No One Will Be Your Friend

I decided that my brother is not going to grow up to be as self-loathing as me. He will not learn to strive for perfection and, upon failing to be perfect, fall into self-loathing and resentment and bitterness and unhappiness.

He got into a fight at school. Not a big, huge fight. Just some normal, lost-his-head-for-a-moment moment. They were all playing kickball, some kids said he "got out," he said he didn't, tempers went a little crazy over something silly, and some kicking/pushing happened. And then it was over. Our parents sat him down to talk about what happened, and they told him that no one will be his friend/like him if he gets in fights.

It's true, of course, that getting in fights won't make you friends, but in the midst of my "breakdown," I've come to realise that the messages of "no one will be your friend/like you if _____" only reached me as "no one will be your friend/like you." No one will be your friend, Elizabeth. No one will be your friend. You are a bad person. You are unworthy of love and friendship. No one will like you.


I don't want that for him. He is my little brother, practically my son nowadays, and as much as I'd love for him to be flawless and perfect, what I really want is for him to be happy and not have to struggle. Isn't that what any parent wants? It was hard to just listen to him being told those horrifying words of "no one will be your friend/like you if . . ." and know that all he was getting was "no one will be your friend/like you." Ever. But I didn't say anything that night.

The next morning, as he and I ate breakfast (I am the only adult around in the mornings, so I do all the morning parental activities), I decided it was a good time to say something.

"You know, they'll still be your friends," I said. "Everyone has bad days sometimes. They know that. As long as you apologise and really mean it, they'll still be your friends. You shouldn't be getting in fights, but it's not the end of the world." And I explained why our parents were mad, and why fighting was wrong and would so get him fired if he had been at a job, not elementary school. And in telling him that it was okay, that he was forgiven for his imperfections, that he was good, I started to believe it about myself too.

He smiled.