Last night, I ended up spending the evening downstairs with my parents, my brother, and his girlfriend. Ivan and Moony were both asleep, Moony having told me she had to for work and Ivan crashing straight after telling me he didn't need or want to sleep. Maybe one day he'll remember to give warning before he passes out over the keyboard.
I didn't intend to spend so long down there. Originally I was asking for help with research, then me and dad were laughing about Dredd. Dinner arrived from the local take-out, so we all ate downstairs. I should have known to run as soon as I could, but I was lured into false safety by the Dredd talk and Benedict Cumberbatch unexpectedly being in the Graham Norton show.
One of the underlaying reasons me and my family aren't best suited to each other is the pure fact that they don't understand my personality. It's a pretty fundamental part of who I am, so it's no wonder it gets to me so easily.
It isn't that the conversation is always aimed at teasing me, but it tends to happen whenever I give an opinion. My problem, it seems, is that I'm too serious about things, and if I would only stop letting things get to me, then I would be okay.
But that would imply that I choose to be sensitive, to be hurt by their comments that really aren't meant in a mean way. Oh, but according to them, it really is my choice, and if I choose not to be affected, I won't be. It's all a state of mind.
I disrespectfully call bullshit.
I can't remember the topic of last night that got it started, but it got to a point where I reached for my phone, as I often to do hold off from shouting or to ground myself. Every single time I do this in their company, I'm laughed at, joked that I'm telling on them to the Internet, and they started impersonating me, in a high voice, saying that I'm claiming I hate them and wish they'd get run over by a bus, of all things. And that I can't wait to move out and get away.
And if a double decker bus kills the both of us...
While I don't mean the one about the bus, it's a little worrying, that they're so close to the truth but they're joking.
I said, as they were laughing, that one day, I'm going to stop going downstairs to socialise, and they'll all ask why I'm not spending time with them, and I'll reply 'remember every time I did and you ended up laughing and teasing me?'
I hate to say it, but I think that was the breaking point. Every time I spend any time with them, I end up upset, and they never understand why. Always tell me to get over it, but it isn't a choice. Like Moony doesn't choose to have anxiety.
My brother even asked why I was so quiet, after they'd stopped laughing.
As if none of them had noticed how tight I held on to my cup, how I never actually shout, but I was shouting to try to get them to understand that just because I grew up in a house where everyone is teased, it doesn't mean that I'm used to it.
I know it's known that once you leave something, you realise how much you miss it, but I feel caged, I can't spend time downstairs in the living room because I'm made to feel like less of a person because I get offended easily, because I've never liked jokes that rely on picking on a weak aspect of someone.
I'm a prisoner in my own home, and isn't that fucking tragic.
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