You’ve Heard of Auld Lang Syne, Here are Some Old Friends

As the New Year starts, a look back on past friends.

Go to the right every time. Photo by Hadija on Unsplash

It’s 2026, everyone. That means that with a fresh start, it’s sometimes nice to go back and see what we did right in the end. I feel a huge weight lifted off my shoulders with 2025 in the rear view mirror.

It made me think of all the regrets, mistakes, and past relationships I’ve had. Then I realized all the things I did right. Letting go of people when they get too toxic, self-absorbed, or when our goals are no longer aligned.

I’m looking back at three people from the past. They affected and shaped my current mindset and lifestyle. I will rename them for the sake of anonymity, and explain why we moved on and why we’re no longer friends.

When I look back, I’m sure I played a part in some of these breaks. At the same time, I moved forward, learning from my mistakes, or at least trying to, and forging better relationships with healthier outcomes.

“Amy” Long Time Abusive Girlfriend Turned Long Time Abusive Friend

I’ve mentioned “Amy” in the past and even accidentally used her real name a few times in many of my previous stories of abuse. This relationship was the one that scarred and affected me the most. I met her back in 1997 when I was still in high school.

A young, naive, and studious boy, I fell for her and dated her for over three years, until I was out of high school and on scholarship in college. I put my life on hold for her and nearly destroyed it all. There were signs that my feelings for her were not reciprocated.

Mentions of wanting to hook up with other women on her end and even my sister, came out of her mouth constantly. I knew she was bisexual. We both realized that at that time, we were. She thought I was more interested in her best friend than her. That led to some gnarly physical and mental abuse from her end.

It left me scarred, basically for life, and picking up the pieces of the trauma from someone suffering from untreated borderline personality disorder. The problem was that she couldn’t see that she was the problem. She placed the blame on everyone but herself, but I loved her, so I stuck around.

This is how that relationship made me feel. Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash

She eventually left me for my sister and dated her for years after that. I stayed out of loyalty, out of stubbornness. I told her I’d be her friend, despite the years of abuse. I was her friend up until 2019, 18 years after that messy breakup.

That day, after years of keeping her dark secrets and putting up with the imbalance of our relationship, I’d had enough. I was over 2000 miles away from her, so physically, I didn’t feel that she could harm me anymore. I was talking to her on video chat one day, and I witnessed her beating her girlfriend, and it took me back to the past.

I’d had enough. I told her girlfriend everything.

About the past abuse. About the past relationship. Her girlfriend was in the dark about the relationship she’d had with a man, me specifically. She stayed with her after, but not for much longer. Trust had eroded, not only with her but also with me. I’d finally woken up and set a boundary.

I’d had enough, and I instantly blocked her number and her social media accounts. I decided to release her negative energy. It took over two decades and years and years of abuse, both through a relationship, then through a long “friendship”.

She was never my friend.

I was always useful to her and served a purpose for her until I couldn’t. I was no longer loyal to her and no longer willing to hide her dark past.

“Mitchell,” The Coworker Turned Roommate Turned Nightmare

I worked at Verizon for over four years, and one of the guys I met early on was someone I latched on to instantly. He was easy to talk to, and we got along straight away. We had a lot in common, and had both lived pretty hard lives. We understood difficult people, and we both had abusive pasts.

He was in the same customer service team as me when I was in Sacramento, and we commuted together. I found out that his living situation was messed up. He was at a relative’s house, and they were abusive towards him.

He had to work full-time and go home to yelling, screaming, and constant stress. After working with him for a few months, I felt terrible and helpless, like I couldn’t do anything to help him. Then he told me something that affected me. The police had been called to the house, and he had subsequently been locked out. He didn’t get arrested, and the situation calmed down.

In my mind, though, I’d had enough.

I couldn’t continue to see him being treated in such a way. I felt that it was my duty to step in and help him. I figured that since we worked and commuted together, it would be easier to live together, especially since I was closer to work than he was.

It was a bit out of the way to drop him off all the time, and I figured I could save on gas and he could save on rent. We would enter into a win-win, and both of us would save money. It would take some convincing with my partner, Mike, to get this to happen, but Mike reluctantly agreed, on the condition that Mitchell would help us out and not just expect to ride our coattails.

I’d ensured Mike that Mitchell agreed to pay us a little rent, at least I thought he did. In hindsight, I wish I’d gotten him to sign a contract to live with us. That is a prudent and necessary thing to do, especially when you get involved like that with a coworker who could easily complicate matters. I didn’t have the foresight I do now, seeing how quickly this went downhill.

He was with us for over three months before the little ticks and annoyances I’d previously ignored started coming out. Sleeping at inconvenient times, playing video games all night long, and turning off the air conditioner in California summer (a huge sin, especially in Sacramento, and especially to a person with a chronic condition flared up by humidity).

On top of that, he didn’t pay rent. I knew how much he made. He worked with me. He blew all that money on fast food, takeout, and video games on his PlayStation 4. To make matters worse, getting him to do anything helpful around the apartment or even engage with us was a chore.

This wasn’t the vibe but I wish it had been. Photo by Anita Monteiro on Unsplash

Then he had the nerve to go into our room at random times and tell us to stop doing what we’re doing because it’s irritating him while he’s doing something else (in our own house). We were starting to feel imprisoned in our own apartment by someone I thought was a friend, who became more of an annoyance and a leech.

When we figured out what his game was, we finally decided to kick him to the curb and forced him to move out. Without any formal agreement and no paid rent, it was much easier to get him to leave than we thought it would be. Mitchell moved out within the month and moved in with another coworker.

He never interacted with me at work again, and we were no longer friends. All because my partner and I finally decided to set healthy boundaries with someone who didn’t appreciate our help. The lesson I learned from this was never to trust a coworker to this degree.

Especially to have them live with me and put up with so much nonsense. It ended up costing me more in the end than doing nothing different than before. He got to save money, but I ended up spending more because I was carrying the weight of an extra person, a grown-ass man-child.

“Alyssa,” The Neighbor Turned Friend and Confidant Who Turned Out to Be Psychotic

In 2019, when I moved to the West Side of Erie with my partner, we moved into a house in a working-class neighborhood by an industrial zone. I’d been warned that the neighborhood was a little rough, but I’d previously lived in bigger cities (Chicago and Sacramento), so a little crime in a small town would be nothing in comparison.

I was right, but the people I encountered in the neighborhood were interesting. One particular person I warmed up to seemed nice, but she had something dark rumbling underneath. She was in a codependent relationship with an abusive alcoholic.

She had an autistic daughter who would always push her boundaries. She had a full plate.

Along came someone to try to help and alleviate her stress. I figured if she got to hang out with me more, she didn’t have to stress out so much about her boyfriend or her daughter. A bonus was that my partner (who is also autistic) and I got a chance to connect with her daughter in a way that was easier than in the past for her.

We latched on to the connection with both her daughter and our friend. We would go and do things together. The relationship secretly started getting a bit sour when I didn’t enforce some of the same strict boundaries on her daughter that she had randomly imposed on her. There were some silly, childish YouTube channels that her daughter liked watching that her mom disapproved of.

When I was around, Uncle Sturgy didn’t really care if she watched them, so I let more go. After all, I was a fun guy and not her parent. And she felt safe around me.

I never could’ve expected what happened next.

After finally convincing our friend to break up with her loser boyfriend at a social function she hosted at her house, I started bragging to our mutual friends how I successfully got Alyssa to listen to reason and that I helped her cut out a bad part of her life, along with being able to connect with her daughter in a way that not many others could.

This secretly enraged Alyssa because she felt that I embarrassed her, and she only let me know later through text. This was after she had canceled plans with my partner and me to go on a road trip together. Now she was going on the road trip with only her and her daughter. A few days later, after she’d come back, and she was uncharacteristically silent on text, I decided to press her.

She told me that she’d gone on the road trip, picked up her old boyfriend on the way back, they got back together, and she was mad I meddled and forced her to see the light. She doubled down, much like her boyfriend had doubled down on his alcoholism, and she was once again stuck.

What I thought our relationship was versus what it actually was. Stark contrast. Photo by Land O’Lakes, Inc. on Unsplash

This time, without my help and support, and with her cutting me out of her life. I also told her in that moment, “Forget it, Alyssa. I helped you through so much. You don’t get to cut me out. I cut you out of my life.”

Before we completely cut ties, she threatened to make up charges against me, saying that I abused her daughter physically and emotionally, exposing her to bad elements.

Supposedly, the silly, childish YouTube videos were her ammo, but she would try to make up a few more before I shut that nonsense down. I would never harm a child, and the mere suggestion of such was enough to infuriate me and make sure I stayed clear of that energy.

It wouldn’t have held up in court, but the sheer fact that she’d even try that made me realize that the relationship was always a one-way road and she was looking for any reason to break with me, even as I tried to improve her life.

I moved on, I stopped all contact. Even though we only lived two houses apart, I avoided her at all costs, and then we were eventually forced out of that house a few months later.

We had been friends for over six months, and just like that, it was over. Lesson learned. Don’t get involved in messy people’s lives. Don’t try to help broken people with the right advice. They’ll try to throw it back in your face if they’re not ready to confront it themselves.

Sometimes, they need to fix their own messes.

I found out from her older adult son, with whom we remained friends after, that she eventually left him on her own, and she doesn’t have custody of her autistic daughter anymore (she’s with her much more stable, yet slightly neurotic father).

She lives in a different state and is married to a different guy. I feel sorry for her, but I don’t at the same time. I’m not even angry at her. I hope she lives the life she deserves, but far away from me.

I’ve had many more relationships similar to these in the past, but I’ve learned a lot from other people in life. I’m a good-hearted, kind, and giving person. I see how people can and do take advantage of that. I try not to let it make me jaded.

But naturally, with all of the stress and all of the hardships I’ve had myself, it’s hard not to think that maybe I should close myself off to the world a bit more. These relationships certainly give me pause in retrospect, and have definitely given me the framework and foundation of how I currently choose to live my life.

I have a harder time trusting people now, but when I do, I still try to do my best for them, and I’ll remain a kind person as long as I live. I just won’t let people take advantage of me as much as I did in the past. I’m worth much more than that, and I deserve better.