In theory, I’m psyched about Christmas – it’s Nugget’s first real Christmas and I’m thrilled to create Christmas memories for him.
In practice, I’m having a really hard time getting into the Christmas spirit. I’m having a hard time even just writing about it, quite frankly. Some days are better than others, some weeks are better than others – some days I just don’t give it much thought.
I found the guy, on Facebook, who drove the ambulance “that night”. I contacted him and gave him a 17 year belated thank you for being compassionate & nice and for keeping the confidentiality (not spreading the gossip all over school.) He responded that he remembered me and remembered that night and that I was genuinely welcome. I then got a “friend request” from him (which was strange for me, because I really don’t “friend” people unless they’re actual friends or people I know & like through the online world – I don’t connect to people through high school, etc.) I accepted it, though, because he has a connection to my life. And it should have been enough to have gotten a nice response, to know he wasn’t weirded out by my random message since he “friended” me, but it wasn’t. I felt let down for some reason. I think I wanted more of a dialogue, to talk to someone who had actually been there.
It was surreal, though, to get his response – a confirmation that it did, indeed, all happen and that my memory of him being there was correct. Before I contacted him, I thought, “Oh my god… what if I’m completely off and he wasn’t the one driving the ambulance?” But I decided that I need to start trusting my instincts & my memories of things.
In the midst of all that, I had a bit of an altercation with a family member on Facebook. I had gotten a friend request from her many months ago, and I spent two weeks obsessing over the request, debating whether or not I wanted to go down that road by mixing family & my personal life.
I’m not very close to my extended family and to say that I’m the “black sheep” would be an understatement. I hadn’t been around much or interacted with any of them for over a decade, but lately, I’d been making an attempt. After getting bit in the ass a couple times for it, and then this last incident, I’ve decided that I’m done making attempts and don’t care enough anymore to want to be part of the family.
Anyway. This particular person – she’s the wife of one of my cousins. I had accepted her friend request (which subsequently led to two more cousins sending requests) and all went fine for awhile. She’s getting more into cooking at home & whole foods and messaged me about convincing her husband to try raw milk. She also said that it was taking effort because, as someone who had an eating disorder in her teens/early 20s, it took some mental work to be ok with eating whole fat foods.
I thought that I’d made a connection with her. So at my parents’ annual Fall festival/picnic, I was disappointed when she barely said two words to me. I did attempt to talk to her a couple times but she didn’t have much to say.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I linked to a post by The Healing Fork, where she talked about her son’s “recovery” from autism through whole foods & naturopathy.
Now, I am by no means an expert on autism. I do consider myself pretty knowledgeable, at this point, on naturopathy, alternative medicine and whole foods. I am also a parent who believes strongly in the effect & power of what we put into our bodies and a new-ish parent who, as most parents, has fears about things like autism. I believe that I can try to give my son the best chance at health & life through real food. I also don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that vaccinations can cause autism and other disorders. I am still on the fence about getting the MMR for Nugget – but I am very firmly on one side about alternate vaccination schedules and spacing them out. Infants should NOT be slammed with the number of vaccines in one sitting that is now the norm.
So. I am not an expert on autism. I’ve read this woman’s story for awhile and, having experienced it herself, I believe she knows her son best and knows a few things about autism. I think that her story is the story for herself & her family and I know that each child, each parent, and each family is individual and different things work for different people.
I read this particular post at 11pm and quickly posted it on Facebook with the remark that I found her story to be really amazing & inspiring and then said something about “this is why I’m so vigilant about never giving Nugget any processed foods, and only using whole, organic foods.” What I was thinking & what I meant when I said that was just what I said in two paragraphs previous – that what we put into our bodies matters and can have either serious repercussions on our health or have great healing benefits. I did NOT mean “I’m feed only organic food to Nugget because not doing so causes autism.” I can certainly see how one would make that connection – but the majority of the people that I’m friends with on Facebook are either very close to me and would say “Hey, what do you mean by that?” if they had an issue with anything I said. (And I HAVE gotten into discussions about differing opinions, several times. I have no problem with that and I’ve had and still have absolute respect for those people.)
But.
I woke up the next morning to this cousin’s wife’s comment yelling at me about reading things with a more critical eye before I “post this shit” and then attacking the woman who writes the blog for being “desperate” for her son to be normal. She went on another rant about this woman’s story being complete & utter bull shit – that part I found to be incredibly rude. Just because other people’s stories do not mirror our own, doesn’t make them bullshit or invalid or not true.
I spent the morning feeling anxious & upset, wondering what she was so angry about. I posted a comment asking her to explain, that I really didn’t understand her anger and I was sorry if that post upset her. Later, I realized – I’d seen a couple of posts about meetings with her son’s teachers and I think she’d said he had a mild form of autism – I had to go look through her posts to figure this out. She doesn’t post often and she doesn’t post a lot of details and I don’t think people in the family really know much about it. So it’s not something *I* was all that aware of and, clearly, this is an extremely sensitive topic for her and not something she’s come to terms with yet. I get that. I get why she would be upset and take that personally. I sent her a private message and told her as much, and said that I didn’t mean it as she thought I had, and let’s talk.
Truth be told, I was just blathering late at night and there are some things I know to be careful about, for friends that I know well and who are close to me – but she simply isn’t one of them. I don’t KNOW her, nor does she know me.
She ignored my private message completely & went off on a long tirade, publicly in my comments, starting with “I’m pissed off because you said that (her son’s) autism could have been prevented…” and listed a family history (my cousin and their other daughter) that I was COMPLETELY unaware of. When I know that there are certain topics that people close to me are sensitive about, I censor. I’m not an insensitive bitch. But I also have to KNOW about it. I left a comment that I wasn’t going to sit here and argue with her publicly, then sent her ANOTHER private message wherein I again apologized for her being upset but then stepped up and said that she read into what I said, I didn’t mean it that way and PLEASE just talk to me if I say something that bothers you. I’m happy to listen. However, considering how I didn’t do anything intentionally and that I knew next to nothing about her situation, I felt it was unfair to go off on me and start cursing at me in Facebook comments. Which is true. I do think that’s unfair.
She never responded to that, either.
I get where she’s coming from, but I also do believe she should have talked to me. Or responded to my private messages wherein I both apologized and reminded her that we aren’t close and don’t know each other well and that some guidance on sensitive topics is necessary.
Maybe it just all sounds ridiculous. But in the midst of everything else going on in my head at this time, it was just too much. It made me feel HORRIBLE. I didn’t sleep for two nights and my heart raced all week. I don’t think I’ve ever done that to anyone – just lashed out without explaining or giving someone a chance to figure it out. I CERTAINLY would have responded to olive branch messages. I’m particularly upset because it’s more of the same family bullshit that kept me away for so long – and will keep me away again. I know that now there will be more talking about me behind my back & more judgments made. That’s why this situation is overly loaded for me – most of the problems, for me, started back when we all found out about my father’s affair and then that little stunt that my mom pulled. It made me feel separated from everyone. But not once in all of my memories, did anyone ever ask me if *I* was ok. I wasn’t. But I made do, alone. I made some attempts to connect with people/family then and now and it hasn’t turned out well, not once. And I have to believe, it’s not because *I’M* such an awful person.
So that’s that. I unfriended every family member, without a word. It just doesn’t work for me and it is just not worth it, for me, to do the family thing. Not at all.