Lower expectations

When I moved to my school I was in 3rd grade and I automatically made tons of friends. I can thank Girl Scouts for that. The girls I met in my troop were my friends for years. All through intermediate school then into middle school. But then in 7th grade we went on a camping trip together. This wasn’t our first camping trip, we had smoothly made it through all the other ones. We were all best friends who shared everything with each other. On the second night of the 3 day trip we decided to play a game after the leaders had gone to bed. We called it the truth circle. We all sat in a circle and said what we thought about everyone. Now there were 3 girls in the troop, including me, that were maybe more popular than the other girls but we all got along. There is one girl that was basically the leader of the group and had nothing but nice things to say but when it was my turn she was different. For an hour she sat there and told me everything that she hated about me. She knew what would be the most offensive things to say to me since she had been my #1 best friend for years. So she used what she knew about me against me. She managed to turn that entire group of friends against me and for 2 years I was barely able to look at any of them. Then I was forced to sit down and have a conversation with the leader and she told me she did it because she was jealous of me. I was pretty and popular, I even had a boyfriend (well he was considered my boyfriend but nobody actually knows what middle school relationships are) she knew she would never be like me so she destroyed me because she wanted to be better. More often than not this is what bullies are thinking when they tell you that you are ugly or fat. They are saying what they think of themselves.
I have forgiven all of those girls that stood against me or didn’t stand up for me but I will never forget. I have realized that they were doing it because they were sad and they didn’t mean it. I am now civil with all of these girls and we are now becoming close again. The only problem with that is it will never be the same and I will not trust them with secrets again. They are all still close but they get into arguments and fights all the time but I have pulled myself away from that group so that we were still friends but they don’t have a chance to drag me into their drama. My situation is different and I am not telling you to forgive and forget, I am only saying that the first step in feeling better is to forgive the bully or bullies like I did. And I also told an adult and asked for help. I hope this will help anyone. It will all be okay, I promise. Just remember to forgive but never forget and tell an adult.