Causation Factor 1. Toxic Friendship

DATE WRITTEN: 03/18/2024

DATE POSTED: 04/06/2024

It has been a year since my friendship ended with my former best-friend. During this time, I have had so many mixed feelings, ranging from missing him to feeling angry with him. As I came to realize what he has done to me versus what I have done, it helped me to understand how I should feel about this now. 

The friendship seems to have fully ended contact on 01/20/2023, right before my birthday, but it was ended by him, by a message on 12/16/2022, which was about a month before. It is unclear to me when the exact date was. When he told me the friendship was over via a message, he was leading my improvement plan. He basically made a rubric for me that contained broad sections such as the Daily Behavior Grades, Weekly Reflections, the Mid-Term Reflection, and the Final Reflection. Each of those individual sections had their own requirements such as how I acted, what I said and how I said it, my feelings, what I wrote in the reflections, how thoughtful it was, grammar and mechanics, and a few other items. 

Back then, I was really desperate for a friendship, so I complied. I wanted to remain his best friend notwithstanding these requirements. It took a significant emotional toll on me, and I started to feel veritably dead. If I wanted to be his friend, I could no longer be myself, I could not express what I truly feel, et cetera; and if I did, I would run the risk of failing the plan. I had to get an 89.5% or higher in order to pass, and if I got any lower, he would not be my best friend anymore. 

The plan started on December 01, 2022. As I went to school and saw him in the morning, I was very reserved and quiet. I am not usually that way, but something felt different inside me. I felt unsafe, unsettled, and even uneasy. I worried about how I felt could affect things, so I bottled them down which in turn caused me to come off quite dismissive as I did not talk much. The plan continued up until around a few days thereafter, because he wanted to stop the plan due to the work it would take to do. I was relieved that he had stopped the plan, but he made a threat to end the friendship if I did not show noticeable improvement by the end of the month. 

Those reading must be curious of what improvement I am speaking about. Basically, I would have a breakdown that involved my crying, talking about self-harm, and hating myself. At that moment, I had no idea what was the cause of this. I had them everyday. During the day I would be fine, and during the night I would get emotional; and this cycle kept going and going. Even today, I can understand how that can be frustrating, but upon further insight, he had no right to be frustrated due to my breakdowns, for he was the one who caused them. 

At the initial point of the friendship, he and I were good friends; we had little arguments, good times together, and good laughs together. That is until I tell him about my personal life. I started by telling him about my grades. I had 92% or higher in all my classes, except math which was 80%. I was proud of my grades as they reflected a person with a supposedly good work ethic. However, when I told him this, instead of him being proud of me, he belittled me. He told me how he had 95% and higher in all his classes, and that he had a 100.3% in his math class. He then asked me if I was in honors, standards, or a mix thereof. I told him that I was in standard, and he told me he was honors. 

Whereafter, I felt unaccomplished, as if I did not achieve much by earning the grades I did. That was the first time in a long time that I have felt that sad, and due to someone I trusted no less. This happened for a couple weeks before I wrote him a letter expressing my grievances of his actions. He did apologize, however; except, he moved from belittlement to comparison. He compared, not just my grades, but my personality, my habits, my health with that of his friends and himself. He would say that I am the smelliest friend he knew, the weirdest friend he knew, and to that such. I thought he was joking at first, but as he kept doing it, I then understood his motive. It caused me to get more emotional, thereby warranting me to convey my grievances once again, to which I did, and he apologized, and then he moved on to criticizing and passing judgement on my life. 

He would constantly judge me on what I did for school, what I did for my personal habits like hygiene and my schedule, what I did for fun, what I liked, and the rest. He would judge me on how hard I worked, how often and when I showered or cleaned my bedroom, how I managed my schedule, what I did for entertainment, what I really enjoyed doing, and the rest. He would always say how I was weird, smelly (even though I did shower AT LEAST every other day), always serious, and was an outlier due to my liking of law and classical music. 

I have oftentimes criticized the gen-z lifestyle, but I never impeded anyone because of that. People have the right to live the life by which they are born. I can have my thoughts, but I cannot stop people, unless they have the aim to hurt someone or something. my former best-friend would constantly get bugged about me doing this and compare me to the “modern-teenager” or what at least HIS view was. He said I was an outlier due to me enjoying school, writing music, liking law and history, liking classical music, how I dressed, and the rest. Yes, he did criticize how I dressed. 

He made me feel as if I did not fit in with society or fit to be his friend. Around this point, it was September of 2022 that I started to have these breakdowns. It was due to him belittling me, comparing me, and then judging and criticizing me. That is the reason behind the breakdowns. I wanted his approval, acceptance, support, care, and most of all comfort. However, he did not provide, albeit me providing him comfort when he got rejected from a program he has been long aspiring to. 

Things started going down around this time. I remember telling him that around the fall and winter that I get more jolly and happy due to the feeling of the holiday season, however, I did not really feel holly and jolly. I am guessing around here is where the early stages of my depression started, although I would not consider this the actual start for technical reasons. 

I will admit that I have played pranks on him, and I do understand his frustration in the amount of times I did it; I did apologize to him for that, but I theorize that I did that due to me wanting to push him away due to the pain he caused me, but it was subconscious not quite intentional. I have also kept arguments going due to wanting to show him that he could not control me. I definitely had some fault, but some of it could have been a result of trauma caused by him, and I likely had some issues I caused from my own fault. 

He then proceeded to tell me this. I have Autism and ADHD, of which are diagnosed, and he told me: “Had I known that you had Autism before we became friends, then I likely would not have sent you that email and asked to become your friend, yet alone your best friend.” This hit me harder than the accident I had a month ago on Loudon County Parkway and Creighton Road, and that crash resulted, by my math, in 20,000N of force. 

Anyhoo, during the time thereof, I did not feel in the spirit of the holidays, rather I felt down and saddened. On December 29, 2022, the date by which I will never cease to remember, is when he called me a failure using passive aggression. He called me up and told me how I would likely not do well in life, due to not doing well on the PSATs and the SATs; it contained math knowledge that I would lack even on the actual SATs due to occurence within the school year. He said that I had a better chance in English but probably would barely do well, and he said I would not do well on math, so I should therefore expect around a 900 – 1000 on the SATs. He said instead of a university like Harvard or George Mason that I should just go to community college, and that I would never make it as a lawyer. I then proposed that I might as well be a janitor insofar as he agreed with such a proposition. 

After this call, I was devastated, completely devastated. I was veritably saddened by his view on me. This call did not represent my mere academics but also how he viewed me personally. I was not what he had hoped for, nor was I the best friend he wanted, as if he was staying with me for mere moral reasons rather than true feelings. 

Up above is my description and analysis a year later. Down below will be what happened after 01/20/2023 when the friendship felt to be fully over, albeit the official date being 12/16/2022.

Thereafter, he and I were mutual officers of a club, with him as Secretary and me as Team Director on this present date. He and I worked well together at the start as we agreed to keep personal matters out of the club. However, it became impossible because of his actions. I came up with a mission statement, and all my former best-friend did was criticize it. He then got frustrated due to people liking my idea, and he deleted the thread by which my idea was contained. I made a presentation for the club, and all my former best-friend did was talk during it and stay on his laptop, to which the teacher responded for him to be quiet and be respectful. It is clear that he has no regard for my ideas or opinions. He would always try to take my ideas or to take control over any action taken due to my ideas that I have proposed.  

During club meetings online, he and I would stay after and talk personally. It started, actually, decently. It was not too bad. He and I did things together and even laughed, at least, until he reminded me that we would likely never be friends again. 

It got so bad that on two occasions, we had to go to the Sponsor to have a conversation, and I was cooperative. I understand that this is not healthy. So, at this current date, he and I are remaining mostly separate. 

I have not much to write about this due to the lack of contact with him at that time and most things being repetitive and redundant. 

Right now, I have finally realized that while I could have had some fault in this friendship, he ultimately had most of the fault because of his actions. 

He told me about his friends he had even before he knew me and they felt suicidal, depressed, and the rest during or after their friendship with him. I should have taken this as a red flag, right there and then. 

Now, I speculate that I COULD have bipolar as I do notice sudden shifts in my mood, how I tend to feel hopeless, how I feel pessimistic most times, how I feel worthless, and sometimes taking a little longer to remember something; and I speculate that I COULD have Borderline Personality Disorder as I do have a fear of being abandoned by people close to me, my closer relationships are unstable due to my fears and depression, feeling worthless and empty, depending on circumstances major anger outburst, and sometime very harsh mood swings. These are mere speculations and are not necessarily true, but based on how I feel now, it seems true.