Be careful who you trust, Lucifer was once a beautiful angel.
I try to go in chronological order with my blogs, but this blog spans from college to present time in my daily life. I'm fortunate, I didn't deal with any mean girls in my years at Gardendale. I wouldn't consider myself to be popular in high school; but, the popular girls always spoke to me. It wasn't until college I noticed people looking down at me for the car I drove or the non-name brand clothes I wore. Sadly, mean girls start early these days.
Before I get too far into this blog, let me say I am NOT being hypocritical. I admit I have been a mean girl in the past. I would even say at times, I have been a raging bitch! There are things I have done in my past I think about now; I still can't believe I did. Seriously, it's shocking and appaling! I have made my amends to who I feel I need to. I've grown and I try to be a better person every day. Unfortunately, there are some girls who aren't finished being mean.
Just this past week in talking to two different friends, I heard stories of mean girls ranging from elementary school to assisted living. One friend has a daughter in elementary school who is being bullied because she is slightly overweight and doesn't 'fit in' with the other children. My other friend is moving her 98 year old mom from assisted living to a nursing home. She said the ladies at the assisted living facility have shun her mom because she can't play games like she used to because she can't hear and doesn't understand like she once did.
All of this made me really start to think about what makes some girls so mean? Are some girls mean by nature? Do we all have natural meanness inside of us? Do some girls just control the mean factor better than others? Why do some women tend to be chronically mean? Why are some women you meet genuinely sweet and have a heart of gold? As in most of my blogs, I could ramble forever about mean girls, but I'll just tell a few of my highlighted mean girl stories.
Thinking through the different periods of my life, I can remember the 1st time I truly noticed getting the mean girl glare. I was at Auburn. School hadn't started yet. It was Fall of 1988, my 1st and only quarter at Auburn, I had just moved into my "student housing apartment". My roommate and I had arranged to be placed together. We didn't go to high school together, but we knew each other from working at Merry Go Round in the Riverchase Galleria. I'll refer to my roommate as MGR. One night, MGR invited a few of her high school friends to come by the what was termed on CDV - Carolyn Draughon Village, but was equivalent to the old light green Gulf Shores Motel that stood at the end of the 'T' in Gulf Shores. Her friends came to CDV where I met them and had my 1st mean girl eye cut after she asked where I attended high school.
The time period in my life when I dealt with the worst mean girls was when I was working at LifeSaver, 2007-2012. I had no idea a job could have that much drama. I had no idea I would end up in the middle of so much drama. Everytime I hear the Taylor Swift song "Mean", I think of one of the women I worked with at LifeSaver. There is a chapter of my soul titled 'As the Rotor Turns, Days of our LifeSaver'.
This time also coincides with my "we we're on a break", years with Perry. Let me tell you, I learned some girls may look pretty on the outside, but they are M-E-A-N and need to eat make-up to try and be pretty on the inside. I had mean girl moments with almost everyone Perry even thought about taking out, and especially the ones he didn't have to take out before he had relations with them. I had drama with Perry's family. I had people in my family acting nuttier than squirrel turds. I had ex-girlfriends of guys I dated talking trash about me I didn't even know. It was craziness.
I'll get to it later in the blog but my most recent mean girl experience was one that hurt deeply. I'll give away too much of what is to come in our story if I share it now. The trailer for this movie would read: I have a friend who is more like a sister. I transfer to her place of employment and I get glares like I'm wearing a 'I heart fentanyl t-shirt'. People are staring at me. The nurse anethesist would wait on the other nurse to count her drugs in, even if the other nurse was busy and I was sitting at the desk waiting for the schedules to print. I was accused of being an addict. Several years and several tearful, sleepless nights later, I'm still not sure how or why the rumor I was a drug addict got started. Furthermore, I don't care. I will own up to everything I've done, so trust me when I say, I am not, nor have I ever been an addict. I might be as crazy as a crack house rat, but I don't do drugs. For those of you being a mean girl and thinking in your head I probably take a benzo for anxiety, you're wrong. No klonopin either. For those of you thinking I am throwing shade at addicts, you are WRONG! I probably have more "true" friends that are in recovery, than I do that aren't. Trust me, I have plenty of issues. Perry always jokes I have more issues than time magazine has. Fortunately, of all my issues, addiction isn't one of them.
All of these question made me do some research. I found an interview with Emil Harker, a marriage and family therapist, stating there are three main reasons that causes one to act mean: fear, hurt, and weakness. Sometimes it takes all three emotions to cause one to lash out. Other times, someone can subconsciously connect with one emotion and be mean.
Fear is the emotion for people with insecurities. I would classify those of us who struggle with self esteem / self image are in this group. I will tell you some of the nastiest things I have done was out of fear I was going to lose someone significant in my life. It was jealousy motivated, but it was because I was afraid of loss. The other side of being mean due to fear, is it keeps others at a safe distance. It's self protective behavior.
Hurt is another emotion that causes people to act mean. It can be alone or in combination with fear. One example I've already blogged about is the story of Perry taking his jeep out one night while I was working in Neuro. I was hurt because he had lied to me about what his plans for the night were. I had fear because I was afraid Perry would flip his jeep and squash his head like a grape.
The last emotion that causes meanness is weakness. In some cases, people have weak personalities and can't (or won't) accept responsibility for their actions. Guess who has also been guilty of being mean because I wouldn't take accountability?? I still find myself being absolutely horrible sometimes with not taking accountability when it comes to Perry. If he doesn't do something I want him to do (take days off or go to the Dr. - he's such a scaredy cat); It significantly costs him (shopping spree for me). If I'm being honest, I think I do it because I know he is so passive, he isn't going to fuss at me. For example, he paid something I didn't think he should've paid so I justified buying a new pair of Tory Burch shoes. When he came home from work and asked me how my day was, I had my smirkiest smirk on and said, "good". I said in my southern sweet voice and sweet but sarcastic smile, "I bought some shoes. I thought since you could afford to pay for someone else's mistake; you wouldn't mind paying for those. Guess who ended up looking and feeling like the mean girl she is?? ME!! Perry turns me around and asks me, "Have I ever told you no if you want something? My answer was, "no". Later, I remembered he had said no but it had been a very long time ago. He told me no on a third baby. I wanted to try for a girl one more time. He was adamant about no more babies. He even volunteered to have the vasectomy. He said only the rich and welfare had babies every two years and we weren't either.
While at the pool last week, I watched one little girl (approx around 5yr) walk up to another little girl appearing to be around the same age. She looked at her and asked if she wanted to play. No hesitation. No stopping to look at what brand of toys she had. No nothing. If it's so simple for two little girls to be nice, why can't we all do it? It's such an easy thing to do. UMMMMM, maybe not for the mentally ill. Trust when I say, I TRY MY BEST! I pray to be the Marti God wants me to be, to have a servant's heart, to remove anger and help me forgive; yet, I usually have committed my 1st sin within 3-5 minutes. I'll curse depending on what the scale reads that morning. I'll have a judgemental thought about someone. A neighbor I don't like will walk by and I'll send bad juju toward them. Sad considering I take a mood stabilizer isn't it?
Some of the more frequent mental health disorders that cause anger according to healthline.com are:
Depression.
Obsessive compulsive disorder.
Alcohol abuse.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Oppositional defiant disorder.
Bipolar disorder.
Intermittent explosive disorder.
Grief.
The two mentioned above that interest me the most are Oppositional defiant disorder(ODD}and Intermittent explosive disorder (IED). I have attached information on both below. I think these caught my interest for several reasons. I know it's been a couple of years since I graduated from nursing school, but I didn't hear anything about either of these then. I have a family member I love dearly who has ADHD and ODD. There may be more diagnosed issues I'm not aware of as well. This family member makes me heart smile as bright as the sun. There is also some autism so you are told exactly how it is. There is no gray area period. There is black and white only.
Intermittent explosive disorder is interesting to me for several reasons. To start with, I love to watch murder porn on serial killers and others who have snapped. I've heard this disorder mentioned in those shows. I'm beginning to question do we really have this many disorders or are we just justifying the last generations horrific behavior? Josh, our youngest son, has been very defiant since birth. We could tell him not to touch something and he would look at us and touch it. When asked why he did it, he would reply, "it was worth it". He would even turn around and stick his butt out to get his hiney popped. If I could have seen the future, I would have popped that ass harder! He had horrible temper tantrums. He would literally turn so red, he looked purple. His eyes would roll up and he would start breathing so heavily through his nose, it sounded like a bull. It seemed he only did this behavior when he didn't get his way initially. Afterward, he wouldn't respond. Many dr appointments later, Josh was found to have an abnormal temporal spike on his EEG and was diagnosed with seizures. These "episodes" were a precursor to his seizures, or so they said in 1999.
I can't close out my mean girls blog without doing a shout out to the meanest girl of them all - Sandy Crotch Demon. There is truly nothing worse than someone being as irritating as sand in the crotch of your swimsuit. There is really nothing worse than a "mean girl / guy" you thought you could trust tattling on you. I'll try to explain all of this later in the Blog for my non-UAB friends and friends that are have no idea what this is about. I hope the rest of you are laughing!
Love this and you ❤️