Okay, so I know what I have to do and I'm posting this to get some feedback and accountability. I need to break up with my "best friend," really, I do. This girl is the definition of toxic. We've been hanging out for four years and she's never been very amazing to me, but since I work a lot and live far away from my old friends I hang out with her due to loneliness. For privacy purposes I'll just call her Linda. The reasons I need to cut off the friendship with Linda are…
- She lied to me about a friend being raped. She said that one of my friends Marla went to buy drugs one day and was raped by a bunch of people when she was 12. Obviously I freaked out and asked Marla if she was alright, to which she replied "I've never done drugs in my life or been raped. I don't know what she's talking about." She was very confused and not lying to me about it, which meant that Linda obviously was fabricating a story.
- She's jealous of me and Marla's friendship, so she tries to make us fight. For the longest time she would say the other one was busy when one of us would ask about her, when really we weren't doing anything. She has to be the center of attention and part of everything, and if she's left out then she makes stuff up to try and make us mad at each other (she told me that Marla had cheated on her bf, and I got really mad. Come to find out HE cheated on HER.)
- She lied about herself being raped (Obviously I don't know that 100%, but I would never assume someone was lying about rape unless somethings didn't match up). She told me and my sister several years ago that she was raped in a barn by two guys. However, she told Marla that she was raped in the back of a church bus after church, in the parking lot of where we used to work. I have never known Linda to go to church in my life and I definitely know that it didn't happen at our old work, a grocery store. That's unbelievable in itself just remembering how our work was.
- She has no problem with domestic violence. She's been in abusive relationships before and thinks its perfectly okay because "that's what happens where I come from" (um, the town down the road??? Okay???). She told me that if her abusive high school flame came calling she would choose him over me right now, and help him/do nothing if he came after me to beat me up.
- She's blaming me for her breakup with a guy almost three years ago, who she still endlessly pursues to this day. He's a drug addict, and he obviously doesn't care about her except for sex. I never approved of their relationship but I don't believe I had the strength to wrench them apart either, especially how when she was seeing him we never hung out. It's my fault that she lost "the love of her life."
- She's been talking behind my back. She tells me that I'm the most awesome person in the world when we hang out, yet when I'm not around people will tell me she thinks I'm a downer and a drama queen. I find this funny, because she always has to one-up me when I come to her with an issue ("oh, your mom yelled at you? that's okay, me and my mom got into a physical fight, and I pulled a knife on her.")
- She hits people in the face all the time the first time she meets them because she thinks its funny and acts terrible in public. She's been known at parties (not crazy rager parties mind you, just house parties) to take off all her clothes and walk around in front of a bunch of strangers (sober!) and have sex with whoever is there. It's embarrassing.
- I've lost a friend to suicide, so she threatens suicide to try and manipulate me into giving her attention and what she wants. I know she's faking but this is my softest spot, so I can't pull away.
I've felt so bad for her for so long and have tried to help her get better but her behavior only gets worse and worse. I have no idea what's wrong with her, but she's a bad influence on me and just drags me down. Nobody else is her friend but me and Marla. Marla and I have both agreed that we need to cut her off, but I think Marla is going to back out of it. I'm worried I can't trust her either, because we've only known each other for six months and although she's a really nice girl, that's not long enough to get to know a gal 100%, even though she's never done anything to make me not trust her. If I confront her and Marla doesn't I'm afraid Linda will get into her head and turn her against me, or worse, that I trusted Marla to keep all this information and that she's actually on Linda's side all along and telling her everything I'm trusting her with (this is a long shot, but I'm paranoid). Just feeling really betrayed, it's hard to know who you can trust and who you can't. I've been told I attract people that are bad news, but the trouble is I'm a really compassionate person, so I don't see that they're not good for me until I'm too far in. This isn't the first time I've had to do this. Ugh. I'm just dreading confronting her and hoping she doesn't try and attack me.