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Lara,
I’m sorry that I didn’t see your message until now. But I would like to answer the questions you asked me. I asked my parents what they are going to do about this… and they basically told me that they would handle this on their own. So I don’t know. I honestly pried and pried at not only my brother but also my parents to find out more about the situation. But I ended up causing a fight and I was told to mind my business (for my brother’s sake because he did not want to talk about it). So I don’t know what they did, but they just told me they are handling it. And I did try to talk with my brother about it but he freaked out. He completely shut down. I was driving with him in my car and when I brought it up he almost jumped out of my car. I’m serious when I tell you he physically cannot handle talking about it. My parents seemed a little sorry for my brother.. they partly believe that it was his friends who encouraged him to do this. Maybe that is wrong but it is what I personally believe too. And based on everyone’s story involved, more kids than just my brother were involved. But ultimately, my brother is the one who committed the act. I just don’t think he would have had the audacity to come up with this on his own. My brother is a little like me. He worries about what everyone thinks. For him to just do this… on his own… there is no way. There is 1 thing that guides every single one of his actions. It is social acceptance. It is the need to look cool. He did this out of ignorance. He didn’t understand the extent of his actions on this girl… he just wanted to look cool. He was getting positive reinforcement from the people around him. It made him feel like this was the right thing to do (in regards with his interests). He felt like doing this was something to be proud of because everyone around him clearly thought it was cool. It’s like how teenage boys ask for nudes from girls to show it to their friends. Except this act… was way cooler! (I obviously don’t think this way but I DO know how 15 year old boys think). So I don’t really know anything except for everything I’ve stated here. Nobody will really talk about it with me.
But since my brother and I are very alike, I can assume how he feels. I, too, have done dumb things for social acceptance. Definitely not this bad (because this was a very, very, very, verrrry stupid thing to do. He should have known better. I guess it is just a different mindset when you are surrounded with and influenced by a bunch of immature high school boys who only care about girls and parties). But I would feel betrayed. Confused. I would think, “how can my friends just ditch me when they were completely for this? I knew it was so wrong but I was so caught up in trying to fit in with my friends. I thought it was okay. But obviously it never is okay to do this. How could I be so stupid. And how could they ditch me when I threw parties for them at my house every weekend?” — Oh and if I didn’t mention this before: my brother’s friends would completely use him. They would ask him for money and not pay him back. My brother would uber eats food to their houses…. but never get paid back!!! My brother was so caught up in it he was in denial about it. They would also ask him to throw parties every weekend then they would all invite the entire school.
I know what my brother did was soooooo wrong. But being a teenager is though. Sometimes you are so caught up in trying to figure yourself out. You are so caught up in your friends. In popularity. In social acceptance. As a teenager you are dealing with problems that you don’t even know exist…. yet they affect you and you feel certain ways that you don’t understand. I can’t help but feel like my brother was just completely used and thrown aside like a dirty rag. If his friends TRULY cared then they would help him see how his actions are wrong and they would NOT encourage him to do this!!! By them ditching him, it just proves how bad of friends they are!! Not to mention all the social hate my brother is getting. The only good thing about this is… hopefully my brother will mature from this. And maybe learn a little bit about himself and on how to treat others.
Anita,
I just realized something that has always really affected me. I am very close with my cousin. We are basically best friends. However, she lives in a very wealthy area which means she goes to school with a bunch of snobby rich brats which means she, herself, is a very snobby rich brat as well. She is so judgmental even towards me. And she is super open about it. Everyone around her is wears expensive clothes, parties all day every day, they all have so many friends, they all try so hard, they are born into money, they are all so smart. But they are so mean. Some good comes out of it, my cousin’s honesty has helped me to have a passion for success and nice things in life as she comes from a very competitive area and some of that competitiveness has rubbed off on me. I try very hard in everything I do because of it. Unfortunately, this has caused me to have an unhealthy obsession with trivial things such as looks, my weight (sometimes I think I have some form of an eating disorder honestly), boys, fashion, and just in general being “good enough.”
Someone told me I shouldn’t have a victim mentality and I am trying not to sound like I am complaining but what I feel is very real. And I think it may even play a part in my fear of being disapproved.
Just now I was talking with her when she brought up her best friend. She said to me, “yeah I don’t think (friend’s name) would like you. She doesn’t really like people who are quiet. She doesn’t like people who are weird. She probably wouldn’t like any of your friends. She doesn’t like losers.”
Her words caused a little bit of pain in me. She was basically telling me I am not good enough for her friends. In reality, I know I am good enough because there is nothing wrong with me. I am super nice and am most definitely not a loser. I know it is just because her friend is just dumb. But this honestly isn’t unfamiliar to me given my cousin and I are so close. I am put in the situation of being compared to people from her school. I don’t know if this is why I am so afraid of being disapproved by people in general, but I know I feel fear of being disapproved by her (even her friends who I have never talked to). It hurts that she said that and now I feel like I am not good enough. I don’t know if this helps but I think growing up with this type of criticism definitely caused me to be very hard on myself.. not in a good way. It reminds me of how I feel when I looked at older, popular girls in my school who never really paid attention to me when my boyfriend would bring me along to hang out or to parties. This could be explained by my quietness. I assume people wouldn’t befriend me if I just sit there being quiet and shy, but there have been many occasions where I have talked to them but I still feel like they ignore me… I don’t know. I feel weird!! I feel like I am not good enough. Maybe it is just because my social skills are not very good… who knows!! I don’t know. I feel so upset. My boyfriend is super popular (or at least he was in high school) and back when we were in school together he wasn’t afraid to tell me that people don’t like my friends. The more I think about it… I think there are (or were, before they graduated) many snobby girls in my school as well. Older girls would talk bad about me often. These girls kinda reminded me of my cousin’s friends. They have that same look and attitude. They would be friends with my boyfriend but I never seemed to get along with them…. ughh…. I know it shouldn’t matter but I wanna have fun, I wanna make friends. I have this weird need/want to be good enough for those people. I bet they would like me if I just acted like they do.
To everyone who replied,
He is very abusive and controlling. We have broken up and gotten back together many times like Anita said. I have been knowing that I needed to break up with him for a while now despite how much I love him. I knew I needed to because he hurts me a lot. I was planning to break up with him until after vacation. But he is making it so much harder to stay together. He keeps hurting me and I know I need to get out. It seems like he only broke up with me to hurt me, although we are still broken up. There is one problem. We have a vacation planned for Costa Rica with his family at the end of May. Besides the fact that it is paid for and everything, another reason why I want to go is because I reaaallly want to go to Costa Rica. I love vacation. I get so happy thinking about myself in Costa Rica. I NEED TO GO!! I have been looking forward to this for so long. He broke up with me (as I said before) but we agreed to be just friends because of the vacation. It is not just a vacation you can cancel, we have been planning it for months.
Despite the fact that we have agreed to be just friends, he is still hurting me. Just now, he sent my cousin a message saying “damnnnn” (I guess trying to tell her he thinks she is hot). This hurts me so bad. My family doesn’t know we are broken up, although I think he would do this even if we were still together. This stuff hurts me so bad. It is like he is cheating on me with my cousin. I am so humiliated that he is hurting me with my own cousin. I hate this. I am so hurt guys. Why does he have no respect for me? We have been dating for 3 years and everyone in his family believes we are going to get married (which is funny because my friends and cousins who know about him flirting with my one cousin do not like him at all and know how much he hurts me). I do believe that he does care for me to an extent if his entire family believes I am the girl he will marry. All his friends and family say how much he loves me. But how can he love me IF HE HURTS ME SO BAD. He treats me like garbage. All of his friends and family just made me further believe he cared. I want to cry so hard. I don’t know what to do. You need to understand how badly him texting my cousin hurt me. I get it she is my family, but its embarrassing. Everyone is wondering why I am with him. They think it is so weird that he flirts with my cousin, understandably. I can’t even look at him for all the times he has hurt me and humiliated me, but I want to go to Costa Rica. What do I do? I could cancel Costa Rica despite how long we have been planning it, the only real thing holding me back from canceling this trip is how badly I want to go. Also, I am a senior in high school and I would love to be super tan for prom pictures. And being tan makes me 10x happier. This may sound dumb but being tan is very important to me. I feel way more confident. I also love to travel and visit exotic places. What should I do? The only thing I am worried about is that I will get hurt even more. If I do go to Costa Rica, what if I fall back into my old place and end up getting back together with him? Should I go or not?
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