DAE realise that many "friendships" were mostly you people-pleasing, and others benefitting?

Yes, definitely. Two in particular hurt me a lot. One I knew from pre-school to the end of high school. She repeatedly bullied, abandoned, and took advantage of me but I didn't want to see it. I think she had a lot more positive people in her life that she felt confident using me as she didn't care if I liked her or not as she didn't see me as having worth. Meanwhile, I was desperately clinging to anyone that had ever been remotely kind to me. Now I see her posting about how being bullied briefly was difficult for her. I wonder if she ever things of how she treated me all those years, especially in the final year where she encouraged others to bully me.

The other person was someone that sat next to me in every class for a few years in high school and copied everything I did. I remember begging her to be my best friend but she was best friends with someone else. I invited her to my home and she made a really lame excuse not to come and never even met me outside school. Years later I found her instant messager name and added her. When I started a conversation it was clear she didn't even care to pretend to show interest.

In both cases I had people telling me what was happening but I refused to acknowledge it, even though I knew it was true. There are other times too when people would do something quite cruel to my face and I just brushed it off like nothing happened. It never occurred to be to say anything because this type of treatment was normal for me.

/r/CPTSD Thread