Too much of a good thing
6/11/10 23:02![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkemeraldsFamily.
We have this thing where we do birthdays at my sister's house. Most everyone comes, we sing happy birthday and eat cake and talk and laugh. Usually it's pretty nice.
Tonight--brother-in-law's birthday--it got to me. My oldest niece is noticeably pregnant, so there's one topic of conversation I have absolutely nothing to say about. My younger sister has a new man in her life (must be serious: he was there) whom I was meeting for the first time. Nice guy, but there's another subject I have extremely little to say about.
I had to leave, a bit more abruptly than I'm proud of, when the stress of too many people in the room made me over-react to a careless remark from that all powerful person whose careless remarks can still overthrow my commonsense, i.e., my mother.
It wasn't too terrible--I didn't storm out, I did say goodbye and happy birthday and thank you--but it didn't go unnoticed, either. There was email afterwards of the "did we offend you?" variety. Which means I probably offended them.
Gah! I knew I didn't want to go before I went, but not going would have raised at least as many questions as leaving early did. I'm way past the point of trying to explain my quirks and limitations to my family, but at moments like this I have this hellish feeling that they're coming to their own, very wrong, conclusions about what's wrong with me.
It's frustrating.
We have this thing where we do birthdays at my sister's house. Most everyone comes, we sing happy birthday and eat cake and talk and laugh. Usually it's pretty nice.
Tonight--brother-in-law's birthday--it got to me. My oldest niece is noticeably pregnant, so there's one topic of conversation I have absolutely nothing to say about. My younger sister has a new man in her life (must be serious: he was there) whom I was meeting for the first time. Nice guy, but there's another subject I have extremely little to say about.
I had to leave, a bit more abruptly than I'm proud of, when the stress of too many people in the room made me over-react to a careless remark from that all powerful person whose careless remarks can still overthrow my commonsense, i.e., my mother.
It wasn't too terrible--I didn't storm out, I did say goodbye and happy birthday and thank you--but it didn't go unnoticed, either. There was email afterwards of the "did we offend you?" variety. Which means I probably offended them.
Gah! I knew I didn't want to go before I went, but not going would have raised at least as many questions as leaving early did. I'm way past the point of trying to explain my quirks and limitations to my family, but at moments like this I have this hellish feeling that they're coming to their own, very wrong, conclusions about what's wrong with me.
It's frustrating.
(no subject)
7/11/10 23:38 (UTC)Easier said than done, of course.
Um. The 'a careless remark from that all powerful person whose careless remarks can still overthrow my commonsense, i.e., my mother.' part totally resonated with me. Just this week, I had a huge fight with my father. He is a lovely man at heart but can be an obnoxious control freak on the exterior a lot of the time. He irritated me greatly as I was seeing him off somewhere with my mother, and I slammed the door behind them so hard, I broke the lock. And then, I blush to admit this, as normally I am quite a meek and sedate person who hardly even raises her voice, and a pacifist to boot, I took a carving knife to the tyres of one of his motorbikes.
It's actually quite difficult to slash a tyre, it turns out. I made no impression on it at all.
So, having not lost my temper for about ten years, that was my reaction in similar circumstances to yours. I am thoroughly embarrassed at myself and am vowing not to get so het up in future. This is why you are a more evolved person than I am. :D
(no subject)
8/11/10 01:50 (UTC)The aftermath of expressions of trapped rage (which was, in a small way, what I was feeling at the birthday party) are always so hard to cope with. I don't know about you, but I go through social embarrassment, personal shame, and, worst of all, a horrible feeling of sliding once more down a slope that I've vowed never to approach again.
I've learned to remember that the cascading bad feelings are brain-chemistry-not-reality ("brain-chemistry-not-reality, brain-chemistry-not-reality, brain-chemistry-not-reality," I chant) and that I'm no more contemptible today than I was yesterday. There are tricks and tools I can use to get myself down out of the trees, and if I can force myself to do any of them, I will get immediate partial relief.
The EFT tapping is strange and crazy-sounding, and I wouldn't mention it if I didn't find it effective.
I am definitely not more evolved than you! LOL! I'm just older, with more years of therapy.