Thank you so much for sharing such a painful time in your life with us, as well as the lessons you learned from the experience! For me, to answer your question, it happened a few months ago. My best friend and I were going through a really rough patch and we weren't really talking to each other or hanging out anymore because he wasn't making any more time for me.

When we finally did get together to hash everything out, he blamed everything on me and had the audacity to tell me I was a controlling, manipulative, and toxic person, and that we weren't best friends, I was just someone he kept around because I was always so nice and helpful to him. Yeah.

I was so taken aback by what he said that I just took it all and let him think that he was right so that I could just move on with my life, but the reality is that his words cut me deeper than I've been cut in a long while. I practically gave my all to this kid because that's just how I do friendships, I go all out for the people I love.

So after that I decided to basically completely withdraw from the whole situation. It was painful for me to leave behind someone who I had loved so much, someone who I had believed was honestly a true friend to me, only to have him basically tell me that everything I believed was a lie.

I was in such a state of disarray for a few weeks after that, as my whole world had just come crashing down on me. The one friend I had who I thought would not do the same thing to me that all my previous "friends" had done to me, not only did just that, but he actually one-upped everyone else!

Anyway, after much reflection on the situation and talking to others to get an outside perspective, I realized that I was better off without him anyway because all of the time and energy I spent on him actually took me further and further away from what I actually wanted to do in life. My time as his friend changed me in a very negative way and made me put off any of my own personal goals and desires, because I became comfortable and content.

It's weird because neither of us is gay (that I know of, anyway), but the whole thing felt like I had just broken up with a toxic girlfriend. But it was because of everything that had happened between us that I finally, truly, acknowledged my own value and worth as a friend. I'll never let anyone else walk all over me like I let him do for so long. It was because of all that drama that I realized that no matter how much I love someone, if I don't love myself first and foremost, fully love and accept myself, including the dark aspects of my personality, the relationship will fail because my lack of self-love leads to insecurities that will damage the relationships that I'm trying to develop and grow with people.

Even though he brought me a lot of pain and re-established some very old woulds that I thought I had gotten over already, I can still be grateful to him because all of that taught me to truly love and accept myself and never compromise who I am just for another person.