“All this time you were just pretending to be my friend.”

“All this time you were just pretending to be my friend.”

I’ve noted this above statement occurring in my life on so many occasions. I’ve twirled this upon the wheels of my mind many, many times. The outcome was always just the same … major disappointment.

All the times I was with certain people as friends, they were only pretending by to be friends with me. For a time, I found their pretending not to be so. I believed their deceptions against me. I didn’t go into connections with people to originally not believe them. I believed them to be sincere. I never fathomed that I was a target for their animosity against me.

Even when those red flags that something was off would crop up within the recesses of my mind, I still didn’t believe my so-called friends were pretending to be my friends. I first thought that I had issues until I realized it was them. Of course, I do have issues, and I did have issues then, but I wasn’t ever trying to be intentionally mean or sabotaging against anyone. I was sincerely trying to understand and rectify my own issues.

I honestly considered myself a friend to those who were only pretending. Even when I discovered the truth of the various situations … that those pretending most likely didn’t like me at all … I was still so very gracious to them and somehow hoping that things would change. I was so forgiving and willing to move past the negativity. Of course, I’d learn that change wasn’t a task to be easily taken on when change wasn’t even a consideration.

Instead, I tried to change myself. I attempted to morph myself into what these so-called friends wanted or didn’t want. I tried to undo myself and often even erase myself. It was upending and diabolical for me to even do. Frankly, I willingly attempted to annihilate myself. Then I realized I just couldn’t go on that way. Something had to give.

Those friendships did give, but they did not give me the hoped for outcome. I wanted confidantes I could trust, not leaking vessels who used all of my secrets against me. Instead of love, I gained a lot of pain, agony, and despair. All that time, those friends were my enemies. They were only pretending to be my friends. They had only positioned themselves into my life for the primary purpose of destroying me, subduing me, and making me humble.

For the most part, I felt destroyed for a short time. I felt subdued very much. I was humbled in a lot of the worst ways. Yet, I was resilient. I overcame these so-called friends’ destructive plans for me. Often I was if ignorant and aloof to a lot of their schemes. I didn’t always know they were laughing at me or scheming against me. I didn’t always know they were talking about me until the moment I knew.

Then I became angry. How dare they cross my path just to hound me!? Their audacity against me was great, and as much as I would have wanted to wallow in the pity of being their victim, I relented, stood up, and chose to walk away. It wasn’t worth it for me to fight it out. Why should I have to fight to be loved, to be seen, or to be valued? Why did I even need, let alone want, those types friends in my life? They weren’t even my friends at all.

I’m not going to say I was not strongly affected by those great pretenders. I was hurt. I was heartbroken, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons, and one of the greatest ones was for me to keep valuing the gifts within me … those gifts that continued to give even when I felt my well of love was running dry. I still gave all of me until I took myself away, even when I realized, inevitably, that all the time, no matter how good o was to them, my friends were just pretending to be my friends.

I also learned the value in walking away and no longer allowing for another’s toxicity to control me. I chose myself in the end. I chose to stop pleasing others. I chose to stop putting the needs of others first to the detriment of my own needs. I chose to honor and value myself in spite of others not choosing to do so.

All the times those so-called friends were pretending, I was being real … authentic … sincere. It never occurred to me to treat anyone any less. It never occurred to me that all the time those so-called friends were pretending to be my friends until one day I just knew.