I guess that doesn't matter, then 🤬

[dorchadas]

I didn't realize how extremely annoyed someone telling me they would do something, putting it off to a later date when I asked about it, and then completely blowing it off without any acknowledgement or apology would make me. I spent a bit of time today thinking that I was overreacting, and then I realized that no, I'm not. It's reasonable to be annoyed at someone for failing to follow through on their soft commitments and not even apologizing or offering a reason when I mentioned it today to try to reschedule. The reasonable conclusion is that they don't care

This is a bit of a flash point for me, because I spent thirteen years being unable to trust whether something I was told would get done would actually get done (it was about 80% chance it would happen). Sometimes I was told it would get done four or five times, and only when I got annoyed enough to do it myself would it actually get done. It was all of those comics about emotional labor except with the genders reversed, which means I have a pretty hard time relating to the people who post them sincerely as-is. I also spent thirteen years suppressing my annoyance about it, because schoolpsychnerd treated any time I was angry as me being angry at her as a person, rather than angry at her actions, and then it turned into a debate over her fundamental worth as a human being. So eventually I squashed down all my feelings to avoid having a discussion about chores or about something that bothered me get refocused onto her yet again.

I told my therapist that sometimes I had the urge to laugh during our arguments about how terrible she was and I felt really badly about it, because I certainly didn't think it was funny. Now I realize that I was trying so hard not to feel anything that my body didn't know what to do with its sensations and decided on laughter.

You know, I guess that's one facet of what they call "dissociating."

So now I'm annoyed, and that's healthy and reasonable. The part that's not healthy or reasonable, that I need to work on, is the urge to immediately cut them out of my life completely. This is not a particularly serious incident and that would be an overreaction. But I am allowed to be angry.

Edit: The main thrust of this post is still true, but now I feel a little sheepish because they contacted me after work and arranged to drop off the boxes, so now I can go back to packing without any problems.

Comments

[law]

ah cool, i haven't read it in years but i have some good memories of it. one time in high school i made a poster with largo on it for health class. it was about ' fear '. i had it spelled in l33t underneath him in bubble letters with some info about things that cause it or something. the teacher put it up on the wall with the rest and about an hour later someone stole it so i never saw it again, haha.

and yeah, i can definitely relate. i've crossed paths with a lot of people who weren't good for me so i went from being really forgiving to just completely cutting the cord on a lot of people at once. sometimes i'd cut off well meaning people too and that's when i started to examine my habits. mental health had a lot to do with it too. now that i'm also in a better place it's easier to take a step back before i doorslam someone.

good luck with finding the balance tho!

[dorchadas]

Oh wow, l33t-speak. I haven't thought about that in a long time.

I remember wondering how many people still read Megatokyo with its erratic and sporadic release schedule, and then a Kickstarter for a visual novel made $300,000, so...

And thank you! This all turned out okay, so it's reminding me not to be so black-and-white about this sort of thing. People should be allowed to make mistakes and I have to remember they have their own stuff going on.