How I Found Body Positivity in the Aftermath of Bullying and a Breakdown
11:43 AM
In early summer of 2012, I was a shy 20 year old with a desire to break free. I still lived at home with my overbearing father who didn't allow me to experience average things people my age were doing. Going to parties, dating, and even eating Taco Bell were out of the question. He viewed his actions as being protective. I viewed them as smothering.
So, it was a surprising move for both of us when I boldly and hastily decided to move out one night. With the assistance of a friend and a police officer's presence for the safety of everyone (mainly myself though), I gathered the majority of my things and left behind a life of monotony for one of great uncertainty. Two friends I had made at work, who were also roommates, agreed to let me live in their guest room until their lease was up in August. This gave me just under three months to figure out a permanent living solution. Feeling a sense of pressure I never had before, I began asking around my job if people knew of potential roommate opportunities. I worked at an immense movie theater full of college of students about to start their fall semesters. Someone in this buttery smelling, soul sucker had to need one. And as it turned out they did. Well sort of.
A girl we'll call "Brooke" was indeed starting the fall semester at a nearby university. She, along with two other co-workers/university freshman, whom we'll refer to as "Camille" and "Diana", were planning on moving into an apartment near the campus. I didn't know the three of them that well beyond casual work place conversation, but I needed a place to live and they wanted cheaper rent, so we collectively agreed to live together. And when August came around, we moved into our three bedroom apartment in metropolitan Orlando.
The fact that there were more of us than there were bedrooms meant two of us would need to share the largest room. Brooke's argument was that she needed her own space because of all the sex she intended to have with a variety of female prospects. Diana's was blatantly that she refused to share a room with another person even if meant she would have to pay more rent. So Camille and I, being the more passive members of the group, agreed to split the master bedroom.
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| (The calm before the shit storm, or more specifically the day after we moved in...) |
Things the first couple of weeks were relatively normal, until the ex-girlfriend of a woman Brooke had been sleeping with went insane one night. I was returning from a dinner date with friends, when I saw my roommates and the other two women in the parking lot in a tentative situation. Diana explained Brooke's new love interest had been hanging out at our apartment when her ex showed up wanting to speak. When Brooke and the woman both went downstairs to address the situation, the ex-girlfriend tried to run them both over, and things spiraled to the point we were at currently where the ex alternated between screaming and taking physical shots at Brooke. After repeated threats to call the police the ex-girlfriend eventually left. Brooke asked us if it would be okay for her new lady love to stay with us for a few days for the woman's safety while she figured out a permanent living arrangement. After the display we had just seen by the ex-girlfriend, we agreed. But a few days turned into the entire lease of the apartment, and within two months the new couple had also added a four legged family of two dogs and a cat to our small apartment.
I was less than thrilled with this, as were Camille and Diana, though no one said anything. I didn't get along with Brooke's girlfriend who I found rude and this caused friction in my attempt at a friendship with Brooke. In my mind I was fine with just hanging out with Camille and Diana anyway. That was until my closeness with Camille started to irk Diana. Camille and I both loved Harry Potter and she introduced me to Doctor Who which I quickly became infatuated with. I liked entertaining her geekier interests like going to a Star Trek exhibition and cosplay making. Camille and Diana had gone to high school together and they fancied themselves best friends, but they had very little to nothing in common. This is probably why Diana first started to feel resentful of me.
Diana handled her hostility of me very passively at first. I had been talking to a guy named "Eric" on a dating site who she happened to know somehow. She promised to put in a good word for me, but after some time I started to get confused about why he was replying to me less and not asking me on a date. She acted like a genuine friend and told me he wasn't worth worrying about and pushed me further in the direction of another guy I had started talking to. About two weeks later, I was sitting on a chair in the living room in my pajamas with my freshly washed hair twisted up in a towel when Diana walked in the front door with Eric. I was mortified this was how I was meeting him for the first time in person, and I couldn't wrap my head around why Diana wouldn't give me a heads up about this. It became crystal clear to me three hours later when I heard Eric and Diana, who had a long distance boyfriend in another country, having obnoxiously loud sex in her bedroom. I got another slap in the face when I arrived home from my new job the next day and saw a package of the morning after pill, Plan B, on the kitchen counter.
Diana apologized for her behavior and we called it water under the bridge. About eight months later, I ran into Eric and we realized Diana had told lies to both of us about the other so we wouldn't pursue a relationship. By this point, I had been seeing someone for a few months though, and Diana didn't make that easy either. I'll concede he turned out to be the absolute worst, but she would make rude comments about his appearance long before he showed his true colors. This didn't come from a place of empathy because she disliked how he treated me sometimes, but from a place of spite because she simply didn't like me having a taste of happiness.
She started treating our apartment like it was the Bad Girls' Club which she watched religiously. She began inviting the roommates out for dinner without me and tagging them in passive aggressive statuses on Facebook. I'd even come home from work and find my possessions destroyed on the ground which she blamed on Brooke's dogs. All of these jabs started to weigh on me and naturally affected the way I felt about going home. My unhappiness was displayed all over my face and in two separate instances they confronted me about my "resting bitch face", even going as far as to tell me I wasn't allowed to use "That's just my face" as an excuse for it.
My anxiety was so out of control, I began sleeping over friends' houses or waiting outside until all the lights in the living room turned off. On the occasions I felt too tired to wait outside after a long day of working two jobs, I'd walk in and quickly go straight to my room. I had stopped trying to make polite small talk with people who were awful to me. In response to this, they decided to have midweek mini parties where they listened to music, laughed, and got drunk as loudly as they possibly could so I couldn't sleep.
I put up with it for as long as I could, but eventually I broke down and couldn't take their bullying anymore. With few options available to me, I accepted a room in the house of a manager at the sporting goods store I worked at. I paid what remaining months' rent I was responsible for to the office without any intention of telling my roommates I was leaving.
I brought boxes home the night before I intended to leave under the assumption Diana would be at work and everyone else would be away for the weekend. My plan hit a snag when I opened the door and saw Camille doing dishes in the kitchen. In spite of living in the same room, we hadn't spoken much in months. She had been too meek to stand up for me to Diana, Brooke, and her girlfriend and that caused a rift in our friendship. I tried to quickly make my way to our room, leaving my boxes outside the apartment for the moment. As I took my coat and bag off, Camille walked in the room and asked if we could talk. I agreed and in a weird turn of events she apologized for everything even though most of it wasn't her doing. She said, "I was talking to a friend about this situation the other day and they asked me what you had done to initiate all of this. That's when it occurred to me you haven't really done anything." Hearing her say it out loud filled me with a little sense of peace. No matter what they did or said, I never once retaliated. They were as cruel as they wanted to be, but no matter how awful they made me feel inside I never let my actions match my feelings.
I told her how weird her timing and words were because I was moving out the next day. She apologized further for their actions pushing me to this choice, and offered to help me pack if this was really what I wanted. Even if Camille and I were on decent terms again, I didn't want to live another day under the same roof as the other three and the rambunctious pets. Diana, who hadn't as it turned out left for work yet, walked by our open door and saw the boxes. Camille explained that their actions had pushed me to this choice, but she refused to apologized. Instead her last words to me were "Well don't forget your bottle of Jägermeister on top of the fridge." And with a raise of her eyebrows she turned and walked out of the apartment.
With my things all packed and a mind full optimism about a new start, I moved out with the help of a friend the next day. Unfortunately, my bad luck continued and I decided to leave my new arrangement less than two months in when I realized my manager/roommate had gone through my things and taken my prescribed anti-depressants. A friend let me store my possessions in her garage, while another let me crash on her couch. I had a full blown panic attack in the bathroom of my clothing store job when the weight of not knowing where to live and how awful the past year had been finally hit me. I realized at that point I had no choice but to call my dad and ask if I could go home. I couldn't catch my breath as I cried and tried to choke out words on the phone, but I sputtered out enough information that within 45 minutes my dad showed up at my job. The assistant manager I had been working with that day was luckily very understanding and let me go home. The store manager was also very accommodating when I asked for a transfer to a location closer to my father's house.
It was at this new location that I discovered the body positive community on Instagram during my lunch breaks. After being relentlessly bullied and harassed by other females for almost year, it surprised me to see women who were strangers lifting one another up. They supported each other's inner peace making achievements and great body image days out of the goodness of their hearts. It was stunning to me to witness that love, and inspired me. It inspired me to accept my body for the first time in my life. It inspired me to be apart of something greater than myself. It inspired me to spread the love and positivity that had been taken from my life. The body positive movement was there for me when I was in a depressive, suicidal state and had no faith left in people. I owe my life to all the women who didn't know a thing about me, but helped me feel important and valid again. Three years later, I continue to try to pay forward the kindness that was extended to me. I aim to help eliminate bullying, assist people with mental health struggles, and eradicate the belief instilled in women that they need to compete with one another. We accomplish nothing when we tear each other down, but we can create and inspire change when we stand together and show love.
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