People always asked me growing up why I had a lot of guy friends than girl friends. Most of the time my reply would be "I don't know." or "I just get along better with boys." It was not until college when I discovered the hard truth about myself. I realized that most of my emotional abuse came mainly from women I had encountered in life. It was women who drove me to the point of me thinking about suicide, and it was women who instilled fear and insecurities within me.
I remembered hearing that question from my own mother "do you know how fat you are?" when I was growing up. Looking back at my old pictures I realized that I was not really the fat kid that I was portrayed as. It brought nothing but resentment but later I could not help but forgive her.
Later on, when I was in my junior year of college, I remembered being home on Easter break and my mom just making me feel bad for whatever reason, even using a close friend of mine as a reason that no one would like me. Mind you it had been over a month since I got out of the psychiatric ward, and also been a month since I last binge drank. After that incident, I felt completely worthless and began to experience suicidal thoughts again, and our relationship was bad for a while
The worst friendship with a female I had started back in high school. She was actually the first narcissistic person I had ever encountered. The cycle of emotional abuse is a long one to tell but to sum everything up, I would do a lot for her such as helping with her classes, projects, etc but when I needed her to do stuff for me she was barely available. Any time I tried to confront her about certain things or even gave her a chance to admit to things that I knew she done she would end up making it to where everything was my fault.
It came to a point where I had bad anxiety along with anger, but because of my willingness to give people chances, it wasn't till years later when I was able to cut off contact with her.
When it came to my sexuality, I was slut shamed so bad by a woman I considered a mother figure to me. I lived with her during the time that my mom was sick and couldn't take care of me. for a while, I thought everything was good between me and her until senior year. I remembered her telling the whole house that I was a promiscuous person and there was also a time when she just made me cry because of what she had thought about me.
Along those lines, she even told me that if I were to get an STD I would not have a home, just because she thought that STDs can be caught if other girls who I lived with shared the same bathroom as me. To top it all off, she thought that just because I was Asian I was considered meek.
The last experience impacted me throughout college. Many people who know me or just my pain will say "you don't have to explain." but I will for the sake of this article. The truth was I lost my virginity at 17 with a guy I been with for a year, and he was the only guy I was sexually involved with up until I was 18. Yes, I was involved with two other people with consent at 18 but didn't start putting myself completely out there until freshman year of college.
Although I had to realize that women were the main ones who had hurt me throughout my life, I decided that I will never let all of that affect how I view other women in general. I realized that there were times when I did meet and befriended other women who were supportive of me and showed nothing but love, and for those women, I appreciate them and will never forget them. The experiences I had faced taught me to forgive and move on.
Yes, I could be bitter, but what good would it do since I am a woman myself. The only thing being bitter towards other women would do is repeat the cycle of women putting down other women.
I write this article in hopes that my experience can bring awareness on how looking down on our girls, and women can affect all of us, and one day we as women can do and be better.
