Part 2: I've Been "Mean Girl"ed

Foreword: Before anyone ask whether all of these assumption of E and L are excluding me is real or it's just my hurt feelings seeing shadows, trust me, I've questioned myself multiple times at multiple points of this whole progression. Going through therapy has taught me to equally trust myself when I noticed less noticeable/conclusive cluster of behaviors, as well as having a set of grounding question to check for my biases and reality. I can't absolutely omit my biases, but I try to counter that by getting more perspective from others and also information from K. Holding too strongly on this as my only reality is also unhealthy for me as it will drag me into the same realm of "who's right, who's wrong" game, hence this is just one of my perspective of listening to my gut feeling which has earn it's experience. 

Since the finale of E saying that she doesn't have any issue with me, I have been feeling thrown off, confused and shame. It does feel like I have to double down on my theory or else it would just be me embarrassing myself texting a long, heartfelt message to E saying that she should talk to me if she has issues with me instead of with others. It certainty does feel like I've been turned against my own game and dragged back into feeling like a silly minion for the 2 unbothered queen. I know it could be mind game, whether they were aware of it or not, but they clearly placed themselves as higher now. I am still susceptible, even though I know that from everything, I've did everything as maturely as I could. I want to get out of feeling shame and inferior, and the way I could get out of the haze of the psychological game is to understand fully the situation and the psychology of this. 

This sent me into a temporary rabbit hole. I relate the word "mean girl" when I was telling K about how L really talks behind people's back and I started reading up about it. What mean girl psychology is in the professional term is relational aggression. It's a form of bully hinged on exclusion, backstabbing and manipulation. I didn't know what I was feeling and searching for but the word exclusion hits hard. Exclusion is a powerful weapon because after experiencing it first hand, till this day I deeply still believe that I will never be accepted for who I am, never belong to any group. That's why my instinct and subconscious still takes the blame and shame when this whole ordeal happened. 

However, reading all these articles about "mean girls" gives me mix feelings. On one end I feel validated when all these subtle behaviors has been given clear definition makes me feel like I didn't make this up and it's not me seeing shadows. But all these articles were all so unforgiving to the perpetrator, even though all ended with the line of saying to empathized mean girls who did it out of insecurity. Yet the whole article shone everything in such a shameful light. Partly, I was uncomfortable because even though I'm hurt, I still don't like thinking of E and L (who I've once considered good friends) as such an ugly person. They were nice to me at one point too. But mostly, I know I've been and done the same before. Venting and gossiping is a fine line, and it's gossiping can be addictive. It's like a drug, it gives you sense of superiority and righteousness over people. In your little circle of echo chamber, you don't even feel like you were harming the person because everyone agrees and you were only "saying what everyone's thinking". It's powerful because you know people starts to hate the person you dislike, and now they are just facing the consequence of being a "shitty" person. 

I've always knew people are susceptible to being manipulated. I seen it first hand in form 2, when my friend gang up against our head of librarian, I was equally on the hate club too. It's until I saw the head of librarian cried privately. Then I saw my friend calling a freaking meeting with all of her mutual friends filling an entire classroom during a recess to badmouth and plot a mutiny against the head of librarian. I knew how much damage it can do. 

Yet, I was swiped into it too. Again, I was also only human. During my first job, I've always been the type that I won't hide my displeasure and I will vent when I'm upset (this is consistent till this day). A colleague of mine started telling me gossips about other colleagues that I swear I did not noticed any issue with before she started saying. Soon, our gossip group grew bigger and bigger. Some colleagues who doesn't get along with people so well and doesn't have any power were the first to experience the exclusion. I don't deny my part in fertilizing the progression. I'm often the most opinionated one, I'm very expressive in everything that I felt, I'm also a judgmental person (I would think of myself as socially observant and will obsessively analyze someone psychologically). So I was very much the catalyst for things to happen. But when it comes to the end, I would also be the most noticeable key player. I wasn't proud of what I did, but I was still very upset because at the end, the girl that first started gossiping with me said to my other colleagues that she can't talk to me anymore because I'm too toxic. It felt so unfair because I was such an innocent person before she fed me all those thoughts. But either way, what happened in that office also made me be very mindful of when I would be behaving toxically and being unfair to others. I still doubt myself a lot because I know I could be toxic at any given time and I carry this shame with me to every work place. 

Anyway, I'm coming back to this piece months later, I'm pretty over it. Funny enough, they started treating me with this normalcy that is quite unusual after the text that I sent to E. I'm also over wanting to be accepted in this group. I still don't think that they are shitty people. I just think that it's important to cultivate a sense of self awareness and evaluate ourselves a bit more often that most people do. Didn't expect this could happened again at 28 years old, but weapon is weapon no matter what age we are at. On one end, I do consider this as a blessing in disguise because it made me realized still how much I crave to be accepted in a group and I am in fact not so fine being in just alone. It is still something that I work on. But I'm glad that I have worked on my self esteem over the years to know when something isn't my fault.