LGBTQIAP+ Milestones: Book 4

A Lesson to be Learned

By djisthemomfren

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Hi. My name's DJ, (djisthemomfren on here) and until I figure it out(or not) I fit into the 'q'. I found out around a year ago and it ended pretty harshly.

We'll call her Bear. Bear was as the name might tell you- cute until you got too close. Over a course of four years, I came to learn that and it wasn't until last June that I did.

When I first met her, she was incredibly nice. We got to be best friends quickly. We didn't fight with the exception of one time. Eventually, a common friend at the time forced us to fix things. Bear didn't want to until she saw her mom coming. Out of nowhere, really, she grabbed half of my hair and yanked it as hard as she could. She looked at me with an innocent smile and said this:

"That's all I needed."

She acted like an angel when her mom was there. Looking back at that, that should've been an obvious sign. Friends don't refuse to apologise until they cause physical pain.

The next school year, she admitted something to me. She said that when our common friend introduced me, she hated me. She didn't want me around because she thought I would end her friendship with our other friend.

Throughout that year, I should have stopped the first time she ditched me. Several times I'd get into arguments and she never took my side and any time I got mad or even too quiet, she got mad and refused to have anything to do with me.

And yet, I still lingered. I became attached to her despite the verbal abuse. She often called me annoying, stupid, or full of myself. She told me I was self-centered because I When everything everyone called me finally came to hit me, I fell into this darkness. The depression that had apparently hidden for most of my life came out of nowhere. I started cutting and it was bad enough.

Then I told her.

That day, she became the friend I had before once again. She was kind. She told me to get some help and not to hide it from my mom, at the very least. It was probably that that did it.

I began questioning myself. I questioned myself until I realised that I had fallen for this girl who was seemingly perfect at the time. This past year, she got worse and I didn't see it. She didn't care about filtering what she said. I remember back in March how I had a very small YouTube channel and I did vlogs because they were easy. I filmed an event we went to. Even if I didn't upload any footage, I would still have something to remember the event. In April, I looked over the footage and remembered things that she did. She called my viewers assholes because she wanted to change in the main part of our hotel room, but couldn't because I was filming. She kicked the back of my chair and knocked me out of the chair. Seeing myself fall, I remembered how it hurt so bad, but I laughed and pretended I was fine. She also stole my phone and ran off knowing I wouldn't be able to catch up because I have juvenile arthritis.

Yet, I was still head over heels. Come the end of May, I decided to tell her. She took it by surprise and had me explain it to her, which I did do, but then she continued treating me like that.

I asked for a picture with her on the last day of school for the memory and she snapped at me with a no. She said yes to everyone else. She even did it in front of me. She did it without a care.

Close to the end of the day, Bear, two of her friends, and I were sitting in the library and they were taking pictures together while I sat. Bear told me to join them. I pointed out that there wasn't any room and she turned it on me like it was my fault that they were taking up that much space and that there wasn't room for me.

So I sat there.

It was only then that I started questioning our friendship.

June 20, 2017.

I talked to a reader who got a miniscule reference I slipped into a story. We got to be friends because we found out that she lives an hour away. She was almost like a mirror of me and I told her a little bit about Bear. She told me it was wrong just based on the one or two things I told her.

She got it into my head that it wasn't right. It helped me get over Bear and come to terms with it. However, it was only as I was writing this that I fully understood.

Bear was verbally abusive, and every once in a while physically. I called her a bitch once and she acted like I'd killed her family. It didn't matter who it was, they were better than me and got treated better.

I don't want anyone else to deal with this. I was almost clean for a year. I had almost gone a year without cutting and something she said ruined it in March. A friendship like that is toxic. I just need everyone reading this to know that if you have anyone like this in your life, do everything you can go get away. It can and will ruin you. I used to be confident. I want to say I am now, but I don't look in the mirror and see "pretty". I don't look at my schoolwork and see "smart". Bear ruined me. She dealt the final blow. I only had one consistent friend throughout that, and he's only been around for a bit over a year.

I just want to say one more thing.

If you ever feel insufficient because of someone else, I'm always free to talk. Everyone should have someone. No one should have anyone like Bear.