Irritant

You know that person, the irritating one who pulls you in and seemingly wants to get to know you then with a casual backhander invalidates you?  Well they are fucking irritating.  I just had an afternoon tea birthday celebration for my Mum and while there because she has problem retrieving and reading messages on her mobile (being 93) she asked me to read the old ones she hadnt read through and lo and behold there was a text from the old family ‘friend’ who visited just over two weeks ago and opened up the issue of both my sister’s attempted suicides only to get on a plane and depart a few hours later, saying how ‘intense’ I was and the revelations were, then she called me by a name I hate and associate with being about 5 years old.

I felt slow burn in my chest of anger. At no time during the raising of such painful subjects did she show one iota of concern for me and its affect, all the attention was on Mum which is fair enough in one way but in another riles me.  I went to a lot of effort to get there to meet her that afternoon and my other sister wisely bowed out.  When I reand the text out my other sister was there and she said to me “Joanne is the one who is intense!”  Never the less I came home steaming and wanting to ring her and give her a serve or piece of my mind.  I wont do it.  I will discuss it with my therapist later.   I wont agree to meet with her again if its too much effort, that is for sure.

This is not the first incident of this kind.  When I was fighting for my life and emotional sanity many years ago she wrote a letter to my Mum basically shaming me for trying to deal with important emotional stuff, she bonded with both my parents due to the fact she was very much a ‘go getter’ in life.

It is not comfortable feeling the level of resentment I am feeling towards her at the moment.  I just did a bit of mindfulness breathing to connect with the hurt inside the anger as on the way home I found myself craving food to silence the feelings.  I pulled back from that just felt my fragility in this situation and then went out to sweep up some leaves out the back.  I hate these kind of disturbances. I did not ask her to visit and raise a painful past.  I am glad we got to talk about it on one level but it was plain to me there was no feeling at all for me in her text.  She is not a person I would ever choose from now on to have a lot to do with.

I am a little torn about posting this to be honest but I need to get it off my chest.  I dont want it to fester.  Its not so much for outside affirmation but for me to get clear about what has been triggered and to acknowledge it has made me angry.