To whom it may concern,

You know who you are. You made me go throughout my entire life up until now feeling as if I was a nothing in this world. Ever since I was little, I always seemed to be the odd one out. I never had a huge group of friends, considering every time I made a friend I found a way to ruin the relationship with them. It was a pattern in my life that I always wanted to stop but never knew how to. I always seemed to become comfortable with a group of people, yet I would find a way to mess it up. I would never tend to think about what I would say and instead I would just say it. It's because of you that I now act and feel the way I do.

Because I never was able to find my own path until recently, I was always trying to discover who I wanted to be. I would try out new images of myself until I found one that seemed to go with what everyone else was like. However, I again would find a way to mess this up and in the end I was always hurt. I never had that one person in my life besides my family that was with me through the good and the bad. I understand I may act irrationally sometimes or I may not be the prettiest girl in the world but that doesn't mean you should've given up on me so easily.

Everyone has their faults and because of you, I only see my faults. I've never had a positive friendship in my life up until I went to college and because of you I have no idea what I am doing. I have finally found a group of people who accept me for all of me but yet I still try and find different ways to push them away. Fortunately, they see me for the real me and won't ever let me go. Why wouldn't you do this for me? Was I not good enough? Was I not thin or pretty enough? If these were the cases, trust me I tried just about everything to fix these things. When you would point out to me that maybe I shouldn't eat that cake or maybe I should've put more makeup on, you may have thought you were helping but you were actually making it worse. You would make fun of me and tell me my jeans looked funny or the shirt I was wearing "accentuated the wrong parts of my body," and now I am finally going to tell you that this is not okay.

I don't think you realized how much you actually hurt me. To this day I still look in a mirror and see all the faults of my personality and body that you instilled in me. I can't look in a mirror and be happy with what I see and it scares me that I will never be happy. Whether you hurt me ten years ago or six months ago, the wounds are still open and have yet to heal. I want you to know that your words hurt me and they forever will. I am lucky enough that I have a wonderful support system here at school and at home. Everyone who is in my life now is 100-percent positive towards me and knows about the insecurities that you will forever nag me about. It's because of you that they have to make me feel like I am not worthless. They are making me realize how smart I actually am and how wonderful of a person I actually am to be around. So the joke's on you here.

You are probably flunking school, partying too much or working at a dead end job that will get you nowhere in life. Meanwhile, I am in the honors program at Rhode Island College and I couldn't be happier with where my life is headed. I am slowly starting to realize that what you said to me over and over again doesn't matter. It's an uphill battle that I constantly fight everyday and there are some days where I slip back into my old way of thinking, but any battle is worth fighting knowing that I will better myself.

I hope you can come to terms with the fact that you no longer have an influence in my life. I finally realized you were wrong and that I am good enough to do anything I set my mind to. I hope you can realize my potential and others' potential as well because in the long run, what you say doesn't matter.