I watched Bully for the first time last weekend. For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, you now have no excuse as it is available instantly on Netflix. The film itself is tragic, horrifying, and fabulously made.

Watching Bully I, as expected, had flashbacks to when I was that age and going through the same sorts of situations. The flashbacks I didn’t expect to have were to conversations with my family.

Disclaimer: I love my family. I especially love my sisters.

From right around my 17th birthday, to right after my 20th birthday, I was in one single relationship. 80% of people who read this will know who he is but for the sake of saving a shred of dignity lets call him Sam. We started dating during the summer, decided to try it out during the year, with him in college and me traveling for work on my gap year, somehow made it to another summer, then another, and ended up living together for a bit. My family loved him. So much so that they wanted to invite him to Thanksgiving this year. We had been broken up for almost 3 months. Totally put my foot down.

I don’t know when it started but at some point in our relationship, when Sam was at my house for a weekend, one of my sisters said “You better not lose him, no one else will put up with you” at the dinner table. We all laughed. I think it was meant to be a joke. However, over the next 2 years that message was sent over and over again. It was phrased in different ways but every time is was the same general statement: you are lucky, don’t mess it up, no one else will have you.

I really don’t think they meant this maliciously. They are two girls who, at the time, were 12 and 16 – an age, and era in ones life, focused on in Bully as being awkward and uncomfortable. Whatever their motive, the message sunk in and played on repeat in my head each time I found out, or figured out, that he had cheated on me. I had found the best I ever would, it must have been my fault, I can’t let him go.

I had always said that I wouldn’t stay with someone who broke my trust and it broke my heart when I realized that I, with that message in my head, wasn’t strong enough to say goodbye and move on. It took months to gain the courage to take the risk of breaking it off.

It turns out that the bullying that has affected me most in my life wasn’t on a playground or on a bus – it was in my families kitchen. And, in writing this, I can think of dozens of times that I have said things that are probably just as hurtful to my sisters – from calling them stupid to making them feel fat. I hate to think that what I have said may have had a similar impact on them as what they have said has had on me.

I guess that this post is incorrectly titled (but I won’t change it) as it does have a purpose. I want to apologize to Abigail and Martha for anything I may have said that had such an effect. I will try my best to not say such things in the future. We are sisters and when we fight we say things we don’t mean. Sometimes I will slip up but know that you are both smart, beautiful, completely badass, and blow my mind with your awesomeness.