I stopped by Momversation (no we don't have kids and I still read momversation) today and the topic is toxic friends. The panelists all seemed to agree that when you have a toxic friend you "break up" with them.
What do you do when the most toxic person in your life is in your family?
You can't really break up with them or in my case I can't since they gave birth to my adorable nieces and nephews who I'm crazy about. I would say that my sister isn't only toxic to me, but to our entire family. She loves to blow up and throw her crazy fits at big family functions and pulled a huge one at a family reunion. At this reunion she actually told me in a round about way that her biggest problem with me was that I was born. Well hell, let me see what I can do about that. Everyone in our family knows that she needs psychological help, but no one confronts her about it and seeing as I'm hated for being alive I don't think that it's quite my place.
Do any of you have anyone in your family that is toxic to you and the rest of your family? How do you handle it? I would have to say that I have pulled away from my family the past couple of years simply because I can't deal with it anymore. I can't show up, think everything is fine only to find out the next day that I said a sentence that "hurt her feelings" and now I'm the bad person. The whole family walks around on egg shells and my mother even tells me what I can and can't mention, stuff as simple as we went and spent a weekend with my cousin and her husband. She will get her feelings hurt that you took the time to go see them. I want to add right here that my sister is 36 years old, 10 years older than I am. Her maturity level is way younger than that!
As I am writing this post I just got an email from my cousin about letting things go. I won't copy the entire email but basically it says that you have to learn to say good bye. One line that I like says: If someone can't treat you right, love you back, and see your worth.....LET IT GO!!! Do you let it go with your family? Do we show up for family functions and pretend that everything is ok when everyone in the room knows that it isn't? Do you avoid the conflict to continue living with this toxic person in your life? How do we get to the kids and be a part of their life if we have no desire to be a part of their mothers?
Fire nipples
1 day ago
2 comments:
Why don't you ask her what makes it appropriate for her to treat you so disrespectfully? Sounds like a bully, and a mean one, to me. We have one in our family and I finally learned to set limits with her. My family babies her, but I will not. Good luck, this stuff is hard.
Thanks Deb! She is a bully and what makes that funny is that she is constantly crying because someone bullied HER! My family also babies her and I get SO sick of it. We all have to change the way we act and what we say so to not hurt her feelings, but she gets to continue to act crazy. It is hard and soooo frustrating!
Post a Comment