@Teej wrote:
Hi @Faith-and-Hope. Glad you got to tick a successful day with D3. Hoping there's another one today. You have an amazing strength not to take her stuff on and get emotionally involved. I'm afraid as I write this I'm shaking and feel nauseous as my son is in with the psychologist and worried about if he will say enough to get some help he needs. I'm totally emotionally involved. Playing in the background is the song I got together with my ex so the universe is messing with my head. Sorry just got off track. I'm really glad you got some well deserved you time too. A belly laugh from a movie is always a good thing. I hope that things are ok with WH at home now. Counting the days with you. Sending hugs💜😊💐
Hi @Former-Member .... 🌷💜
Sorry it's taken me a while to come back around to answering this ,... and I know you moved on from this point ,... but your observation remains the same regardless.
The thing is, I do get involved emotionally with D3, and I do take on her stuff .... just not all the time .... and to different degrees .... :face_with_rolling_eyes:😜😉😠😕😔
Its not that I am immune to it all. It's more about something @Former-Member put into a nutshell a while back on one of the threads ... you sort of develop a bit of a Teflon coating ....
When I was encountering the full, undiluted strength of my MIL's emotional toxicity and passive-aggressive carry-on I was devastated .... and ended up up crying mess most days .... then started to become indignant .... then angry .... and out of the pit of that particular hell grows bitterness .....
@On @TAWNEY's quote thread a while back she posted a quote that says -
"Bitterness is like drinking po*son then waiting for someone else to d*e...."
Bitterness destr*ys the one who is bitter .... it is powerfully negative, and I hadn't realised I had fallen into that trap .... this whole negative world I had walked into I hadn't seen coming, and at that point I realised I had to find the way back out of it .... and the way back out was to begin to speak up in the moment when things are not what they should be .... I had to find my voice .... and some Teflon coating .... and begin living by the rules of my own integrity ❣
My fall-back became a mask of politeness .... under which I could say "no, thank you" very correctly to things, situations, events, responses, etc that didn't meet with my approval .... without being passive-aggressive .... I would label it passive-defensive instead, prob'ly ....
After thinking about it for most of the day, I would describe it like this .... like a cruise ship's stabilisers ..... those amazing contraptions that are extended out into rough seas to prevent the boat from rocking and tilting too severely in the storms of life.
You are in the process of developing stabilisers @Former-Member .... we all are in different ways and in different capacities .... cos outpr circumstances are all different ... and it's not a "one size fits all" .....
Does that make sense ?
💜🌷 .... 💐
