Dear Katie:

This is going to be a long post (because I have the time, only a few threads to answer this morning, and because I have the interest). There are 3 parts to this post.

Part 1, I am quoting from Wikipedia’s entry on Shyness because you repeatedly wrote that you are shy and have been shy from an early age (I am quoting what I think is of interest to you): “Shyness can be a characteristic of people who have low self-esteem… The primary defining characteristic of shyness is.. fear of what other people will think of a person.. fear of negative reactions, being laughed at, humiliated.. criticism or rejection..

One important aspect of shyness is social skills development. Schools and parents may implicitly assume children are fully capable of effective social interactions. Social skills training is not given any priority (unlike reading and writing) and as a result, shy students re not given an opportunity to develop their ability to participate in class and interact with peers…

Shyness.. may be quite devastating for the sufferer, in many cases leading them to feel that they are boring… No correlation (positive or negative) exists between intelligence and shyness. Research indicates that shy children have a harder time expressing their knowledge in social situations and because they do not engage actively in discussions, teachers view them as less intelligent. In line with social learning theory, an unwillingness to engage with classmates and teachers makes it more difficult for shy students to learn”.

Part 2 is a summary of your two recent posts, having answered my questions: you wrote that since around October 2019 you started changing your thinking, ex. from “freaking out and thinking I need (a nose job)” following your cousin telling you that you do, to thinking: “there is no reason or me to think my nose is big because my cousin said so”. And you wrote that you “used to listen to other people’s opinions over mine, so I started to change that”. You also wrote that you used to starve yourself and “always be thinking about how I could lose weight”, but you “dropped that whole mentality in September through November (2019)”.

You also wrote that when you started college August 2019, you were extremely busy and didn’t have time to text with your best friend at the time as often as you used to, the communication slowed down and continued to slow down, texts getting shorter, almost to a halt. At this point you don’t know “if she wants to be my friend or not. It’s confusing for me… I just want to know how it is between us so I can act accordingly.. I’m constantly switching between being angry at her for treating me badly and thinking it’s my fault because I stopped answering her”.

Part 3 is my new understanding regarding your cousin after reviewing your threads since July 2019:

You wrote: “I also realize why my cousin says this stuff to me. It’s because her mom tells her those things. Her mom tells her she’s not pretty enough, smart enough, cool enough, etc… But my cousin always tells me ‘I am not angry at my mom for telling me those things, she just wants the best for me. She knows my confidence is high enough that it won’t hurt me’. But in my opinion, I think it does hurt her”-

– of course it hurts her and has hurt her ever since her mother started to criticize her looks, smarts etc. What she did, your cousin, is what children do- (1)she made believe that while her mother was criticizing/ hurting her, her mother had her daughter’s best interest in mind, and (2) she switched her anger from being directed at her mother to being angry at other people, strangers,anyone (“Everything she says about another girl (even sometimes guys) is negative. ‘She’s annoying, she’s stupid… but worst of all she’s ugly'”), and at her own cousin aka Katie (“She would always put me down, and sometimes not even so subtly… She would laugh at me, LAUGH.. she would look me up and down, laugh and say, ‘no offense Katie, but you’re not pretty enough”).

Regarding (1) above, notice this: your cousin believes that her mother wants what is best for her when she criticizes her:”she just wants the best for me”, and you believe that your cousin wants what is best for you when she criticizes you: “I know that may not make sense, but I believe she wants the best for me”, (you wrote late last year).

You are both wrong: her mother criticizes her when she is angry and wants to hurt her daughter, and your cousin criticizes you when she is angry and wants to hurt you. When she laughed at you, saying to you “no offense Katie, but you’re not pretty”- she said “no offense”, but she meant offense, it was her intention to offend you.

You wrote: “I know that may not make sense, but I believe she wants the best for me… Even though my cousin is toxic, she still seems to care”- you need her to care, so you make believe that she wants what is best for you. But it doesn’t make sense because when a person wants the best for another, she does not repeatedly criticizes and offends the other.

Here is a point of confusion: sometimes your cousin’s mother is nice to her, being affectionate, and during those times, she wants what’s best for her daughter, but this state of mind doesn’t last long and once her anger (at anyone) is up, she resumes the criticism. Same regarding your cousin and you.

In your thread regarding your cousin flirting with your first love in a party, you wrote: “My real worry is that my cousin did this BECAUSE she doesn’t care about me and my feelings”- reality is she didn’t care about you or your feelings during that party. At that time or at other times, not only does she not care about you and your feelings, but she wants to see you hurt.

It is very difficult to accept the reality that a person we need, a person we feel close to, a person we care for so much, doesn’t care in return, and worse: wants to hurt us.

You make believe that she cares about you and wants the best for you, but part of you knows it is not true to reality. The result of the gap between this make-believe and reality is this: “I feel sometimes as though I’m going to have a panic attack after talking with her because she brings up the worst parts of my brain…she can make me feel so depressed after talking to her for 30 minutes.. most of my self-esteem issues revolve around my cousin.. When I was 14, my cousin told me my eyebrows were too thick. She told me my legs are too fat… my nose was too big… I took all of it in.. starve myself until my legs looked good enough.. try to hide my nose. I truly felt so ugly”-

– you see, she intended to hurt and offend you and she succeeded.

In Summary of the three parts of this post:

-It is still not too late for you to learn social skills which will greatly help you feel more confident in social situation.

-Keep working on correcting your thoughts (a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy type work) with your therapist, and most importantly correct your thoughts regarding your cousin in therapy.

-It will take a long time for you to correct your thoughts and beliefs regarding the main people in your life, to learn social skills, to make choices that are healthy for you to make- and as a result, to increase your confidence and self trust, and decrease your anxiety and self doubt. When this happens you will no longer be shaken and disturbed by the thought that this or that person may disapprove of something about your looks and behavior.

-But notice this: your cousin is really trying to hurt you, and the only healthy choice to make regarding any person who repeatedly wants to hurt and offend you, is to not give that person access to you. (There is no way for any human to not be offended when someone we love wants to offends us and goes about doing it).

anita