The Only Friends I've Ever Known

My two best friends are the worst people I’ve ever met in my life. They control me, torture me, manipulate me and love to watch me suffer. They thrive when I fail, they laugh when I cry, they feel immense joy when I’m thinking of ending it all. And when I’m with them, it happens often. They’re deathly black clouds that pour into my soul and fill up my once warm and gentle spirit with endless bounds of darkness. If I were to even consider the thought of not listening to them, they would hurt me even more, they would make me scream even louder and they would make me cry even harder.

I met the first friend in the seventh grade. It was a frigid, gloomy and depressing fall afternoon. The sun had hidden behind the gray clouds and the harsh winds blew away every chance at having a good day. I was at school, in a lifeless classroom with absurdly vibrant fluorescent lights and white washed walls with the paint peeling off. The room was in utter silence. It was as quiet as a museum, when suddenly, a girl began to burst into tears. She was a total mess: her hair was in complete disarray and her mascara had been smeared all over her face by her tears. She looked utterly frightened. She was extremely frantic and anxious. She needed someone to look after her. I offered to provide her with comfort and she accepted with much gratitude. We instantly became friends, spending every day together. Years passed of this constant routine of ours: her, needing my care and attention and me, always obliging. As time went on, she began to quickly preoccupy my every thought. My every worry was about her. Where was she? When was she going to come and see me? Was she going to be okay when I wasn’t around? What did she think about me? Did she like me? Was I a good enough friend to her? Was I worthy enough?

With every inch that she grew closer to me, she started to consume every part of me. She was constantly judging every single thing I did. I would absorb her every criticism about me, as if her judgement was water and I was the sponge.

“Why would you ever wear that? You look so disgusting.”

“You know you other friends don’t actually like you, right? They’re just lying to you.”

“Nobody cares about you, I’m the only that’ll ever stay by your side.”

“You have to start realizing that you’re worth nothing to anyone, so why would even dare to think any differently of yourself?”

This was my everyday, it was my morning, my afternoon and my night. I thought that it couldn’t get worse than this. That I couldn’t possibly be able to suffer anymore. That I couldn’t hate myself anymore than she had already made me. But then, I met another friend.

On a day in which I thought that maybe I could get a grasp on this emotional and mental drain that I called a friend. That maybe I could learn something positive from this dreadful experience. That maybe I could get a second chance at happiness. That maybe, just maybe, I could remember who I was for a second and be content with that person. But at that moment, I was confronted with another opposing force.

This friend, although he too was judgmental, was more controlling, obsessive, compulsive and manipulative. I met him in grade 9, he knew my first friend well, in fact these two friends got along better with each other than they did with me. Which makes sense, what am I to them anyways? A pawn in their game? A tool for their success? A peasant used to gain power? That’s what they love. The power. They wouldn’t be able to function without it. Power like you’ve never seen before. Infinite power. He had a way of enabling her words and making them so much more detrimental. They went together so nicely. If one of them was a fire, the other would be wood. If one needed a flame, and the other would be the fuel. She would set up the pitch and all he had to do was swing. She would just say words, but he turned those words into actions. When she told me I was a failure, he made me work even harder until my fingers bled, in order for me to “succeed” in their eyes. When she said all my friends hated me, he made me cut them all off as if they were simply just weeds growing in a garden. When she said I was gaining weight, he made me stop eating. It was a never ending cycle. The only end goal was to kill me. Their psychotic tendencies aligned together so perfectly, you couldn’t have created a better duo even if you tried. They mentally and physically altered every single part of who I was, I became someone unrecognizable. I wasn’t a person anymore. They were the factory and I was simply just the product they had so creatively designed.

If you go years with the same tactical torture, it becomes like a routine to you. You live in it, you breathe it, and some days you convince yourself that you love it. Everything else becomes numb to you, your only task in the day is to succumb to this darkness and not allow yourself to feel anything else but this evil that takes over your every living cell. You allow the poison to sink into your blood. These two friends were the only people I had left in my life, the only people who now saw the real me. The real me: a decaying body and mind, like a carcass of a dead animal rotting after its predators have come to eat away at their souls. That’s what I had become, a living carcass.

With every day, I would lose hope in the future to come, but I would always mutter:

“Where there is faith, there is hope. I’m able to get through this, there is light ahead.”

I would start to whisper this prayer to myself everyday. I prayed that maybe I could get a chance to see a normal day. I prayed that maybe I could hear a normal voice, or have a sane thought. That I could feel again. The pain I suffered had become inconceivable, indescribable and utterly terrifying. I started to believe that the words they would utter to me were in fact my own. That their thoughts were actually my own. They made me believe that they weren’t even real people, and that’s because they weren't. If they could kill me with their bare hands, they would. But they can't. How can inanimate entities have so much control over you? How can something that only exists in my mind be the strongest force that I’ve ever known? If these people are fictitious, how are they still able to manipulate every decision I make? They’re only a part of me but I used to wonder if they were all that was left of me.

I’m still in contact with these friends. I talk to them everyday, although I tend to listen to them less. At times, their input may influence one choice or decision I make in a day, but it no longer controls my every thought. Although these people made me feel as though I was the least important person in the world, I’m thankful for them. They’ve taught me a lot of lessons that no other friend has before. They allowed me to have a deeper understanding of who I am as a my own person, as a friend, as a girlfriend and as a daughter. Of course I miss who I used to be; the gentle, sweet, delicate and carefree girl that everybody loved, but I’m stronger now. I know more than I ever have before. I’m happy that I met these friends, although the experience was painful and I almost didn’t make it, I am grateful for having gone through it and come out the other side more powerful.

I made a choice to let myself define who I am, and not let something or someone else do that for me.