Yesterday I had a major fight (via chat) with my family.
Later I looked at my heart rate, and this is what I saw.
That was during the midst of the fight. I mean...part of the fight. The fight lasted for hours.
And this is after the fight was over.
By being over, I mean we had stopped communicating about the fight.
It continues in terms of the unresolved feelings, the stress, and the anger. And.....
The high heart rates. I wonder if any of my family members have been looking at their family-fight heart rates. I think most of them have Apple Watches.
This fight began with our right-wing family members speaking out against the National Anthem protests.
Isn't it the left who is supposed to be all about Cancel Culture?
Yeah.
Okay, but my mom declared that they're no longer going to go to Maverick basketball games. Because of the protests.
I lost my shit about all this, because months earlier when the George Floyd protests began, my family fed us the line about supporting protesting...as long as it's peaceful.
When I say I lost my shit...I mean I went on a rant after trying very hard for weeks to just stay out of the family discussions.
I have tried so hard to find a way how to deal with these political fights.
And let me just be clear here. Or try to be. My main problem with these political fights isn't that I can't handle right-winged opinions. I mean yes they make me very angry at times. I'm not going to lie. But what really makes me lose my shit is that the Trump supporting members of my family share their opinions freely—make little digs, insults, jokes. go on political rants. Then there have been multiple times where someone on the left said something, and there was a response of Let's not talk about politics. Or let's not bring politics into it.
We've also been told to not bring up or share information because they see it as left-wing porn. We're not supposed to listen to pundits or believe anything on social media. But then they send us links to pundits that agree with them and push us to read/listen to them. They send us the forward emails—the type that are debunked by Snopes.
Back in March, I left the chats after some racist comments and some of the hypocritical requests to stop talking about politics.
My dad called me a cyberbully for leaving the chat.
I brought that up today, and I got the same argument I did in the past: I'm a cyberbully, because I let them know that I don't want to hear their opinions, because I feel mine are superior.
But....
Here is the real dramatic exit speech I gave back in March.
I do not want to be part of these texts anymore. Please don’t add me back. Those of you on the right often makes little political comments and jokes. But when someone on the left shares an opinion it’s let’s not make this about politics or no more talking about politics or I want to vent and I don’t want to hear any responses. Either everyone gets to share their political views and we fully allow political discourse or.... you guys can choose to do a one sided kind of thing. But as long as it’s the latter, I’m out.
Where in that am I saying I feel my opinions are superior, and that's why I don't want to be part of the family discussions anymore?
And....
Now there's a new refrain.
Apparently, there's a reason now that I'm not supposed to voice my disagreement with family members.
What's the reason?
It's because I'm "Woke" and my opinion matches what is popular in mainstream society these days. It seems our family chats are supposed to now be a a safe place for my family to express opinions that won't be warmly welcomed in the general public. And by safe place, they should feel free to say what they want, and I should just keep my opposing opinions to myself. Sharing an opinion when you're Woke and in line with the popular opinion...well, that equals attacking.
I said since this is true, our family should not be allowed to talk about school. We should only talk about unschooling...since, in that case, I had the minority viewpoint. Unschooling is VERY fringe.
And the meat eaters should have kept quiet all these years. We should have only welcomed food opinions from us vegetarians in the family.
I mean it's not like we had many (or any?) arguments about the subject. But if I did feel like speaking up against meat....I guess, according to these new family guidelines, the meat eaters should have just quietly and politely listened and not shown any disagreement?
If I ever wanted to go on a rant about traditional school education, my family should have just politely listened and not said anything in disagreement?
Anyway....
I am really stressed.
This is hard on my mental health. It's hard on my physical health.
I don't see any way out of this.
If I was a stronger person, I'd probably just walk out on the chat again and ignore the accusations of being a cyberbully.
I DON'T feel okay listening to their opinions, knowing that I'm not supposed to respond back to them in disagreement. This feels incredibly unfair.
I've tried simply not reading chats.
But that's hard. I often fail.
Curiosity gets the best of me.
And....there's this:
Even though I was told that not-reading chats is okay and much preferable to exiting the chat like a cyberbully.... I was given their blessing that If I'm not interested in something or something offends me, I should just skip reading that part of the conversation.
And this blessing/advice didn't come out of thin air. It came from a family member who cheerfully confesses that this is what they do with conversation they see as being boring.
Okay....
But....
Later Tim and I were heavily scolded for not knowing medical news about a family member. The blame went to me for taking myself off of a chat.
The thing is....A) We did know the medical news. There was just a brief moment of confusion and forgetting B) The medical news was shared on the chat that I'm still on.
Most importantly, though...if I'm supposed to never leave chats but I'm allowed to ignore parts of the conversation, isn't it then possible that I might one day miss medical news? So if that's the case...if we're not obligated to carefully read every bit of the family conversation; then shouldn't we be easily forgiven and not dramatically scolded when we miss family news?
Well....
It's a lose lose situation for me. Probably.
Plus on top of the political fights, there's stuff like gaslighting, DARVO, projecting...all kinds of toxic manipulations. I know toxic is overused these days. But it IS a helpful way to describe these types of behavior.
Or maybe it's not the word that's overused. Maybe it's the behaviors that are. And maybe the people pushing the idea that it's overused are the people who are tired of being called out on their behavior.
For now....my plan is this.
I pushed the chat icon to the very back of my phone. I'm going to try hard not to check it often. Then when I check it, I'm going to try to not read through it. Instead I'm going to use the search function and see if anyone lately has mentioned something I should know....keywords like Covid, test, died, hospital, surgery, cough, sore throat, fever, vomit, diarrhea, contagious, virus, etc.
Maybe it will work. Maybe there's a way for me to stay out of the discussions and also stay up to date on family medical dramas.
I hope so.
I'm tired of the high-heart rate, anxiety feeling. I'm tired of the insomnia. I'm tired of feeling unheard and (deliberately) misunderstood.
And now I'm doubly tired, because I've been up for two hours writing this post. Though I got up to do that, because I had insomnia and have recently decided life is too short to stay in bed struggling to fall asleep. Great philosophy but it won't stop me from feeling shitty tired tomorrow.
Later I looked at my heart rate, and this is what I saw.
That was during the midst of the fight. I mean...part of the fight. The fight lasted for hours.
And this is after the fight was over.
By being over, I mean we had stopped communicating about the fight.
It continues in terms of the unresolved feelings, the stress, and the anger. And.....
The high heart rates. I wonder if any of my family members have been looking at their family-fight heart rates. I think most of them have Apple Watches.
This fight began with our right-wing family members speaking out against the National Anthem protests.
Isn't it the left who is supposed to be all about Cancel Culture?
Yeah.
Okay, but my mom declared that they're no longer going to go to Maverick basketball games. Because of the protests.
I lost my shit about all this, because months earlier when the George Floyd protests began, my family fed us the line about supporting protesting...as long as it's peaceful.
When I say I lost my shit...I mean I went on a rant after trying very hard for weeks to just stay out of the family discussions.
I have tried so hard to find a way how to deal with these political fights.
And let me just be clear here. Or try to be. My main problem with these political fights isn't that I can't handle right-winged opinions. I mean yes they make me very angry at times. I'm not going to lie. But what really makes me lose my shit is that the Trump supporting members of my family share their opinions freely—make little digs, insults, jokes. go on political rants. Then there have been multiple times where someone on the left said something, and there was a response of Let's not talk about politics. Or let's not bring politics into it.
We've also been told to not bring up or share information because they see it as left-wing porn. We're not supposed to listen to pundits or believe anything on social media. But then they send us links to pundits that agree with them and push us to read/listen to them. They send us the forward emails—the type that are debunked by Snopes.
Back in March, I left the chats after some racist comments and some of the hypocritical requests to stop talking about politics.
My dad called me a cyberbully for leaving the chat.
I brought that up today, and I got the same argument I did in the past: I'm a cyberbully, because I let them know that I don't want to hear their opinions, because I feel mine are superior.
But....
Here is the real dramatic exit speech I gave back in March.
I do not want to be part of these texts anymore. Please don’t add me back. Those of you on the right often makes little political comments and jokes. But when someone on the left shares an opinion it’s let’s not make this about politics or no more talking about politics or I want to vent and I don’t want to hear any responses. Either everyone gets to share their political views and we fully allow political discourse or.... you guys can choose to do a one sided kind of thing. But as long as it’s the latter, I’m out.
Where in that am I saying I feel my opinions are superior, and that's why I don't want to be part of the family discussions anymore?
And....
Now there's a new refrain.
Apparently, there's a reason now that I'm not supposed to voice my disagreement with family members.
What's the reason?
It's because I'm "Woke" and my opinion matches what is popular in mainstream society these days. It seems our family chats are supposed to now be a a safe place for my family to express opinions that won't be warmly welcomed in the general public. And by safe place, they should feel free to say what they want, and I should just keep my opposing opinions to myself. Sharing an opinion when you're Woke and in line with the popular opinion...well, that equals attacking.
I said since this is true, our family should not be allowed to talk about school. We should only talk about unschooling...since, in that case, I had the minority viewpoint. Unschooling is VERY fringe.
And the meat eaters should have kept quiet all these years. We should have only welcomed food opinions from us vegetarians in the family.
I mean it's not like we had many (or any?) arguments about the subject. But if I did feel like speaking up against meat....I guess, according to these new family guidelines, the meat eaters should have just quietly and politely listened and not shown any disagreement?
If I ever wanted to go on a rant about traditional school education, my family should have just politely listened and not said anything in disagreement?
Anyway....
I am really stressed.
This is hard on my mental health. It's hard on my physical health.
I don't see any way out of this.
If I was a stronger person, I'd probably just walk out on the chat again and ignore the accusations of being a cyberbully.
I DON'T feel okay listening to their opinions, knowing that I'm not supposed to respond back to them in disagreement. This feels incredibly unfair.
I've tried simply not reading chats.
But that's hard. I often fail.
Curiosity gets the best of me.
And....there's this:
Even though I was told that not-reading chats is okay and much preferable to exiting the chat like a cyberbully.... I was given their blessing that If I'm not interested in something or something offends me, I should just skip reading that part of the conversation.
And this blessing/advice didn't come out of thin air. It came from a family member who cheerfully confesses that this is what they do with conversation they see as being boring.
Okay....
But....
Later Tim and I were heavily scolded for not knowing medical news about a family member. The blame went to me for taking myself off of a chat.
The thing is....A) We did know the medical news. There was just a brief moment of confusion and forgetting B) The medical news was shared on the chat that I'm still on.
Most importantly, though...if I'm supposed to never leave chats but I'm allowed to ignore parts of the conversation, isn't it then possible that I might one day miss medical news? So if that's the case...if we're not obligated to carefully read every bit of the family conversation; then shouldn't we be easily forgiven and not dramatically scolded when we miss family news?
Well....
It's a lose lose situation for me. Probably.
Plus on top of the political fights, there's stuff like gaslighting, DARVO, projecting...all kinds of toxic manipulations. I know toxic is overused these days. But it IS a helpful way to describe these types of behavior.
Or maybe it's not the word that's overused. Maybe it's the behaviors that are. And maybe the people pushing the idea that it's overused are the people who are tired of being called out on their behavior.
For now....my plan is this.
I pushed the chat icon to the very back of my phone. I'm going to try hard not to check it often. Then when I check it, I'm going to try to not read through it. Instead I'm going to use the search function and see if anyone lately has mentioned something I should know....keywords like Covid, test, died, hospital, surgery, cough, sore throat, fever, vomit, diarrhea, contagious, virus, etc.
Maybe it will work. Maybe there's a way for me to stay out of the discussions and also stay up to date on family medical dramas.
I hope so.
I'm tired of the high-heart rate, anxiety feeling. I'm tired of the insomnia. I'm tired of feeling unheard and (deliberately) misunderstood.
And now I'm doubly tired, because I've been up for two hours writing this post. Though I got up to do that, because I had insomnia and have recently decided life is too short to stay in bed struggling to fall asleep. Great philosophy but it won't stop me from feeling shitty tired tomorrow.
Read my novel: The Dead are Online
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