#otherwise why were they always bitchy about the other having a gf and immediately having to try and get one of their own?

[lovecolibri]

The "very close talking" scene from the Bounty Hunters episode of Psych, but make it Buddie. One of them (at this point it should be Eddie) makes their intentions clear but gives the other the time and space to be ready. Come on ABC, don't let us down!

[glass--winged]

Who do you want out of your life the most? (from the thingy)

Ooh, that’s not a difficult one. Gonna have to shove this one under the cut…

I love the people around me right now. You are all incredible. I feel warm and safe and loved around you guys, because you all support me so wonderfully. I have left my demons behind me. But there are three people (and a friendship group) I would like to remove from the past I have, because they were far more damaging than I ever realised.

First, the friendship group. Little age-13 me didn’t understand that not everyone has a fear of being mean. That not everybody was as kind as I tried to be. They taught me that going to talk to the support staff was a betrayal of their trust. That those people should not be trusted. I wasted away through the following years, afraid of talking to the support staff about anything. My problems weren’t as bad as theirs, that friendship group taught me, so I shouldn’t jeapordise them by talking about them.

That sort of ruined everything.

The first girl - part of that friendship group, I’m around 14/15 by this point - was my “best friend”. A girl who I talked to the most, despite what she did to me. She was almost consistently mean and put me down all the time, but I was - and still am - like a little devoted puppy, convinced that someday it would change. I was partnered with her in Drama - my favourite subject - by virtue of the fact nobody else wanted to work with us, and I made the best of it. She could be nice when she wanted to be, but other times she was a nightmare. She would come into a lesson and flatly refuse to work, leaving me at a loss - no point doing a duologue alone - so I’d have to just sit down and do nothing for the hour. If she did decide to work, and I wanted a break between run-throughs, I wasn’t allowed them - she would insult me and kick me in the legs until I stood up again and carried on. She told me I was “naive” and “didn’t understand the real world” because I tried to be optimistic. She once kicked me hard enough in the shin to leave me limping for a while, and I let her laugh at me for it. It got to the point where I had to beg my teacher to put me into another group because I saw no way out. I said that I didn’t want to come to lessons anymore. I was moved away for devised work for a little while, but once we moved back to script, I had no choice but to move back into a pair with her.

We were invited to do a performance of our piece at a local theatre in a drama showcase, because it was so good - perfect score, our teacher told us. This girl told me that she didn’t want to do it, and that she’d already told the teacher that we weren’t going to go. I didn’t have a say in it - I was desperate to perform it, but figured the deed was done. On the day after the show had been on, I went into my form room, and my teacher called me to his desk and demanded to know why we didn’t turn up, when we were on the running list and everything. They’d had to do an emergency switch-round because we weren’t there, and we’d disappointed people who’d paid to come and see the showcase. This girl hadn’t told my teacher at all. She’d just decided she didn’t want to do it.I left that whole friendship group after that.

I met another girl, who quickly became my new best friend - funny, silly, nerdy, an absolute delight to be around. We did everything together for almost three years. But then something changed when we got into Year 12, when we were 16. We blustered our way into a friendship group that started out wonderful, but steadily got more and more toxic as the year went on. There was a messy breakup between an old female “friend” and a new male one, and the friendship group’s “ringleader” of sorts forced everyone to pick a side. The female friend was notorious for blowing things way out of proportion, and manipulating people to sympathise with her. To side with the boy, or stay neutral, they said, was siding with an abuser. I tried to stay neutral and mediate. It was incredibly hard when the female friend and the “ringleader” were planning to steal this boy’s belongings and burn them, especially when I would never believe for a single second that the boy would hurt anyone. He was not that kind of person. Because I tried to stay neutral, I was ostracised from the friendship group - including by my own best friend - via the “silent treatment”, a well-used tactic from this female friend. To this day, I am still petrified of conflict, and I get incredibly panicky being in even the same room as an argument - all for fear of being forced to pick a side.

When the “ringleader” left at the end of Year 12, everything died down, and it was just me, my “best friend”, and that female “friend” once more. I thought it was all going to be okay. They didn’t mention the things from before. I thought everything had blown over, that we were going to be friends again. But something was different. My best friend and that female friend began dating - fine, okay, fair enough. It’s not my place to interfere. I was wary, of course I was, because the girl’s last breakup had been messy, but… I just let it carry on.This female friend changed her.

Just like her new girlfriend, my best friend became catty, bitchy, snapped at me more often than not, made jokes at my expense. I still said nothing. Not worth mentioning to the support staff, I thought, they have other things to worry about. But then it got worse. I put up with a whole month of this, but still called them my closest friends. But there came one day where I made a really stupid joke, one I could have sworn I’d said before, and my old best friend stormed outside. I thought she was just doing a “nope” reaction, and continued to laugh, not knowing she was serious in her anger. They both blew up at me. I tried to apologise, knowing I’d hurt them, but they wouldn’t take it because it “wasn’t good enough” - another common tactic of this other friend. I apologised as best I could, multiple times,  but they responded by “silent treatment”-ing me again, saying that I “hadn’t apologised enough” - so I needed to apologise more, even though they wouldn’t let me talk to them in the first place. Fair enough. I guess I can respect that. People don’t have to forgive.

But they used it as an excuse to abuse me.

I ended up enduring my worst long-term experience to date, from October 2016 to June 2017. Every day was another fear of more insults, more ignoring of my existence, more abuse. Standout highlights (with BF as “best friend” and “GF” as best friend’s girlfriend) include:

A shitty pun was made in the group, and BF exclaiming “I regret being friends with all of you”. When GF pushed her to apologise for it, she went around the group pointing at people, saying “don’t regret”. She got to me, said “yep, definitely regret being friends with you”, and then carried on with “don’t regret” for the rest of the group. GF then said “no, you can’t regret being friends with [Ducky], you’d never have met me otherwise!" 

The two of them glared at me for ages, setting me really on edge and making me anxious, because my memory is so unreliable I think I’ve done something wrong. They knew this from previous years. When I asked what I’d done they laughed and said "we just like to watch you freak out”. 

I was sitting brushing my hair and trying to ignore them while they quite obviously talked about me while sitting right next to me. I tried to look oblivious and GF said, out loud, “wow she’s completely oblivious to the fact we’re talking about her, isn’t she?”. BF immediately responded with “well yeah, it’s because her head’s always up her ass”. That caused complete silence in the group, and multiple people told her to apologise. She flatly refused. She said she didn’t need to apologise. 

On the same day, I heard her say - right next to me - “I’m allowed to be rude to [Ducky]”. 

There are many more I won’t get into right now, because this post has got ridiculously long, but I hope I’ve given enough reason to want these memories gone. These people almost broke me. I’m still recovering from them. I might be going into therapy for it.

But, as with all things, there is a silver lining.

If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that I never want to see anyone go through the pain that I did. I swore always to be kind, and honest, and loving. To try to brighten others’ days when they might seem bleak. To forgive, and listen, and move on. That’s the world I want to see.

Here’s to 2018, surrounded by new friends.