My best friend is taking down my self confidence
Now before you’re like “she’s a terrible person just leave her”, “don’t be with someone that takes you down”, it’s not that simple just read the rest and you’ll understand.
Me and this girl (let’s call her E) have been best friends since 5th grade and I love her to the core. She is my sister, my first call, my first person to contact. She has always had very low self confidence, she makes comments about her weight and her appearance, she is fully convinced that she is horrible at everything, and she overthinks literally everything.
At first I thought as her best friend I should show her how amazing she is because she is that amazing she’s great at gymnastics, an athlete in literally everything, a straight A student, and a great friend in general that makes everyone feel included. Me and her clicked since I was so young and I thought that I could help her confidence. I’m going into high school and me and her just had the biggest fight we’ve ever had.
What happened is that she invited me to go to the beach on Monday with our other friends (she asked me before she asked them) I said couldn’t do that day and then I said maybe Tuesday. She said that worked. We don’t talk till Monday I’m texting one of our mutual friends and he says he is hanging out with Elsie (this is on Monday and this is my crush that was texting me). Apparently she invited our mutual friends without me. I was destroyed and I did talk to her and I was more reasonable than I thought I was going to be for example “hey I know you thought this was harmless but this really hurt me and we are still best friends I just need a second to process this maybe when my emotions aren’t high we can talk this out tomorrow”. Eventually things calmed down and we talked it out.
I then went to a camp that I was so excited for and so ready for. It was an orchestra camp and I am currently writing this still in the camp. E was not coming to this camp and I thought it was a good escape so I can think this through. When I did eventually see her she was the same as always little comments like “how are your better friends?”, “how has it been without me?”. The worse part about these comments is when I was trying to prove her wrong by saying “you are my best friend and it would’ve been better with you there”, she just completely flipped it like “oh no, I didn’t mean that they were better friends than me I just meant that you have made better friends with them and I was just genuinely asking how has it been doing the camp”. Then I feel stupid thinking something else even though I saw the way she said it and the way she was twisting it made it feel like I was the one misunderstanding.
E and I and a few other friends of ours, I was prepared to have a good time. I was genuinely happy to see and hang out with my best friend again. I was having a blast and I was trying really hard to include E. But it was always “I’m not hungry”, “go ahead without me”, “I don’t need anything”. She also was complaining the entire night about things like money and life and blah blah blah.
I know what you’re thinking she probably was just not in the mood and she was probably just done. But I promise you, you would feel different if you were there. The comments kept building up and the unwillingness to have fun. It also made me realize how much fun I had without her. I played a solo in front of people on the street and wasn’t even a little nervous. I had fun with the other people at the camp and when I went back to hanging out with her again I realized I had always caved to her mood her comments because I wanted to help her. Every time she said something negative about herself I would say something awesome about her. And that made me realize I’ve been having some of the best moments of the summer without her.
I’ve been on and off thinking about this but I also really don’t want to. I want a person I can send memes to at 2:00am, I want a person I can call for no reason, I want a person that my parents can trust so I can just go to their house all the time. I realized whenever I’m with her I start losing confidence in myself. She influences me a lot. She loves her mom but most of her complaints are about her and I think her mom is very reasonable and trusting. I realized I was pushing my mom away slightly too. All these little things are adding up and the truth is I liked the version of myself that I was without her but I also love her. I love my best friend because she really is my person but it makes me realize the version of myself I’ve been tucking away to match her mood is the one that played a solo in front of people, openly made friends, and made some of the best memories without her. I’m not ready for that version of myself to leave but I also don’t want to be that version without E.
Sorry for my ranting I know it’s a lot I know this is only one perspective on the story and I know there is probably a lot I missed feel free to comment if you’d had an experience like this or have advice.