Anita,

Thank you for taking the time to write a long, detailed reply!

For part 1: I really relate to what you said about teachers. Even though I will study for a specific class every day and know the material like the back of my hand, I felt that I was never noticed. Except, I would always see teachers praising students for hard work so it didn’t make sense. I also feel that it’s important to mention that there was a time in my life (beginning of high school) where I was making a lot of friends and developing social skills. So, I did have some amount of social skills before. However, I retreated back in my shell when people began to judge me and I started to feel weird. Being shy really has drawbacks and I’ve experienced a lot of them.

Part 2: That summary is accurate. Overall, I feel upset because I was busy and lost touch with my friend, but she didn’t really seem to notice or care. However, whenever I do talk to her, she treats me the same as always, so I can’t tell if I’m overreacting. We talk like normal whenever we talk again. I’m just confused.

Part 3: That does make a lot of sense. It has been difficult for me to understand why my cousin would want to hurt me, but I also noticed that during the times my cousin is really happy, she is not mean at all. Whenever she is happy and something really good is happening in her life, she never puts me down. I think noticing that has helped me understand that she tries to hurt me out of her own pain.

It is also difficult for me to understand that my cousin would flirt with my first love to hurt me. I actually posted about that situation on multiple advice websites because I really was hurt, but I couldn’t talk about it with my boyfriend (for obvious reasons) or friends because they were there to witness it and I was embarrassed. There is something about being humiliated by my cousin in front of everyone that made me want to isolate myself. I know what she did wasn’t the worst thing ever, but it felt really hurtful and my friends could probably pick up on what she was doing too.

Someone on one of the other sites (I think Reddit) said I was being self-centered for caring about my first love and my cousin because the relationship was long over. He/she said I had no reason to be hurt because neither my cousin nor the guy should have to hide their attraction for each other. However, I think what hurt me wasn’t that my first love would flirt with my cousin (although I think that’s a slight slap in the face. It’s like if you were to break up with a guy and then he flirts with your sister in front of you. She basically is my sister, I don’t know it feels wrong), but it was that my cousin didn’t stop it.

She let it happen to the point where he was obviously touching her and telling her she’s beautiful when I was right there talking to both of them in a conversation. Me, her, him, and my few friends were in a conversation and it was so weird. Like, both that guy and my cousin were leading the conversation and then I blinked and he was touching her and telling her she’s so beautiful.

I didn’t know if I was coming to this specific conclusion because I was hurt or if this is really what happened, but to me, it felt like my cousin was basking in the joy of him flirting with her. I felt like she was trying to pretend she didn’t understand why he was coming onto her so hard when in reality, she wasn’t stopping his obvious advances and was even slightly flirting back. It was a really complicated situation where I feel she was flirting with him before I came. I don’t mean to ramble about the situation, but for some reason, it’s still very hard for me to process. I just try to write my thoughts so I can organize them and understand them.

I felt that she wanted me to see him flirting with her so I would think that men think she is more desirable. I feel that that is just how she is. She uses men as proof that she is desirable, and I could somewhat tell, but it hurt because she knew what that guy meant to me. At the time, I didn’t know if I was getting those signals because I was jealous/hurt/confused or if it was actually what she was doing based on how close we are and how well I know her. But to me, it makes sense that she wanted to hurt me when I think it through. I felt so hurt on that day, I felt so alone and felt like she didn’t care.

It also is more clear to me now that she wanted to hurt me when she said my nose is big. It makes me so upset though because I went through all this pain because I truly believed my nose was a problem because of her. I don’t mean to be rude when I say this, but something I also noticed is that my cousin will praise girls who have bigger noises than me. She will say, “I want to look like her,” but she won’t say they need a nose job. I used to wonder if I’m blinde and my nose is actually bigger than theirs because there must be some reason why she says I need a nose job and they don’t. Right now, I am at a point where I don’t care if my nose is bigger than theirs or not. It’s just very confusing because I care about her opinion still. I want her to accept me, you know? I guess I have to work on that.

Something that I also thought I should mention is that I’ve been trying to pay attention to things that truly make me happy. And those include singing, dancing, movies, tv shows, cooking, taking care of myself, etc. I don’t have a problem with cooking, doing self-care, exercising, and all-around taking care of myself because I do that all the time. However, I’ve always been too shy to sing and dance. I always wanted to do it, but now that my confidence is slightlyyyy improving, I’m thinking about trying it out (in private though). I just wanted to know what your thoughts on that are. I am hoping that if I do things I like, my confidence will grow.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Katie.