They Don't Understand Meeeee!
Date Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 04:08 PM PST
Topic Icky People


No, really. You would think after 29 years, my own mother would understand me. And my sister is worse. I feel like an alien around my family... complete with green skin and two heads. At least that's how they look at me.
Went for a visit... they always ask why I don't visit more often... it's because when I'm there, I can't discuss anything about my own life without making them uncomfortable. And I have nothing in common with them, except blood ties, and a bit of history. Every time I open my mouth, they get disturbed looks on their faces and change the subject, or tell me I'm wrong. It's because they live in a box, and I enter that box reeking of the outside world, and it scares them silly. Anything that's not like them is to be viewed suspiciously.

Yet they keep trying to see me as "like them". I couldn't be more unlike them if I were trying to be. I see the world, and I want to experience it. I accept everything as it is, and I try everything to see if I like it. If I do like it, I do it again. If I don't like it, I accept it and move on. But at least I tried it. They see the world, and they hide from it. They can't accept new or alternative ways of living, they can't accept anyone who does.

If someone isn't your average small-town, racist, homophobic, steak eating, soccer mom, public schooling, ordinary-in-every-way redneck, there's something wrong with that person. They're both on drugs for mental illness. When I asked, "How is it that I turned out to be the only sane member of this family?" My sister laughed and said, "So *you* say." She thinks I'm crazier than any of them.

What will happen the day I finally get tired of hiding my life from them, and tell them all about me? Will they accept me as I am, or will they freak and yell and try to change me? I love them, and visiting them is fine, but geez, why is it when I talk about anything that is "not normal" I get almost panicky changes of subject? How can they say that the way they live is normal and good, when they have to take drugs just to cope with the way they live? And the way I live is not normal, and I'm weird and a freak, because I do what I want to do, and have different views about things...

They are completely unenlightened and ignorant, and there's no hope of educating them, because they don't want to be accepting of anything but their little corner of the world. They don't see that there's more to life than just conforming to society's rules. That society's rules just might be wrong in a lot of ways, and that the different ones are going to be the ones to make a change for the better someday.

The question is, what can you do to help intolerant people become more accepting and tolerant of that which is different and frightening? Especially if what they're frightened of is nothing bad or scary, just people living their own lives in a different way?


This article comes from Shmeng
http://www.shmeng.com/

The URL for this story is:
http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=381