#our theater teacher wondered why we didnt act that great during class as we did during lunch

[ikiiky]

WAIT HOLD ON BC I WAS LOOKING UP MINION MEMES TO USE IRONICALLY LIKE A SECOND AGO

[u-l-i-a-n]

Long triggering story ahead

Make sure to check the tags before reading further to keep yourself safe, okay?

Anyways, here’s the story of my abusive friendship that lasted 8 years.

I can pretty confidently say 2017-2018 was the hardest year of my life so far, but it was also the one that set me free from HER (avoiding naming her bc you could definitely find her otherwise)

I’m very very bad at math, so bad that I ended up having to repeat my last year of middle school, and I’d decided to go to the other middle school in the area so i wouldn’t have the same teachers. I was pretty quickly adopted into a fairly large friend group that liked to hang out in the library, SHE was apart of that friend group. she also sat next to me in math class, and we very quickly became friends that were nearly inseparable. 

At this point in time i’d gone a few years without any real friends and my social skills were very poor, as well as my anxiety rendering me nearly mute (it still does this, but it was worse before) as i was the closest with HER, she became my “anchor” in most social situations, where i could be comfortable talking with everyone if she was talking too.

This, was where the abuse started. Where she would playfully hit me in the arm. HARD. every day, multiple times a day. I’d complain and rub my arm and she would dismiss me saying she “hadn’t hit me that hard” (I got it confirmed with another person she let one of her punches out on that it was hard as hell, and lord help you if you hit her back with the same strength)

This went on throughout high-school, along with more and more manipulation, and emotional abuse. If i did something without her approval she would be angry with me, she wanted me to keep my hair long and would get angry when i cut it, even if it looked better. If i was getting new glasses and decided on a style that she hadn’t picked out she’d be angry with me, if i wanted to see a movie she didn’t want it would take weeks of begging and making deals to watch things i had no interest in to appease her.

It was frustrating, and we argued CONSTANTLY on every little thing. She lied, pathologically, and would always try and prove herself right by yelling and hitting me in the arm until i backed down, even on things that were obviously incorrect (like: ”all raccoons are born with rabies, only gay men can get aids, japan is filthy and people shit in the streets, Spanish is the same thing and Mexican” i know, fucking crazy)

*There was one particular event that took place sometime between freshman and junior year, where on the multiple prompting of “she’ll stop hitting you if you hit her back and don’t back down” where I took that advice, and in my bedroom when she was staying over (as she did nearly every weekend, even if i didnt want her to) she’d hit me during an argument and I hit her back, this went back and forth until she got angry and angrier, until suddenly i was on my back with her hands wrapped around my throat. I remember staring at her in the eyes, until slowly she let me go. She said she didn’t know what happened, that she had “blacked out”. She didn’t apologize. I forgave her.

During this time, the friend group that we were apart of bisected and grew in different parts, some being the kids interested in theater and some being interested in other nerdy things, like video games and anime. A lot of the time, the few other friend that i had that weren’t HER often asked me “why are you still friends with her, she treats you like shit” and you may also be wondering at this point “Ulian what the hell why were you still around this person???”

Well, I’d convinced myself that she needed me, like i had once needed her as a buffer and anchor for social interaction, that i somehow owed her my patience and forgiveness for the things she did, and continued to do.

A certain event led to us breaking apart for a time, that event being her handing me a letter after several weeks of telling me how angry she was that i continued to interact with someone she didn’t like (even after she’s lied about the person being mean to her, but at this point i knew over half the things she said were lies) the letter, in briefest terms, was her blaming me and how i acted for her wanting to kill herself. She literally wrote the words “You make me want to kill myself”(hypocritical since her stance on self-harm was that people only did so for attention and people who committed suicide were weak) I couldn’t handle it, I couldn’t handle the idea that something i did would have made someone want to die, and couldn’t handle that she’d just slip me a letter about it while at school and expect me to be fine.

My depression got worse, i avoided her for a time and my mental health was bad enough that it had a physical effect on me that other people commented on. I thought i was sick, and missed about a week of school.

eventually, and unfortunately, we made up. With me conditioning that she needed to treat me better, specifically “hey stop hitting me maybe??” and for the most part she did, slowly she stopped hitting me and things were much better. for awhile at least.

skipping forward a bit, we graduated, and she convinced me to go with her to college (we lasted 2 semesters and then stopped). Eventually she convinced me to start working with her at our local grocery store (bad idea) She constantly pointed out that my home life was shit and I was eager to move out of the house, and after finding a third roommate, I was living in the same house as HER (horrible idea)

although her hitting me was now something that happened very rarely, her manipulative tendencies and emotional abuse increased. And also spread to the people around us. While living together, any small mistake i made was blown up out of proportion (like not doing the dishes when she said to even though she never ever did them) and she made it seem as if i was lazy, as if i was childish and needed her in order to function. she made it so the way she treated me made sense to other people, and that i deserved how she was acting towards me.

She even threw me a kiddie themed birthday party for my 21st birthday, with a bunch of baby decorations, like think winnie the pooh themed stuff.

She constantly undermined everything i said or did, made me out to be irresponsible, invaded my privacy by forcing me to let her use my phone and computer and give her access to it, told people my secrets that i told her in confidence and bad mouthed me behind my back (as i found out from our 3rd roommate and also my GRANDMOTHER)

She also made me feel as if I couldn’t return home, that my home life (which isnt great but no one is degrading or hitting me hmmm) was horrible and that i couldn’t go back there, which i later realized was her manipulating me into feeling as if i HAD to stay with her and had no where else to go.

Living with her made all the things she did and the horrible way she treated me pile up, and left me short tempered. I knew that something needed to change, and I thought that I could get through to her and have her change how she was behaving.

We argued again, after the time she had choked me i’d backed down quite a bit, and started hating arguing since i knew she’d never listen to me. This time, once again, i argued and didn’t back down when she yelled at me.

So she SCREAMED at me, loud enough to make the house shake and have my cat try to intervene, and she threw the closest object she could find at me full force (a penny, but still scary as hell in context)

I was quiet, and I waited for a time for her to calm down. i asked “Are we going to talk about this.” and she replied “No.” And i walked out the door.

Because when i get truly, viscerally angry or upset, my response is to remove myself from the problem. I walked out the door into the night to calm myself down, shaken from the realization of the situation i was in and knowing that I couldn’t stay with her.

I began telling our other roommate and her boyfriend about the things she would say to me about them when they weren’t around, I’m not very proud of going against someones trust but at this point i was desperate to have someone on my side and willing to help me get away from her when our lease was up.

During this time she had manipulated me into coming to conclusions that i would NEVER come to on my own, such as thinking our roommate who had clinical depression only wanted attention, which is something that someone who also has depressions and many friends with depression and actively learns and cares for people with mental health issues wouldn’t ever think on my own. its not in me to think badly of other people for no reason, while she (her words) hated everyone around her by default.

eventually our roommate confronted her, and she managed to twist things around and cause a lot of tension, leaving me feeling trapped and hopeless in a house with someone who had the potential to hurt me, and also my pet cat.

She threatened things i cared about and intentionally tried to upset me, specifically threatening my cat, who is a huge emotional support for me. It sounds funny, saying i was upset because she threatened my cat, she and her mom laughed about it. no one laughs when i tell them what she was saying.

Things like “I’m going to hold her down in the drive way and have (roommate) run her over” and “I’m going to shove her in the oven and cook her alive for you to find her when you come home”

Yea, not funny. you can see why i was upset about it. She apparently couldn't, and refused to stop even when i asked her to repeatedly.

She also fully knew that i was pansexual, hell i was the reason she was even slightly okay with people in the LGBT+ community. She wasn’t great about specifically me though, and when i told her about being nonbinary she made fun of my chose name (called me Uvula) and refused to call me by my preferred pronouns.

When I came out to our roommates she said she would never call me by that stupid name or by they/them because i don’t “act nonbinary” (get a load of this guy)

Her last day in the house, she was upset with me for going into her room to take back my heated blanket that she’d taken from my room without permission (my room was cold as hell, i wasn't going to wait for her to come home at 1 am and and she already had a heated mattress pad)

I took it back of course, and our roommate asked what she was upset about (roommate and her bf had bought some food they didn't want to share, which we already discussed was fine) I told her honestly and carefully didn't badmouth HER since she was already mad, and i wanted things to be less stressful.

She blew up at me while we were at work and came for her things that night to go back to her parents house. we took care of her cat until she could figure something out for it.

During this time and the time i last saw her, several things happened, since unfortunately we worked together

She cornered me in the bottle trailer (literally a semi-truck that has bottle returns in it in huge bins. she was standing at the door and could close it at any time) and called me a horrible friend, and also a huge bitch, while we were supposed to be working and she was in a position of power over me. I panicked and said nothing.

She often made me up to an hour late for my lunches, since she was promoted to manager, and liked to skip my breaks and all around treat me like shit compared to every one else.

Despite all of this. . . I still felt as if i could forgive her, if she somehow proved she could do better that i could be friends with her again. Until she ruined that for herself by telling me that my dead father would be dissapointed in the way i was acting.

 No. hell no. I was done, she didn’t deserve my forgiveness. And i finally realized that it wasn’t my job to “fix” her.

When the lease ended I moved back in with my parents, and I quit working at that job in September.

I haven’t seen her in over half a year and many of the people who knew me when she and I were close have commented on how much happier i am, and how much more confident i am in myself.

I’m sure i’ve missed a lot of things, and I know I didn’t really go over the positives of our relationship (There were some! i swear!) but if i did go over everything it would be the length of a novel.

I got away from someone who was hurting me, I decided my happiness was more important than catering to someones every whim, decided that i deserved happiness. And I learned to NEVER let someone treat me like that again, to surround myself with people who make me happy.

I hope, in whatever way, this story of my 8 year horrible friendship helped you.

And if SHE is reading this. . . Go fuck yourself.