In elementary school, I experienced failure with a friend. This girl was my best friend or at least I thought she was. It all started in third grade when we met in class. We started hanging out many weekends and we got very close. Our friendship started out being so fun, we came up with fun names for each other and silly code names for our crushes in school. We never had a dull moment, since we were always giggling about something. As soon as I started making other friends, something changed. This girl started to get too close to me changing my views on my other friends. Her mom also was a little crazy, was in the plan to brainwash me so I thought this girl was the only “friend” I could trust. She told me that one of my best friends at the time was the “devils advocate.” I didn’t even know what it meant at the time so it left me very confused. My mom started to realize I was developing bad habits, ones that she had like acting devious and not being very confident in myself, problems I never suffered with. My mom warned me about her but how could my best friend be harming me? Every time I got relatively close to another person, she would tell me horrible things about them pushing me away. She wanted me all to herself. It took me 3 years to realize how crazy she was and finally I stood up to her. For so long, I was being brainwashed by a nasty girl. I consider this a failure because I was not able to realize how bad my friend was treating me. It was not in my nature to push people away and I let her control my life. If I could go back, I would change the way I acted to everyone else, including her.
http://www.themodernman.com/social/friendship/10_toxic_friends.html
