Niece screamed at me for turning over in bed.

[jeregretterien77]

Hi
So I have just returned from a ski holiday with my adult niece. When I booked originally, my 19 year old son was meant to be going, but his job would not let him take time off over Christmas (retail). My niece had expressed that she would really like to try skiing, so I asked her if she wanted to come along. It was a really good deal for skiing as French (hostel type) food included, so I paid an extra 25% and she paid around £500 plus her own flights. This included ski lessons, equipment, transfer from airport, ski pass and food and accommodation.

Now I have struggled with menopausal anxiety and I am claustrophobic which has got worse with menopause, but I was upfront about this. Flying makes me anxious now and confined spaces. On way to airport I mentioned I was anxious, but said I'd be fine. Got on flight was fine. Niece was sat elsewhere as I said she could relax in case I felt anxious. I was abso fine in the end and just spoke to her and offered her a sandwich all good.

Got to accommodation, food good. Had a drink went to bed. Woke up as very hot in room about 4 and eventually opened window then bit of tossing and turning around (we shared a room twin beds) went back to sleep. Niece said I moved around a bit. I offered her new pack of ear buds for next night she refused.

All good, but ski resort was much busier than usual due to not a lot of snow and people heading to where we were, therefore buses and gondola all busy, so not great for me. We had ski lesson and I stayed in her beginner lesson to give her support, then did little bit of skiing just past basic myself.

On gondola I asked staff if I could go just with my niece due to claustrophobia, but he said was too busy, we then got on with 2 others and I felt anxious, so just talking to French lady next to me saying I was claustrophobic just in case she thought I was acting weird. The gondola then stopped midway and I panicked a little and tried to change seats. The French lady was lovely and spoke to me and a young English guy which made me feel much better. I held my niece's hand and she just looked pissed off. Absolutely packed bus on way back so I got off and told her I would meet her back at centre. Eventually had to get on packed bus and coped ok. Then had meal, chatted to other people and joined evening entertainment she said she enjoyed it. Went to bed, middle of night she complains that I am moving around (bear in mind when we have been on holiday before she has slept in same BED as her mother who snores like a buffalo) and there is no way that I could have been making anywhere near the noise that she does. My niece, I was aware was also moving around a lot, so I just thought well that's sharing rooms. She went to lesson next morning and we met up for lunch had nice time, spoke to lots of friendly, adventurous people, she said to each one that she hated skiing.

That evening I suggested we explore town, go out for drink to lovely little chalet bar had a lovely chat, she complimented me on my French. We talked about her learning Spanish etc all good. Went back for food, joined quiz with other people, mostly families, but girl her age, she spoke with. Music quiz which for some reason I had a lot of answers for. She suddenly decides she's leaving to go to the room after half an hour. No problem, I stay and chat and quiz with people we are with. Went to room, we laughed and joked for about an hour about her ski lesson and she said the instructor had had to keep rescuing her and I joked they were in a love/hate relationship and we both laughed for a good while continuing this story. Around 10 minutes after this, we settled to go to sleep and she suddenly got up and screamed at me that I'd been keeping her awake for 2 nights and she'd had enough of it and how dare I do that. I was so shocked I just froze in bed and didn't say anything. She then went out slammed the door and went downstairs. 10 minutes later she came back and I ignored her and said that she should put on white noise or use ear buds she then shouted at me again and I said that it was unreasonable as other people are trying to sleep and I didn't understand why she was shouting at me. She then said she was leaving the next day. Which she did and I stayed and made friends and had a good time for the rest of the week.

So If you've stuck with this well done! Was I being unreasonable? Any idea where this came from because I was completely blindsided.

@WhyamIinahandcartandwherearewegoing Again, totally unnecessary character assassination - I like to have a low profile - I am not an attention seeker in that way - i find it deeply embarrassing and hate to put people out, but irrational phobias do not comply.

I havent made any diagnosis at all. Where have you misread that also?
Im not bullying you. You just dont like being told you are wrong. Like most narcissists.
Up to you how you percieve that statement.

Yes this was the red flag when @changezmonnomtalked about how she bothered the other passengers on the gondola by announcing her phobias. She showed no concern, compassion or empathy for what they might be carrying themselves just trauma dumped her information indiscriminately to selfishly discharge her own emotions, seeking attention with zero concern as to how this would impact others.

If you are so emotionally dysfunctional and dysregulated that you have to trauma dump on others including strangers then you need to take accountability and responsibility to work harder on yourself and not put yourself in situations where you negatively impact others to soothe yourself. Stay home until you can stop negatively impacting others who have not given you permission to dump on them. There is no excuse for you to do this to strangers. I have traveled extensively and I fortunately have never come across someone acting so performatively before - you need to know you are an outlyer.

I also think you are manipulative and emotionally transactional with your stories about how you were with your neice as a child - is your inference that you have been keeping score and she now owes you? Looks like it - if not why mention it.

You have no idea what those people on the gondola were carrying in their personal life - but you saw fit to dump on them to relieve your stress regardless. Very self serving, socially inappropriate and pathetic. Your neice must be mortified to be associated with your tedious and selfish behaviour.

@changezmonnom I haven't read the full thread but have read all of your posts. I just wanted to respond as I was amazed by what a hard time people were giving in the first couple of pages of responses.

I have anxiety around some quite specific things and I know how hard it is to control. I used to have shy bladder and it was absolutely awful, some days it was worse than others. I had to start telling people, I had to either tell them why I was disappearing to find a quieter loo and not coming back for ages otherwise they would have wondered what on earth was happening. Talking about it actually helped with this specific anxiety and after several years I did get over it. I'm glad my friends didn't accuse me of being performative though as it was embarrassing, I would have much rather not had it!

You can't just get over it or get a grip when it comes to anxiety, phobias and other mental health problems. I actually think you're being very brave by putting yourself out there and talking about it, rather than just trying to battle it alone and without saying anything.

Also I understand that sleep deprivation is difficult but there's no excuse for suddenly screaming at someone with no warning. She's 28 not 15. She should have found a time to speak to you quietly, she could have told you she was struggling to sleep and finding the skiing difficult without resorting to screaming.

I'm sorry people are being so mean to you on here! You are getting a lot of terrible advice imo!

"However, just reading this made me bristle with irritation because it sounds like you required so much support to do even simple things. Dont get me wrong - I am in peri menopause and have also experienced anxiety so am not unsympathetic but if your niece wasn't aware at just how needy you would be on this holiday then I get why the situation built up like a pressure cooker.
I dont think it's fair to expect your travel companion to have to cater to your anxiety to this extent. Sorry, it's just too much. What are you doing to address it?"

Agree with this and similar comments - you are expecting people to focus on your needs (including reading your very long post). It's not very surprising your niece got fed up with this "holiday" and finally snapped.
Kindly, it does seem you need to get help for your problems, and don't go on holidays which are going to make you anxious.

@MummyJ36 Thank you so much for your post - exactly what it's like - you understand - appreciate it.

@changezmonnomwhat’s your perspective on why your niece reacted like this and has said she doesn’t want you to contact her?

it all sounds like a massive overreaction to disturbed sleep (losing it in the moment I can understand, wanting to end the relationship over it I cannot). It may have been the final straw, but if that’s the case what else has happened to get to that point?

Is she generally prone to volatility/over-reacting? Is she an introvert or an extrovert?

You sound very extrovert and quite full-on - is your niece similar? Is it a clash of big personalities or is she a person who needs more down time who hasn’t had that recognised?

I’ve suffered serious anxiety my whole life. I do my absolute utmost to ensure it doesn’t impact those around me. My children would be completely shocked to know the full extent of it. Only my husband is aware of it and even he doesn’t fully realise how much it impacts my life which is exactly how I want it.

I’ve never taken any medication for it.

I think you might have been trying to reply to me here, when I asked:
What if your niece’s outburst was due to anxiety, or stress, or another MH issue, and she was finding it hard to contain herself in that moment?
Would you consider showing her the same patience and understanding you wanted her to offer to you? Or would you double down and commit to your relationship with her being over, because she lost her temper with you on one occasion?

What if her anxiety/stress was still too high the next day and she couldn’t handle coming to talk to you? Does she deserve the same kind of understanding you want, or are you cutting her off for finding the situation too difficult?

No you are wrong - your irrational phobias may explain your dreadful behaviour but they don’t excuse it - is that what you are looking for?

“Character assassination”

the fact you think people disagreeing with you on a public forum you invited comment on is character assassination simply reinforces the argument that you are providing the drama….

I'd love to hear nieces side of the story. I imagine it would be very different

@FishfingerFlinger Thanks for the question. I think my niece was just uncomfortable in the whole environment - maybe different people and yes probably more introverted than me. A lot of the people we met were confident sporty types and I suppose she's not really, but she absolutely asked me if she could come. I wonder if she did feel like a fish out of water, didn't take to skiing and also found me annoying.

Also the people saying just don't go on holidays that make you anxious - well then your world will just get smaller. You can't just avoid everything that makes you feel anxious. It sounds like you had a lovely holiday without your niece. Really, I would ignore most of the responses on here, a lot of people clearly have very little understanding of anxiety disorders and phobias.

I can't believe people think that screaming at someone rather than calmly bringing up issues is a reasonable way for a 28yo to behave.

Exactly. Behaving like that in the moment is one thing but you need to have the self awareness to step back and say, I should have handled this better and I am working on it. I shouldn’t make it strangers problems, I shouldn’t have put myself in that situation (again, and again and again for a week) if I knew I couldn’t handle it without being held up by DN and three complete strangers who were trying to have a nice time.

Self awareness is key. Responsibility is key. No one is telling you to just get over your phobia or anxiety.

I have a phobia of open water and have regular horrific nightmares about drowning. I would not then holiday on a cruise and expect the other holiday goers on deck to hear about my woes and help me through it.

The anxiety disappeared when the niece did. There are paragraphs and paragraphs about it while niece was there, and absolutely nothing after she left; suddenly OP got on with everything and had a great time.

She's also come out of this deciding that the niece is angry for no reason other than her turning over in bed!

And then starts bringing up stuff she did while the niece was a child, as if she's owed something for that.

And now, for all her talk about how supportive etc she's always been to the niece, she's happy to let the relationship end completely over two days on holiday and her only concern is that she be seen as blameless and a victim.

This is not how people are when they have help with their anxiety. This is how people are when they are manipulative.

Was your son originally coming to ski or to be your carer? Because that's what it sounded like you needed - and wasn't what any person would expect to have to do.

Which was a useful thing for her to learn she was able to do.
I'm sure it will help to draw on this experience the next time she is in a situation where she would normally feel anxious.

Bang on.

OPs emotional distress wasn’t so extreme she lost control and had to abandon her hard earned and paid for holiday - unlike her poor niece the young teacher who was driven to the end of her tether by her aunt’s performative nonsense.

How gross that the OP can say without any awareness or irony that she was able to joyfully continue with her holiday alone having driven her niece to such despair she had to flee the holiday. Despicable behaviour.

@MissDoubleU I do have self awareness - there is no way my behaviour was abominable - I am friendly and I didn't repeat this behaviour for a week - I did a workaround as I said, but I couldn't for first 2 days as didn't realise how busy it was. I absolutely take responsibility hence I try and alleviate impact on other people - it didn't work this time, but you live and learn.

@ContentedAlpaca the OP however considers this a “character assassination” so the likelihood of any learning is minimal…

She shouldn't have shouted at you - that was rude and unnecessary and not fair on you.

Had you told her in advance how much support you would need with your anxiety / how much it would impact her? I think she maybe wasn't anticipating that, was sleep deprived from sharing a room with a restless person, and lost it. Not an excuse for shouting at you but I do think you sound like quite a difficult person to holiday with.

I'm glad you enjoyed the rest of your week. I would avoid holidaying with your niece again! Not that you would want to I'm sure, but you don't sound like compatible holidayers.

OPs niece didn't enjoy the holiday for a variety of reasons. The shared room being a big one and an error of judgement on the part of both her and her niece. She also hated skiing, which is kind of big on a skiing holiday.
The 'expence' the OP put her to amounted realistically to holding her hand on a gondola and taking the bus back on her own. The 'expence' to other people seemed to be simply their choice to chat to OP to ease her discomfort on the gondola. Which was kind, but hardly onerous. Do people really think a short interaction with a anxious stranger is such a great cost to them?
I think there's a great deal of exaggeration going on about the level of inconvenience OP actually caused others, with the exception of her nighttime restlessness, which as said, was an error on both parts in having a shared room.

This is why I would rather go less often and have my own room. Sharing a room leads to so many suboptimal outcomes.

Just to ask have you experienced really any horrific circumstances in the past eg living somewhere like Gaza, Ukraine etc at the current time - or personally - violent crime or murder of some close person/yourself? Or is it menopause which 51% /of population have and was completely disregarded until about 90s.?