Friday, April 26, 2013

When is Enough, Enough?

Today I'm going to post about something that has stuck with me and has been upsetting me for several days now. Due to this dealing with personal problems I will not be naming names or referencing specific people or naming my relationship to any parties involved, except for myself because it is obvious that I was involved. I'm at the point in my life where I'm trying to plot out a course for what I want to do in the next five years to set up the rest of my life. I've been working my butt off and have been trying to balance family life and time with people outside of school and work with my academic life. It has been really hard for me to do this so when I get to visit somebody outside of Hollins I get very excited about it and look forward to spending time with whoever it is.
Last week I had an opportunity to take some time away from campus and spend time with two people who are very important to me. As I said earlier I will not reveal anything about them but I will be referring to them as John and Jane. These two people have done a lot for me in my life and I enjoy going to visit them when I'm not too busy with school. I have always tried to show them my appreciation for them and the respect that I feel for them. I've always been closer to Jane however because as much as John does for me I always feel like he holds it over my head. To add to this feeling John always looks for someone to do something to make them mad. They have always been naturally headstrong and confrontational. Sometimes this is a good thing. They will stick up for someone or defend them if needed and they can get important points across to people who won't listen to someone else.
More times than not though John doesn't know when it's time to stop being confrontational. This has caused problems with us as well as with him and Jane. We still care about and love him very much but that has never stopped him from being confrontational and sometimes just cruel. Last week as Jane and I were conversing about one of my friends over a meal it was mentioned that my friend who is a woman is married to another woman.  Jane and I were not debating my friends marriage I was just telling her a funny story about my friend and her wife. John piped up during this story and said "They aren't married." When I disagreed he went into a rant about what he thinks God would have to say about this.
Jane and I tried to defuse the situation by saying we didn't want to argue over gay marriage we were just talking and he only kept going. It came to the point where he was talking as if my friend was not a human being. I told him to stop that it was upsetting me and I didn't want to hear it but he kept going. We ended up in a shouting match and then he told me to leave his house and that he didn't want anything to do with me. I was more than happy to leave at this point. It upsets me when anyone bullies someone for being different, even if they aren't there to hear it and it upsets me even more when somebody thinks that they can speak for God, especially when they are spewing hate speech. God would not spew hate speech.
This has been a recurring theme with John and I since I've known him, most of the time though he just targets me and not my friends, and now I'm wondering if I'll ever move past this. I've had enough. I cannot keep associating with someone who wants to constantly argue with me, belittle me and treat me like I am beneath them because of my income and gender. At this point while I am grateful for all that they have done for me I can no longer allow myself to be mistreated and waste the little free time I have being treated this way. It's never easy to realize that someone you care about may never change their ways but it's also important to realize that you need to take care of yourself and treat yourself with respect. For me that includes distancing myself away from people who treat me like I'm a subhuman creature and make me feel like I should hate myself. That being said I will never hate John but until they can actually act like they return my feelings of respect and care I have to stay away from them and take a step back from the situations involving them.
It's important to realize when enough is enough and when you shouldn't keep falling for the same apologies when someone is just going to go back to being cruel to you. You need to remember that you're important too  and deserve respect even if someone has helped you out in the past. You cannot allow yourself to be mistreated and you have the right to stick up for yourself. Everyone needs to remember that when dealing with someone that repeats habitual behaviors that hurt you.

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