Open Letter Apology To All My Friends

Dear Friends

It turns out, I haven’t been a very good friend to you all.  I’m not talking about all the times I’ve been too busy, when I’ve only contacted you when I’ve wanted or needed something, the times I’ve bailed at the last minute or even the times years ago where I used to back stab a lot of you, before I grew up.  Before I realised that that kind of behaviour was not normal or okay.

I’ve talked about all those things before and more.  You now know about how sometimes my mental health won’t let me socialise.  I’ve tried contacting people ‘just because’ to be a better friend and the back stabbing is a thing of the past, especially after removing some negative influences from my life. But in some ways, this is much worse.

I need to apolgise to you, because I’ve judged you.

Not the things you do, those are all your choice and while I might not agree with all of them and I may have even told you that, they are still your choices to make, whether good or bad.  No, I’ve judged you for the way you look.  Your size in particular.

I used to do this all the time. Someone I felt to be a great size would complain that they wanted to lose weight. I’d tell them that I’d be happy to be their size and then I’d complain about them to other people. If I met someone new I’d always feel satisfaction if I deemed them to be bigger than me and other times I’d fret the whole encounter that maybe I was the bigger one and how could I have let myself get that big? Then I’d talk about it. 

It’s stupid and unnecessary, but it’s an awful habit that I’m still trying to shake. It’s a deep rooted insecurity of mine that I didn’t know I still had.

I thought I had stopped. But it was just the other day I caught myself comparing my size to someone else. I guess I thought because I didn’t back stab anymore that my thoughts reflected that. No. Sometimes our way of thinking is so ingrained into us from years of negative influence that we don’t even realise we’re doing it. I thought I’d broken the cycle but I was fooling myself. Looking back I even remember being relieved a few months ago when I found out I wasn’t the heaviest in my Facebook weight loss support group.

Why am I telling you this? Because it’s not all bad. I celebrate your achievements now. I’m no longer jealous when you lose weight. I cheer you along because I genuinely do want you to succeed and when you do, I will be excited and happy for you and make sure to tell you so. I want to build you up, not down. I want us to work together, even if it’s behind the scenes, cheering each other on on a fitness app, offering advice in a fitness group on Facebook, or even getting out there and going for a walk together.

I think we all at times think things that we’re not proud of. I’d like to think that the positive outweighs the negative though. I’d like to break this cycle of negativity and continue to support all of journeys. We all have our own journeys and we’re only self sabotaging when we thing negatively of others. So no more! It’s out in the open now. Maybe some of you won’t be able trust me anymore and for that I’m sorry. But for me it’s time to move on with a healthy mind and a clear conscience.

Smiles and Sunshine

Katie