Airene,

Hi. Sorry that my reply is so late. I’m just going through my old posts and reading them. First, your comment really helped me when I read it and I decided to stop trying to become friends with those girls. I decided that I would rather make organic friendships than fight to make friends in college. And you are right, she may have been doing psychological bullying. Maybe she didn’t like me for some reason? All those girls seemed very close (even though it was only the third week of college) so maybe she just didn’t want me there and wanted to blame me? I don’t know. But for the rest of the school year, she was really nice to me and always tried talking to me when I saw her. Which confuses me but whatever.

Also, to anyone in this thread:

Before I worked at this summer camp, I literally had a fear that a kid would say I looked like a witch. I thought, “I’m going to be working at a summer camp with a bunch of kids who have no filter. My hair is black and puffy and frizzy. Someone’s going to say it I know it” and low and behold, someone did. But I thought they would say it because of my hair. If my hair was straightened and silky/shiny, I probably wouldn’t have this fear. I also put my hair up for the first 2 weeks that I worked there because I was worried that some kid would point out my ugly hair.

I remember my cousin and I thought our great aunt looked like a witch. She was skinny, pale, and had hair similar to mine but darker.

I’d say I’m in shape, I am pale but also have a natural tan because I am Latina. So it must be the hair right? My great aunt didn’t even have an ugly nose so that gives me hope.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Katie.

Peter,

Thank you for that. This journey of accepting myself has been to hard and painful that it seems like I will never be happy with myself. But I can’t just choose to not be offended. I just can’t. Also, if I did sit down with the kid and “discipline” him, do you think I could do it? I’m not experienced in discipline and I’m afraid it will cause problems

Anita,

I do have a supervisor who helps me. At the summer camp, there is one teacher and two assistant teachers. I am one of the assistant teachers, and the main teacher deals with most of the issues such as discipline. I don’t usually discipline them unless its a very small issue. Otherwise, I get the main teacher involved.

And as for the issue with my looks, I’d say they improved slightly although not enough to make me unbothered by this. I started working out regularly and I am becoming more confident in myself and my looks. I try to think clearly and remember that people have told me I have a nice face. I’m clearly not ugly. I may not be the most beautiful but I’m not ugly at all. I try to remember. I’ve improved but not that much I guess.

His words shouldn’t hurt me. You are right, I should help kids instead of worrying about their hurtful words. And I do for the most part. The part I enjoy most about my job is being a friend to every kid there. I was always super shy so when I see a shy kid, I make sure to include them. I try my hardest to get the shy kids to socialize. And I really feel a sense of self-worth when I can help a kid with their social skills. However, his words hurt me so bad still I don’t know why. There has been research done on female attractiveness, and they call an ugly skull a “witch skull” and a pretty skull an “angel skull.” Beautiful women have angel skulls while ugly women have witch skulls. Angel skulls have an upturned nose, high cheekbones, full lips, and a strong chin. Witch skulls have a downturned nose, small lips, and a weak chin. I think one of the reasons why his words affected me so much is because he literally called the little girl an angel and me a witch. You don’t need to do research to know when a girl looks like an angel, a princess, a mermaid, etc and when a girl looks like a witch or an evil, mean person. An 8-year-old would especially know this, being subjected to Disney princesses and superheroes. I think that’s why it hurts me so bad. I spend a lot of time wondering… “do I have an angel skull or a witch skull?” To me, I would say I am an angel skull.. and I hope that I am. But I don’t know. My fear is that this kid thinks my face looks like a witch. Maybe I’m not an angel skull. I don’t know. I get so anxious thinking about it. I look at pictures of myself and ask myself which skull I have. And I think maybe angel but I don’t know and maybe this kid thinks my nose is ugly and my face is ugly. That’s my fear. I also am sad that he clearly thinks of me as a mean person. My confusion though is that I literally never called this little girl ugly. I called her beautiful! I agreed with him and made that clear… yet he still felt the need to call me a witch? He’s only 8 but when I was 8 I would never say that to someone unless I genuinely believed they looked like an ugly witch. Especially since I was calling her beautiful as she was hitting me in the face (which really hurt too).

I also want to ask him what he meant by it… but I don’t know how. Should I say, “Hey (name), you said I look like a witch yesterday, what did you mean?” or is that weird? I don’t want to be weird to this 8-year-old and act so offended. I don’t want to make this situation weird because I know my offense to the situation probably isn’t normal…

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Katie.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Katie.

Nairobi,

For some reason, no matter how much I say it’s not my fault, I feel like it is. I feel like my nose is big. One day I think it’s not and the next day I think it is. I think my fear of telling her to stop comes from my fear of her being right. What if she isn’t the only one who thinks my nose is big? What if everyone else sees it, but she is the only one who is honest enough to tell me? My boyfriend swears my nose isn’t big… but he would lie to spare my feelings. Deep down I feel like my cousin doesn’t have issues. I feel like she is just stating her opinion. No matter how many times I put my nose into the golden ratio, I can’t knock the thought that she may just be telling me the truth. If I tell her to stop hurting me, I feel like I’m just making a fool of myself. She tells me to get a nose job… maybe I need one. Why would I turn down such good advice? Also, even if she has issues, me telling her to stop isn’t going to make her stop. She tells me hurtful and “honest” (in quotations because I have absolutely no idea if they are true or not) things all the time. Some things are even valuable and she genuinely seems to want the best for me. I can’t see where the line of lies and hurt end and honest, caring advice begins. If they even are lies. I don’t know why I feel this way but I do. It has been my cousin and my relationship dynamic for my entire life. I don’t know how to “fix” it especially since I don’t know what is the truth and what is a lie. What’s your opinion?

Inky,

That is what I am thinking too. I’m just scared she will never want to be friends again. But it hurts my feelings that she talks to Sarah (she was equally close to me and Sarah, she was friends with Sarah longer because of elementary school but we had a stronger friendship for longer). I’m just confused.

JayJay,

Maybe you are right. She posted a picture on Instagram on vacation. So, I know she saw my text but maybe she didn’t answer because she is on vacation?

Dear Lara,

Sorry for the late reply, but I returned back to this post because of the pain my cousin’s words have caused me. I developed low self esteem and felt as though I had developed body dysmorphia because of my cousin’s words. I started believing that my nose was so big and that I could not see how big it truly was. I’m not sure why my nose is my cousin’s business. She is not interested in becoming a surgeon at all. Looking back, she may just have been jealous or envious of me. I hate to accuse someone of being jealous of me but it is the only logical answer to this question. People tell me I am good looking all the time. I can look in a mirror and see that I am not ugly. My self esteem has risen since I distanced myself from her. I can see now that my nose is NOT big. I started researching the golden ratio and the proper proportions of a face. This research has helped me to understand that I do, in fact, have a normal sized nose. Of course, it is not perfect. It’s not a cute button nose, but it’s far from a bulbous one. I think my nose is the perfect shape, actually. Yes, it could be made slightlyyyy smaller with surgery if I wanted, but my nose is small enough. It’s not too big and not too small. It’s average sized. My cousin has told me I am not good enough for almost my entire life. She has held me back in many ways. She is not happy for me when good things happen in my life. She never compliments me. I never told her to stop obsessing with my nose because I don’t want her to know how much her words have hurt me. I do not trust her with my emotions at all.

A side note: my cousin photoshops a lot of the pictures of her self that she posts on social media. I noticed that she photoshops her nose to be very unflattering for her face. She makes her nose way too thin to the point that it doesn’t look good. I used to not be able to trust my judgement. I thought, “well maybe I just have a warped judgement and I do not know what a good nose looks like.” Now I trust my judgement and can see that my cousin’s opinion of my nose is not an opinion to listen to.