not happy, jan

WARNING: LANGUAGE
(also emotional whiny shit. I know lots of people have it far worse than I do. I am not actually capable of caring at the moment of posting though.)


I'm pretty pissed off right now, and it's making me more pissed off.

Tonight I could have gone to see friends, but instead stayed home to cook a dessert for a friend of my parents. (I'd agreed to do so, this is not the whole reason I'm pissed). It was a fairly labor intensive dessert, all of which I preformed myself.

I made it while being yelled at for not being prepared earlier (I'd just come home from uni, which is where I'd been for the past 6 hours), for taking up the kitchen, and generally for being around and thus a convenient target. I was not thanked for doing so, nor was it acknowledged that I was doing so on request. (still not the reason I'm pissed. a small, niggly issue, but not the reason)

After sitting through a long and boring dinner where the main topics of conversation was either about people I don't know or an overseas trip I'm not going on, I was then mocked for falling asleep, mocked about my relationships and generally made fun of by my own mother. She seems to have agreed with my cousins that making fun of me and my life is and/or embarrassing me a perfectly acceptable source of humour for others.

Afterwards, while cleaning up, I asked for someone to clean out some space in the fridge so I could put the leftover dessert away (as my hands were full at the time, and thus I couldn't do so). When the person who did so cleaned out a tiny space, and I commented that we'd need more room, I got yelled at (again) and told I was "being a bitch." I also got threatened that if I didn't "pick up my act" that I wouldn't be allowed to see my closest friend*, because he "seems like he's having a bad influence on me".  (Not that this really would have any effect. I'd just have to be more circumspect about my visits to him.)

To understate it a bit, I didn't react well to this. I (fucking calmly) pointed out that A: I've been awake from 5:30 am, B:had just cooked half the meal, C: spent most of my time being an unpaid babysitter, D: wasn't the one shouting and calling people bitches, and E: could have seen my friends tonight instead of spending the entire evening listening to gossip about people I will never know, and being mocked about said friends, my uni course choice, my lack of traditional romantic relationship(s) and my general gender presentation. (These are the reasons I'm pissed. That, and there's a bit of me that spent the whole night saying "Why did you give up seeing your friends for this, again?)

I then got told I was being irrational, and "unreasonably angry". This caused me to realise something.

I’m not allowed to be angry.

If I’m angry, or grumpy, or pissed, or annoyed or livid or irritated or (insert synonym here), I’m told I’m “acting irrationally”, that “I should stop making trouble”, that “I have no need to act out”. I’m told my feelings are because I’m tired, or because I’m pms-ing, or because I’m being "a teenager", that my feelings are irrational and don't matter compared to others, that "I have nothing to be angry about", that basically, I cannot express myself because it might bother others when I do so.

If I criticize others, I'm told I'm "being too harsh", whereas others can use the exact same words and tone to criticize me and it is not considered an issue. If I tell someone that the job they have done is unsatisfactory, I'm "being a bitch", whereas others who tell me this are "pointing out my errors". If I don't give an answer of a satisfactory length to a question, I'm "being extremely rude", whereas others are "summarizing".

I get told that I may not raise my voice**, that I may not have space to myself, that I must be kind and welcoming and submissive to every other person's whims at all times, regardless of my wants. I get told that I must be available to do any and all tasks at any time, regardless of what I'm doing or have planned. I have my actions dictated to me, or my motives questioned.

And never, not once, am I asked why I actually feel this way. Never does anyone think to ask, or indicate they care. 

And I'm fucking sick of it.

*My mother has irrationally decided today that my closest friend is having a bad influence on me. Yesterday, she thought he was a good influence, and the day before that she was neutral. It appears that his "influence on me" is directly related to how angry she is at me at the time.

**Not that I tend to. I go by the idea that 'if you have to raise your voice to win an argument, you've already lost. Others don't.