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Ask Amy: Traumatized friend now causes more concern

Amy Dickinson, Tribune Content Agency on

Dear Amy: A decade back, as a Latino college student in my 30s, I became friends with an older Black student.

We have been friends ever since. I’ve been supportive and helpful.

Right before the pandemic, she shared with me that she was confronting childhood sexual trauma.

She moved nearby, and I have been visiting with her once a month.

Since then, she has moved from one extreme to another regarding pandemic, anti-mask, election fraud, anti-Asian and anti-Semitic and “flat earth” conspiracies. Throughout, I have listened with curiosity and empathy, but she continues to dig in.

She is increasingly condescending to the point where it is harming me. She treats me as naive or stupid.

 

I get the feeling that she’s trying to have control over world events through her "research" about who "really controls our lives." I believe this is a substitute for not dealing with her trauma.

I was in therapy for five years before I felt competent and confronted my own trauma.

I want to tell her that I believe she is avoiding confronting her trauma by engaging in conspiracy theories to grasp control, but I have a feeling that's not the right route.

I also want to cut her off and not engage with her anymore, because she doesn't want to talk about anything else.

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