I'm between a saint and a sinner in Since OD is shutting down....

I wanna start out by saying I’m not perfect, far fucking from it. I’ve done unbelievably awful things. I’ve lied, I’ve cheated, I’ve stolen, I’ve robbed, I’ve manipulated and I’ve used people. I admit that I have definitely been a toxic person to a lot of people. I got myself in a bit of trouble about 15 years ago being a scandalous thief and I paid for it. I had to write an apology letter, take a Corrective thinking class and jail time. I knew I needed a time out and accepted that if I didn’t change I was either going to end up in a casket or I would be in and out of jail my whole life. I spent a lot of time thinking when I was locked up and realized that I had a lot within myself that I needed to work on.

I got out of jail and was given a second chance. I got my life together. I was working at a job that I absolutely loved and started treating everyone better, even when they didn’t deserve it and it took a long time to realize that I had to figure out how to tell people no and to set boundaries. I was raised to be submissive and to let people walk all over me and it took me the last 10 years to understand that most of the relationships I had with other people were extremely unhealthy and completely toxic.

There was this girl that I met while I was working at that job and we became really good friends. We literally did everything together and were always hanging out. She was super overweight and probably didn’t have the best self esteem and I took advantage. She had a husband, a kid, and a large family so when we hung out there was plenty of people for us to hang out with as well. She always paid for everything when we hung out, even when I would offer for us to do free stuff like the park or swimming. It got to the point where she paid when we went to movies, went out to eat, just everything. I ended up with severe back problems to the point where I could hardly walk and dental problems galore for about a year an a half. She let me use her prescription card which paid for my co-pays and prescriptions.

One day we were eating at Olive Garden and she told me that her husband said that I was just using her and from that day forward, I always offered to do what I can to contribute when we hung out. Well, our friendship at that point was super toxic where we were both using each other. She would pay me to clean their house, run their kids around, and do odd chores that her husband wouldn’t do and that she wasn’t able to do physically because she was so big. I believe that we were both using each other.

She would tell me things like how she was the only person who cared about me because my family wasn’t around and didn’t keep in touch. She was abusive in her own way and I started to distance myself from her and her family. Next thing I know, she had me blocked on Facebook and we haven’t spoken in 9 years. I know that us not being friends anymore was the absolute best thing for both of us. It just wasn’t healthy, I don’t know if it ever was. I was a lot happier once all these people had exited my life but sad because I wasn’t able to replace them too.

I think about the way I treated her and other people and I truly never want to treat anyone poorly ever again. I will say that I think some of it stems from seeing how unhealthy my parents relationship has been and honestly, not noticing how deeply I was using her. I honestly hope she knows that I do see the mistakes I made and believe it or not, I am sorry. I know what it’s like to be used and it diminishes your self esteem.

There’s no excuse for the way I’ve treated her or other people but I can’t beat myself up over it forever. All I can do is acknowledge what wrongs I would like to make right, more forward and not make the same mistakes in the future. I’ve done people dirty and I know that people have done me dirty as well but what they’ve done doesn’t matter, what I’ve done is fucking horrible and I want to completely understand why so that I can deal with whatever deep seeded issues I have and make sure no one else gets mistreated.

It’s sad to think that in most relationships in life, someone is getting used. There’s always someone who’s giving/contributing more than the other person and it shouldn’t be like that. I definitely don’t do that shit anymore, if I hang out with someone I make sure I pay my own way completely even if someone offers to pay for my stuff.

I will say that people here are usually pretty scandalous and run on their own agendas and that’s why I don’t have friends. I wish that I did have Mom friends so we could do play dates and take our kids to the park but people generally don’t have their own cars and wouldn’t be able to pay for their kids to have drinks and snacks so it would become an extremely expensive hassle trying to hang out with anyone. I can say I’m not trying to be selfish, I just can’t afford to be generous.

Anyways, I have plenty more to say but I’ll save it for another day.