#Although...the grapevine tells me that two of them are drug addicts who can't hold down a job and the third is in jail.

[angstmonsterwrites]

Back when I was 22, I moved in to a fairly nice townhouse with a group of people I thought were friends.

There were red flags the three years that led up to that point that suggested they might not be the best caliber of people-- enough that one year prior, I was putting some distance between myself and one of them. She confronted me on it, and I lied, telling her that work had simply gotten too rough. I didn't know what else to do, and I was lonely enough to convince myself I could make it work. She and her brother had an unkind father, so I felt for them. Enough that I ignored the ball of dread accumulating in the pit of my stomach.

Before the move, we agreed on obligations for expenses and rent. We were barely in the new place a week before a third roommate I hadn't agreed to was added in the name of helping with expenses.

I still wound up paying for much more than I had agreed to. I was the only one who ever cleaned. The facade of being a welcomed part of the friend group felI completely apart, as I was excluded household outings if I didn't invite myself, which would then always turn awkward. I tried to cling to the idea of self sacrifice as a comforting virtue to survive until the lease was up, but depression began to set in.

When I finally started to complain, their passive-aggressive disrespect turned to outright contempt. They accused me of being self-pitying and dramatic. Selfish. When one of them finally walked in on a suicide attempt, he snapped at me, saying that my "childish temper tantrums" needed to stop, and that no one owed me anything.

It was at that point that it crystallized I had been deliberately and maliciously used and manipulated. It wasn't a matter of misunderstanding or poor communication. A perfect stranger might have reacted more compassionately.

I had to take out a loan to pay off my share of the remaining lease contract because of how cash-strapped I'd become, but I felt I needed out as soon as possible for my safety. 10 months was too much already. And I finally allowed myself to be angry--the kind cold, icy anger that knows it's earned its place.

Unfortunately, that was not the end of the damage. Although it's been 15 years, I only recently made the connection: After that, anytime I've struggled with depression, I become hyper-focused on my social anxiety and feel like I'm still on the receiving end of all that contempt. My mind weaves cruel narratives about how everyone around me secretly believes that my grief and stress are nothing more than self pity and childish fits. And I feel that I must then try to hide it, downplay it to avoid cruel reactions. To some extent, I shut down. Seeking support honestly and directly feels almost taboo for fear it might be perceived and scorned or punished as histrionic attention-seeking.

Growing up, my alcoholic parents instilled in me way too much stranger danger, a strict ideal that embarrassment was to be avoided at any cost, and the belief that if anyone ever hurt me, it would be my own fault for failing to be careful enough. This left me socially awkward, perfectionistic, lacking in confidence, and probably set me up to fail. But not even that measures up to what happened in my early 20's with those now-ex-friends. The occasional bout of depression I already had turned into a trauma trigger, and I am deeply insecure socially, riddled with unearned guilt.

Imagine that you can scarcely ask a housemate for a favor or strike up conversation with friends without feeling like you've broken into their house, cleaned out their refrigerator, pooped on the carpet, and kidnapped their dog--all because you were feeling too down at the time. Imagine living in constant fear that your mental health struggles will be downplayed, your emotions dismissed as insincere or too dramatic. And that's before realizing that having one's entire social life collapse without being at fault strains credibility no matter how true it is, and that many people might just assume you had to have been the asshole in that situation somehow.

Imagine the effort it takes to resist believing that most of the world operates just like those three did. Especially after these past couple of years.