Monday, 30 July 2018

Life | Breaking Up With a Friend

Today is International Day of Friendship, is it just me or do they have a day for everything lately? Friendship is something I value very highly and you can read about my coven here. International Day of Friendship was created by the UN General Assembly to inspire friendships between people and countries which is brilliant as we can all use a bit of positivity in our lives. In light of today I thought I'd touch on something I've wanted to share for a while. Four years ago I broke up with my best mate. And you know what, it was fucking liberating! Now I know you're probably thinking, this doesn't sound inspiring and peaceful but trust me, I've got my reasons for writing this.

I grew up with this girl, lets call her Sophie, because that's her name. My mum and Sophie's mum were best mates for years so we spent a lot of time together as kids, eventually, my mum and Sophie's mum fell out (I swear this should have been a sign) and we lost touch until years later and we were reunited through Twitter. We grew closer than ever and she quickly became my best mate, we'd talk every day and do so much together.  When she broke up with her fella, she was heartbroken and I was on the very first train to see her. Then things changed. Very quickly.

She was quite jealous of my friendships with the coven. In fact, I remember buying tickets for a gig for me and another friend and told Sophie I couldn't spend much money that month because of it and she was really funny about it. The conversation went like this:

S: Where was my invitation?

R: Well, Grace invited me. 

S: If Grace invited you, why did you buy the tickets?! 

Then she became needy, if I didn't text her back, she'd WhatsApp me, if I didn't reply to her, she would get me on Facebook. It felt like I was in another relationship and it was just so intense. I was pregnant with George at this point, not far along, and I was doing some agency work when I'd been called into a job really last minute. She'd been texting me all day and I wasn't allowed my phone in work, so I replied when I got home, then she was snotty with me because I hadn't told her I was working. It was unbelievable. I thought maybe I was hormonal but she had become so entitled and everything was about her. Pete and I were in the process of buying a house which she had no interest in. I went for a scan after I'd had a bleed and she didn't ask me how I was or how it went. Everything was me, me, me. There were times when I'd just switch my phone off so I could catch a break and I thought to myself, this isn't how a friendship should be. 

One day when I was on maternity leave, I saw a status by her complaining about her pregnancy and I snapped. I was tired of her negativity, I was fed up of her selfish behaviour so I told her. She didn't like it one little bit and maybe I overreacted but it was one thing after the other and things got nasty really quickly. She told me I was jealous she of her and I was annoyed she had "stole my thunder" because we were both pregnant, which was ridiculous because we didn't even have the same circle of friends. She made it very public and posted our conversation on Facebook, her sister wrote a status about me, her mother joined in. It escalated so quickly and I just thought "wow!" She also did some pretty other disgusting things which I'm unable to talk about which just proved how malicious she could be.

It took me a few years to realise just how toxic of a person she was and I am so glad I broke up with her. I didn't want her to be around me and my family. There was a time when I'd think of the friendship we had prior to it all going sour and I did miss that person but then I would remember the nastiness and how much better off I am. Breaking up with a mate is so much different to breaking up with your fella, you no longer have that person to do all those best friendshippy things with but I am very lucky in the sense I have three other best friends who don't have a nasty bone in their body and I'm very lucky to have them in my life, but don't tell them that, they'll call me cheesy.

Remember, it's okay to cut toxic people out of your life and surround yourself with lovely people instead, just like I did. Just because she's been your BFF for years, you don't owe her anything if she turns into bitch!

Rachael xo