Bitchy McSnipe

Bullies come in all shapes and sizes, but there are pretty typical examples that you hear about bullies. The kid on the playground who tortures you because they don’t like you, the bully in the cubicle next to you who tries everything he can to get you fired…there’s a common theme with all these stories that the bully is someone who you don’t get along with. But what if the bully is your best friend? Now that’s something we don’t talk about very often, but it can be just as common.

I was talking to a friend recently, and we realized we both had a best friend bully us when we were young. Mine happened when I was 7. She told me who I could and couldn’t be friends with and tried her best to isolate me from my other friends. The bullying got so bad, it culminated in me fracturing my wrist because she forced me to chicken fight her on the monkey bars (remember that childhood game invented by Satan?). She was at least twice my size, but she made me feel like I had no choice. So naturally, she pulled me down quickly, I fell hard on my left arm and fractured my wrist.

Despite it causing an injury where I had to wear an arm brace for a month, I actually got lucky in my bullying situation. My bully grew tired of me and found new people to bother. We ended up in different classes, so that probably helped. But my friend’s bully followed her through high school. They still have mutual friends, so they see each other occasionally…I mean, can you IMAGINE?? After I was 10 or 11, I didn’t think about my best friend bully. The thought of having to exchange pleasantries with her now makes me want to hardcore vom.

So what the hell do you do when the bully isn’t someone you hate but in fact is someone you spend every weekend with? It’s harder to extricate yourself from a best friend bully because your bully is constantly manipulating you into sticking around. The bully on the playground who kicks your ass, laughs and runs away doesn’t waste any time trying to convince you that he’s kicking your ass because he cares about you more than your other friends.

The biggest problem with your best friend bullying you is that it’s hard to get away from that type of bullying. Often, it takes years and years to feel like you can let a friendship go because you get used to the type of toxic bullying you’ve been receiving. I remember my best friend bully used to tell me all kinds of nonsense, like that she knew better than I did who I should hang out with. She’d tell me my other friends didn’t really like me. She’d tell me I shouldn’t make decisions without her. I was like her little Barbie doll she could manipulate any way she wanted. And I sat there accepting it for years.

She’s not a terrorist.

There’s so much hate going around targeted toward certain groups of people, and I thought it would be helpful to explain why this happens. Human beings are ingrained to fear what’s different than them. I’m sure this was a helpful trait before science and technology when cavemen lived in small tribes with no means of traveling far distances. If a stranger shows up to your camp and there’s not supposed to be anyone around for miles, I’m sure you’d be terrified too. It helped our ancestors distinguish between family members and strangers, which was important back when humans had more primitive brains.

But let’s be real: there’s no good excuse these days to be afraid of different cultures. You can read about different cultures without leaving your house. We don’t live in small segregated circles. We can see all kinds of different people on our TVs and walking around our cities. We can travel to places and see that different people live their lives in different ways. We’re not dumb idiot cavemen with tiny brains who have no goals other than hunt and gather. We have evolved. But sometimes we don’t act like it.

Hate is really just fear wrapped in an angry wrapper. People are afraid of Muslims because a tiny percentage of them are bad. Does that make any sense? NO! You are way more likely to die in a car accident than a terrorist attack. If you were thinking logically, you would be FAR more terrified of cars than Muslims. Are terrorists bad? Of course they are! Muslims don’t like terrorists either. But we stereotype. Terrorists are Muslims, and that means Muslims are bad. Um, no. That’s wrong. There are millions and millions of peaceful Muslims all around the world who did nothing to deserve this hate.

The best way to combat hate/fear is to educate. To inform. To have a conversation with someone and explain a different point of view to them. They have to work through the hate/fear and realize that their fear makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. I’ve seen firsthand how this works. I used to work with adults with disabilities, and I had a few clients with cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is a muscular disorder, which means people who have cerebral palsy are just like you and me, only their muscles don’t work great. They’re not mentally disabled, they’re not weirder than anyone else, they just have trouble walking. I got to know these people that I worked with, and they were no different than anyone. They were sharp, they were funny, they were great to talk to. But I had experience being around them. I’ve never looked twice at anyone I saw struggling to walk because I understood what they were going through.

When I went out with my clients with cerebral palsy, I’d see people look at them strangely. I saw the stigma that they faced, people not wanting to get too close because they didn’t understand why this person was struggling to walk. Or why they talked weird. (For the record, they talk weird because the tongue is a muscle and as they get older, they struggle to control their tongues just like their other muscles…thus making it harder to talk.) I always tried to smile at people who made eye contact with me when I was out with my clients. If somebody was staring nearby, I would try joking with my client, laugh at their jokes, have a normal conversation that the person staring could hear. I always tried to show people that hanging out with someone who has cerebral palsy is just like hanging out with anyone else. They might just need a helping hand to the car.

Sometimes I’d be out with a friend and we’d see someone struggling to walk. The person I’m with would say something like, “OMG why is that person walking so weird???” Remember, this isn’t hate…it’s really fear. It’s a lack of understanding. As soon as I said calmly, “Oh they probably have a muscular disorder like cerebral palsy. It makes it hard for them to walk because they can’t control their muscles,” the person would go OHHHH ok. And that would be it. They’re no longer afraid because they understand.

I’m happy for you. I’m so happy for you that you’re white and not black. I’m so happy you don’t know what it’s like to be a black woman, who is 30-50% more likely to be a victim of domestic violence, three times more likely to be in poverty and twice as likely to be unemployed than a white woman. I’m happy that you don’t have to worry every time a member of your family goes out at night, wondering whether he’s going to come back alive or be arrested for buying candy or wearing a hoodie. You’re never concerned when you’re around a group of white people that you’re going to hear somebody call you the N word.

I’m so glad you’re not Hispanic. You don’t have to worry about your parents or grandparents being deported, even though they’ve been hard working members of this country most of their lives. You don’t lie awake at night wondering if you and your siblings are going to be left without your immigrant parents. It doesn’t matter if they were born here or not because we know how well the other deportation efforts have gone. You don’t have to worry about people yelling at you in a grocery store to “go back to where you belong.” 

I’m so happy for you that you’re a Christian, which is known in large parts of the US as the “correct” religion to be. I’m glad you’re not Muslim and wondering how people can get your peaceful religion so wrong. You don’t have to explain to people why you wear a hijab, you don’t have to worry about people whispering about how you might be a terrorist every time you get on an airplane, and you don’t have to deal with your classmates asking you if you’re a member of ISIS. You don’t have to hear these hurtful words because you go to the RIGHT church and worship the RIGHT deity.

I’m so happy for you that you’re not struggling with a disability. That you didn’t look at Donald Trump mocking a differently abled person and cry, wondering how such a cruel person could become our president. You don’t wonder whether people are going to start calling you a retard everywhere you go because clearly it’s alright to mock people with disabilities if the President of the United States thinks it’s ok.

I’m so happy for you that you’re not a trans man or woman. You don’t have to live in fear wondering if anybody is going to threaten you with violence if you have to pee in public. You don’t have to be concerned whether your healthcare is going to stop paying for your life-saving hormone treatments. I say they’re life-saving because you very likely would have ended your life by now if it wasn’t for the hormones that allow you to safely transition. I’m so happy you don’t have to know the pain of someone calling you the wrong gender or telling you you’re an abomination of God.

I’m so happy for you that you’re not gay. Nobody ever comes up to you and references a book that apparently states the way you love people is wrong (spoiler: the Bible really doesn’t say that). You don’t have to be concerned whether people think your marriage is legitimate or not. You don’t have to worry that hospitals aren’t going to let you make major health decisions for your spouse if they become ill. You don’t have to worry about people protesting at your funeral or saying that you deserved to die because of your sexuality. 

I’m so happy for you that you don’t feel like an oppressed woman. I’m glad that you haven’t been a victim of domestic violence, since 85% of domestic violence victims are women. I’m glad that the wage gap doesn’t affect you, although it does exist and in fact affects many women, especially women of color. Maybe you don’t work because your husband supports you, so you don’t care how much money you would make if you entered the work force. I’m glad it doesn't bother you that there were only 4% female CEOs in the Fortune 500 last year. Maybe you don’t have any interest in being a CEO so that’s an insignificant number for you. But when men are running this country by themselves, please don't make the mistake of thinking they have women’s best interest at heart. They have proven time and time again that they don’t. 

Have you ever noticed that nobody likes to post on social media when they’re having a hard time? You don’t see too many selfies where people are like “PIZZA BLOAT, CHIN ZITS, AND I HAVEN’T BRUSHED MY TEETH IN 2 DAYS!” Everyone has these personas online where they post their finest moments, only the gorgeous “magic hour” lighting and the fun events with friends and nobody ever cries or has a bad night. We’ve become these weird people who isolate ourselves when real life happens and we’re not feeling so joyous.

I am 100% guilty of this as well. I’ve been sick for almost 2 whole weeks now with this winter death cold that I am convinced is probably going to kill me. I’ve checked my social media accounts probably 29347 times since I got sick. And how many times have I posted? ZERO. I haven’t even considered posting anything, not even to complain about how sick I am. I stopped taking photos of anything, stopped sharing anything. But I still want to know what everyone else is doing so make sure you all keep posting everything though!

WTF is that? It would be nice if we could say, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Instead, we’re more like, “when life gives you lemons, disappear off the face of the planet long enough until your lemons magically become perfect fake tits, then post all over the internet.” Life isn’t perfect. Why are we obsessed with pretending that it is? 

Not that stupid shit you’re doing. Stop it, you’re better than that. ALL THE WOMEN WHO INDEPENDENT THROW YOUR HANDS UP AT ME

- when men bother you at bars, you can tell them to go away instead of listening to their pathetic drunken stories about how vulnerable they are so you should really go home with them because they’re in desperate need of companionship and WHO CARES IM OUT WITH MY FRIENDS LEAVE ME ALONE

- the next time somebody gives you a backhanded compliment (“oh wow, you look so much better with glasses!”) you can be like OH WOW YOUR FACE WOULD LOOK SO MUCH BETTER FACING AWAY FROM ME BUH BYE

- no more giving in to solicitors in your face asking you to give money to some fake orphans I mean daddy needs a new BMW

- you can call the cops on your neighbor that you know hits their dog and not feel bad cause you’re saving animals from their terrible owners

- the next time somebody interrupts you at Starbucks when you’re reading or studying or listening to music you just stick your hand in their face like TALK TO THE HAND CAUSE IM NOT LISTENING DONT YOU SEE IM BUSY AND HAVE NO TIME FOR SMALL TALK HOMES WALK AWAY

- so much more free time to pick flowers or stare at the ocean or enjoy your life because you’re not indulging every person who wants something from you