I used to have a best friend.

We were inseparable. From the moment we met freshman year we did everything together. If someone invited one of us somewhere they could almost always expect both of us to show up. We described ourselves as soulmates, yin & yang; people envied how close we were. Our friendship seemed perfect to every outsider looking in.

They couldn't be farther from the truth.

Behind the pretty Instagram posts, the fun Snapchat stories, and the constant inside jokes, abuse was happening, abuse that I did not even realize was abuse. I was totally unaware the friends can be abusers too.

People don’t talk about it very often, when I hear about abuse, I think about abuse within relationships, marriages, and families. This kind of abuse is definitely valid and a huge societal problem. Yet, I haven’t heard many people come out and say that their friendship was abusive. This is one of the reasons that it took me so long to recognize the abuse.

Her "friendship" was all a way to control me.

She needed to have someone to take out her anger on. She felt better when someone was around her for her to control.

There were so many red flags. It started out with her deciding that we were best friends almost right after meeting me. She told me that she had never been so close to a girl before. She buttered me up with compliments and made me feel like I needed her, and that she needed me.

I now know to always be cautious when someone becomes too close too fast.

After she built me up, she slowly began to break down my self-esteem. It started out small as if she was testing the waters to see if I would stay. She used to tell me that she wasn’t being mean, she was being blunt. She would tear me down for things I wouldn’t have been self-conscious about before.

She would tell me that things I said and did were dumb, she made me feel like I was just goofy and air-headed. She told me frequently that my voice was too loud, that my ideas were stupid, that I was not a rational person so therefore I could not make decisions as well as she could.

The worst was when she would tear me down in front of other people. This was her way of making sure I doubted myself so that she could be in control of me.

She always had to get the final say, or else I would suffer the consequences. I found myself walking on eggshells around her. Still, I told myself that I just wasn’t used to being around a personality as strong as hers. It was easy to romanticize the good times and to ignore the bad.

There were many good times in the friendship, and this kept me with her. We could have so much fun together. She had the same thirst for adventure as I did. We went on road trips together, to music festivals together, on long hikes and camping trips. She was spontaneous, and my go-to person to hang out with when I wanted to be taken out of my comfort zone.

We began living together sophomore year. At first, it was like a dream come true. Then I quickly became too dependent on her since we were always together. My self-esteem became reliant on how she felt about me. It was very unhealthy. I felt like I needed her or else I would go back to being boring, I felt that I could never step outside of my comfort zone without her support.

While living together, our fights became worse. She once pushed me into the wall for oversleeping and almost missing an appointment. She screamed at me until I had to leave the apartment we shared on my birthday.

She would call me a baby, a child. She viewed me as somebody who was too dumb to take care of myself. Everything I did was somehow wrong. I let her call the shots and treat me badly because she made me feel like I didn’t have the capacity to make my own decisions.

My other friends began to notice, and they did not like her. They tried to warn me. "How do you let her treat you like this?" they would say. I became very depressed, to the point where my schoolwork was suffering. I alienated my other friends. I didn’t understand that the problem was my “best friend.”

Eventually, she transferred to a different school. We got along so much better long distance. I no longer saw her bad side. We would talk on the phone and spend occasional weekends together. I grew so much as a person during this time. I found my confidence and individuality, I became closer to my other friends. Somehow, I did not equate this time of growth with her distance. I still thought I needed her.

So I transferred to her school. This was perhaps the biggest mistake of my life. I told myself that I had made too many mistakes at my old school and that I wanted a fresh start. This was true, but I also felt like I needed to be close to her. I wanted my best friend back.

We began living together again. This time, it was worse. My confidence grew in my time away from her, and I could finally stand up for myself. She stopped “winning” every argument, and she didn’t like it. She now would go back and forth between calling me a baby and calling me a bitch.

She also now had a serious boyfriend, who began to live with us without paying rent. At first I was relieved, because some of her bottled up irrational anger was taken out on him. Then, I was scared because they began to gang up on me. They made me feel like I was a stranger in my own home. I knew that I was just living in the apartment to pay my rent so her boyfriend could keep living there for free.

They got into an argument at 1 a.m and her boyfriend banged on my door and told me that it was my fault they were fighting, that I should go out there and face them. I refused and quickly locked my door. The next morning, there was a hole in the wall. I never slept without my door locked again.

My “friend” and I started to be in a constant argument. It was like a war. I stopped feeling safe in my own home. When I lost my job, she told me to kill myself. When I was upset, she would be cruel to me to make me more upset and then berate me for being negative.

The threats escalated.

It all came to a head when she and her boyfriend threatened to hide drugs in my room and call the police. I told them that I recorded them saying that in hopes to protect myself. They grabbed my phone out of my hand, beat me when I tried to get it back, and went through my entire phone trying to delete anything that would make them look bad. When they finally threw my phone back to me I used it to call 911.

It was the best decision I ever made. I got out of the apartment and began living in a motel. I was bruised and exhausted, but for the first time in months I felt safe.

The days following the assault were a blur. I was afraid to step out of my motel room. I somehow gathered the strength to go to the police station and file warrants for both of their arrests. I eventually moved into a new, safe apartment. It has been almost magical to stop fighting the constant, unwinnable battle of our “friendship”. Neither of them are allowed to contact me ever again.

It has only been about six weeks since I have left that battlefield of an apartment. The emotional wounds are still fresh, but the physical bruises have healed. I can feel myself growing in ways I never thought possible. I am a new person, forever changed by the horrific words and actions of a toxic person. It still hurts to remember our good times together, but I know I’m better without her.

If you have someone in your life who makes you feel worthless, someone you seem to constantly argue with, drop them. Drop them now. You do not need them. Surround yourself with people who build you up, and say goodbye to anyone who tears you down. I feel so grateful I got out when I did. After three years of abuse, I can finally move on. I finally know how to love myself.