Afew days ago I(23f) punched my (ex) best friend(24f)(we’ll call her Mel) in the face when we were out. For some background info we have a relatively popular friend who we often hang out with (23M/ frank) who we seen out with a big group of lads. I loosely knew some of his friends who he was out with including Mel’s later on crush. Luke(24M). Anyways a week or two ago me and Mel went out around afew clubs just dancing together and smoking around the town before we bumped into frank and his group of friends, at this point it was like 11 and we had no intentions of going home so having a group of lads for me was more of a safety measure if anything. Although Mel took this as a chance to flirt with Luke- I’ve known him since middle school and I was happy as I knew he wasn’t like the arseholes she usually gone with.

Fast forward to the other night. We’ve been going it with this group almost every few days and Mel likes to have a mingle with everyone, being kinda flirty but mainly talking to Luke. I stayed with me friend who I had brought with me: Hollz (22F) since I was kinda sick of being left on my own whilst she mingled. Later in the night I heard some of the lads I knew less referring to me by or with different unflattering things such as Hoodrat or asking if I was a mammys girl or a daddy’s girl before laughing and walking away. It confused me and I decided to ask frank ehat had been going on or why his mates were being off. He gave me a guilty look before pulling out his phone and tapping on a group chat and scrolling up. It was with Mel and the boys from the group. Basically I have a very complex childhood. When I was very young, under religious psychosis my mother tried to kll me. When she was barged out of the way by my uncle and I was taken from her she locked herself in her room and hng her self. My father was never in the picture either. Due to this and my already pretty bad BD and BPD (undiagnosed at the time) my teen years were rough. Despite the help of my uncle and aunt to raise me I was out almost every night on the streets going out with townies and little groups of people from 14-19 from 11-17. I struggles with substance abuse and I wasn’t great in school although I did manage to scrape together some okay GCSEs like Cs and Ds so I was Cush for going to collage, studying beauty therapy. Anyways in this group chat, Mel was telling all of my shit to these boys. Trying to make me look like a bad mess. I was infuriated, Mel had problems with her mam and wasn’t the best in school either which is how we became friends. I told her everything about myself and she did too, I helped her when she needed to vent and shit and we’ve always been there for each other. Although this isn’t the first time she’s tried to get close with men. Who I like or make me feel bad wether that’s calling herself the prettier blonde to boys in groups or texting my boyfriend every day on TikTok messages, venting to him and trying to get attached to him. Mind you this boy didn’t know I didn’t want them being friends whereas I only told Mel who said she blocked him on snap then started messaging him and asked to come over afew times without me too. We stopped being mates for a while but eventually got back to eachother.

Irrelevant tho. Anyways after seeing this text I split. I was so pissed if I stormed through the group, started pushing her before harshly swinging at her face twice. Once I hit her nose and once I hit her eye. Before pushing her onto one of the boys and storming away.

It’s not the next day, I sent her paragraphs that night explaining why I hit her and about his this was the last straw. I unadded her from snap so she could still read it and yeah. Later my phone was getting blown up by her stepdad, her friends, some of the lads in the group on her side, and talking to hollz, my uncle and some of the other lads who were on my side (frank and Luke and their closer friends.)

Some people are saying it was petty and I handled it like i was in high school and I should’ve just talked to her.

So AITAH?