This isn’t about suicide, except in concerning the kind of stupid thing that often contributes to feeling I want out.
My aunt is coming to stay in a couple of weeks, and I’m dreading it. I haven’t seen her in nearly 10 years. I’ve avoided every opportunity, every occasion. I skipped the weddings of my cousins, the birth of their children. The last time I saw her was my grandmothers funeral. It’s been over 7 years since I saw anyone from my extended family. I’ve tried to ignore their existence as much as I can. But in two weeks, she’s coming.
The thing about it is, she’s an entirely nice, decent, well-meaning person. They all are. It’s not them I’m dreading. It’s being me while talking to them. It’s having to acknowledge what a worthless loser I am to another person.
I can do it fine in the abstract – yes, I am a garbage person. Yes, I am both sad and pathetic. Yes, I’ve wasted all the advantages given to me, along with the last 12 years of my life. It’s depressing, but I can just about live with it.
But when it comes to letting others in on the fact, and the awkwardness & embarrassment that ensue…it just fucking kills me. I don’t know how to cope with it.
Now I know this is an irrational reaction. It will likely have zero bearing on my future prospects. There’s unlikely to be any negative outcome that can result from them seeing what a useless void of a person I’ve become. No insults will be thrown. It’s unlikely they’ll even criticise. It’ll just be awkward as fuck.
But still, I don’t know how to handle it. I guess I’m hyper sensitive to what others think of me. The shame of it just makes me want to self-immolate. I have an extremely low tolerance for embarrassment or awkwardness of any kind.
I’m dreading the small-talk. ”So, what have you been up to?” ”Literally nothing. I worked a shitty dead end job for 4 years, then quit and spent most of my days lying in a depressed haze for 3 years.” ”So, what are your plans?” ”Well, I’m thinking suicide may be inevitable at some point, but other than that I have no clue.”
I could arrange to be out of town when they come, but that might involve more stress than being here. I can’t really think of a legit excuse for not being around. I even considered joining the climate protests in London for a week, (which would have sent my anxiety off the wall) but it seems like they’ve packed up for the time being.
Without a good excuse of somewhere else to be, I think my Mum would probably be upset if I wasn’t here. And my aunt might take it as a slight (if she knows I’m normally here.) I don’t want to offend or upset anyone. I just really don’t want to be here when they visit. I don’t want to experience that awkwardness. I don’t want to be seen as the pathetic waste of space that I am. I don’t want them to see what I’ve become.
This sense of dread has been gnawing away at me ever since I heard she was coming. Gotta find some way out. I know it’s ridiculous, but I just can’t face it.
6 comments
You know I get what you’re saying. There’s always that “oh this is weird, they don’t like me very much type thing with distant or you could maybe call it ‘estranged’ family depending on your past circumstances. You can try to just relax and enjoy your time? Maybe go to a nice dinner. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about relatives I have that have passed away. I can say they were my best friends but that might be just cause they are gone that I feel much love to them. While not always appreciating much the relatives I have alive. Or maybe it is true as they say, only the good die young. If they influenced you a lot in your past that is good to have positive memories of your relatives. You know that they are gone now you kind of see things in a different way, like oh I wish I could find that hormonica my uncle gave me or I wish I could hug my grandma really hard. Ultimately, it’s weird cause they dead and you don’t know what happens after death with souls, bodies, past life and all that stupid weird sh*t. On the other side of things, I count my blessings I’ve already said my goodbyes to any of my relatives who had influenced me or that I loved, admired, whatever… so I never have to encounter that, “Oh I’m so suicidal and hopeless you wouldn’t want to be around me.” I don’t have to see them ever again, you know, so it’s kind of a relief for me. It’s like eh you don’t have to look at me, (or stare pure disappointment right in the face.) but there’s always someone else who has it much much worse and always worse things happening then recreational family time, hahaha
I wish I could just relax and enjoy seeing them. But I don’t know how to stop anticipating the awkward moments in conversation, or the sense of shame that arises. I seem to just have this instinctive aversion to such situations.
You’re right, there’s always someone who has it worse. But because of my screwy mind, there’s few things that seem worse than seeing estranged family. Think I’d probably pay quite a lot of money to avoid it if I could.
I’d go dude. Last thing I remember before I started getting violently attacked while I slept and having the cops start following me around town is when my relatives were over for some holiday whatever.
But you know like I’d said I’d already said goody bye-byes, not enough for those crazy motherf*ckers – I simply pulled to the side of the river bank and f*cking flipped shit to myself wondering where the hell im gonna take a rest, I need sleep, I can’t sleep in my car and I can’t go home to them.
So I know what it’s like, like if you simply just DONT LIKE your relatives!! Or simply cannot bear to see someone so completely estranged.
Me, I don’t even celebrate holidays, myself, I am atheist, they are insanely Christian. You know I’m not going to their holiday parties where it’s always who gettin the most expensive sh*t or which one them got 99 presents from Santie.
Finally they stopped coming to my moms house, but still I get raped in my sleep usually on those holidays. Hell on my birthday last year they sent me a pleasant wish of f*cking doggy style in the room my grandmother with polio lived in before she died FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. They’ll send me those types of wishes for the last few years on holiday. One of them they brought up murder, but usually it’s just R.A.P.E. Or shit from way way back that doesn’t matter anymore or never did. So, I mean I guess I understand ..you’re hesitance..
I changed my religion, I don’t celebrate a religious holiday and know it’s only about gifts and money to these folk anyway. I’m not going to sit around and pretend to be Christian because we came out of the same earthly wombs. So why they always being overtly sexual on these days? Only their God must know. Maybe they sent Satan knocking comin to find me.
Honest, I been trying to leave them completely for my whole life. They locked me up with my mom til I can hitch a way out.
Sorry I start rambling a lot about my terrible time here, but what I mean is. If they even get suspicious on you I’m sure they could make your life a living hell cause you didn’t put on your little bowie-tie or GOD FORBID a dress if you’re a sleazy ol woman to impress Auntie Wilma or Auntie Bertha or Auntie Shaniqua. You get what I’m saying. They could say “ooooooOh that kid yours bad news n he stood up his grandma, you better impale his head in with a hammer.” Or, more realistically have the lil’ psych doctors took a GOOD, HARD look
I think you’re Aunt will be discreet enough not to ask what you’ve been up to. People tend to be perceptive that way and not ask awkward questions. An uncle of mine was up yesterday and didn’t ask ” what have you been up to?”. He knew better, perhaps my family had tipped him off in advance or despair was written all over my face.
I’d like to hope so, but it’s hard to think what else we’d talk about – it’s one of the first things that comes to mind. A family friend came to stay for a night a while back, and it was all going great until the conversation turned to me, and I had nothing real to say for myself. It was so awkward, and I felt so pathetic. Part of it is that I don’t want them to see the despair in me – they’re decent people, but I can’t see how the reaction wouldn’t be incredibly awkward.
You remind me of someone I know that has avoidant personality disorder. He’d fantasize about people he wanted in his life, too, imagining it perfectly, and avoid people or feeling like a failure in social settings, hated running into people, wanted people around but was afraid of messing up and being awkward