So I made a small post on my tumblr about something that really bothers me, and I wanted to go into it more here.
My biggest 'pet peeve' is people who refuse to take responsibility for their actions and how it effects them.
This is something I've gone over with my therapist before, and I feel like it's a good idea to fully put it down.
I just can not honestly understand how someone could go through life and think that every single thing that happens to them is someone elses fault. I mean, some things, yes, but everything? Every single bad thing that has happened to you has been because of someone else? I know someone that is constantly getting evicted from their rentals, and every single time it's because 'the landlords an asshole'. Well yeah, he's probably pretty pissed at you for not paying your rent.
I mean, if you've been fired from 6 jobs within as many months, how can you not, at some point, think that maybe you're just a shitty employee?
I know where my strong feelings about this comes from. This is what my mother does. To the T. This is also one of the reasons I don't speak to my mother any more.
Story time.
When I was thirteen, my mother took my younger brother and I and moved us a thousand miles away to live in Vermont. As if that wasn't bad enough by itself, it was to go and live with someone she met on the internet. My dad was absolutely heart broken about his, but he figured that children belong with their mother and didn't fight it. That is seriously a concept that just needs to die.
So she moves us up there in November. We went from 90*F to a foot of snow on the ground in less than a day. It was shocking to say the least.
Anyway, we moved in with this man, that we had never met before, and who my mother had only spoken with via internet and phone. So things were pretty tense to say the least.
We lived in this tiny 2 bedroom basement apartment out in a very remote area. The school I went to was the absolute worse place I have ever been to. I'd been bullied all my life, but these kids were just down right vicious.
This was my first time dealing with depression. It was so bad that I wouldn't even change my clothes. I would just come home, go straight to bed, and wake up and change my shirt before going to school. There were ink stains on the sheets because I didn't even bother to take the pens out of my pocket. It was that damn bad.
So of course, I wasn't exactly a ray of sunshine. Things were bad for my 8 year old brother as well.
After being there for 4 months, my mother and this man broke up. Not exactly a big surprise there. I mean, this whole thing was destined to fail, you could see it from a mile away.
So then he kicks up out. Straight up tells us to pack our shit and be out before he gets back from work.
We did that, and moved into a hotel until we could get tickets for a flight back to Texas. While we're sitting at the airport waiting for our flight, my mother than tells us that we would be taking the flight to Texas on our own, because she was taking a different flight to California to live with her dad.
Now here's the point of this story. She goes on a huge tangent about how we wouldn't have to be doing all this if we'd just behaved ourselves. It was OUR fault, mine and my brothers, that her relationship failed. Because we, being brother and sister, cooped up in a tiny apartment and had to share a room for the first time in our lives, fought too much. We did what every freaking brother and sister has done for all of time.
It wasn't because their relationship just didn't work out, it wasn't because (as I found out later) he had FUCKING AIDS!, it wasn't because THEY fought all the time, it was because WE fought all the time. WE were the ones to blame. WE were the ones that did wrong.
This is the first time (that I can remember) of many that my mother did this to me.
I could probably write a book on all the shit she's done to me, and maybe I should, to be honest, but this is with out a doubt why I have this very intense hatred of people who act like this.
It is also probably the reason for my intense anxiety that I have. I've gone full reverse from what my mother does. Rather than blame everyone else for my mistakes and problems, I feel like I'm responsible for everything that goes wrong, even if I'm not.
Only recently, with the help of the (finally) perfect cocktail of drugs and therapy have I been able to stop thinking like that. That I stop blaming myself things that are out of my control.
The unfortunate thing is that I have to deal with this a lot in my job. I work in driver licensing, what many states call a DMV. I have to speak to people that have their license suspended out the wazoo because of stuff they did, usually drunk driving.
Do they feel responsible for it? No, It's the officers fault for giving them the ticket. It's the states fault for having there be fines attached to DWI's. It's my fault for not just making it go away for them. Don't I know they have stuff to do? That they need the license to get on a plane tomorrow? That work is going to fire them if they don't get it taken care of TODAY?
I have been told, so many times, that I have ruined that persons life. I have been called the 'rudest person in all of Texas'. I have been called a 'cold hearted bitch'. I have been called so many different things, from so many different people, all because they don't want to except the consequences of their actions.
So I guess, it all being wrapped together, this would be why I can't stand it.
About This Blog
The name of this blog comes from a name my husband gave me years ago. It started out as just a simple knitting blog, to show off my creations to the world. But with all that has gone on in my world, I have changed it to show how knitting and other crafts are helping me deal with my anxiety and depression. I'm hoping that this might play a small part in showing the world that these mental disorders are not something to fear or be ashamed of, but something that we must work through as a part of life.