PettyParty
These thoughts were triggered by more triggers…
No matter how hard I try to ignore the purposeful agitation gifted to me by the only person left in the ‘family’ who is able to have a real effect on my psyche…it still manages to grab my attention. I think we are all aware, at this point, that I’m not a victim in the Petty Parties thrown by my little sister because most of the time…I’m the party planner. So I can’t invoke a full ugly cry for my frustration because I bring a lot of it on myself. The ‘big but’ of it all is that when I attend these functions…it’s normally because I was summoned by witnessing toxic parenting. I won’t sit and pretend my sister is a horrible mother though because that title is reserved for our ‘mother’. I can say….that a lot of the maternal behavior she considers as normal is actually just passed down emotional abuse. But judging from the group chats…a lot of parents believe I have no right to speak on behalf of what healthy motherhood is because I opted out of being a mom…a few times. These, however, are usually the same people who are treating their own kids as lab experiments…hoping that their trial doesn’t end in an error. If this is you…please stay seated.
I have experienced enough bad parenting to be able to point out similar behavioral patterns when I see them and doing so is what provokes my little sister into using her child as a power trip. I spoke on a pattern recently because I was foolishly under the impression that she wouldn’t trigger me anymore now that she has a job and needs a babysitter. But it looks like her new position is with the ‘Gas’ Company because now, instead of having me babysit…she asks me to in advance, has me switch up my schedule and then cancels at the last minute. She successfully pulled this off on Monday and tried again on Tuesday but she miscalculated. She ended up having to ask me to stop work in the middle of the day to go pick my niece up because the other aunt she had watching her had to go to work and my twin wasn’t able to make the drive. I did what was asked of me, naively expecting to put an end to my truth telling punishment. My niece’s birthday is coming up so I’ve been trying to be a ballet dancing bull in my little sister’s China shop to get an invite. I haven’t missed a birthday since she was born but the child’s mother has made my twin miss one before. So I know she’s more than capable of putting her own frustration before the happiness of this child…just like her own single mother.
After earning my ‘petty on pause’ points yesterday…I text her this morning asking for the party details. She referenced having the information in one of the screenshots I recently posted on here and stated ‘I better hope she tells me the details’. I’m assuming her failed triggers Monday and Tuesday were meant to frustrate me enough to run my fingers to the group chat because in that same screenshot she told me that every time I go to the chat…I won’t see my niece. So now she has put herself in position to trigger me without anyone in the group knowing what she’s doing…if they aren’t already aware. I put my assumption of her behavior in the text I sent her today and let her know that if this is her angle….it’s not going to work. I asked for the details at 7:58 this morning and 15 hours later…still no response. I know I spoke about them using triggers like these with the hope that I feel all the anxiousness that comes from assuming the worst case scenario will happen so I’m trying not entertain those thoughts. My birthday is coming up too which also makes me want to keep my thoughts regulated. I honestly think she wants to trap me in a bad birthday mood…which would be yet another page she stole directly out of my mother’s ‘Triggernometry’ textbook.
Unfortunately for me…I lost the only person whose test I’d be able to cheat off of about a week ago when I reneged on my decision to call in that ‘financial favor’. The ‘favor’, for my twin, was going to be a loan against a life policy but after their latest tag team trigger attempt…I decided to keep the money right where it is. Which means if my little sister decides not to share the details of the party…there is no one else who will drop a pin. Which leaves me feeling powerless…on this island of isolation. And just like the toxic parenting example set by our BM…this emotional abuse is their only way of depleting my power to feed the false sense of their own. Why they need to feel a heightened level of power against the family ‘bipolar’ is a question I am still unable to answer though. But the movie Inception keeps coming to mind. None of their behavior makes sense because either way they spin this…they’re enacting the same abuse I’ve been calling out all these years. Abuse that they all have adamantly declared doesn’t exist…while continuously being caught in the act of its distribution. The fact that they can’t stop proving my point is wild asf.
Love,
Choosy
