I met J when I was about 16 or 17 and we became inseparable.

I will not use photos of J though I do have one of us and one of our favorite poets but this is a portrait I made for her some years after we met.

I met J through a friend. The first night we met we went to Rocky's replay, an arcade that I frequented in my teens. It was a pretty cool place. You could smoke and drink inside. I was too young to drink but I liked smoking indoors. When I met J though my friend we instantly hit it off and we ended up hanging out all the time, we were absolutely inseparable.

I looked up to J and put her on a pedestal. What I admired about her was her intelligence. She was very bright, well-spoken, well-written, and had impeccable tastes in books, films, and music. She contributed a lot to my tastes in literature and film and as a result I respected her and looked up to her. I was eager to gain her approval, which in the beginning wasn't hard.

J was fun to be around , had a few awesome friends, and treated me very well for the first few years. But at some point she started being mean, spiteful, and jealous. I remember one occasion where I invited her to a friend's New Years party, a friend I only see once a year and J got incredibly angry that I spent more time with this friend than her. She became mean and treated me like crap for the rest of the night. This stuff started happening more and more and eventually I was walking on eggshells 24/7, trying not to upset her.

J would call me constantly and if I didn't pick up she would be angry. I would often get snarky text messages. If I decided to go out and do anything without her she'd usually be jealous even if she didn't want to go or was sick. She started mocking my interests, my friends, my hobbies. Being friends with her made me anxious almost all of the time.

It is worth noting that in the first 3 years when we were inseparable we tripped together and experimented with other drugs quite a bit which I think made me feel a much stronger bond to her. I really did feel connected to this person and during the trips and sleepovers and drunken nights I ended up telling her all of my feelings, insecurities, and secrets.

I tried to break away from J many times in the next few years but she'd always make some huge apology and I would forgive her and it'd be okay at first but eventually it would start again. I was stuck in an abusive relationship with my best friend.

At this point I was afraid of J. I was afraid of upsetting her and I was constantly anxious when interacting with her. I didn't really want to be her friend but I feared what would happen if I left again and the next time I left it became very bad.

J started posting things about me all over the internet. Poems on deviantart making fun of my dad raping me. Commenting on photos to say how ugly I am. She started texted my mom's phone all day with insults.

At the time when I tried to contact authorities they said unless she explicitly threatened me there was nothing to be done.

The creepy thing is, she was very intelligent, and she had a master's in psychology and I had given her all the ammunition she needed to break me over and over again. I lived in constant fear of what she was going to do next. How she was going to hurt me. Every single day she found some new way to contact me (obsessively and repeatedly) and relentlessly struck sensitive cords. Using information about my past and the abuse I had endured to hurt me and insult me. And when she struck it was always below the belt. I eventually ignored her for long enough that the messages became less frequent after many months and several creepy hand-written letters on my mailbox.

Stupidly a year later I would fall into her trap one final time. This time I told her that THE SECOND she got nasty to me I was leaving and I wasn't giving her any chance. Things were really good for quite a few months and I thought maybe she had really changed. Then one day I logged online and she was mocking me publicly with another "friend" because of how "inane" my post was. It was a post about my art supplies being lost in the mail. It was $300 worth of supplies and I was upset. Nothing really worth making someone feel foolish about but she was maliciously trying to make me feel stupid for a simple post. That was enough. I blocked her immediately. She sent me messages acting like I was insane to block her for such a thing but I stood my ground.

She has harassed me many times since then. It has become more sporadic. One time she tried to get me and/or my bf sent to prison by anonymously tipping that he was growing shrooms. Luckily, nothing came of that. Then one day she went on my art page on facebook and commented on every drawing to mock it. She seems to somehow keep tabs on my life and any time she finds out something she can use to hurt me, she does.

When my best friend died 9 months ago she wrote me to send a very nasty message about it. I was disgusted. I left a vague threat which seems to have shut her up for the time being. I first told her she was in her 30's and acting very pathetic. I then let her know that she literally means absolutely nothing to me at this point. And then I said "I am glad that you and ________are doing so well after all the cheating."

Look out for some warning signs I learned from this horrific experience.

• Watch out if a person starts buying you gifts randomly, without you asking, insists on you taking them and then uses them against you later if you are in a fight.

• Watch out if a person is picking at your insecurities. Possibly "playfully" but regularly and them minimizing it if you bring it up.

• If a person is constantly talking trash about their old friends who all seem to be gone, be suspicious.

• If a person starts getting jealous of everywhere you go and everything you do, get out. Regardless of if it's platonic or romantic.

• If a person tries to turn you against every friend other than them, get the eff out right away. Don't look back.

So, that's my story. It's been over 2 years, maybe even 3 since I last let this woman into my life and still I get random messages that span from apologetic/telling me how much she loves me to psychotic rage and spiteful nastiness. Pretty creepy, eh?

• The few awesome friends she had are no longer her friends because she pulled similar shit on them to a lesser degree.