How to Deal With Backstabbers for Teenage Girls: The Sequel

I’ve written about this before, but since I’m getting more and more emails from teenage girls asking, what to do when their “best friend” back stabs them, here I sit, on my Saturday off from work, again, touching on this topic.

I get it. I understand ten-fold. The pain. The agony. The heartache that  you are enduring.

Hands down one of the biggest pills I had to swallow, I would have to say, was when my best friend, or better said, someone who I thought was my best friend betrayed me in my teen years.  Yet, I can highlight one positive aspect, which I know for sure that I took away from the experience, even though it was mostly just down-right, disgustingly awful. It shaped me in many ways and helped me to become the person, who I am today. But here we are, in the present, and you are the one experiencing it.

I mean, let’s think about this. It really is almost unfathomable what one gains by talking about others behind their backs and spreading vicious rumors. Seriously. I often think – what good someone could possibly think would come from behaving like this? Sitting around, conjuring up lies to tell others about you, who supposedly is your friend? Sadly, I have realized, the perpetrator is likely doing it for no other reason than to hurt you. To bring you down, and in turn hope that they somehow reign superior. In a sense, you almost have to feel sorry for these poor examples of human beings that do this to others. That may sound harsh, but as a teen girl, you are certainly old enough to decipher right from wrong. Being “young” is no excuse here. Teen girls are some of the biggest culprits of this lousy behavior, coined backstabbing. I am not going to sit here and preach that grown women don’t do this either, because they do. But the instances, or rather the number of people I meet, who partake in this behavior, lessens as I grow older.

So what do you do? As I mentioned in several other blog posts, Teen Girls are Mean: True, How to Deal With Backstabbers for Teenage Girls, and Best Friend Dilemma: When She Ignores You, you have got to find it within yourself to ignore this ignorant person, who has nothing better to do with her time than to slander you. You can’t control her, or stop her. You can only control your response to her. By reacting, crying, or talking about her too, you not only add fuel to the fire, ultimately giving her what she wants, but you also lose a little self-respect. While I know that it is EXTREMELY difficult to ignore her, you have got to try. It becomes even all the more challenging when your so-called “friends” believe these awful lies that this bitch, for lack of better words, is spewing because you feel utterly alone. Yet, you are not alone. You have an entire future ahead of you. And while I know that it may seem as if there aren’t many other options for friends at your school, there are. I managed to switch my entire group of friends in 8^th grade. It was not easy by any means, but I did it. You can also sign-up for other activities outside of your school too and meet other people not affiliated with your “best friend” and “friends.” I put quotes around best friend, and friends, throughout this post to emphasize the fact that they are supposed to be your friends, but are not. You need to rise up, take control of you, and move on.

I would like to add that this saga has been happening for as long as teen girls have been gracing the face of the earth. In fact a comedian, whose name escapes me, said something along the lines of, “Men handle disagreements so much better than women. They just duke it out. Women are much more evil than that. They spread vicious rumors about you until you develop an eating disorder.”

I hope that you can find the humor in this statement, and smile for a moment through your pain. Yet, regardless of whether or not you do, please know that you are not alone. And further, all teen girls are not like this, I promise you. You just need to find the strength inside to turn the other cheek, and seek out new friends. Genuine, fun, and cool teenage girls are out there. And I promise you, that years from now, you will be a better person having endured this.