I was recently reading through my old blog from middle and high school and noticed a few interesting things. I was reading in reverse chronological order, so I first encountered a post entitled "My Flaws", where I essentially listed what I hated most about myself. It was extremely sad reading what young me thought of herself and listening to her beating herself down. I consider myself a fairly confident person, but I did not get to this position without a lot of fighting against my own brain. I kept scrolling and reading and came upon another post all about getting to know me. It was a lot of the usual stuff, like my favorite things, but mixed in were a few interesting things. The two that stuck out the most to me were that I stated that I was not self-conscious, and thought I could get a record deal easily.
It was interesting as in my flaws post, made a couple of years later, I stated that I could not sing and that I hated parts of my body, including my knees, hair, and stomach.
What changed?
I'll tell you,
Fucking middle school bullies.
Between fifth and eighth grade, I was relentlessly bullied by one particular mean girl, who actually turned one of my friends against me in a "her or me" sort of situation. She also claimed I was attempting to be popular and "it's just sad, to see someone try that hard to be something they can't". A lot of gossip and full on slander was spread about, and while we were friends (because for a while in the fifth grade I considered her one of my best friends) she systematically tore me down and created all of my insecurities I would fight to overcome for the rest of my life.
One night when I was over with the rest of our little group, we played "American Idol" and everyone took turns 'auditioning'. We were pretty much saying the same stuff, that whoever performed was amazing, we were offering a record deal right there, and they were going to HOLLYWOOD BABY!!!!!
Then I got on stage.
And she stopped me not even thirty seconds into my 'performance', and said words I haven't forgotten in the 10 years since.
"You're like, not that good at singing. Like, you can see on key but like, it doesn't sound good. No one wants to hear it. You really shouldn't sing, like, ever."
And I said something in a small voice, embarrassed that I had humiliated myself, and sat back down and did my best to have fun as she went on to force us to listen to her since for the next hour or so. I don't remember anything else from that night, but my best friend out of the group later told me that she thought that was mean of her and that I didn't sing badly at all.
But the damage had been done.
Over the course of that school year, she spoke behind my back to everyone about how she hated me and wished she wasn't my friend, that she was too nice to stop talking to me but wished I would stop talking to her. I tried to be friends and make things better because I didn't know what I had done, but eventually, I was completely alienated. I had one friend left, who was also cast aside by this mean girl, for reasons I found out were basically we were 'pretty' enough or 'cool' enough to be popular, and therefore couldn't be friends with her.
She constantly pointed out my 'flaws' until I believed her.
Over the summer before middle school, she bullied me even more, spread more lies, so that by the time school started back up again, I had no friends. I had my one, from fifth grade, but once we moved into larger class sizes, with lunch altogether, she sat with her friends, made new ones, and I was left alone the majority of recess and lunch. I later met a girl who had gone through the same shit as me, by the same girl as me, just a year prior to my arrival at the school. And this mean girl had lied to ME about this girl, told me horrible things about her so I wouldn't be her friend, and I had never met her. As I talked to her, Emma, she cleared everything up and we found out that she was repeating a cycle, of tossing aside friends who didn't fit her agenda of being the most popular girl in school.
Moral of the story is one little thing can change you for life. I struggle with body dysmorphia, not from this one single event, but this girl really set it off and made it morph into something I struggle with every day, something that changed form from just worrying about ever being fat, and thinking anything above skeletal was fat, to hating everything about me, from my knees to my hair to the fat on my stomach that is there naturally for childbirth. She pointed out things I couldn't change, like my laugh and singing voice, my teeth color, my nose, and made me hate them. She destroyed my self-esteem that my mother had built to seem so indestructible, not built on my image but on how I felt about myself. I don't know if I can ever forgive her, and I know she wasn't bullied at home as she came from a loving, albeit broken, home. Despite her parents being divorced she and her family were happy. Her mom and dad had a good relationship and were on great terms, she was just a pure mean girl, evil to the core. I hope to God she changed and that I was her last victim, as I nearly killed myself from anorexia and hating my own self so deeply.
That's all for now. Please be nice to others and fucking punch your local mean girl. She's a bitch and deserves it.
Jaina
