Rant/sobfest
[Added after writing the post: TW major family issues and triggery things for trust violation and a lot of -isms]
I think I'm in the still-calm-but-avoiding-things stage of Zomg I have things to do like REALLY SOON that I wish I didn't have to do all by myself.
Spent the weekend not working on the programs I need to do for my job, and not doing research for two papers that are due next week.
I've come to the conclusion that I'm a LOT better at the people-skills part of my job than I am at the planning-and-executing-projects part of my job. I've been able to handle emotional crises every time they come up. Programming? I'm fine, I'm fine, I don't need to do this right now, I don't want to send the email right now I'll do it later, OMG PANICPANICPANIC.
I'm avoiding, right now. And I really need to do something that isn't web-surfing.
And my emotional state is not exactly great right now. I keep getting that sick guilty feeling in my stomach while trying to sleep, when my brain suddenly decides it's time to rehash everything I didn't do that day and should have. It couldn't have done that while I had time to be proactive?
>.< I don't know why this is so hard for me. I don't know why it makes me feel like a failure. I don't know why this keeps happening to me at random times in the semester.
Oh, wait.
This tends to happen to me right after I've gone home for some reason. I think. =Thanksgiving Break. Evidently Dave wasn't the only thing that bothers me about being home, just the worst. He's gone, mom's happier but lonely since she isn't used to being alone. She tells me Trav has been going over a lot more often lately and suddenly I don't want to go home anymore.
I don't want to go home, because no matter what people tell me about being positive, I just spent five days in his company and it only confirms what I already knew: he's an asshole who doesn't think about the impact his words have, and makes fun of everything he doesn't understand or is uncomfortable with.
A lot of the things that fall in those categories happen to be triggery to me because they make me feel really unsafe around him. [TW] "He/she [friend of mine, a stranger, doesn't seem to matter] must be gay because Y. Hahahaha" "Because women belong in the kitchen, right? Hahahaha" "[subtext] I've been doing more than you today. Ergo, you're being lazy and just trying to piss me off by refusing to do X for me, where X=not a priority for you." "[Insert racist comment here.]" "[Insert anti-Muslim or anti-Jewish slur here.]" "You should be taking Spanish, not Hebrew, because Spanish is relevant to ----"
THIS IS WHY I HAVEN'T COME OUT TO YOU THANKS SO MUCH FOR MAKING ME FEEL LIKE I CAN HAVE MY OWN LIFE, OPINIONS, and honest identity without getting put down for them. And thanks so much, Mom, for almost always making excuses for him such that I feel like you're TAKING HIS SIDE because he throws a bigger tantrum than I do. Thanks for telling me to ignore them, instead of helping me find ways to talk to them. Because that works with every bully, ever. Thanks for taking our deep philosophical differences for the petty fights you think you and your siblings were encouraged to engage in. It isn't like I'm trying to stand up for myself with no support from anyone on anything other than my disability. It's not like I'm trying to tell people I'm deeply hurt by the things they say. It's not like I'm trying to ask for your help, and getting shut down before I can get to the "help me with this" part of the conversation. Thank you, all of you, for making me feel like I have no place safe to go during the longest breaks of the school year. For making me feel like I don't have a place to call 'home' anymore, so much as places I can reside in temporarily while I try to work around various issues with each place. For making me feel like I have no reason to go home except that I can't stay on campus while housing is closed.
For some reason, I'm angrier at my mom than I am at my brother. My brother I can understand that he's coming from a position of relative privilege, and has never been challenged on it in a way that makes him think about it and revise his view of the world. I can label him as an asshole, easily, and leave it at that.
My mother? I feel like she's supposed to be on my side or at least understand better where I'm coming from. She, after all, is female, disabled, and my mother. But she isn't hearing anything I'm saying because all she wants is for us to stop fighting. She isn't hearing the part where I'm telling her I've been hurt and don't know how to fix it without professional help like family counseling. I can't change my brother. But I believe I have the right to ask him not to use certain language around me because it upsets me. I don't think she sees it that way. She has a "boys will be boys" mentality that baffles me because it necessitates that I just take it without ever trying to stop the source of hurt. Maybe that's why she keeps ending up in abusive relationships with men that take her a while to get out of. And maybe I'm being uncharitable, [Okay, I'm being a lot uncharitable and engaging in victim-blaming. It's not okay that I wonder this occasionally, but I do think she's made a lot of bad decisions that also hurt me in some way. And I wonder why this is a repeated thing in her life. It's not her fault they abused her/us, but I disagree with long-term decisions she's made for the sake of a little more financial security and a lot more stress.] but every time she fails to listen to me when I tell her I have a problem, it makes things hurt more. If she says nothing why my brothers do their best to insult the religion they all know I'm converting to by choice, how can I trust any of them not to hurt me when I tell them that their heteronormative assumptions about me only tell half the story? How can I trust them, when none of them seem fazed by telling homophobic jokes and laughing hysterically while I walk out of the room trying to pretend I didn't just hear them say that? When they tell those jokes about my friends? About people I care deeply about, as if it's an insult?
I think this is what's been bothering me since classes ended on Friday and I had time to think instead of react. They've violated my trust, again and again, and I can't fight them over anything because no one is listening to me. If I make a big stink, I then have my mother telling me I'm "being mean." If I make a quiet comment, off to the side while they're congratulating themselves on their cleverness, she tells me "that's just the way they are," and "I don't want you guys fighting anymore" without acknowledging that whatever she feels has no bearing on the reality that I feel like I'm being chopped into pieces and thrown on the fire?
The last time I tried to object to Travis violating my trust by ignoring a simple "no" to his request to use my computer and attempting to use it anyways [hampered only by the fact that it was password protected with a non-obvious answer to the hint], she acted like it was unreasonable for me to expect my autonomy to be respected. It was unreasonable for me to say "no" when he wanted to use my computer to show me a youtube video I wasn't interested in seeing, and then get angry when he tried to use it after I'd walked out of the room. It's unreasonable for me to further say "no" when he asks again after he tried to trick me into telling him the password. It's unreasonable for me to expect my personal possessions to remain private. It's unreasonable for me to not want to give someone (who has demonstrably violated my trust over and over again) access to my own personal laptop, with personal information, saved passwords, and private files on it.
If they won't respect the little things, how on earth am I supposed to believe they'll respect the big things? If they already disregard my feelings when I tell any of them that something they've done has hurt my feelings, or when they repeatedly use slurs and insult people I care about after I've asked them not to?
How can I feel safe around these people? Or, put a different way, What can I do to make this safer for me?
And in the long-term, what can I do about the next...five major school breaks? (Winter break, spring break, summer break, winter break, spring break; all before I graduate.) I'll hopefully have a more permanent solution by the time I graduate. I'm going to do my damnedest to make it happen, actually. And at least for spring break, fall break, and Thanksgiving break, I can stay on campus if I so desire. I should have the cash/points to manage groceries for those. Or at least for spring break, provided I keep this job through then, and possibly manage to keep a ResLife position through next year, even if it'll add to an already large senior year load. I'd prefer to be super-busy and have a decent salary, truth be told, over the opposite.
Also, I'm totally feeling the River-in-my-icon thing today.
ETA: Cut. Because it is a really long and somewhat incoherent rant about all the things my family does that make me feel like my opinions don't matter.
I think I'm in the still-calm-but-avoiding-things stage of Zomg I have things to do like REALLY SOON that I wish I didn't have to do all by myself.
Spent the weekend not working on the programs I need to do for my job, and not doing research for two papers that are due next week.
I've come to the conclusion that I'm a LOT better at the people-skills part of my job than I am at the planning-and-executing-projects part of my job. I've been able to handle emotional crises every time they come up. Programming? I'm fine, I'm fine, I don't need to do this right now, I don't want to send the email right now I'll do it later, OMG PANICPANICPANIC.
I'm avoiding, right now. And I really need to do something that isn't web-surfing.
And my emotional state is not exactly great right now. I keep getting that sick guilty feeling in my stomach while trying to sleep, when my brain suddenly decides it's time to rehash everything I didn't do that day and should have. It couldn't have done that while I had time to be proactive?
>.< I don't know why this is so hard for me. I don't know why it makes me feel like a failure. I don't know why this keeps happening to me at random times in the semester.
Oh, wait.
This tends to happen to me right after I've gone home for some reason. I think. =Thanksgiving Break. Evidently Dave wasn't the only thing that bothers me about being home, just the worst. He's gone, mom's happier but lonely since she isn't used to being alone. She tells me Trav has been going over a lot more often lately and suddenly I don't want to go home anymore.
I don't want to go home, because no matter what people tell me about being positive, I just spent five days in his company and it only confirms what I already knew: he's an asshole who doesn't think about the impact his words have, and makes fun of everything he doesn't understand or is uncomfortable with.
A lot of the things that fall in those categories happen to be triggery to me because they make me feel really unsafe around him. [TW] "He/she [friend of mine, a stranger, doesn't seem to matter] must be gay because Y. Hahahaha" "Because women belong in the kitchen, right? Hahahaha" "[subtext] I've been doing more than you today. Ergo, you're being lazy and just trying to piss me off by refusing to do X for me, where X=not a priority for you." "[Insert racist comment here.]" "[Insert anti-Muslim or anti-Jewish slur here.]" "You should be taking Spanish, not Hebrew, because Spanish is relevant to ----"
THIS IS WHY I HAVEN'T COME OUT TO YOU THANKS SO MUCH FOR MAKING ME FEEL LIKE I CAN HAVE MY OWN LIFE, OPINIONS, and honest identity without getting put down for them. And thanks so much, Mom, for almost always making excuses for him such that I feel like you're TAKING HIS SIDE because he throws a bigger tantrum than I do. Thanks for telling me to ignore them, instead of helping me find ways to talk to them. Because that works with every bully, ever. Thanks for taking our deep philosophical differences for the petty fights you think you and your siblings were encouraged to engage in. It isn't like I'm trying to stand up for myself with no support from anyone on anything other than my disability. It's not like I'm trying to tell people I'm deeply hurt by the things they say. It's not like I'm trying to ask for your help, and getting shut down before I can get to the "help me with this" part of the conversation. Thank you, all of you, for making me feel like I have no place safe to go during the longest breaks of the school year. For making me feel like I don't have a place to call 'home' anymore, so much as places I can reside in temporarily while I try to work around various issues with each place. For making me feel like I have no reason to go home except that I can't stay on campus while housing is closed.
For some reason, I'm angrier at my mom than I am at my brother. My brother I can understand that he's coming from a position of relative privilege, and has never been challenged on it in a way that makes him think about it and revise his view of the world. I can label him as an asshole, easily, and leave it at that.
My mother? I feel like she's supposed to be on my side or at least understand better where I'm coming from. She, after all, is female, disabled, and my mother. But she isn't hearing anything I'm saying because all she wants is for us to stop fighting. She isn't hearing the part where I'm telling her I've been hurt and don't know how to fix it without professional help like family counseling. I can't change my brother. But I believe I have the right to ask him not to use certain language around me because it upsets me. I don't think she sees it that way. She has a "boys will be boys" mentality that baffles me because it necessitates that I just take it without ever trying to stop the source of hurt. Maybe that's why she keeps ending up in abusive relationships with men that take her a while to get out of. And maybe I'm being uncharitable, [Okay, I'm being a lot uncharitable and engaging in victim-blaming. It's not okay that I wonder this occasionally, but I do think she's made a lot of bad decisions that also hurt me in some way. And I wonder why this is a repeated thing in her life. It's not her fault they abused her/us, but I disagree with long-term decisions she's made for the sake of a little more financial security and a lot more stress.] but every time she fails to listen to me when I tell her I have a problem, it makes things hurt more. If she says nothing why my brothers do their best to insult the religion they all know I'm converting to by choice, how can I trust any of them not to hurt me when I tell them that their heteronormative assumptions about me only tell half the story? How can I trust them, when none of them seem fazed by telling homophobic jokes and laughing hysterically while I walk out of the room trying to pretend I didn't just hear them say that? When they tell those jokes about my friends? About people I care deeply about, as if it's an insult?
I think this is what's been bothering me since classes ended on Friday and I had time to think instead of react. They've violated my trust, again and again, and I can't fight them over anything because no one is listening to me. If I make a big stink, I then have my mother telling me I'm "being mean." If I make a quiet comment, off to the side while they're congratulating themselves on their cleverness, she tells me "that's just the way they are," and "I don't want you guys fighting anymore" without acknowledging that whatever she feels has no bearing on the reality that I feel like I'm being chopped into pieces and thrown on the fire?
The last time I tried to object to Travis violating my trust by ignoring a simple "no" to his request to use my computer and attempting to use it anyways [hampered only by the fact that it was password protected with a non-obvious answer to the hint], she acted like it was unreasonable for me to expect my autonomy to be respected. It was unreasonable for me to say "no" when he wanted to use my computer to show me a youtube video I wasn't interested in seeing, and then get angry when he tried to use it after I'd walked out of the room. It's unreasonable for me to further say "no" when he asks again after he tried to trick me into telling him the password. It's unreasonable for me to expect my personal possessions to remain private. It's unreasonable for me to not want to give someone (who has demonstrably violated my trust over and over again) access to my own personal laptop, with personal information, saved passwords, and private files on it.
If they won't respect the little things, how on earth am I supposed to believe they'll respect the big things? If they already disregard my feelings when I tell any of them that something they've done has hurt my feelings, or when they repeatedly use slurs and insult people I care about after I've asked them not to?
How can I feel safe around these people? Or, put a different way, What can I do to make this safer for me?
And in the long-term, what can I do about the next...five major school breaks? (Winter break, spring break, summer break, winter break, spring break; all before I graduate.) I'll hopefully have a more permanent solution by the time I graduate. I'm going to do my damnedest to make it happen, actually. And at least for spring break, fall break, and Thanksgiving break, I can stay on campus if I so desire. I should have the cash/points to manage groceries for those. Or at least for spring break, provided I keep this job through then, and possibly manage to keep a ResLife position through next year, even if it'll add to an already large senior year load. I'd prefer to be super-busy and have a decent salary, truth be told, over the opposite.
Also, I'm totally feeling the River-in-my-icon thing today.
ETA: Cut. Because it is a really long and somewhat incoherent rant about all the things my family does that make me feel like my opinions don't matter.