I never understood why people told me I would not keep the friends I came into high school with until recently. I have always kept myself associated with the same group and the same person. We were constantly grouped together; one was never mentioned without the other. It had been like this since the early years when we were basically connected by the hip. We were constantly together. We would trash talk other people, gossip, and do stupid things, which I assumed was what everyone else always did.

I started to see posts on social media where someone would talk about how amazing their best friend was and how they always praised each other and were happy for one another, and I realized I didn't have that. My friend and I constantly had an unannounced war of "who can be better" or "who can talk to more boys" and various other things between us. I had assumed every friendship did, and most do, but our friendship was solely based on tearing one another down. We constantly sarcastically insulted one another but never truthfully complimented; we would become jealous of the other when they got something that made them seem better or cooler. It was always a competition of who could outdo the other, and we talked about each other rudely to others just as we talked about other people rudely to each other. It was like our whole friendship was based on being horrible people, which we were.

Whenever we were around a different group of people, my friend's attitude would drastically change from nice to rude in a second. She would try to embarrass me or make me look as if I were lesser than her in front of people she wanted to impress. If I was around her while she was with someone who she wanted to befriend, even if we were in class and just sitting around, she would call me clingy and tell me to back off. It always truly confused me because I thought that as my best friend, and only actual friend in some of my classes at the time, we were going to sit beside each other, but the second she would see a boy she had a crush on or a girl that was "popular", she would belittle me in order to earn their respect, as if pushing someone you call your best friend down gives you a higher social status.

Recently, after making new friends, I realized what friends truly do. They praise one another, they always defend each other when someone says something rude about them, and even though there are sarcastic insults, there are also truthful compliments. There is no "who can do it better," and there is no constant bullying of one another. I finally learned what makes a healthy friendship and concluded that my previous one was toxic and no good for me and my personality.

I'm finding ways to improve myself and leave the toxic friendship I grew up in, but how do you drop someone after knowing them for so long? How do you start a life without the one person you have always lived life with? I'm not saying she is the only one at fault since we both acted the same way, but I was the first to realize how it negatively affected the both of us. I suppose it's all part of growth and life; sometimes you need to live through the ugly before you realize what the beauty really looks like.