Cousin on verge of breakdown due to bullying - please advise!

ruffles

I am horrified having just read an email from my cousin Laura who is very close to me telling me that she is the victim of bullying on a large scale. She hangs out with a bunch of fellas and one girl who was at one time a good friend to her.Laura is very attractive and doesnt sleep around at all though she gets a lot of attention and some of these lads have tried it on. It seems now this girl who is the opposite has begun to torment her and has labeled her a ****-tease and has told the lads the same and insinuated that my cousin is incredibly vain spends hours getting ready and enjoys leading them on . All of this is so far from the truth its absurd as i know her to be the opposite. This girl doing this is herself very overweight and promiscuous and i can see it is a jealousy thing but she has really gone too far on some occasions and has now conviced all the lads bar one that Laura is a monster and a tease. They have all ganged up against her now bar one lad who they are now against as he insists on being on her side. Laura's other mates have gone travelling or moved away and i live the other side of the country so she does rely on them for a social life despite them being so destructive> By the way they are all mid 20's even though its bullying you would expect from kids.Well now she is on the verge of a breakdown and is seeking a counsellor. She has asked me for advice and I know fairly well what to tell her but as she is so fragile right now i thought id get some other opinions as how best she can handle this without causing more pain.

Beruthiel

Until the last sentence, I thought we were dealing with teenagers.
Sorry, but all these people that she knows are acting like they are 15 years old. Why the hell would you want to be friends with people like that? And after all that's gone on, why would you stay friends?
The only obvious choice is dump them and move on, why at her age, she would let that sort of crap bother her is beyond me.
The worlds a big place and there are plenty of people in it who know how to act like a grown up.

AnonoBoy

Thought it was teenagers too. Saw this a good bit when I was younger the unattractive girl projecting her issues onto more attractive 'friends'.

Obviously she needs to stop hanging around with this group. You say one guy doesn't believe what the bitch is saying about your cousin. Well at least he seems like one person she can socialise with alone.

As Beruthiel said - there's loads of people out there. She needs to drop them and even though she may be lonely for a while, she will find better people to spend time with.

Gordon

Get her out of there for starters. A holiday in the countryside for example. Then try to explain to her that they aren't worth the bother.

Kell

Pretty much what everyone else says. "Friends" dont do that sort of shít with eachother, unless they are teenagers and mostly not even then.

Your cous will realise time that the 2/3 REALLy good friends she has amassed will be friends with her for life, and you know what? Thats all anyone needs.

K-

Asmodean

It's so sad when you hear about situations like this. The poor girl, she sounds genuine and nice. It's definitely jealousy on her ex friends part. I've seen it all too often. If she can keep her head up and work through it she'll be fine. It's true, all you need is a couple of good friends and you're set. There's too many people in this world who will constantly dump and dump on you. Sad but true