Nurture

It’s hard for people to understand me, I get that. Maybe this post will help. I’ve modified it a bit [edited 2015], but the message is the same.

My family totally ignores me, my opinions, my life. They have always ignored how I felt and what I said as well as demean my opinions as silly. This is where my “attitude” and my tenacity about my opinions comes from.

My parents told me a lot of bullshit when I was small. I’d ask a question and they’d give me some folklore crap as the answer and I’d believe them. Then I’d turn around and tell someone else this crap and get laughed at. Scorpios do not like to be laughed at. Especially Scorpio children. So I suffered quite a bit at the hands of my ignorant family. Here’s one example of how my lovely family treated me:

When I was in first grade (at the age of 7 because my mother couldn’t be bothered to enroll me “early” due to my November birthday), I had a “Yankee” teacher from Indianapolis. She had an accent, naturally, so I picked up on it. My family was at KFC and I said the word slaw. I pronounced it with the midwest accent, so it was “slah”. My father ridiculed me for this right there in front of everyone working the counter and made me repeat after him as he said it the Tennessee way: slaaaaw. I remember feeling so stupid and so angry that he’d treat me that way. He treated me like I was an idiot because I simply used the accent that I was hearing all day at school. This was (and is) how my family treats children – or anyone different from them. Everyone else has an accent, but NOT THEM. I love to point out that everyone has an accent, period. They tell me I’m stupid. ::sigh::

This led me to become extremely militant about looking up answers for myself and NOT believing anything I’m told without some sort of proof. I’m still this way. I am accused often of having a ‘know it all’ attitude, but I really truly do not, I’m just not going to believe anything unless it can be backed up with some sort of facts. I’m also perceived as a very obstinate, opinionated person who won’t change my mind EVER. That is also totally incorrect. I will change my mind. No one believes this, but I will and I have on numerous occasions. I also DO hear what is said to me. It may not appear that I do, but believe me, I hear and I REMEMBER. I have an almost photographic memory.

The thing is, that this issue is a hot button for me. When I am challenged, I usually fall right into that family-caused reaction: DEFENSE. I really truly try not to do this, but it happens all the time.

This [conversation I had that triggered this post] was a light bulb moment for me because I finally felt the intellectual part of me and the visceral part of me connect. Intellectually, I’ve known that I do this, but emotionally I couldn’t stop it. Now I feel that perhaps I can nip my reaction in the bud before I act like an asshole. My emotions have finally caught up with my intellect – at least for this one thing.

Considering the other gazillion character flaws that need to be addressed, hell, I’ll take every little bit of growth I can get! Of course I know I’ll fuck up and wear the asshat again, but hopefully, it’ll be a while – and it’ll be for some other issue other than my “I’m Not An Idiot Just Because My Family Says I Am” issue. :-)