We were the best of friends through high school – “The Three Musketeers”. We were going to be best friends for life. Sometime during senior year, they started changing. Drinking. Smoking. Having sex with anyone who looked their way.
That wasn’t for me. I chose not to party with them. They teased me about it, joking that I was the “good” one.
Not long after graduation, there was a situation where I chose my family over them. It all blew up, and the bullying and stalking began.
They prank-called me. They pitted our mutual friends against me with ridiculous lies. They showed up to my workplace and said they were going to kill me. They sat behind me in college classes and loudly whispered to others about how horrible I was. How I was an ugly, sad person. How they had just “pretended” to be my friend for all those years. They told all my secrets to anyone who would listen.
This continued for almost two years.
After the death threats at my workplace, I let them know that I would take out a restraining order if they ever contacted me again.
I blocked them on Facebook. I graduated from that college and went to another one in a different town. I changed my phone number.
Though I haven’t heard from them for years, I still feel sick when I think about them. They caused me incredible stress, self-doubt, and loneliness.
I don’t talk about it much, because I don’t want to give them the pleasure of knowing that they got under my skin. I left out many details of the story, and details about who I am, just in case they find this.
I’m now a happily married woman with a great career, an amazing husband, and a great group of true friends.
But I feel like I’ll always be looking over my shoulder, waiting for their next move.
I had the same thing happen from 5th grade till we all graduated. I think about it and get sick to my stomach thank goodness I don’t see them anymore!
I know exactly what you mean.. In the past year I’ve had an old friend/bully/friend/bully of mine try to “friend” me on facebook.. I ignore her requests and she keeps trying. I keep wondering if she’ll ever get the hint.. I’m not getting back into that cycle with her again!
I am so sorry those asshats have had such a long term effect on you.
Thank you for sharing! I worry every day about bullying with my children! We definately need to stand up to bullying, but I think we also need to “band together” to come up with ways to empower individuals/groups who are bullied. How do we as mothers, friends, wives, etc empower those who are belittled? How do we give these other human beings the tools they need to overcome? There will always be depspicable people around us, toxic people. I’m going to be 40 in a few months, and I’m just now learning how to recognize these toxic people in my life. I’m learning to let them go, take myself out of their equation, not trying to control what they think of me. What others say/think about me is really none of my business, right? How can we take back our power? How do we make this bullying epidemic in our world “the uncool” thing?
These are the questions that plague my life daily……I don’t ever ever want to see my children, or other’s children feel victimized. I want to be a change!!