It’s Time To Go
How the end of a 9-year friendship taught me to feel more comfortable in my own skin.
Story by Izzie Lund
Editor’s note: Names have been changed out of privacy concerns.
Sept. 12, 2020
“It’s been three weeks, and I haven’t cried yet,” I said. “Is that bad?”
My hands shook as I stared at my phone in my hands. My counselor smiled at me encouragingly through the screen.
“Well, are you sad?”
“I’m relieved, but also devastated — it’s like the sadness is so intense, it won’t release,” I said. I closed my eyes and gripped my phone even harder.
“I just want to cry.”
Let’s back up.
I was talking about the end of a friendship — specifically with my ex-best friend, Rachel, whom I had cut off. Our friendship had been going downhill for months, but it came to a head when she posted a “best friends forever” photo with Emily. Emily was Rachel’s friend for almost a decade — and also my on-and-off high school tormentor. To me, Emily was someone who had spent much of our adolescence tearing me down and humiliating me.
Rachel started to see Emily’s true colors about two years before this incident and distanced herself from her. Now, they were miraculously best friends again.
As soon as I saw that post, I knew right then and there my nine-year friendship with Rachel had to die. I sent her a text the next day saying it was over and blocked her on all platforms without looking back. Now I was trying to pick up the pieces, and it started with trying to find the words to articulate why I left. All I knew was that it went so much deeper than an Instagram post.
“I got it! I feel used.”
I sighed, both out of frustration and relief at finally having the words to describe the deep anger and hurt that had simmered for weeks.
“Great, let’s explore that feeling! Why do you feel used?”
“It’s not because she’s friends with someone I don’t like,” I said. “It’s because as soon as she and Emily started having problems, she came to me and reopened a bunch of old wounds. Then, when they were good again, she didn’t care, and left me here to deal with the pain she dug up. I feel betrayed, manipulated, led on and used.”
My counselor nodded understandingly. I felt my stomach twist into knots, feeling the full impact of the betrayal for the first time. It stung.
“She can’t just spend hours and hours validating me for the years of shit I endured from Emily, then pull a 180 on me and expect me to be OK with it,” I said.
“That’s fantastic! We’re getting somewhere,” my counselor said. “That was rude of her to do. She shouldn’t have validated you if she wasn’t 100% done with that friendship. But let’s dig into this trauma for a bit. I don’t think your reason for leaving ends here.”
Rachel and I met when we were 11 years old.
She was higher on the social ladder than I was. I was the clumsy, friendless one she took under her wing. Our relationship never changed.
When we were 20, the underlying assumption was still that I was the disastrous one, and Rachel was the one who needed to keep me in check. But of course, it wasn’t until that counseling session that I came to realize it.
I vented and vented about Emily and Rachel, describing in detail the various things they said and did to me when we were all younger. I vented until my throat was sore. I took a sip of water, eager to hear what my counselor would make of all of it.
“It sounds like it boils down to them putting you down and making you feel bad about yourself — is that accurate?”
I nodded.
“Why do you think it’s still fresh after all these years? Do you think it’s because they never really stopped? Especially Rachel?”
I immediately tensed up, feeling the lightbulb go off in my head.
“Holy shit, that’s exactly it.”
A 2015 study from Florida Atlantic University showed that only 1% of friendships formed in middle school lasted more than five years. It was a miracle that our friendship survived as long as it did.
“[Cutting me down] was our entire dynamic,” I said to my counselor in a later session. “I don’t think our friendship would have existed without it. I couldn’t ask her to stop, because then there wouldn’t be anything left.”
I knew that I wasn’t faultless. I also played into the dynamic by making self-deprecating jokes. But that didn’t change the effect our relationship had on me — trapping me in a perpetual cycle of self-loathing and self-doubt for almost a decade.
Dec. 11, 2020
Taylor Swift surprised everyone by announcing her ninth album, “Evermore.” Giddy with anticipation, I counted down the minutes until midnight and dove right in, filled to the brim with the kind of joy that only a new album can bring.
An hour later, I listened intently to one of the last songs, “Closure,” drawn in as Swift sang about a friendship long gone. Then, a little over one minute in, she said in a scathing voice, “Don’t treat me like some situation that needs to be handled.”
I froze. Then I played the words over. And over. And over.
And then, after three months, I finally burst into tears.
I buried my face in my hands and sat in the darkness for several minutes. Memories and images swirled in my brain as I remembered that twisted, decade-old dynamic that destroyed my self-esteem and froze me in time.
Rachel “joking” about throwing away my phone. A “joke” about putting an ankle bracelet on me when we got to college and reporting my movements back to my mother. A humiliating four-word nickname that she called me for years, even though she knew that it made me want to crawl out of my skin. Many condescending moments, where she would subtly pick apart everything about me. Me, talking about various things that I loved, only to have to listen to her talk about how much she dislikes them. The countless times she brought up embarrassing moments from our childhood, hanging them over my head instead of allowing them to be forgotten.
I didn’t want to be 11 years old anymore.
The first step towards growth was admitting to myself that I had to do it without Rachel. Any lingering doubts I had about ending the friendship, or small hopes of possibly reconciling in a few years, went up in flames.
Rachel had to stay on my blocked list. Forever.
I also had to address the things that I didn’t like about myself. I had to either change them, or accept them.
I knew it was going to be a long and difficult road. I had a lot of growing up to do, just catching up to 21.
It took a lot of time, counseling sessions, journaling and honest conversations for me to get into a mature, confident and healthy space.
In counseling, we dealt with conflict resolution, communication skills, self care and many other things that I needed to work on before I could fully embrace myself.
New passions and personality traits emerged after nine years of being smothered.
It felt like stepping out of a dress five sizes too small, and into one tailor-made.
I learned very quickly that I’m not actually chaotic, or soft-spoken, or ditzy. That was an act that I subconsciously put on for Rachel’s benefit.
I stopped saying self-deprecating things. Even if it was a joke. Even if it was to reblog something funny on Tumblr. I learned how to be funny around my friends without also being disloyal to myself.
However, the most important part of healing had to do with the people I surrounded myself with.
A month after I ended the friendship, I was hired as the campus news editor of The Front, Western’s independent student newspaper. After that quarter, I stayed on as the editor-in-chief. I had fallen in love with working on the paper even before cutting Rachel off, but I had no idea how therapeutic it would end up being.
I was enthralled with The Front because the environment was one of growth. Mistakes were not death tolls; they were learning opportunities. Everyone respected one another and saw potential in the people around them.
For the first time in a very long time, I was surrounded by people who didn’t see me as a bundle of flaws and 7-year-old embarrassing moments for them to unravel whenever they needed an ego boost. They saw me as a strong, intelligent, talented, imperfect-but-wonderful person.
On my last day at The Front, our faculty adviser told us, “No one succeeds or fails alone.”
I cried that day, not just because it was the end, but because I could sense that something had healed along the way.
I went out of my way to read 10 positive, self-affirming quotes every morning before starting my day. I would get my journal and write down the one that resonated with me the most, or come up with one on my own.
One day in March, I was in a rush. I drove to an end-of-the-quarter celebration with the editorial team, where we took pictures, reflected and laughed.
When I got home, I skipped the quotes and went straight for my journal. I picked up the pen, and wrote:
“I am done being your ditzy, chaotic, fat, dumb ‘friend.’”
I leaned back in my chair and looked in the mirror.
The woman staring back at me was almost unrecognizable. She seemed healthy, confident and self-assured in her own truth.
She was 21.
April 28, 2021
On my way home from Boulevard Park, I finally finished “Evermore” all the way through.
Swift sang in a soft, peaceful voice: “Sometimes giving up is the strong thing, sometimes to run is the brave thing, sometimes walking out is the one thing that will find you the right thing.”
I smiled.
I knew.
As the last note rang, I peered out my car’s open window, the wind in my face and closure in my heart.
The world felt brighter.