My cousin and I are extremely close. We’ve been best friends for practically all of our lives. But for some reason, I am only now realizing how truly insecure she is. I think she just had this really weird way of hiding it. Basically, for our entire lives she has looked down upon me. She was always criticizing, critiquing, judging, and insulting me. I had always felt really bad about myself because of her. Now, I realize she may have been insulting me to hide how insecure she is. She also ALWAYS hooks up with guys. And there is nothing wrong with having fun! But I always wondered why she hooked up with so many men when she always complains about not liking it. She is so desperate for attention from men, she is very jealous over men, but is never truly attracted to any of them. She doesn’t even enjoy doing things with them. She has never had a boyfriend, hooks up with guys constantly, but has admitted that she never ever enjoyed any of her hook ups. Not one. I think she just does it to prove that she is attractive to boys.

The first time I introduced my boyfriend and friends to my cousin, they all knew immediately that she had a horrible personality. She acts spoiled and bratty. I think she acts like she is better than everyone else to avoid feeling so insecure. She also talks badly about everyone. One of the main things she is always talking about is looks. Constantly.

I just facetimed her and our conversation went like this:

HER: Someone said I look like Meghan Markle

ME: Oh, that’s funny

HER: No, she is so ugly.

ME: I think she is pretty

HER: My body looked so good 2 years ago. It was literally perfect until I gained weight.

ME: (nothing)

HER: I need to lose 20 pounds before halloween

ME: (nothing)

HER: That guy that I hooked up with in Italy is one of the hottest guys I have ever seen

Honestly, I used to think the way that she acted in the past was just due to her awareness of how society works. She is a very smart girl who goes to the #11 ranked university in the country. I always knew she was a smart girl and her awareness to society’s expectations on looks just proved to me (at the tine) that she was even smarter. But that doesn’t hide the fact that it is unhealthy to think that way. I just realized this after entering my freshman year of college. I am becoming friends with tons of different kinds of people… and I realized that this way of thinking just isn’t normal. It is normalized by television shows centered around popularity and classic movies like Clueless. I know a movie I loved while growing up was ‘The Clique.’ I don’t know how to fix her insecurity… and I am also realizing how much of a toll her bullying took on my own self esteem. I am at a place where I feel pretty good about myself and my body, so it is becoming so shockingly obvious how unhealthy my cousin’s way of thinking is. I honestly think my low self esteem is due in part to her constant talking about looks and looking down upon people who don’t fit her expectations on physical appearance.