Tag: school and friends

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Best Friends Forever Life Stories Life

Friends can break up too and it’s painful

Photo of four girls wearing school uniforms and doing hand signs
[Image Description: Photo of four girls wearing school uniforms and doing hand signs] Via Pexels

I’m sure everyone has had the displeasure of a friendship break up in their life – for me personally, I’ve been through two; one during my time at secondary school and one as an adult. Neither was easy to get through. 

Friends are valuable people in any individual’s life – a spare sibling if you will, away from home, out in an environment similar to yours. Kids cartoons advocate the importance of having a friend in life, but why is it that when a friendship breaks down, we don’t treat it the same as when a romantic relationship falls apart? We do end up telling our friends the most personal aspects of our lives and when the friendship goes sour, it fills us with anxiety and loneliness. But because the topic is not widely discussed, many people are inclined to believe that they’re not valid for feeling that way, in truth they are and the conversation starts here. 

My friends in my life now are a huge part of who I am as a person. I’m thankful that the friends I made as an adult are not enablers and are more than comfortable discussing and helping me solve any problems that come my way. But I only made proper friends as an adult; an experience from secondary school had left me traumatized to the point of me seeking therapy and isolating myself from people in general. 

I suffer from quite a few health problems; I’ve always been a little weaker than the average person in terms of health and often my peers at school would mock me for it. Whether it was for my broken finger that never healed, my constant migraines and nosebleeds or for my weight gain attributed to PCOS – I was an easy target and I lived with it. That was until I got halfway through secondary school and met a girl who wasted no time defending me against people calling me fat amongst other things. She was the first friend I had who would actually do something about people bullying me. Bit by bit, I started confiding in her; she knew everything. My health problems, arguments I had with my siblings, people I disliked in school. One day, she decided she wasn’t my friend anymore.

She would bully me as much as everyone else but of course, with me having told her everything about me, she had much more to bully me about. I don’t know why the friendship broke down but I remember begging her to tell me why. I just wanted to apologize and move on. I asked her via text to please forgive me if I had done anything to offend her and I would just stay out of her way – her exact words were “you think I’ll just leave you alone because you asked? You really are pathetic”. My biggest regret to date is telling her about a health scare I had – something I was cleared of and never got to tell my once best friend about. Instead, she went around telling everyone I lied about my health problems which resulted in even the nicest kids at school ignoring me. The next two years of school were hell – my parents grew concerned with the fluctuations in my mood and weight but didn’t know how to help me.  I only started the process of healing when another girl in school known for visiting the school counselor reached out to help me by directing me to the loveliest therapist I have ever known. 

When I left school, I continued going to counseling but the damage was already done. I made no friends that I communicated with during sixth form due to the trust issues I had developed and not to mention that my low self-esteem meant that I would deprecate myself before anyone else could. It didn’t help that I faced the same thing all over again when I started working part-time but there was something I had realized the second time around; trust your gut. Going to therapy has taught me one thing in abundance and that is your mind will do anything to protect you from harm. My previous issue with my ‘friend’ had made me hate myself to such an extent, I couldn’t even trust myself around family members, let alone people outside of that. Seeking help after that rough patch taught me to trust myself again so the second friendship failure hit me less hard than the first. Not to say that it didn’t hurt at all because that would be a bald-faced lie but this time I knew I couldn’t let myself get to where I was before. 

So what am I saying? I’m saying that people come and go – even when we don’t want them to. Friendships fall apart for many reasons; some are malicious and some aren’t and it is okay to not want to be friends with someone you have outgrown. But tell someone – it’s not ridiculous at all and it helps in the long run with a wide array of things. Having experienced what I have done made me realize that I wasn’t the only one that lost a friend, the other person did too. 

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Family Life Stories Life

This is my open letter of apology to my sister

two women stand together in front of a yellow wall, their backs face the camera.
[Image description: two women stand together in front of a yellow wall, their backs face the camera.] Via Pexels

Growing up, I had only a few friends. From the ages of twelve to sixteen, I had a grand total of three people I would talk to and even then, I only felt comfortable messaging one out of these three friends. But, the one consistent person in my life has always been my older sister, someone I owe a big apology to. 

When we were younger, my older sister and I were often called twins – we were so in-sync all the time whether it was sentences, responses, or even emotions. My sister is in fact just under two years older than I am and although she can be a bit up herself for being the older sibling at times, I can’t say I’ve never connected with her even though my sister was always a little more sympathetic to things than I was or even still am; if I shed a tear, she shed a waterfall. 

Exhibit A; I slipped headfirst into the side of the building and got a concussion at school one time in year three and she cried more than I did as she went off to get a teacher who basically told her to calm down because not a single coherent word was coming out of her mouth. Though I had to stay home battling a throbbing headache for the upcoming weeks, my sister would spend her time at school making get well soon cards for me and coming home to just sit with me. 

I remember when she was leaving primary school and on her last day, I was filled with dread because I realized that if I now had a spat with my friends, I couldn’t run off to my sister. She was now going to be somewhere that would require me to climb out of the school gates undetected, crossroads safely and not get kidnapped by the white van that appears to be everywhere. Far too much effort for the kid who barely got off the sofa once she sat down.

I got through that year anyhow and remember my sister giving me a pep talk before my first day of secondary school with the same sentence over and over: “I’m there if you need me.” It got really sour, really fast. 

Although undiagnosed at the time, social anxiety has always been a lifelong struggle of mine and I always took comfort in familiarity in my surroundings. I expressed to my sister how nervous I was about starting school on our walk there and she agreed for both of us to meet during break time in the school canteen. The first day had already been awful for me with the highlight of it realizing that I would be picked on by this one girl for the next five years. Her reason? She thought I was ugly. 

As I sat at a table waiting for my sister, a group of girls from my class walked past me making comments about how ‘ugly’ I was. I became the focal point of their laughter when my sister walked up to me and gave me a hug asking how my first few lessons were. I was suddenly torn between being in my safe space and fitting in – would I have been spared the embarrassment if I didn’t talk to my sister? I didn’t know it wouldn’t matter either way; the class bullies ran with it, teasing me relentlessly for the next five years. 

I got teased for a myriad of things during my time at secondary school, but it was all largely in comparison to me and my sister. She was tall, fairer-skinned (colorism at its finest), pretty, and above all, skinny. It didn’t help that she was also smart so whenever we had the same teachers, I would have to face comparisons by the teachers which would just become more ammunition for the class bullies. One girl in my class spread the rumor that I was adopted because there was no way one sister could be so beautiful and the other one so ugly. Another girl told me that my sister should be embarrassed to have such a fat sibling. The comments only got more demeaning from there.

I took it all out on my sister. I started arguing with her every morning so she would leave for school without me and purposefully get out of class really late so I wouldn’t have to walk home with her. Everything anyone has ever bought me down for, I would blame on her and I made sure she knew it. I bullied my own sister for my insecurities and that is a regret that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I regret my actions especially because my sister is a kind soul who has only ever encouraged me and waited patiently for me to work through any issues I was having.

It wasn’t until I got out of secondary school that I realized how awful I had been to someone who had never been mean to me – we came out of school with an overwrought relationship on my behalf. The road to healing has been long but my sister deserves to know that none of it was her fault and if I could undo it, I would.

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Categories
Best Friends Forever Life

I’m a hypocrite for this, but I hate exclusive friendships

[Image Description: A group of friends- 2 boys, 2 girls- laughing with each other.] via Felix Rostig on Unsplash
[Image Description: A group of friends- 2 boys, 2 girls- laughing with each other.] via Felix Rostig on Unsplash

I remember all throughout elementary school I had a core friend group of four. We were best friends and we didn’t really interact with anyone else. I guess you could say we were exclusive. Of course, we would have other friends, but we made it pretty clear that it was us four against the world. The group did change – every year, it was with another group of four, until 7th grade, when I moved to Texas. Soon enough though, I formed new friendships that I thought would last a lifetime. Now, I am completely lost in my Junior year after quitting band and having three of my best friends move schools.

You’d think I would’ve easily moved on, I’ve never really had trouble making new friends, but this year was different. Before COVID-19 hit, I bounced around between larger friend groups within my school, and never really found a place where I felt like I belonged. Band was the perfect place for me. I felt accepted for being me. But now, I don’t know if anyone I’m friends with even likes me anymore. Or maybe my mind is just making things up.

High school in America is incredibly socially awkward, which makes everything a thousand times worse.

There’s so much drama, especially when you don’t have the support of a core group. This person hates that person, that person has a crush on this person, you can’t be friends with him because he’s a guy– rumors circulate, and it’s all a bit hard to keep up with.

Recently, I have come to realize just how much I hate the exclusivity of some friendship groups. I guess I’ve never really felt what it’s like to be on the outside – it’s no fun at all. Exclusive friendships leave people out and cause a lot of unnecessary pain. Now I’m the one being left out of my “group,” and it obviously doesn’t feel great. I do think it’s important to have people who really ground you and know everything about you. However, the close-mindedness of some friendships is just too much sometimes.

You can be exclusive and still accept others and be friends with different groups of people.

Sometimes, I like making friends with everyone and having only one specific person in my life who I know will always be there outside of my family. But other times, I miss feeling like I belong to a distinct group. I miss knowing that no one else would interfere with those bonds and relationships we’ve created. I’m being pulled in all these different directions, and I hate it. It all seems kind of trivial. However, I’ve learned a lot from this past year of not having my core group anymore.

I’ve learned that being open-minded is incredibly important. I’ve learned that I should try to be more accepting of others, even if I don’t know them very well. I’ve learned to stop worrying about what others are thinking of me (which is a work in progress). Most of all, I’ve learned that everything is transient – and that friendships and group dynamics change– sometimes they fade away. I’m learning to be okay with that.