Dear Mean Girls of my teenage past,

We were fourteen and fifteen years old when things started to get a little "out of hand". Maybe that's putting it lightly, because what you did to me wasn't just a tiny deal. It wasn't this little dent in my high school experience. To others, maybe it wasn't that bad. But to me, especially with how sensitive I was in my fragile state of adolescence, it was awful. But guess what? You didn't see that. And I'm not going to "push this aside" just because of how young we were. I'm not going to make excuses for you because you were fourteen years old and stupid and didn't know what you were doing. That's like saying "boys will be boys", and letting them getting away with their actions. You were aware of what you were doing, and that's why you kept on doing it because you knew how it made me feel. And even though years have passed and we're all in college now, doing our adult things, the way you treated me back then still makes me cringe in anxiety - because that's what you caused me: anxiety. And it wasn't like I didn't already have enough of it. You just had to go and make it worse, didn't you? This stigma of how pre-teen and teenage girls are nasty and mean to each other has to end. The fact that we see it as a "normal" thing, or a phase is detrimental to our girls in youth. And you were apart of that statistic.

Remember when the two of you would gang up on me in the most subtle ways, because you thought I was too stupid and brainless to understand what was going on? The way you made me feel ran loud and clear, though. You would bully me in very unique ways, apart from how most girls would bully, but the results of your actions still hurt. You would put me on the spot and make me feel terrible about myself if I didn't know what either of you were talking about. I was already experiencing self esteem issues, and my learning disability wouldn't be discovered until three years later. You two were the obnoxious "braniac know it alls" who kept me in check with my low confidence. I struggled to keep up with both of you, with intellect and politics. Who even talks about politics at fourteen anyway? You made me feel like everything I said was stupid. When you two weren't together, it was fine - but when it was all three of us, it was torture for me. You would purposely leave me out of your little group, come up with inside jokes that were funny at my expense, or make pretend inside jokes just so you could purposely make me feel left out. What did I ever do to you back then? I was nothing but nice to the two of you. And maybe that's the thing. You took advantage of my niceness, and used it in cruel ways because you knew I didn't have a backbone. You would walk all over me, and watching me squirm made you satisfied. What about that time when you ignored me for no reason, for three days and then went back to acting normal like nothing ever happened?

"Hey guys, what's up?"
"Do you hear something? I think I do, but I don't know".
"Yeah, I don't hear anything".
And then you follow it with a giggle and a snicker and leave me standing there confused. Fifteen year old me thought that you guys were my friends. I went home crying after school, sobbing to my step-father, who convinced me to stop being your friends. He held me, and I continued to sob, saying "I can't. I can't", because I was too scared to stand up to you.

And it wasn't just me that you were causing issues with - it was a few other girls, too. There was one day during sophomore year where two of our friends at the time were getting sick of one of you and didn't want to be your friend anymore, and that's when I felt like the heavens were opening up and your ugliness and terrible personalities were finally being noticed. There was always some sort of drama, and I was stuck in the middle of it, uncomfortable, being forced to do things I didn't want to do and making promises that I felt obligated to. Sometimes, I acted mean just like the two of you to fit in.

Remember when I dressed differently in eighth grade, and in ninth grade? I wore weird mismatching ensembles, did my hair up in sideways pony-tails because I was obsessed with the '80s at the time, and used vocabulary from the movie "Juno"? I was trying to be myself, and I liked being different and strange. But there were times where you would say "Don't dress like that? We don't want to be seen with you like that". You would totally dis my personality and mock me behind my back. I was fifteen - fifteen! I was experimenting with who I was, and what I liked and you couldn't support that. You were just mean, and jealous and that made you such an ugly person. It wasn't until Junior year that I was exhausted with feeling left out, the butt of the inside jokes, and feeling nothing but dread in our "little friend group". I was tired. I was done. I was sick of not being appreciated and seemingly used as that pathetic loser friend that tagged along for sick entertainment. That's when I left and found friends who actually appreciated me for my differences.

I know I'm not imagining all the mean things you two did to me, because two years later during our junior year, one of you wrote me a letter asking for forgiveness, stating how proud you were of me for growing up, but that you probably didn't deserve to say that after how mean you were to me.

I hope you're both doing good today, but that doesn't change how you treated me in the past. I just really hope that you both have learned to treat people with more respect, because jealousy and hate for another person is a really bad look on someone. You were the insecure ones.


Julia