I have a serious self esteem problem

(It's nearly midnight and I'm so exasperated from everything that happened today and honestly still very jarred by what happened but I want to get an entry out before the day ends so I will be very colloquial with my speech sorry :P)

So I ran into a very toxic ex-friend today at the place where I work/do my volunteering.

I don't even know if I can call her an ex friend. It was one of those friendships where the other person treats you like you're their significant other in the worst ways possible, and you're kinda trapped with their micromanagement and clinginess, and by relationship standards it would be considered abuse with the way that they're treating you but you're not in a relationship with them so you keep telling yourself that it's normal, and you keep gaslighting yourself into thinking that maybe they're good for you and that you can fix them, but also you're terrified to leave because you're scared that they might hurt you or themselves kind of friendship.

Also apparently one of my mutual friends told me that she was secretly in love with me (I DO NOT RECIPROCATE NO NO NO), so for the sake of this entry I will be calling it a "situationship." (I hate that word but unfortunately it perfectly describes what our relationship was. A situation.)

She was cleaning cat litter off of the ground and her head was facing the floor, and I thought she was a new volunteer because we had an influx of those come in. Also, she had bright pink dyed hair the last time I saw her and this new mystery person has black hair. I stand in front of this person like a fucking idiot for like 30 seconds before a node of familiarity clicks in my mind and registers it as The Situationship. Immediately I run out of the room and hide behind some stacks of dog food in an empty employee section because I really do NOT want to deal with her bullshit. I then proceed to cower there for 2 hours, texting my friend (who also works there) and asking if she'd left, until my friend tells me that he doesn't think that she's leaving anytime soon, and tells me that our manager told him that she switched her hours to (WHAT A SURPRISE) the same ones as mine. I cut my losses and just leave, because whatever, and after my friend's shift ended me and my friend got ice cream and Chipotle which made me feel a lot better.

Still, I feel so pathetic for just running away like that. I'm afraid no amount of ice cream can help me grow a backbone LOL. I've been trying to switch my hours so I wouldn't have to see her, because for some reason she just keeps stalking me. I'm really scared that she might do something to hurt me. I know probably nothing will happen and most likely she will spit some vitriol at me and then make fun of me for being such a wimp, but she threatened to seriously hurt me before in the past, and I really don't want that to happen to me so I've just been trying to avoid her as much as I can.

What makes it worse is that she constantly berated me about how submissive I was, and was always complaining about how annoying it was when I didn't have any will, but I think she enjoyed having someone to boss around. I'm pretty sure she's trying to find me just to see me run away from her in fear, like how she was always threatening me and trying to control me when I was still friends with her.

I told my mom about this a while back when a similar situation happened right after I stopped talking to her, and she said that I "couldn't live in fear forever." I agree that I have to stand up for myself sometimes but it's so hard.. Especially in person! I think that if I even attempted to express my boundaries to The Situationship she would make fun of how much hemming and hawing and stuttering and "ummm"ing I'm doing and then just cut me off with her own spiel on how boundaries are stupid or something.

Also Tavros icon because I relate to him a lot (if you couldn't tell) and I feel like he would relate to this story. }:)