I had an incredibly toxic friend that I actually lived with in uni 20 years ago. Looking back, it was almost like a coercive control/domestic abuse situation. I'd been friends with her since I was 15. I hadn't been very cool or popular and had very low self esteem. We became friends and eventually she tried to own me.
I was constantly walking on eggshells. She had complete meltdowns over everything, especially if she thought I was leaving her out. Mood swings, silent treatment, rude comments, shouting at me. If she was in a bad mood, she would just swear at me. I remember asking a question like 'what time are we going out at tomorrow night'? She answered 'shut the f**k up or I'll smash your head in'. I just sat there, reeling. This was normal.
So many weird things would happen that looking back, i think she was responsible for. She would go through my wardrobe and just wear my clothes without asking. She would go my phone in the days before passcodes. Letters from my then boyfriend would go missing from my drawer. She did everything to isolate me from everyone else in my life. If she had any positive qualities, they were dwarfed by her manipulative, possessive and territorial nature. I started to actually hate her and started to actually wish she was dead.
Exactly 20 years ago, it came to a head when I confronted her about how she had told people very personal information about me. I moved out. I told her I never wanted to speak to her again and I never did. I actually cannot begin to describe the sense of freedom and liberation I experienced without her in my life! We have no links to eachother at all and share no mutual friends, as they were all happy to dump her too. We all absolutely despised her by the end.
20 years later, I still dream about her when I'm stressed, and the dream is always that she wants to be friends again and I let her back in my life. I always wake up with the most enormous sense of relief and freedom that she is gone! Sometimes I still get that shuddery, shivery feeling when I think about what it would be like to have someone in my life like that again.
About 10 years later, I moved to a different country and had been living there for a few years. She popped back into my head and I kept thinking about her, as I had this horrible sense that she was near me! I couldn't shake it off. I looked her up on social media and she had put a post up the previous week that she had also just moved to an hour awat from where I was now living. I still can't explain it but I knew she was close! Luckily, I moved abroad to a third country shortly afterwards, and to my knowledge, she hasn't moved here!
Basically, if my alarm bells go off, that person is cut out. My friends are all lovely, and if they aren't, they're not my friends any more.
Sorry for the essay. I never talk about this period of my life and can't believe how cathartic it was to write it down. The whole thing was actually traumatic for me and it took me a while to heal from her damage. I learned a lot though: your life is precious. Closely guard who you let into it.