[Merskelly Metalien]

I know firsthand how difficult it is to leave somebody you've stuck with for so long, and enjoyed their company, and had fond memories with once, and what it feels like. Like you're the worst person in the world for leaving them, and it's just better to stay because then no one has to get hurt except for me, and I've handled being hurt this much..It felt easier to keep them satisfied and just stay under their heel to keep them happy and treat me less hostile.

I wish I had a community of people to encourage me and comfort me when I was going through my sh*tty years with my abusive ex-friend, because I could never bring myself to let the friend group we belonged to know what she was doing to me...
TWs ahead.
(f*ckin' hell, I guess I'm sharing this..huhhhhboy..)

I'm still ashamed and embarrassed and nervous to admit what was really going on back then to them, and I remember masking my hurt, and excusing her behavior and attitude towards me. I defended her for hurting me, molesting me and making me feel like scum every day for four years, and onward 3 more years after. I just told our old friend group, that was made up of people who were my actual genuine friends, that we "had a falling out" and "things got kind of distant between us." I don't even know if they see me as the aggressor or the victim, and I don't want to even reach out to them anymore, for fear of running into my ex-friend again..

Anyway, in my case, it wasn't exactly a bf/gf or gf/gf situation, it was a messed up f*cked up one-sided sexual friendship, and I stood with her for 7 years. It was in high school, when I didn't even realize I was asexual and never felt anything towards guys or girls. I thought I was broken, and I thought she could fix me. She claimed to be straight, and she claimed our relationship was platonic...but there is nothing platonic about fingering, hickeys and groping. She had a hold on me even when I left for college in Ventura, far from where she was. I gave up going away to college and gaining my independence for her, and came back, just to feel even more at fault for leaving her alone with our only communications being not in person.
My case is probably not nearly as awful as Ava's, at least, that's what I feel..but...

the only way I got out of that toxic, abusive, ugly relationship, was by standing up for myself, saying "enough." and letting her know what I felt and my honest pain that she inflicted on me, letting her know that I knew she would not change and had never once treated me with respect, and then,..I ignored her. It took courage. But I ignored her. For days, then weeks. Finally a month. I stopped replying to her, and willed myself to not open any of her hundreds of messages. Occasionally I would look back to see what she said to me in response. It was as I expected and felt in my gut...she was trying to manipulate me with everything she could. Baiting me with suicide, attacking me with shame and bringing my family connections and concerns into her guilt tripping, enticing me with promises that now she understands what she did wrong and she's genuinely sorry, then berating me with every foul obscenity she could...I was afraid she'd come for me, right up to my door, overpower me and give me a lashing, and possibly a beating...but she never did.
I guess I only mattered to her because I was her doormat, punching bag and sex toy...

It was difficult to move on after that...I still wonder if I was really the victim, because she's probably just as alone as I am..but I shake the thought away. I don't want to think about her anymore. I can't forget her though, even if I want to..but I think back about what was bad about it all, and I feel better for being free of her, and find comfort in the fact that now, I don't have to wait on hand and knee anymore for someone who wasn't even worth leaving a door open for.
I still have to deal with my self-doubt and esteem, because I truly feel like I'm not even a very good person, or even useful for anything. Her daily verbal abuses were something I was so used to, I'm ashamed and disgusted to say I can't imagine a day without insulting myself in place of her insults. It's second nature for me now to put myself down, because it feels routine and I can be put at ease. It's partly why I dismiss my talents and interests and question my intelligence when all I did was slip up a sentence..
I keep my cool most of the time, but I get sudden anxiety brought on when I am yelled at, blamed, or lashed out on in text or online by ANYone...I even feel uncomfortable when her name is mentioned, and they don't mean HER, but someone else by the same name.
Shoot, it took time for me to look at foxes, apples, and the color combo red and blue again, without feeling strong negative feelings.

Ava,
from one abuse victim to another...
I wish I had listened to my friends who suspected that something was wrong.
I wish I had listened to my gut feeling that friends don't make friends do things that they don't want to do.
I wish I had somebody to tell, and someone to help me.
But there wasn't anyone I had the courage to lean on, because I felt like I was the bad friend for thrusting this horrible situation on them.
There wasn't anyone I could reach out to without feeling such shame and humiliation, not to mention without making a big scandal of everything.
There wasn't anyone I felt I could trust.
I STOOD...even when everything in my heart and head screamed, "You need to leave...or it'll be you who slowly dies in these chains."

I'm glad you are realizing that you don't deserve this anymore. You don't deserve it at all. Even though with all your heart you feel like you do..
I'm sorry, I feel like I made this a little more about me.
But, it's not something I just share and put out there for everybody. Meeting me irl, one might not even guess I've been abused.
It's taken a few years now to admit to myself that yes, I was abused. It sounds weird to me. I played it down as just "ill-treatment" and "just stressful behavior", but it wasn't until I described to my therapist some of what it was all like, that they confirmed that it was abuse by all means of the definition...

I learned that if you struggle already with self-esteem, mental disorders and past pain, it makes you easier to take advantage of, and people do seek to take advantage...bad people. Heartless people. Because they can, because it gives them power, control and pleasure. The question for me was always, "What are you going to do about it?"
After years of my answer being nothing, I finally said to myself,
"I'm not going to live like this anymore...it hurts too much."

My case is different. Yours Ava seems much more serious, and that's not just me shrinking my experience down to scale in comparison. <:/ Yours seems to involve pain and danger, I've only ever been victim of in my nightmares..
Have courage. You're stronger than you think.
And I hope you get through this sh*tstorm you're going through with minimal damage. <:c <3 Know you have our support on here.
Ok?
And hey, when you do get through this, <:] I hope my random gifs and posts and nonsense helps make you feel better.