My therapist says to "talk about it until it's boring." To not keep it bottled up. To not hide it, burying it with shame.
My parents used to beat the living crap out of me, and, worse, emotionally beat me up--every single day. They demolished me, destroyed me. I crawled out of that environment and went to college, redefined myself. Made my own family out of friends and boyfriends and professors and church. I prayed, every single day (metaphorically, not literally), that I would marry into a good family. I left my most-serious boyfriend who asked me to marry him (the second one who had asked me about marrying him) because he was the only son of the most horrible parents I could ever dream of--the restricting kind, who wanted to choose his career and his girlfriend and where he lived, etc. That's not the only reason we broke up, but it's a big one (continents was another big one).
I married into a family where I found out before my wedding day that my future sister-in-law had messaged my sister to ask her why I was so secretive and what the truth was about me, anyway. Pages and pages of dark questions and dirty comments about how they hoped I wasn't in it for his money and how they couldn't believe I wasn't involving my parents more in my big day. I was shocked and hurt, but not quite so shocked and hurt because people do that and I was used to it. I didn't confront her about it or tell her I knew about the conversation, but I copied and pasted it for another day. I kept it bottled up and hidden because I didn't quite know what to do with it.
But I didn't forget.
Fast forward two years, after I knew how that sister-in-law was, but found out I had another sister-in-law who also talked behind my back and said some of the most hurtful things about my most sensitive topic--my dead twins. She announced my new pregnancy for me, after I delivered my stillborn babies and then had a miscarriage after that. She announced it casually to the family at a get-together. "Oh, did you hear that Casey is pregnant? My friend told me." I ran into two of her friends that day, at the park and at the store. I saw them and I knew who they were, although they didn't say anything to me. I was 19.5 weeks pregnant and we were announcing in four days by driving to Idaho to surprise the family that weekend. She announced it on a Tuesday and we didn't go to Idaho. I cried instead. We had found out the gender that day that I saw her two friends (not sure which friend told her, and it's better that I don't know). It's just so ironic, with the timing. We had wanted to know the gender and get past the milestone week that our twins died, and she announced it nearly to the day that they died. Stole our bit of happiness right out from under us.
But I didn't keep this incident bottled up, because I loved this sister-in-law. It must have been a mistake. I cried and cried and cried and cried, and then I reached out to her again. (She hadn't responded to my first two texts asking her if she really had told people I was pregnant.) I wrote my feelings down and sent her a long letter about how crushed I was, and why did she do it? She knew more intimate details about me than anyone, and I was more hurt than I had been in a long time. She didn't reply.
Fast forward another half-year. We decide to move back to Idaho, where the entire family lives, both sides.
My first bottle starts opening up. My second incident presses on it. I hear whispers of family gossip that make me feel even more insecure about his family. Thinking about the first sister-in-law and the second sister-in-law makes me nervous and sick. Thinking about how ruined things became with the second sister-in-law (and her husband and my in-laws) made me feel sick. I started to dread going to Idaho. My husband had concerns in different areas, and it just started to feel like too much. My first bottle started cracking.
I wrote her an email. They're not the confrontational type, they aren't direct like I am. Not about conflict. An email is safe and you can think about it and you're far away. And she responded pretty well. She said she was sorry and didn't I already get over that incident?! Hadn't she already apologized for it before?!? no, I hadn't, because no she didn't, and no we had never discussed it before. but oh well it was out in the open now and the apology was weird but I wasn't looking for an apology anyway, I was looking to get rid of a bad secret that was making me paranoid about his entire family. That kept growing, after the second sister-in-law.
I felt better that one time after I wrote about my parents, and let that secret out. It was weird and difficult and gone, right after I did it. I knew it was out there in the open and it had no more power over me, so I wrote this one down because it does have power over me and it is the most annoying rock in my shoe. I can never predict how people will react, but I didn't see my mother-in-law's response coming. I thought she should know--since she's always involved in the details--that I was confronting my sister-in-law about the three years ago incident with my sister, and just giving my mother-in-law a head's up.
But she surprised me, badly. They don't gossip, they never have. They don't gossip, they just talk about their feelings. Sometimes those feelings are about me, apparently? And they can be talked about, then, because they're feelings. Some people handle their feelings differently. And I... I... have... expectations of people... and I want things done my way.... and i don't accept people doing things their own way..... like, by not talking about things.... because I want to talk about things....... and other people don't. Even if those things that I want to talk about are, in fact, about how people talk about me behind my back. But I should just Accept People For Who They Are and Not Rock The Boat! And what was my real problem, anyway? Had I really not gotten over it yet? I was still upset? I had had an EMotiOnAL yEaR after all so I was PrOBabLy just ReAcTiNg to ThAt! HeHaHoo.
[disappointed]
I'm shocked this time, but the big kind of shocked. The kind you don't see coming, from an angle you didn't even see coming.
I dealt with The Bottle and I got a whole new punch in my blind spot, and the bottle shattered and I ended up with a NEW bottle in my hand and I'm like "I DONT WNAT THIS FREKAING BOTTLE IN MY HAND, GET THIS OUTTA HERE I JUST GOT RID OF MY LAST BOTTLE COME ONNNNNNNNNNNNN." So I'm writing this bottle down and letting it sit here for someone else to find, like the kind of bottles people throw in the ocean and they find a hundred years later and they're like "oh my gosh I wonder who wrote this note and is this treasure map real" but it doesn't really matter to them, it's just exciting and weird.
But I'm not hanging on to any bottles anymore, I'm just accepting them as they come and putting them in their proper place, like this.
