I wrote this last night and debated about whether I should publish it. But this space is important to me, as our my blog friends. It’s probably not appropriate to put any more specifics than this here, but I did want to preface this by saying everyone is safe and well and I am no longer dealing with this individual.
As I held my baby close tonight, sobbing, sorrowful, furious, heartbroken, disgusted, and saddened, I took deep, ragged breaths of evening air and tried to let his even breathing calm me. I felt such relief that he is young and oblivious, tired enough to fall quickly asleep as we paced and cuddled. And gratitude that my daughter, safely tucked away with her grandparents camping elsewhere, escaped exposure to this. I’ve never been in a situation like this before and my prayer is to never deal with this again.
Plus, I despised the resentment I carried, the rising tension everyone experienced, the carefully leashed anger, all because of one person. These emotions, minus an outlet, tainted everything around me and I was more critical. It caused me to take a long look at myself to reevaluate how I treat others in my own life as well – does my sarcasm, conceit, or self-centeredness serve to make others feel small or angry? Am I condescending? Yes to it all. And yes to consciously working to change.
The only positive thing I can see out of this experience is that it drew the rest of us together to care for each other, protect one another, and appreciate the good, health, happy relationships we have together.
So sorry to hear that this, and not some famous Puget Sound rainshowers, is putting a damper on your trip home to Washington. Hopefully getting everything out in the open will begin the healing process!
Thanks for sharing!! I have gone through emotional situations like this and it sucks. With family, friends, co-workers, people I work with in a volunteer organization. I think I am a magnet to people I call “energy suckers”. The more emotional energy they get from others, the more they thrive. People who seem to need drama in their lives and will disrupt the lives of others (with words or actions) to get this. I have had to cut old high school friends out of my life because of this. Actually, I just ran into one of them yesterday. My 3 year old son has never met her before, and he was so over powered by her that he had a complete meltdown. This reassured me that I made the right choice.
hte problem is that this person was probably getting by with it for a long time and not used to getting as good as (he) got. I dealt with a co worker like this and the only thing that helped was her leaving. She would simply bluster that she didn’t know what I was talking about to our bosses and made it seem like I wasn’t the one getting along. However, come to find out later, that EVERYONE down to the BIG boss in the building, knew it was happening. Nice of them to help me out. Jerks. Way to go, and I hope that, assuming this is family, that you don’t have to deal with them again, or that you can just choose to exclude them if they don’t ‘get with the program’. I find you delightful, and I will tell you what one person told me when dealing with my evil co worker, a home truth ‘not everyone is going to like you’ — amazing, I was of the opinion that most adults were civil to each other, no matter what. Well, I guess that proved me wrong, but I have learned to just steer clear of those people in the future.
It’s hard enough to stand up for what we believe and face the repercussions, but even harder when it’s someone we care about. You did the right thing. In one of the sermons we heard at church yesterday, we were reminded that we need to stand up for what is right now matter the consequences… We need to be the “moral compass” no matter how hard it can be.
That kind of treatment (and whatever else may have occurred) is not right, and you (and everyone else!) deserves better.
Hang in there. Hope the weekend was better for you. HUGS!