Abusive Friendships and Their Tolls

Friendships come in all shapes and sizes. There is the kind of friendship where you can go over their house at 3am and make spaghetti with them, sit down with them, and binge watch cop shows. There is the kind of friendship that you can pour your heart out all you want and know your secret is safe within the boundaries of your friendship. But, as I learned, not all friendships benefit you and some friends act like parasites instead of saviors.

This is my story on how I had to make some decisions. Hard decisions that kept me up all night and caused me to toss and turn for hours on end. Decisions that, in the end, made me a better person.

Flashback to when I met her. I was a freshman and I befriended her older brother, who was in my grade and had the same interests as me. He invited me one day to watch a movie with him, his girlfriend whom I was childhood friends with, and his little sister. Over the course of the day, his sister and I bonded, eventually becoming good friends. A year later, I had her in my piano class and we bonded even more. We kept in contact up to my senior year; she is a year younger than me, so the age difference isn't too far off. She even helped me through a bad breakup and I even gave her advice on her relationships. Everything seemed like a normal friendship; one I cherished and appreciated.

My senior year was when red flags popped up. Looking back, I realized there was a lot more than I thought. She had another really good friend that she made recently. The two of them worked, it seems, as one person and had similar thoughts and actions. That's how close they became. Eventually, the three of us went on adventures together.

The two of them loved to smoke weed and do other drugs such as acid. I was never really somebody who was interested in this kind of thing until I hung out with them. Most of my best memories with them were drug-induced. One of the red flags that first popped up was how they treated me during these times. I felt as if I was the target of the teasing and the bullying. I did something wrong and slurs were thrown at me. Whenever I tried to act the same way to them, they called me out. I assumed it was just how they were when they were high and I brushed it off. I remember back in May, sitting in my bed and crying on the phone to my closest friend and asking why I was like this, thinking it was just me being dumb. I felt like a 6 year old around them.

Another red flag was that I could never say no to hanging out. They would just show up at my house to drag me out or make me feel terrible for not wanting to hang out with them. It was emotionally draining sometimes to the point where I would just tell them there was a family emergency to get out of it. And I could only make up so many excuses.

The final straw for me was when I threw one of them a birthday party. I didn't receive a single thank you. I did it out of the kindness of my heart, used my resources, and got other friends to make it amazing. My house was a mess; at 5am, while they smoked out on my porch, I as well as her older brother and his best friend cleaned my whole house until it sparkled. I kicked them out, even giving them bus money so they'd be out of my house faster (which, I know, was a dumb idea), and they complained that it wasn't enough.

I decided to cut them off immediately. I mustered the courage to tell them that I no longer wanted to be their friends in our group chat (with one other friend) and they both called me slurs. Every slur in the book was said. My other friend agreed with me and they called them slurs too. It never ended with them. One of them even threatened to hurt me.

I have been considering cutting them off for the longest time. The only reason I hesitated was because I saw them daily; we did the announcements together and it was hard to just abandon the friendship. Now that I'm going to college, I know that seeing them will be very rare. I was also afraid that I would lose other friends because of it. After the birthday incident, I decided that it would be worth it. I watched my mental health decline as well as other friendships. They alienated me from a really good friend, whom I've been reconnecting with recently. Many people have supported my decision to break out of this friendship as they've seen my decline, too.

I wanted to write this not only to vent about the situation, but I want to let the reader know that abusive friendships are terrible to live through. Don't miss the signs like I did. This was a learning experience for me and I have emerged from this into a better person. Cutting them off was a great decision for my mental health and I'm slowly getting better.