(no subject)

[ysobel]

Was having a good day (nice and quiet)

not very Xmas-y; im feeling very ambivalent about it, because reasons (discomfort with the way Christianity is aggressively dominant) and other reasons (the irony of singing every year about a baby who will save the world when the world just gets worse every year, and of lyrics like "born that we no more may die" during a ducking pandemic) and also exhaustion

and then ... my mom got extremely needy.

too tired to type up full saga right now but she couldn't find the link to online services, then when I didn't answer immediately (I was going to bed) sent a bunch of "hello? Hello????? Are you there?? Is your phone off?? Hello?????" texts, then just kind of got worse. And she's always needy but this just hit hard somehow, and I wanted to scream or burst into tears or both. I spent like 30 minutes trying to dissect my feelings

(is that a thing? working out exactly why you're upset and exactly what is irritating you and judging whether it's "legitimate enough"? I have no clue if it's normal, or adhd-ish, or spectrum-ish, or some sort of trauma response, or just me)

and feeling like my anger itself was fragile, like it was a very thin cover for something deeper that I didn't want to deal with

and then i said fuck it, muted my text notifications, and took an edible

+++

tomorrow is ... on the one hand I'm happily not going to my dad's for the same reason as not doing thanksgiving only more so (all of my stepsibs are coming in, plus a wife and baby, plus a boyfriend, and of this horde only one is vaccinated) but on the other hand that means I'm doing stuff with my mom. (Keeping today for myself was hard enough. My mom would be very passive aggressively resentful about being alone on Xmas and so it's easier to give in). Theoretically we're watching Hamilton, or at least the first half, but who the fuck knows.

Comments

[vass]

(is that a thing? working out exactly why you're upset and exactly what is irritating you and judging whether it's "legitimate enough"? I have no clue if it's normal, or adhd-ish, or spectrum-ish, or some sort of trauma response, or just me)

It's a thing. I think it's a trauma thing, but one common in autistic people and in people with parents like your mother: it seems very likely to be connected to having had your emotions invalidated a lot already.

I'm sorry: this sounds enraging and exhausting and sad.

[azurelunatic]

yeah, with a parent of that type, it's never just a single interaction, there are years of weird bullshit built up

[tielan]

I can't help with the actual processing of your feelings, I'm afraid. BUT.

Your feelings are always legitimate. They may be a trauma response, they may be ADHD related, or because you're on the spectrum, or they may be something that everyone else feels when this situation happens or they may be something that only you fee. But they are always legitimate and you are allowed to feel them. Yes, even the resentment and anger and frustration and grief and exhaustion. Your feelings are valid.

How you process them? Express them? That's up to you and the outcomes that you want, that you have to live with, that you can handle. But you're going to feel what you're going to feel.

I shall hope for a nice, peaceful day of watching Hamilton for you.

[jesse_the_k]

Truth, well-expressed.

[pauamma]

My stance is "having feelings (sometimes unclear or hard to identify) is legitimate, even if who I'm having them at or sometimes about may not be" and focus on getting the latter right. Turns out that for me, figuring out the latter sometimes helps me figure out what specific feelings I have. YMMV, as always.