Dealing with someone who is Narcissistic was truly frightening and eye opening

TLDR; I found out my highschool friend is a narcissist the hard way

I'm lucky I could easily cut this person out of my life or she cut me out... but I feel so bad for her toddlers.

Little back story, I'm 30 and I reconnected with a highschool friend (let's call her G) about a year or so ago. We connected because we both have kids around the same age. we only talked over the phone and I kind of turned into a therapist for G. I truly pittied her situation, she had 2 dead beat baby daddies, family issues, and wanted to land a boyfriend by sleeping around. well that should have been enough red flags but I was lacking friends so it was nice talking to people again.

Anyways, G and I had been talking about getting together and getting the kids together. So when G made a trip to a beach near me with her kids and boyfriend I thought it would be fun to meet up there. And we did and it wasn't too bad nothing crazy happened. Maybe random rage here or there at kids or boyfriend but nothing to make me question it.

So about a month later she asks to do a girl's trip to the beach again with no kids. okay sounds fun. it's not bad hanging out with her until the switch flips. oh my God, I thought I knew what a narcissist was like until I really experienced it. she drives 5 hours to me and I drive us 5 hours to the beach. she's lacking sleep a lot me a little as well. and anyways we talk and joke the whole way there and we pull up and she's asking why I didn't send her the gate or door code. I tell her I must've forgot and I'll pull it up now. well the switch flips and I'm so flustered I can't even look up the codes. she calls me names is yelling at me. saying I'm being disrespectful, how she could have the codes pulled up if I sent them just going off on me. I'm in shock, like what?! over codes that I can send you right now if you give me the chance cause you never even asked for them specifically...

I literally park by the gate and get out of the car to take some breaths as it is absolutely impossible to talk to her. She can't rationalize anything, she's just gone going off incapable of critical thinking, empathy, kindness... just being mean over a simple fixable mistake? a miscommunication? I don't even know. I'm literally crying and can't look at her and tell her I won't be talked to like that and if the trip is going to be like this then it is not worth it. I would rather drive home.

After some silence and sulking on my end, and her pretending nothing happened. She finally said sorry and talked about being tired, whatever. we hugged and went to the beach. a few days go by and it's her birthday. we go out to eat and get her drinks and go to a bar and get her drunk because that's what she wanted to do. honestly it was all fine and fun and the next day she went to lay on the beach hungover and I had work to do. She lays out all day in the sun drinks fluids but doesn't eat anything and is just exhausted that night after dinner.

She starts freaking out because she fears she gave herself a concussion the night before because she hit herself in the head with her phone a few times while talking with her boyfriend (news to me). She wants me to take her to urgent care at 11 at night because she has medical anxiety and thinks she has a brain bleed or something because she feels dizzy. I try to reassure her but still offer to drive her because like what if something really was wrong... Mind you, we have to wake up early in the morning and checkout by 9 am and I'm driving.

so otw to urgent care 15 min away my E light is about to come on so I stop to get gas. We were going to split gas on the trip so I asked if she wanted to get this one with her credit card because she told me shed rather put purchases on her card. and the switch flips... she made some sarcastic bitchy remark about why she wouldn't have her credit card because she might have a brain bleed and why would she need her card for the urgent care etc. and my jaw is dropped and I'm like F*ck U!. and she loses it. I step out of my car with my keys so I don't have to isten to it.

I walk away from my car and call my partner because my heart is racing like I'm not good at confrontation. she gets out and I put my partner on speaker so he can listen. she comes to cuss me out and yell at me amd just be as mean as possible bringing up past shit like my mom was right to yell at me this time I told her about. and I'm just silent or maybe I called her crazy or psycho because wtf is happening. but like she's gone I know she's gone. my survival mode kicks in and it takes me multiple attempts to get her to let me speak. once she was listening I explained I don't care about the money I'll cover it, didn't mean to offend you etc. just whatever it took to de-escalate the situation. got her in the car and to urgent care and was just in shock, feeling the adrenaline wear off.

we leave the next morning hardly speaking and acting half normal with each other. I drive us back to my house and on the way back I put my headphones in because G tries to sleep. I need to pee and a bucees is coming up so as I'm pulling off she asks why we are getting off here and I say I need to pee and G says not bucees because it'll take too long and starts to go off and I had no idea I was not allowed to stop at bucees and I just slowly put my headphone back in my ear paying her no mind but feeling on edge. we are in and out of the lot in less than 10 min. and back on the road. we get to my house get G's stuff in her car, and she leaves, no byes, no thank yous, no sorry's. She packed some waters in her car from my car that I thought were mine and she thought were hers, whatever. she drives off and I jump up and down flipping her car off and shaking all the anger off I had for the way she treated me.

I tried to text G about the water and said maybe she should pay me for gas. G blocked me and deleted me on everything, because she's the victim right? whatever. it took me a few days to shake off the trauma from the trip. just thinking back on it, the most surprising thing about dealing with a narcissist is not knowing what will flip their switch. truly terrifying. G is a single mom with 2 toddlers, two dead beat dads, little family help because most of them have cut her off. I feel so bad for her kids who I know will be getting the brunt of her outbursts as they grow up.

I also found out during the trip that G only asked me to go on the trip, because her boyfriend didn't want to go with her. And um I guess I know why he didn't want to go with her now. I can't blame him though. on the trip, G was calling him starting fights, breaking up with him, and making him cry, would be proud of that, and then get back together with him. she's also been trying for baby 3 with him. just sad all around.