The Mean Girl

I’d be lying if I said I was never the “mean” girl. Am I proud of it? Absolutely not. There is no excuse as to why I was the mean girl, but it happened and I want to own up to my wrongdoings. And although there is no excuse and nothing will ever make being the mean girl acceptable, I’d like to explain the circumstances surrounding my meanness.

I won’t dive too far into the details in this post (you can read them here), but I had a really rough freshman year of high school. Aside from a very abusive relationship I was in and my cousin sexually assaulting me, I was also the target of bullying by other girls in my school. I had a girl (who was several years older than me) who would follow me between classes and call me every nasty name in the book. I had various girls text me mean nasty things, including them telling me to kill myself. As if I wasn’t already in a low spot, those girls just made me feel worthless. Soon these bad feelings about myself, led to me doing anything to make them go away. It started with smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, but those never left me feeling any better about myself. The deep ache inside my chest only grew and grew until one day I decided to fight back against these girls that were making me feel so awful. I threw back nasty, hateful comments towards them and it felt good. It felt so good to hurt them in the same way they hurt me. It felt so good to watch the color drain from their face as I mentally sucker punched them by calling out their flaws and insecurities. It felt great to have some sort of justice. But that began to fuel a fire that turned me into one of them.

Once I had tore down those girl’s self esteem just as they had done to me, I was on the search for more of the good feeling. Soon, being the mean girl was the only thing that brought me any pleasure. I started out being mean to other girls I felt had done me wrong in the past. I mostly cyber bullied these girls by instant messaging them long hateful messages of every flaw and insecurity these girls had. It felt good, but I wanted more. I started shit talking any and everyone. I started being absolutely rotten to my mother even. It was an awful spiral that I wish I could forget.

I wish I never fell down that rabbit hole, but I did and I feel terrible about it. I was mean to people for no reason. I made other people feel bad about themselves because for a few minutes (if that) it made me forget how awful I felt about myself. But the thing about meanness is that it will always bite you in ass. After that brief relief I got from making someone else feel low about themselves, I would always feel even worse about myself than I did before. I hated myself for making others hate themselves. So, now that I know my wrongdoing, I make an effort to make other people feel better about themselves. I’m nice and kind to everyone I meet. I try my best to be nice in times where being nice is the last thing I want to do. I know I can never undo the damage I caused others, but I can try to make better choices today.

So if you’re a mean girl and you can relate, just know you can always change your behavior. It’s hard at first getting out of the vicious cycle of being mean and cynical, but it is so worth it. I feel much better about myself when I offer kindness. Plus, life is too short to be filled with anger, hatred, and meanness. Choose to be kind.❤️