Sorry for my brief absence. I was dealing with a lot of personal things and I thought it would be wrong of me to sit here and type a blog inspiring you to be confident and self-loving, when I was feeling so insecure....I feel a lot better now and a blog on those personal struggles will come shortly...today's blog will be about surrounding yourself with supportive friends.
We all have those friends that we can joke around with. You know the ones that you can call a fatty when you are eating junk food together and he/she eats the last slice of pizza. That friend that you can call stupid when they ask a question with an easy answer. That friend that you can have witty, sarcastic banter with and no feelings are hurt. I think you all get my picture now...but what happens when friends start crossing the line?
When friends begin to bully. Sounds like some dramatic TLC/Lifetime special. But it is a very serious issue that I had to go through (and I have seen others go through) and it hurt my self confidence...a lot.
For those of you who know me, most of you know I hang out with a very specific group at school: my theatre friends. I have stopped being close with a lot of people outside of my theatre group because of my experiences with friend bullying. I used to hang out with a group of friends of about 9 or 10 people. Most of the kids I had gotten to know through my two friends that brought me into that group. We all hung out and I thought I could trust these people. We had that group of friends that can tease each other, but I realized it started to focus on me.
I dealt with it at first. Most of the jokes were about me being half black, which can only be expected at a predominately white school. The jokes started focusing more and more on my looks. My hair (which was an afro), my weight (I was almost 20 pounds heavier), and my race. I also found out these "friends" talked about me behind my back....and the jokes were worse.
Hannah you are so white-washed.
Oh you don't like to swim? It's because you're black.
Can you sing gospel like every other big, black woman?
Hannah you can go chunky-dunking when we skinny dip!
If I throw this food in your hair will it stay in there?
To them I wasn't Hannah. To them I was labeled by stereotypes and societal rules. I started to become mean. Not to my friends, but to my family. I went home and I would cry. I would stand in front of the mirror and wish I was different. I wished I had hair that was long and wavy. I wished I could have a killer body. I wished I could have been born white. I let these people who were supposed to be my friends get into my brain and damage the confident, care-free person I was. I let ignorance affect my self-esteem. I let friends bring me down.
Now, I don't care what people think of me. I have friends that I can joke around with but I know they will always be there for me ESPECIALLY when I feel down about myself. These friends reassure me of how awesome I am, and I can do the same for them.
If you feel like your friends may be bullying you, you have a lot of options. You can bring it to their attention. You can slowly separate yourself from that group and join a new one. You can cut that group off completely. Remember that YOU ARE AWESOME. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. If anyone is making you believe otherwise, you do NOT need them.
I don't think I have mentioned this before, but if any of you readers ever need advice, someone to listen to you, or someone to reassure you of your beauty/awesomeness you can reach me at ourbeautifulselves@gmail.com or (if I know you personally) on facebook.
AND I might be making a facebook group for this blog to keep everyone up-to-date on posts(:
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