Hi Beauties, this is going to be a piece talking about how I handle the hate and what affects me vs what doesn’t. I am going to start out on the easier of the two to handle and talk about. Stranger Hate. Recently on Tiktok (and this is exactly why I did not want to get on there in the first place) it has been happening there. I flew way under the radar for quite some time and then a clothing campaign got me noticed a little. Boy did that begin the hate comments. However, the more I checked into the hate comments the more I discovered that 89 percent of the hate comments were from OLD WHITE LADIES (55 and up). My anger turned to feeling so sorry for these women.
The hate comments from that particular age and sex actually did not surprise me. The women of my mom’s generation grew up hating themselves for every little thing. It could or could not have anything to do with weight. They also made poor decisions when it came to relationships due to the stigmas, the rules, and the way they had been raised. Then there is my generation – the generation of therapy, of breaking the stigma, Self-love, and independence, and just plain rebelling against rules and or archaic tradition. If you ask any woman my age, “why are you the way you are?”, the same answer would come. The reply would be to break free and not be anything like my mother. Of course, there are always some exceptions to the rule. There always is.
These ladies randomly browse TikTok, having nothing better to do than insult fat women living their life and not being scared to live it publicly and in your face. I can imagine they have thoughts like, “I wish I could have that girl’s confidence because oh boy she is fat, and boy if I was that fat, I would be hiding so the world would not know”. I bet they have comments when looking in the mirror at themselves, “Boy I’m fat, I’m so old, look at these wrinkles, oh no I need to get my hair dyed again.” Their resentment rises for me living life as I am with no apologies, no shame, and not hiding. I wish for love to be the standard, especially amongst women, but I suppose that is a dream I have yet to see. Because unfortunately, this is how a lot of people feel. In this particular statement, I’m not guessing or assuming about this; I have been around enough dissatisfied older ladies to know that in fact, this is how many feel.
These comments from these aging ladies do not bother me. They are aging and everything is new to them. They are clearly bored with life and have nothing better to do than insult another woman. If all I did every day was sit around commenting and judging others, I’d want someone to have some grace on me. So, I simply delete the comments and then block them. Why do I do this? I want to keep my spaces on the internet safe for other women to post and gather into conversations. I don’t want anyone to be afraid the hate will come to their pages. Therefore, it’s a bit of extra work for me but I really don’t mind in order to keep my space as safe as I can.
I do the same delete and block method with every other person that is negative as well but at times the statements will be borderline ok and because I get a kick out of being funny if it is a person/peer age I will reply in a subtle way or even in just the way that I get the joke and no one else does. Kids and older people are just not on my radar to fight or be offended by.
Now let’s talk about the hate that absolutely destroys me. People that I know and either we have been great friends for a time or I have loved them platonically in some way. This is the hate that tears me up and consumes me. Even admitting this leaves me open and vulnerable.
For example, for the last three years, I feel like I went from having two really good friends to one huge stalker. This girl and I were friends. I set her and her boyfriend up together. Things just got weird and her mind would draw conclusions that just were not true. She would email me with a different email address, she would publicly make claims about me. She threatened to tell my secrets that I eventually just put out in the world before she could. Even worse, she brought some of my friends into the drama. I will be honest I thought about suicide, I self-harmed to ease the pain, I turned away from everyone and gained so much weight. My life was just one major hate post, hate comment, fear of losing friends because of her lies, and hate mail. It has been a very stressful 3 years. time of my life and she refused to let it die. I valued her friendship and I lost that, then she took my very best friend in the world away from me. I even now don’t rest because I’m always in fear of what is next. Overall I felt so alone and felt like I could never trust anyone again.
Then one day my friends (a couple) that had been drawn into this mess called me up wanting to tell me what just happened to them. Apparently, this stalker has been carrying a grudge with them too and 3 years later was still trying to make the couple break up. Still trying to turn them against me. The couple were finally seeing my stalker for what she was. It felt like I was not so alone anymore. Someone else knew what I was going through. Still, 3 years later after the fall of our friendship between this stalker and I), I still feel unsafe. I still worry that this person knows where I live. I will not feel safe probably till we move and have an entirely new address. I have grown since this last came up, and I have begun to see the situation as it was. I put myself in her shoes. I don’t know why she carried it out for over 3 yrs. but I do understand why she was so persistent at the time of the event – “the major blow-up.” Sometimes people just want to be heard. This is why hate rarely gets to me anymore. Just let the people feel heard and react if you need to but try your hardest not to for your sake and theirs.
The difference between stranger hate and peer hate is very different. Stranger hate is like annoying gnats, and peer hate is a wasp sting. For me, who is allergic to wasps, that is a huge difference. My advice to all of you in the public eye is to just swat away all the randoms and focus on your life. It literally is nothing more than an annoyance, delete and block. xoxo Evie
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Finding Evie 