It's 5500 comments in, but I still want to share/vent, and maybe someone else going through something like this will learn faster than I did!
I had a 'best friend' who has caused me a lot of problems, some of which I'm still getting over. The reason I've struggled so much with accepting how badly this relationship affected me is that the person never really DID any one thing. Basically it was a death of a thousand cuts, and in some ways it would have been easier if she had tried to sleep with my husband, or hit me or something that would make a quick explanation to people who want to know what happened to a 15 year old friendship.
Basically it's what the throwaway says -- I was her therapist for... almost all of our friendship. There was always something, some new problem that would never be fixed, some new thing I had to do, something she needed from me. It's not healthy for someone to depend on you that much, for either of you. I tried MANY times to address the issue, but just like every other thing in her life nothing would ever change. She has many genuine issues, all of which I encouraged (and she did) see an actual therapist for, but she never let up on what she 'needed' from me, and I started not picking up the phone for other friends, getting tense and anxious every time a text came. I dreaded anyone even talking to me, and while I can't blame it all on her or anything the ripples from my problems with her had some major effects on other relationships in my life.
I talked to her a LOT about how this was a serious problem for me, and how something needed to change. The main problem here is that she is the sort of person who will agree to anything you say, while not meaning it at all. She would lie to anyone about anything if it would ease the immediate conversation. This was a major problem in her life, I guess it just never 100% hit me that she was doing it to ME, if that makes sense.
People actually started to express concern for me, and my husband had to basically be like 'she hasn't been a friend to you in years, and you are miserable for hours every time you talk to her, and the only thing left is guilt and obligation' (Also, I would be talking to her every day, sometimes multiple times, and god help me if she couldn't get a hold of me).
Some of her behavior when I started to pull away was straight up bad, and just affirmed my choice. I'm sure I'm the villain in her story, some cruel person who ditched her FOR NO REASON and with NO WARNING, which makes me feel so impotently angry to think about. I tried to fix things for years, but I'm sure I'm the bitch, because personal accountability doesn't exist for her.
The worst part though is that after being her support for so so so many years I still feel guilty sometimes. But I also have literally had happy dreams where we never met, or I made friends with someone else in middle school and I'm so much happier. I still struggle to act like a normal human being with new friends, and I have problems saying 'no' to people. I feel like I've been walked all over for so long that I've become less of a person, and I don't know how to get back my self respect.
Whole thing has been an ugly business, and while it was 100% the right choice to make to leave that relationship behind I feel like I still haven't recovered. I wish I hadn't ever met her, or ever let her take so much from me, and regret is such a hard emotion to rid yourself of that I don't know if I'll ever be totally 'over' that bad relationship -- I think I am truly changed for the worse.