Really angry at the judgmental idiots I allowed into my life

[tulipsaremyfavourite]

In particular I'm angry at a cousin who had the cheek to tell me I was pushing away the people in my life who cared about me. She knows nothing of the abuse and loneliness i suffered for years with my family, only what she sees from the outside and from watching the victim act put on by my mother. Now I've cut all ties with my family (why on earth would I do such a drastic thing if I didn't have a very good reason?) she thinks she has the right to tell me that I'm doing the wrong thing. How bloody dare she? She told me this by text a while ago and i politely told her she was wrong. I didn't show or express to her my real feelings of anger at her judgmental attitude. And now I find the anger is still there inside me and i have no outlet as i can't now text her out of the blue and tell her how she has severely overstepped the mark with her comments.

I wish I could be more assertive and express my true feelings instead of trying to be nice and polite and inoffensive all the time. I need to give myself a kick up the backside and stop trying to be liked all tbe time. I'm so pathetic I could scream.

It's that horrible thing where you can think of the withering put-down about 20 minutes (or a fortnight) after the original remark but nothing nearly as good at the time. :) It's very frustrating. However, use your anger as a spur to decide that it's no more Little Miss Nice Tulips.... get ready for the next time someone has a go at you, sharpen your tongue and go in for the kill. "I'm doing the wrong thing?... I don't give a flying focaccia what you think." (ad expletives as necessary)

So she got taken in by your mother's act. Some people will be. Some people won't be. You don't have infinite time to give your view of the situation to everyone your mother talks to, nor would you have any control over what they choose to think about it even if you did talk to them all.

People believe what they believe for their own reasons. For all you know, your cousin has an equally dysfunctional parent of her own but is still in the denial stage, and therefore sees your choice to cut contact with own mother as a threat to her view of how mother-daughter relationships "should" be. Who knows, really. You can't.

Breathe and let it go. As long as you are at peace with your choice, then no-one else's opinion of it need matter. Hard to do over such an emotive topic, I know!

I've just realised that I was the odd one out in my family, that they are not very nice people, that it's an effort to be nice, so therefore they don't bother.

I on the other hand find it an effort to be nasty, They don't understand this at all. The nicer I am to them, the worse they get. It's like they are goading me into being like them. I can't do that. it's going against MY nature, one that I know is right. This has caused me much anguish over the years, and I've realised that I too must go my own way, and I must leave them to it.

Your cousin is cut from their cloth. She won't see them as wrong, because she is one of their clan. YOU however have (rightfully) gone against the family grain.

Let it go indeed, easier said than done, but there really isn't going to be any good in you maintaining contact with them, they will only hurt you some more and you need to fill your lovely life with good, kind and loving people, not have it rammed full of seething, venom spitting poisonous people.

If she didn't know the situation, and texted you out of concern that you are pushing away people that she believes care about you, why are you now wanting to text her and complain?

if other people's opinions don't matter, they have to genuinely not matter. Ignore.

You're directing your anger at the wrong person.

Instead of projecting it onto your cousin, send it through the ether to those who are responsible for generating it - and then let it go because you've moved on.

The characters in your history don't have the power to hurt you again, and that's cause for celebration.

If your cousin has absolutely know idea about what is going on,then she may just be doing her best to look after you.If she knew,she may well be horrified and on your side.But I dont know her,you do.

I realised a while ago,that even the most popular people on the planet are not liked by everybody.That is life.So whatever you or I or anybody does,we will not be universally liked.

As regards assertiveness,Im guessing there are books on the subject you could get from the library or buy.Never seen any recommended on here,but MNs must know of a few good ones.

If she genuinely doesn't know, she probably genuinely thinks you are doing the wrong thing and is concerned that cutting people out of your life is a good idea. Personally I would have reply 'thanks for your concern but you don't know the details.' That's it.

Hi all thanks for responding. Sorry to disappear for a while.

My cousin does know why I don't want to see my parents but only in general terms, not the gory details. I suspect she was put up to contacting me by my parents who think they have been saints and can't understand why I cut them off. Until her last text she had been very non judgmental and had said only I know what I had been through and it was entirely my decision whether i saw my parents or not. I have no idea why she has suddenly decided I am doing the wrong thing.

But I am angry at her because NOBODY but me can decide if I'm doing the right thing for me or not as only I experienced my childhood. So I feel I am rightfully angry at her ignorant judgmental attitude and I WISH I had said so in my reply to her. I think at the time I just wasn't confident enough to express my true feelings. I was scared of making her angry. That probably stems from my childhood anyway where I was scared of expressing my true feelings in case it made my dad angry.

But whoever said my cousin is from the same clan as my parents has got it spot on. She couldn't remain non judgmental for long as it wasn't natural for her and soon enough she reverted to type.

FWIW, I don't think you are angry at HER per se, angry that she too let you down by falling for their BS perhaps, perhaps you thought she was better than that, that she wouldn't show herself to be so easily conned by them. At least you know where you are with her now.

I think your anger is at the indignance, the unfairness of it all and you HAVE to feel this in order to move past it and heal. anger is a natural emotion to feel having gone through all this. Indeed it's unhealthy to NOT go through it.

Sit and think about that anger and challenge it, ask what exactly it is there for, what does it want from you? You have a RIGHT to be angry, you could do with shouting at them all, perhaps you ought to try having an imaginary conversation with them and say ALL the things you want to say, but they are only in your head.

I do this a lot. It helps vent, and it helps me to know that by rehearsing the conversation, if I ever found myself with the opportunity and balls to say all that I wanted to say, that i would have worked out all the phraseology before hand so I didn't miss an opportunity to destroy them with my words.