 2 and 2 together oftentimes, but other times I need to be direct. 

I just had a similar situation with a friend who was hinting that she was having difficulty and I was trying to respond but wasn't quite connecting I could tell.  In the end I was direct, then I knew what was going on and how to respond. 

Just my to cents FWIW 

[Dutch Uncle]

A good two cents.

I need to ponder it though. 

Thanks.