More on Familial Avoidance

So, my grandma called the house phone today and I answered it just to get them off my back for a couple of weeks.

Am I glad I did? No, it just reminded me of why I hadn't been answering the phone to start with.

It's typical that in my family, whenever there's a problem, it's your problem, and you get blamed for that problem whether you brought it on yourself or not. Don't get me wrong - pregnancy isn't my problem. My lack of willingness to communicate every piddling aspect of my life is.

Regardless of the fact that I've shut down the lines of info because certain family members have made rather insulting comments to me, it's my problem for being sensitive to them.

I won't rehash all the points of the (very short) conversation. I'll just say that I did not tell her that they had all been pissing me off with their pregnancy-related comments. I simply said that I had some stuff going on and that I needed some space - that I hadn't felt like talking.

I was told that I shouldn't "be that way" because nobody knew if anything had "happened to" me.

I insisted that if something had happened to me my husband would have certainly let someone know.

She said that she didn't "trust people."

Well, then. Other than the fact that my husband hasn't given anyone a reason not to trust him, I don't appreciate that that statement was even made out loud.

I'm actually more pissed off now than I was last week.

Let me drop some knowledge on you. I don't bring up race in general because I don't care. For all intents and purposes, I'm a black woman married to a white man. I didn't marry him in spite of the fact that he's white. I married him because he doesn't annoy me most of the time. Oh, and that whole "love" thing, too. ;o) I pick my friends based on who can make me laugh. Black, white, yellow, or otherwise. Whoopdie do.

I don't like making generalizations and stereotypes, but allow me to express my opinion that in the American black female community, it's unacceptable for one of us to behave as if or insinuate that we're depressed or stressed. We're supposed to be the strong backbone of the family or something like that - do for ourselves because nobody's going to do it for us.

See, the problem is that I've experienced clinical depression on and off since sixth grade. I can't really put a spin on that. Did my family try to help me? No, I was criticized for wanting to seek help and told that I should just "pray" over it. When I was scratching and clawing my way through college and took a year off because I had basically had a nervous breakdown, I was thisclose to being disowned. That was so funny because nobody was helping me pay for school to start with. Four years of rigorous academics at one of the best schools in the country working forty hours/week is enough to make anyone's head explode.

So, you have to understand that in my adult life I don't handle insensitivity on the part of my family members very well. One can't really talk to them the way you saw Denise Huxtable talk with Clair. You'd have better luck shaking a Magic 8 Ball.

Part of me wants to say "Fuck it" and just write them off altogether until I'm rational enough to deal with them in a more structured way, but alas, I'm just not that callous. I keep my mouth shut and hope that if reincarnation exists, I'll have the benefit of not coming back as a dung beetle.

Posted by Tiffany at September 11, 2006 04:51 PM | TrackBack