Gaslight - verb - manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.

When we became close in eighth grade, we talked about all the exciting times we would hare during our high school years. All of the homecoming dances we would attend together, late nights gossiping about whatever the latest rumor was taking over the school, helping each other study and complete assignments, and just living the best life possible.

There were so many memories I will always be thankful for because of you. During the years, you were the person I could turn towards no matter what. I felt like I could confide in you with no judgement. We shared so many laughs and inside jokes. For the most part, we were fine.

However, senior year, it all seemed that we were coming to an end. In my mind, I thought senior year would be our greatest year as friends. After all, it was the last year either of us would be home for the most part. You had dreams of saving the world and help create new things through engineering while I, at the time, thought nursing and ROTC was the best route. There were even talks that maybe, someday, you and I might live together in Pittsburgh since we might be going to the same school. Just like that thought, it was only imaginary.

In reality, senior year was the most tasking on the brain for me. With all the applications, trying to maintain a high GPA, extracurricular events, and also trying to be social, it all became overwhelming. On top of all that, I was trying to figure out who I was in terms of my own sexual orientation. I know there were moments when I would shut you out, and I can promise you that I never meant to.

Normally on my bad days, I wouldn't talk to you and seem distant just because I didn't want to bother anyone else with my own problems when others might be facing worse. However, you were the one person I was always honest with when it came to my emotions and mental health because I thought you deserved to know the truth about what I was dealing with.

You changed. I have no idea if it is because of your ex boyfriend or the girl you befriended, who seemed to take my place as your best friend, but something was different about you. I started to notice this when I became the third wheel, inviting me out less or just ignoring me. When I came out in October, that was when you cut off all communication and left me in the dark.

I felt ashamed for coming to realize who I was. I remember all the texts I sent asking if I did anything wrong to damage our friendship, giving you every opportunity to express any problems we were facing, but you always denied them. Normally, I would have asked you in person and made a direct confrontation, but you always ignored me so the line of communication was hard. I felt like I had done something wrong and began to hate myself.

Over the next couple of months, I witnessed you befriend people who never had your best intentions at heart. It was heartwrenching to watch our friendship fade away while you got close to people who manipulated you. I only now came to realize that you were being fed lies to twist the reality of whatever problems we were facing, which I was never aware of because you never indicated something was wrong.

You would post online past pictures, trying to portray to whomever that our friendship was undamaged to cover up the reality of things. You made me feel as if I was imagining things, that I was for whatever reason fabricating problems in my mind for them to make sense. I felt crazy.

Even though you completely cut off our friendship, I always had high hopes we would work things out or it was just natural separation of friends. I mean, you were going to be attending a school only thirty minutes away from home while I was traveling to the other side of the state. Maybe that was why our friendship ended because you realized the distance might be too much.

I honestly have no idea even though I tried to make sense of it all. I never had given up on us. I always believed that you might come around since might have just been facing a rough patch in our friendship. None of it made sense for why you were befriending someone over me and having them replace me.

However, last week, the reality of everything came to light. I had come to realize that since you had befriended this one girl last school year, our friendship had changed. She fed you lies to twist the reality of things when you were facing a problem. You began accusing me of supposedly calling you names or talking about you behind your back without even confronting me if they were true.

I believed because of how long we were friends, you would have came to me in times of trouble so we can talk about it. However, you never did. You believed in other people without getting to the truth of things. I can promise you I never talked about you behind your back, even though I can probably scream the same statement at the top of the Empire State Building yet you won't believe me because frankly, you don't know the truth anymore.

What hurts the most is why you never confronted me. When I asked you why you never brought up the issues that happened a year ago, you said that my mental health was the problem of our friendship. With all the times I came to you to talk about my mental health, because you asked, you said you could no longer pity me. You were sick of me playing the victim card and refusing to hold responsibility for my own apparent actions of incidents that happened over a year ago.

You said I was using my depression and anxiety as an excuse to isolate myself from everyone. I never wanted your pity or empathy. I thought out of all things, you would be understanding when I expressed these difficult times. You even said my mental health isn't real and I must have been faking it all these years. That is what hurts the most.

It makes me aggravated that you have been holding in all these problems between us and never confronting me until over a year later. How am I even suppose to apologize of defend myself when you never said something was wrong because I moved on with my life not even thinking something was wrong.

Even then, you have the truth so twisted that you won't even consider people have been lying to you for months. You never took my perspective into consideration when I always gave you the benefit of the doubt. Why could you never do the same for me?

I am also hurt that you took my mental health as some sort of playing card when it was only the reality I was facing. Even when you knew I have been going to see a therapist since the seventh grade, you still believed it was all a lie to somehow benefit me and get people to feel bad for me.

Overall, you made me question my own sanity. You gaslighted me. I began to feel guilt for something I never did wrong because you were being manipulated yourself. For whatever reason, you felt the need to protect people who were using you for their own mind game.

At this point, I have basically given up fighting for our friendship as it is no longer an argument between you and I. It has turned into a fight that is two to one. I can only hope that one day, when your mind is clear from all the lies, that maybe we can talk everything out so maybe you can realize the reality of things.