Dear Whoever Reads This, 

It's be a few months. Damn. My bad. 

I'm going to be completely honest though. My life has turned to absolute garbage these past few months. About a few days before my birthday my cat died and everything has been downhill since. I haven't really had an outlet to just let it all out because i've been so scared of the fact my friends do have this account even if they never read on it. But at this point I feel like it's important to talk about my emotions and I'll be healthier in the long run if I can get them out now. 

I feel like I should just start from the beginning with my cat. We've had butter since I think I was seven (I know we had her by the time I was in second grade). It's hard to remember a time before I had her. I know there was one, but I was just so young it's hard to recall. I do remember the day we got her. She had a twin brother named Peanut (get it, peanut butter?) who passed away back in 2018 I believe and hit just as hard at the time. 

It especially hurt when Butter passed away because a week earlier we had brought her to the vet who said she was overall fine (like, not dying, yk?) and prescribed some medicine to give to her and then a later appointment to do another checkup. The later appointment was going to be that Friday. My parents took pictures of her dead body and posted them on facebook as a memorial to her and I was so disgusted by it because you wouldn't do that for a dead person, why would you do for a dead cat? But yk, whatever. So now pictures of my dead cat are on the internet. 

So basically I was really upset. And then my birthday came literally two days later and all I wanted was to be happy. If you're not aware--I hate my birthday. Ever since I was ten I've had awful birthdays. The only exception being maybe my twelfth (and it's because I can't remember anything majorly traumatizing about it lol). The worst is a battle between my fourteenth birthday and my sixteenth birthday. 

This year I finally had friends. Technically I had the same friends I have now last year--but they all lowkey dipped lmao. But this year they were going to actually show up. I was going to have a sleepover which is a big deal because the reason my 16th was a bust is because I was planning to have a sleepover and invited a bunch and then the only friend who could sleepover told me she didn't want to straight to my face. (I think the worst part about that is she still showed up to my party that I threw instead of the sleepover and I continued to be her friend for a few months after despite the fact she was talking about me behind my back almost our entire friendship but yk this girl will actually be brought up later so i'll give her the nickname idk apple). 

But essentially I have this internet friend who I usually love dearly. She won't read this and anyone who does read this will know exactly who I'm talking about anyways so nickname is useless but let's call her idk flipflop. Basically flipflop has lots of mental health issues and when she gets over dramatic about it her response is always to retreat. it's a cycle. she's leaves our gc randomly, closes up, and then randomly like two weeks later will decide she's better and ask to be added back. 

A backstory is she's actually the reason my seventeenth birthday kinda sucked and literally for almost the same reason that she made this one suck. So it just hit because this is the second of my birthdays she's decided to do this and she has never, ever done it to anyone else in the gc even once. I just can't get past the fact it's only been done to me. Twice now. 

Anyways I went to bed the night before my birthday really excited for probably the first time since I was like twelve. Thinking the next day would be great because I had big plans and people who were going to actually show up to them. And then the first thing I woke up to was opening the gc to flipflip has left the gc and then a message sent directly to me saying "hey sorry, happy birthday." So obviously throughout the day everything in the gc is worried about flipflop and how is she handling things. Is she okay, what's she going through, etc. 

And I don't mean to undermine her mental health issues. They are important, and she is valid and she knows I feel that way and that her having mental health issues wasn't the problem. It's the fact that this is second of my birthdays she's had mental health issues on and instead of deleting the app of her phone or muting everything until the next day or reaching out privately to one of us to talk about it, she did the same thing of making the big show of leaving the entire gc and such and such. 

So basically my best friend literally on the planet (also an internet friend but one day she won't be hopefully) y'all should know her name I probably talk about her a lot but I'll give her a nickname too ig um Kangaroo (iykyk) wasn't having that. She reached out to flipflop and basically was like "Hey, what you did really hurt Emily." and said some other stuff I forget idk lmaooo but anyways. 

I didn't know about this at the time--important detail--but apparently a few days earlier she had messaged flipflop about keeping things a bit lighthearted because my cat died and I was sad. So I guess in response to being asked to maybe keep things a bit lighthearted she left the whole gc because her feelings were being suppressed ? idk. I didn't know about this but she thought I did so I think a part of her was happy to do this on my birthday. 

Anyways then just before my party one of my best friends irl texted me saying she was really sad and might be late because she was in her car crying. So now I had two friends sad on my birthday. But honestly hers is justified she broke up with her boyfriend a few weeks earlier and he immediately got a new girlfriend literally not even a week later and on my birthday he finally unfollowed her on instagram and deleted all the pics of them together from his profile. So she was upset about that because she had invested a lot into him and I'm not getting too much into it but she broke up with him for a reason lol. 

So my party happened, I was ignoring online because I was upset about flipflop and didn't want to talk to anyone because I was worried I'd say something mean when in reality I knew she was going through whatever she was going through at the time and I didn't want to make it seem like I was invalidating her and making it seem like her mental health isn't important because it is. But I did have a reason to be upset myself, yk? And I almost felt like I was being forced to swallow my own feelings at the expense of hers. Flipflop is upset. She is going through a lot. We need to make sure she's okay. But no one was worried about whether I was upset, yk? Because I was. My cat died three days earlier and I had her my entire life. It was literally losing a family member. Imagine being told you have to worry about someone else's feelings two/three days after idk your siblings or your parents died. I had been living and growing up with that cat for over ten years. She was my family. Like just because she's an animal doesn't mean you swallow and get over it after less than a week. 

The party itself went fine but just after things died down and right before we were going to go to sleep my irl found out that her ex blocked her on insta at this point and went into my other irl's car to have a breakdown. Eventually it had been thirty minutes and we went to check up on her and she was just sitting listening to music. We all just hopped in the car and drove around for like twenty minutes at that point and it was super relaxing and kinda fun tbh. I was feeling better so after we came back we figured out where we were all going to sleep and just kinda passed out and called it a day. 

The next two days is when the anarchy started happening. Basically flipflop got really upset about the message kangaroo sent them and messaged me asking how if I was upset with her but I didn't look at it because I did the sensible thing of yk muting my phone, not looking at the app, etc. 

So basically me and flipflop starting getting into it and I told her just how upset I was but in the end we kinda reached a mutual agreement of sorts ig. Decided we still wanted to be friends. So then she told me she wanted an apology from kangaroo (but like, for what? telling you that what you did made me upset?). Anyways I told kangaroo so kangaroo messaged her and was like "yk, my bad, i was upset on emily's behalf but y'all worked it out so we're good" and then flipflop was like "no, me and emily worked it out. this isn't about her. i'm talking about us." and me and kangaroo were like ??? so she responded and was like "well my only issue with you was what you did to emily but y'all worked it out so there's nothing wrong now. i'm sorry for speaking up for emily but don't even try to pretend like you wouldn't be upset yourself if someone did that on your bday so obviously she was too and i was saying what she wouldn't" etc etc. flipflop refused her apology and was all like "well you don't talk to people like that you were mean and i'm not going to explain myself to you" etc 

anyways then in an iconic move kangaroo was like "yk what, i don't have to put up with this bs" and went off and i pulled up the exact message: "oh for f**ks sake flipflop stop being such a self centered b*tch. i tried to make this right between us but you're being an absolute twat about it so y'know what, go f**k yourself. just because i'm the only one in the group chat with enough balls to call you out on your bullsh*t." 

and basically she never responded and it kinda just got dragged under the rug. at least, i thought. apparently she made a secret gc with everyone else showing only this message with absolutely no backstory of how kangaroo spent over twenty minutes sending differently phrased apology messages all being shot down by flipflop to the point that it was obnoxious and she obviously was trying to drag it out and kangaroo was not having it. flipflop mentioned wanting to kick kangaroo out of the gc but everyone was like "no, it's too close to emily's bday and her cat died a few days ago. let's leave the drama alone for rn" and then everything kinda just,,, moved on. or so i thought. 

so at this point i had final exams for school. that was a very stressful time. thankfully I got all As for the semester except my english class where i got a B+ (it would've been an A but I missed a few assignments at the beginning of the semester because my textbook didn't come in until almost a month in) and then almost immediately after i finished school i got my job as a babysitter. I had about a week or two before I started as a break to rest. But ofc no rest for the wicked or whatever lmaooo. 

My three favorite irls all left for college. And then my sister. This hit super hard because I've never been like this alone before. Right now the closest to talking to someone "my own age" I get is either online or with my little sister, but my little sister is still four years younger than me and a sophomore in high school so while we vibe really well and have a lot of common interests (i've got her hooked on taylor swift!) it's not the same as being with my friends or my older sister (where we are only two years apart and have grown up super close with a lot of the same friends). 

Every once and a while I'll get to see my other best irl friend (who is literally like another sister) but she's married and has a job and a dog now so her time is pretty taken up. [it's still crazy to me that she's married lmaoo she's only one year older than me]. Her dog is the cutest tho I love that puppy. (i say as if she's not a huge six year old husky lmaoo). 

anyways the last weekend before two of my irls left for college we decided to have a sleepover. i was not looking forward to it bc i felt like a huge third wheel every time we hung out at this point and then basically they bought food for dinner and didn't ask me if i wanted anyway (and i didn't have dinner and was hungry so that sucked) and then we drove around and they just kinda talked together and i still felt like a big time third wheel and spent that entire night wishing i was somewhere else. 

the next morning i was still upset over that but whatever. then everything went to pure absolute garbage. 

Remember the old friend I gave a nickname, apple? Well basically our friendship was super toxic and it took two years after we stopped being friends for me to try and make new friends again to get close to bc she scarred me so much and made me feel unlovable. (not that my current friends are doing too well with that one either). she went to college in florida and that is where flipflops lives. eventually flipflop went to the same college and i thought that was funny but whatever. 

i knew apple was in a sorority and didn't think much of it until flipflop randomly posted on instagram and snapchat about how happy she was to be accepted into the same exact sorority. So I messaged flipflop and made a joke about it. i just looked it up and i said "rip hope you don't have to one on one with her she's really fake." and flipflop was like "well maybe she won't be fake to me who knows." so i was kinda like ?? and responded "well she was rude to me and that should be enough for you to know to stay away" and flipflop went off and said "do you even know half the sh*t kangaroo has said to me and i never put u in the middle of it." 

and it's at this point i explained some of the trauma from my friendship with apple and was like "listen buddy nothing kangaroo said to you in that moment amounts to the years of trauma i went through with apple. kangaroo might've hurt you with her words but honestly she apologized and you refused to accept it. anyways i'm not gonna gatekeep friendships or whatever or force you not to be friends with someone bc they made my life a living hell at one point. go ahead and be friends with her if you want." and then congratulated her on getting into the sorority she wanted and left it at that. 

then after this i sent a message to kangaroo basically saying "flipflop tried to bring up my friendship with you as a way to justify her one day becoming friends with apple if that happens." It really hurt me to think about because i genuinely can't think about my friendship with apple without feeling like crying because i gave apple so much love and trust and essentially she was talking about me behind my back the entire time, spreading rumors about me, constantly made me feel worthless to my face, took advantage of my friendship, etc. i wasn't the best to apple, and i have a lot of regrets for some things i've said to her time to time, but i always apologized and i never talked about her behind her back or tried to make her feel like she was unworthy of love and in reality i constantly tried to remind her she was. 

like i'm sorry to flipflop, but kangaroo never did what apple did to me. they are completely different situations. 

anyways kangaroo was mad about that because she was there when things fell through between me and apple so she messaged flipflop basically saying "keep my name out of your mouth when you're talking to my best friend" and whatever. flipflop went back to that gc she made with everyone and made them all agree to kick kangaroo out and then she blocked kangaroo on everything. 

she never told everyone else the full story, and essentially i'm really the only person who does have the full story. but i reached out to one of the friend found out flipflop left out a lot and lowkey lied to them. so i reached out to the friend flipflop was closest to for her opinion and she agreed with me and we've been facetiming constantly since and she really has agreed that flipflop has been in the wrong a lot here. 

flipflop just kept saying that because kangaroo called her a self centered b*tch it automatically means that kangaroo was the worst person in the entire situation. then flipflop left the gc again and there were only four of us left. the four people left talked a lot and we decided not to take sides too extremely. we eventually created separate gcs with each person. 

If you hear this story from flipflop you'd think kangaroo flew across the world to flipflop's doorstep and smashed all her belongings, stole her money, spit in her face, and called her slurs. All she did was tell flipflop that what she did hurt me and then try to apologize for her harsh wording and then get mad when flipflop tried to compare that situation to my four years worth of friendship trauma. Like I said I wasn't taking sides but in reality i still think kangaroo was in the right (probs because literally all she did was stick up for me). 

after that whole mess my mental health plummeted because that gc has been my main friend group for three years now and to have it torn apart sucked a lot. 

Eventually we kinda all just got over it and got used to our new normal. flipflop reached out to me and i agreed to add her back to the gc. we've been pretty good friends since but i'm not gonna lie and pretend like there isn't a little left over anger and sadness for the situation she put me in. i love her and we've been friends for closer to four years now but i think she was wrong in this situation and is too stubborn and prideful to own up to that to the actual person she hurt. 

so anyways yeah all my friends left for college that weekend too like literally that weekend was the worst of my life. 

at this point i actually really enjoyed my job and working with the girl i babysit, i've nicknamed her "my charge." she was really cute, listened to me, and was overall kinda fun to work with. then a little bit after school went into session it's like a switch flipped. i don't know what happened that weekend but it's like her brain just decided it wanted to go into a different direction and i've been struggling since. 

every. single. day. not like once in a while, it's literally every single weekday that i work with her she refuses to listen to me. she kicks at me, punches at me, tries to push me around, abuses the dog, etc. she refuses to do her schoolwork at times despite the fact during the summer she loved doing schoolwork and always reminded me that she had to do it. 

and the yelling. oh my gosh does this girl just yell and scream. she complains about every single thing. nothing is ever good enough for her. i don't know why.

basically it was like this for a few weeks and eventually one day she got so mad about whatever (i can't even remember now) that she ran out the house and i had to chase her down like three blocks until i found her in front of some random person's driveway just sitting and crying. her dad and her grandpa were able to track us down and literally picked her up, put her in their car, and then drove off to their house leaving me at her house alone and trying to figure out how i was going to get home. 

after this situation we made a new schedule. on tuesdays and thursdays directly after school i am now bringing her to her grandparents and get the rest of the day off. sounds great in theory. but these almost turn out to be her worst days. on one of these days a few weeks ago she even went as far as to go into the money her mom gave me and stole 60 dollars out. a side note is she did the same thing today but thinks me and her mom don't know. she only stole twenty (and she did it last night) and i'm waiting until her mom gets home to figure out where that twenty dollars is.

anyways we've tried everything to try and solve her behavior issues. point systems. sticker systems. her dad loves to bribe her with toys and stuff. punishments when she does wrong. she just doesn't respond to anything. nothing makes her try and do better. it's gotta be something wrong with her mentally. 

this kinda all came down to a showdown this wednesday. she was refusing to do her homework. all she had to do was read a paragraph and drag some pictures to their corresponding answers. it was so easy, she's done harder work before, but she was not having it. i have an eleven minute voice memo on my phone of her telling me to read it for her and me having to remind her it's not my homework, it's her, and i'm there to help her on parts that she struggles with but i cannot read an entire paragraph for her that is supposed to. i had to call her grandma twice to talk her down and finally she did the assignment. then we went inside. i was exhausted by this point but she wanted to go outside. 

i told her because she was bad the answer was no, but if she was good afterwards i was willing to let her go out later. and then switch flipped and she suddenly became the raging dementor again. i was so tired and was just sitting and saying "no" over and over and tried to put my foot down and was like "okay because of this now you're not going out at all" and then she switched up and suddenly was trying to go out later instead because of this new rule and we got into another argument and during it she wrapped my phone chord around my neck and tried to choke me. I immediately called her grandma and convinced her to have her grandpa come and pick her up. 

Eventually after lots of bickering and arguments and having to force her out the door with her grandpa by lying and saying she would come back immediately after (she wouldn't) i drove myself home. and in that moment all i wanted to do was talk to someone but i realized i had no one. 

all my friends were gone. my older sister was gone. my parents were on vacation together. my group chat was split up. i was just so lonely and i finally just had my breakdown moment. i cry a lot, i pretend it's a trait since i'm a cancer lmao, but i don't think i've ever cried that hard in my entire life. 

i just broke down. i was so exhausted and all i needed in that moment was just for someone to be there for me and i knew no one was going to be. i sat in my car in my driveway with my music on just sobbing for ten minutes straight. i posted some stuff on my snapchat about my day and had literally one friend reach out to me. and it was a random girl i knew in high school. not one of my best friends has reached out to me even now three days later. 

y'all. i'm tired. i'm exhausted. these last few months have taken everything out of me i've had to offer. i've literally hit my rock bottom. i think of where i was supposed to be right now and how none of it has happened. i was supposed to meet one of my internet friends this summer and go my first taylor swift concert with her. i was supposed to be working at my restaurant right now that i've been working at since i was sixteen. i was supposed to be happy, you know? 

Nasty nineteen really has turned into nasty nineteen. you know you're at your bare minimum when you're happy you've only had to yell (term used loosely) at your charge once today so far and it's not even twelve yet so you know you're going to have to at least a few more times today. it's the fact that i'm happy she's been so good i was able to write all this down. because on a normal, average day it i wanted to write over four thousand words (which this is over four thousand) it would be something i'd have to start early and wouldn't be able to finish until maybe five at night. 

anyways as i wrote in the beginning this was just supposed to be my outlet to finally write it all down and how i'm feeling in one place. i'm sorry if you've read this far. i just needed to get it all out. 

just to say: i am okay. i am not self-harming nor planning to. i have no plans to end my life at all. i am just going through a huge rough-patch that i think won't end until after christmas when i go back to school. i'm really looking forward to moving across the country again and just going back to school overall. i'll be living there from new years day up until the end of july. it's going to be a really big change, and for the first time in my life i will be living completely separate from my family. my last semester of college when i actually went to move there i roomed with my sister. in january i'll be on my own for the first time. 

i know i'm complaining about being alone right now, but i'm looking forward to being justifiably alone, yk? like me making it so i'm alone, not others leaving me. i just feel like it's different. Besides I already have a roommate lined up who is almost the same person as me and we're going to get along fantastically plus she has a cat who loves affection. So I think I'll have a friend from the beginning. And in april my sister will join me PLUS one of my best irls (not of the two who make me a third wheel) will be there too. 

Just realized it's past twelve now in case you're wondering how slow this is really being typed lmaooo. 

i'm rambling at this point and honestly i've you've read this far i'm so sorry but also thanks it means you're a real one lol. 

i love you a lot and i hope i can write again soon. my life is just in too many shambles for me to have that kind of inspiration. 

love,

emily