Interesting Reaction in The Devil Beneath My Feet

Upon opening my eyes this morning I heard Bo Burnham’s voice in my head, “Big ol’ motherfuckin duffel bag o’shit.” Goooooood morneeeeeng

Yesterday was interesting. I’m a very typical white girl in that I have two close friends and that is quite enough. One of these friends has been attending therapy regularly for a little over a year now and we’ve taken to calling her the Therapy Vegan. It is quite literally all she talks about. The topic of conversation is completely null, she will find a way to bring it back to therapy. She’s also become an armchair psychiatrist and keeps trying to diagnose me and my other friend. This has resulted in me talking to her considerably less. Well, that and the fact that since shes been going to therapy shes gone completely off the rails and has become impossible to be around. She seems…snobby, almost, like shes on some ivory tower because shes just working through SO MANY THINGS and just PROCESSING and JUST SO MANY THINGS YOU GUYS IM WORKING ON SO MANY THINGS FEELS SO GOOD TO WORK ON ALL THE THIIIIIIINGS.

Look, if you’re working through trauma then good for you im glad but also, shut the fuck up.

A cool thing to do is to READ THE ROOM and maybe think about whether your audience really needs or wants to hear what you’re about to talk about. I don’t wanna hear in detail about how you’re working through things with your mother and improving your relationship when mine makes me want to jettison my car into a pine tree every time I think about her.

And to be clear - im glad she’s experiencing positive progress, truly. I just don’t care to hear about it every fucking day.

Shes also gotten really short in her verbiage and, frankly, rude. Not all the time but shes come out with enough short responses for no discernible reason that made me think, “..the fuck is that supposed to mean?” That i don’t want to be around her a lot anymore.

So yesterday theres a text in the group chat from her saying that her younger sister came over and they talked. Her sister let her know that throughout their entire life, shes felt belittled and bullied by my friend and that shes sick of it. Essentially spelled out that this is the reason they don’t have a better relationship, and that if it wasn’t for my friend’s kids, she wouldn’t see her at all. Shes not interested in attempting to fix the relationship because she feels its long dead and buried and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever forgive her for impacting her own self esteem and mental health so severely. My friend was gutted by this, said she had no idea, never intentionally set out to hurt her sister, loved her sister dearly and was shocked and horrified to learn any of this.

Im inclined to believe her sister, but I also believe my friend. I don’t think for a moment she’d intentionally hurt her sister but I absolutely believe that she did.

I find it a little funny, to be honest. This is the same friend who once told me I was mean. That the reason I’m left out of some conversations is because they’re afraid of my reaction.

I know I’m mean. This isn’t news. I possess the ability to be incredibly cold. Cruel, even, if I feel its warranted, or get carried away (I’m only human, its happened). I am by default, blunt but good natured. I don’t care to pussyfoot around issues, I’d rather take things head on and communicate clearly. Normally, this isn’t an issue. I’m not a complete bastard all the time and enough people think I’m just so very funny that I get considerably more smiles than frowns. I’d never intentionally make someone feel badly unless they absolutely deserved it. So yes, I can be mean. I can be kind, I often am. I can be evil. Took me a long time to really develop that skill. Started out as a defense mechanism of some kind, I’m sure, but over time I made the sacrifice to make room for that little light switch in my brain. I can turn it on and off now, and it stays off for the most part.

All the same it’s still disarming to hear, especially from people you genuinely can’t recall ever once being mean to. People you hold in high esteem, that you care about. People that you would defend, that you would fight for. To hear those people call you mean, even if you know they’re right, it’s a particular sting.

So I won’t lie, I rolled my eyes a little at the text.

Welcome to the club.

She spent the rest of the day sending texts fishing for the answers she wanted, clearly.

“No, thats bullshit!”
“You’re never like that!”

She didn’t get them.

Honestly the more she went on about it the more I wanted to flick that little light switch on, but i didn’t.

Instead I told her all she can do is be cognizant of the way the things you say and do and the tone with which they’re said and done are being perceived. Its exhausting, but you have no choice if you want to avoid unintentionally rubbing people the wrong way in the future. Its not a bad thing to be aware of regardless of whether or not you were in the wrong to begin with.

No one is responsible for anyone else’s feelings, but everyone is responsible for the things they say and do themselves. If your intention is not to offend then you’re responsible for making your words and actions inoffensive. You don’t get to decide whether or not what you’ve said or done has hurt someone, but you do get to decide whether or not you care enough to try and repair the damage.