Anita,

Yes, that makes sense. I think part of the reason why I don’t want to end contact with her is also that I am not close to many people. I have been feeling a distance growing between my friends from my hometown and me, I don’t have many friends in college, and so right now my cousin seems to be one of the few people I have in my life. I think the solution to that would be to make more friends, but that is something I’ve been having a lot of trouble with. I’m very shy and I don’t open up to people often. That is something I want to change about myself, but I don’t know how to do that.

Dear Anita,

Wow, that’s a lot of threads. I didn’t realize I wrote so many. Thank you for putting in the time to go through them all haha. I want to mention that my current boyfriend is not the same boyfriend that I wrote all my threads about (he is not as toxic as my ex and our relationship is healthy, thankfully). I just wanted to bring that up to clear up any confusion. Also, sorry that I create so many threads. I think I have a hard time relating one problem to another, so when a problem comes up for me again, I just make a new thread. But again, thank you for putting all my threads together it makes it really easy for me to make the connections. I will reply to you on this thread from now on.

And as for the points you made,

1. Thank you for the advice. It is really helpful to listen to what others think I should do. Many people believe it would be best if I end contact with my cousin or at least distance myself. It’s just very difficult for me. I am very afraid of losing her, and even though she is so toxic, she plays a vital role in my support system. I know that may not make sense, but I believe she wants the best for me. She says toxic things to me that make me very upset, but she is also someone who I talk to every day. It’s very confusing for me. I have tried distancing myself from her, but I end up feeling sad. When I talk to her again, I feel happy that I have an important person back in my life again. So I don’t really know how to go about this 🙁

2. Thank you again. I will definitely do this.

3. I will also do this.

4. I will reply on this post from now on, thank you again for putting in the time to help me.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Katie.

Vesper,

Thank you, that is really good advice! And it put a smile on my face 🙂

Peggy,

I kinda have, but not really. I feel like I “judge” everyone else to avoid feeling upset because I am not friends with them.

I am looking back on all of my old threads, and everything that everyone has said in the comments is true. About a year later, I feel like my crippling self-doubt and low self-esteem are more apparent than ever. I think this was the beginning stages of my journey into realizing how low my self-esteem is. At the same time, I am improving and becoming more confident.

I also want to state that I don’t think I was being realistic. The truth is, I rarely went out. I went to high school, went home, or hung out with my boyfriend. I was rarely even in social situations where guys could hit on me. I think I was comparing myself to my friends who were in social situations more often than I was. For example, my best friend had a very serious relationship similar to mine, but she had a job where she would interact with a lot of guys our age. She also was very prevalent on social media and was constantly posting pictures of herself, while I posted on Instagram 3 times a year. Obviously, she is going to get more attention.

After entering college, I was constantly in social situations… and guys did end up hitting on me. So I think I was just confused. I was being pretty self-centered… first, because I had a boyfriend, second because I expected guys to hit on me no matter what, and third because I expected to be hit on by guys without even putting myself in a situation where they could. I am still working on feeling confident without having the validation from others. It’s a process but I’m trying.

Azu,

yeah I agree with what you said. Just seeing my cousin flirting with my ex… with my own eyes… felt so hurtful. I have understood that my relationship with my cousin is toxic even before this specific incident happened. But this kinda took it over the top. My worry isn’t that my cousin and my ex had a connection (I mean yeah, it sucks but whatever I can live). My real worry is that my cousin did this BECAUSE she doesn’t care about me or my feelings. That’s where the real pain is for me. Like I have a lot of feelings towards this (hurt over my ex flirting in front of me, hurt over being dumb enough to watch my ex flirt with someone in front of me, feeling ugly, etc), but my main hurt is over my cousin. My worry is that she saw my ex flirting with her as simply an opportunity to have fun and flirt back when she KNOWS it would hurt me (how could she not).

Airene,

It was okay! I met a boy and we started dating. We’ve been dating for 6 months. I didn’t actually end up making any solid friendships with any girls. Which I’m fine with because my mindset for most of my classes was “just study and get through this”

Peggy,

Thank you for your reply. Everything you said makes sense. Except there is one thing I am worried about. When you said, “flip your thinking on its head – they were attracted to you FIRST.” I try thinking that way, but I realized something. I believe my cousin and I have developed a subconscious competition. She has always based her “beauty” off of how many guys like her. So, I don’t think she cares if my exes liked me first. In her head, this is the first time she is meeting them and they are clearly attracted to her. So she doesn’t care if they were attracted to me first and nobody else seems to care.  I feel so stupid. I feel like I honestly believed my first love and my ex-boyfriend of 3 years liked me for me. I thought they were attracted to my looks over others’ looks. I thought they liked my personality over others. Maybe that type of thinking is wrong, but it’s how I viewed them. I liked their looks and their personalities over others. I probably wouldn’t flirt with any of their cousins or friends because I have no reason to. I chose to like them, not their friends. This makes me feel like they just pretended to like me or something. And to others – it makes it seem like I’m delusional. I REALLY believed my first love and I had something special? Well, people probably think I’m crazy for thinking that because if I really had something special with him, he wouldn’t be flirting with my cousin IN FRONT OF ME. It’s just embarrassing.