fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4880 ]

[ SECRET POST #4880 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4880 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 66 secrets from Secret Submission Post #699.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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For all your venting purposes!

This is rather petty of me but I've picked on a rather odd Facebook dynamic between family members that bugs me. My aunt (who has grown children and several male grandkids whom she adores) remarried a few years ago to a man who also had grown kids from a previous marriage and one of those kids has a 2 year old daughter. It's clear to me that Aunt regards this kid as her own grandchild, but... it doesn't feel like that is reciprocated. I'll explain.

Aunt is forever posting about the little girl. Not necessarily photos of her because they live across the country and AFAIK Aunt has only met the girl once or twice. But she'll do stuff like post a pic of ANOTHER little girl who superficially resembles the not-granddaughter (e.g. a white toddler girl with brown hair), posts ideas for recipes, crafts, cute clothes, activities, etc. and give a shoutout to the kid (who's not on FB, obviously) and tag the kid's mother. She does this occasionally for her male grandkids, but not as often.

Kid's mother rarely responds, even with a "like". It's gotten to the point where I wish Aunt would stop because this seems really weird and one-sided and she's clearly obsessed with this little girl because she doesn't have any female grandkids. But I feel like it's not my place to say anything so I just sort of try to ignore how awkward it all feels.

wait so...she tags the child/child's mother in random photos of random toddlers?? what the actual fuck that's super weird.

Kind of. It'll be something like a funny gif or youtube video of someone else's kid doing something cute and Aunt will post/share it and say something like "So like [child's name here]!" and then tag the kid's mother. It's... weird.

People can get so weird with kids. It might not be about the kids specifically though, might be some kind of weird flex "I'm thinking about you because I'm part of the family" thing. Don't know anyone involved to judge but I would back away from that situation too.

Oh yes, I'm 100% hands off there. I wouldn't really like it if that were my child and I felt like someone was trying to assert a closer relationship than what actually existed, and I think that's why it makes me feel uncomfortable.

My dad is obsessing over his loss in muscle during the pandemic. Because Texas is stupid and opening back up, Planet Fitnesses around here are opening back up. That's where he's a member and worked out before. My dad is talking about going back next week.

The rest of us are all trying to talk him out of it. We have a weight set at home. My mom suggested he pay for a trainer to skype or zoom with him to tell him how to work out at home.

But he's still insisting. He's high risk because he has sarcoidosis. Him and anything involving lungs would not mix well. My mom is also high risk as am I. And he and my mom are supposed to watch my brother-in-law this summer while he gets a bone marrow transplant this summer so my sister can work.

So this is a bad idea on multiple levels, and really my dad knows it. But he's obsessed about remaining in shape and right now that's all he's caring about.

I hear so many stories like this and it boggles me every time. It's like, let me get this straight... you're high risk and/or you live with people who are high risk and who will likely get very, very sick and possibly die if they get COVID-19, but you want to go to Target/get a haircut/pig out at Cheesecake Factory soooooo fucking bad that this is SOMEHOW more important to you than the health of your loved ones? Really??

A lot of people are getting nasty shocks that their relatives/friends are incredibly selfish and inconsiderate and this pandemic brought the worst out.

Re: Vent thread.

philstar22 - 2020-05-16 22:21 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Vent thread.

(Anonymous) - 2020-05-16 22:24 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Vent thread.

philstar22 - 2020-05-16 22:25 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Vent thread.

(Anonymous) - 2020-05-16 22:31 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Vent thread.

(Anonymous) - 2020-05-16 22:44 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Vent thread.

(Anonymous) - 2020-05-16 22:37 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Vent thread.

philstar22 - 2020-05-16 22:45 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Vent thread.

(Anonymous) - 2020-05-16 22:50 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Vent thread.

(Anonymous) - 2020-05-16 23:01 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Vent thread.

(Anonymous) - 2020-05-16 23:02 (UTC) - Expand

I've been using my brother's computer since he's out of the country and mine's in another country (with his permission ofc), but his desk is way too low with shelves way too close and I keep bumping my knee against hard wood surface. You'd think I'd learn my lesson eventually but no, a couple weeks later my knee is kind of in permanent pain.

Ouch. :|

If you're going to keep using it, the next time you go to store, see if you can get a pool noodle. You can use it as a bumper. Cut it to the size of the shelf (maybe a little longer because it will compress and you can wedge it in there) and then slit it open lengthwise and push it onto the shelf edge.

Re: Vent thread.

(Anonymous) - 2020-05-17 05:05 (UTC) - Expand

when shelter in place first started where i live, a friend of mine reached out to me asking me how i was doing. and we're buddies so i just answered him honestly! i was really freaking out bc i had done a lot in the past five years to take care of my mental health, gain better habits, stop drinking my life away, manage my suicide ideation, stuff like that. and even when i felt kinda shitty about myself, i knew i was definitely in a better place than i had been.

but suddenly all my routines were gone bc of quarantine. and i was just at home all the time which i hadn't been since i was at my worst, alone in my bedroom drinking at 11am haha. and so i was rly struggling with not letting that get to me, not giving into the impulse to buy alcohol, try to not fall back into that funk that quarantine was reminding me of being in so viscerally.

and his response was "ah, yea. so i mean, you're an introvert, so you're probably going to be fine." !?! like did you hear anything i just said???! lmao. i rly don't think so, bc then he just went on to talk about how he was such an extrovert and not having a social life was rly hard for him rn and nobody understands! (which i have sympathy for, honestly. but it was just kinda painful to realize he only asked how i was so he could then talk about he was, not bc he cared haha)

AMYWAY i've been thinking about this all day, bc i have an opportunity to see him tomorrow (outside, w masks, for a community garden service thing) but i'm apparently still bitter about it bc i just rly don't want to see him ahaha.

Skip it. This guy sounds like a crappy "friend".

maybe he was drunk?

I think if someone can't reciprocate empathy, or pretends suffering is a competition, maybe they aren't much of a friend.

I get feeling like crap because extrovert having difficulty adjusting, but ffs. I would think other extroverts would understand that. Maybe he should hit up one of them or something, since he badly wants his social life back.

Anyway, sorry your routines were also disrupted. People thrive when conditions are ideal; it's so easy to regress when those are taken away. We're in such weird times, all of us. I hope you don't beat yourself up too much, because Covid is the one screwing everything up. But I also hope it gets better for you.

Re: Vent thread.

venusundae - 2020-05-17 07:21 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Vent thread.

(Anonymous) - 2020-05-17 16:12 (UTC) - Expand

Coming from someone who sucks at saying the right thing even when I care about someone a lot, maybe give him a chance. It's hard to read tone from that message. But maybe if he is being a dismissive dock then rethink whether he's worth your time. Good luck with everything, always remember you’re doing the best you can.

Re: Vent thread.

venusundae - 2020-05-17 07:22 (UTC) - Expand

Not a big one, but there’s a huge fly in my room and I can’t smash it.

so many of my friends are having a hard time and i hate it and i want them to be happy

And another rant about my dad, because he's just excelling at being clueless and self-centered lately. So he sends these monthly email updates to all their friends and supporters (parents were/are missionaries). Sometimes he forgets that this is his email, not the whole family's and over-shares about one of the rest of us.

I'm on the email list too, so I get the email when he sends it (I like to know what he's saying about me mostly). Today I got the email and on it he told everyone I'd been diagnosed with bladder stones.

What the fuck, dad? How was that obviously not the kind of diagnosis that should have been kept private? Why couldn't you have just said I had some pain, saw a doctor, and was being treated? How could you not even just run it by me before posting.

Really pissed off right now.

I don't blame you. My parents are always spilling their guts about my personal problems to their friends. I don't even know some of their friends. They have never respected my privacy.

Re: Vent thread.

philstar22 - 2020-05-17 01:57 (UTC) - Expand

Someone in my friend group just posted a pretty obnoxious “hey guys remember I’m a Republican” response to someone else and I’m not gonna get involved but it’s right there to see and ugh. Usually this guy is pretty decent but...

"We try our best to forget."

"Oh yeah, I forgot. Say, how does it feel knowing that your party has killed more Americans this year than ISIS and al-Qaeda combined ever managed?"

Yeah, no. This guy is not decent if he supports Trump. That's all, end of story, unfriend, and fuck off.

I'm just sick of the life I'm living. Everything I've done has been for my sister, for her best interests, and in fear of what she might be capable of if I'm not there for her.
She refuses to get help, internalized every anxiety she has to the point that anything done or said is filtered to have the worst possible implication. Anything nice is considered patronizing, anytime someone asks for something it's suddenly an imperial demand, and whenever anybody does anything that isn't suited to her exact interests it becomes a personal attack against her. Her response to such self imagined slights is utterly inexcusable as well. She dramatizes everything with passive aggressive quips or sarcastic comments, and then doubles down on her behaviour the second anyone doesn't submit to her lashouts.
I exist as a pathetic attempt at a medium between her and our parents, I've given up everything just to placate the house I grew up in because I'm both terrified of what ~~has~~ could happen if I'm not around to stop the escalation, and because I still idolize my sister even if all that's left of her is the corpse of whom she once was. I'm the only one left who has her back, the only one who's still willing to throw herself under the bus just so she doesn't have to take the brunt of her actions anymore than she already has.

I've written hundreds of soliloquies over the years dictating the relationship I've had with her, all of them ending up very much the same way- that nothing changes.

We don't even talk about the difficulties we go through, we don't talk about our lives, or what matters. Shes sent away the greatest friends I've ever had, the one I owe my life to, and continuously shamed me for being close with them until I did what I've always done, and cut things off right as soon as I acknowledged that there could be another influence in my life that could override the loyalty I have towards my sister.
Admittedly, this is a fault of my own, of course. I have a habit of abandoning anything and anyone I've become familiar with. I have and I will let down anyone I've ever gotten to know. It is simply a fact of my life thus far, my sister being the only exception of my habitual betrayal. And this is a fault which has been a lifelong habit; for multiple reasons, not solely due to my sister. Most of this I believe exist due to my wholly selfish soul, mine own decision to take the easy road out, and by the way of me being unwilling to take the risks I need to make my life my own.

This has gone on long enough, and the point at hand is that my sister is self destructive by her own means through ignorance and projected delusion. She absolutely will not conversate about getting help because she is so firmly stuck in the denial that; as long as she doesn't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist. As well as her own refusal to admit that she needs help, and even more so that she absolutely needs medication to treat the multiple mental health issues she can't hope to tackle on a daily basis on her own. My existence is solely mandated to be the only ally she has left, and my struggle is that she has the potential to be everything, so much more than I could ever be. She can outshine my very best with a flick of her wrist, she is my hero, always has been and always will be, and she is so much more capable of achievement than I could ever attempt at, let alone dream of.

I can't give up on her, I've given up everything, from the people I wish upon stars for, every birthday cake candle, and every time the clock strikes like quadruple digits. Every friend I needed to walk away from, in fear that I would return home to a body in a blood filled bathtub. All the opportunities I've had to begin living, to move out, move forward in my workplace, and go to school to learn the thing's I've always wanted to learn.
I know this is all on me. My own reluctance to take that step, I am just so horrified at the possibilities that very well would arise if I did so.
I can't even speak to my doctors about this... I had a fantastic specialized doctor and councillor for years, and later a grievance councillor on top of that. But the way I've been forced to organize my mind is not so separate from my sisters downfall, I compartmentalize to such a strong degree that only one mindset is present at which situation it is called for. The moment I arrive at the doctors office is the second all memories of my personal life vanish from my thoughts. I can write up a thousand word essay about what I need to address in my next appointment, but it isn't so much as convincing myself to bring up those notes as it is that all thoughts of those notes and what exists within them go out right out the window the moment I'm not in the environment that causes the need for such notes to be made in the first place.

idk really, I just want my sister to get help, I want to be able to take a chance at life, but most of all, I just want to exist under a rock where time is meaningless and second chances aren't set up for failure. I'm just tired.

Never set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.

She'll get help when she no longer has you to suck the life out of. Or she won't. Either way, you can get your life back.

Please don't trap yourself into a tight corner you can't escape from just because she's family. Family is there for each other. EACH OTHER. It's not one-sided. What is she doing for you, other than helping you to be a martyr? If she's a full-grown, functioning adult that doesn't need hospitalization, then stop enabling her. She doesn't seem to be concerned with how her actions affect you anyway. Let your parents deal with her. Let her experience the consequences of her own actions. If you really believe she's going to kill herself, then you tell your parents, or you call the cops if she's threatening it.

I am not suggesting being mean or spiteful (even though you or she might see it that way), but to take off the hero-colored glasses and put more value in your own survival.

sa

(Anonymous) - 2020-05-17 17:41 (UTC) - Expand

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