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Sunday, July 15, 2012

Defriending

Hi. Sorry for the long silence. I'm doing okay adrenal-wise, but other things have not been so positive.

I experienced a nasty mommy drive by (when mommies are mean to other mommies)over a week ago that has left me questioning whether I will continue with my mother's group.

This would involve lots of Facebook defriending, which I've been agonizing over. To defriend or not defriend, that is the question.

I think I've decided to unjoin the group and defriend various members, but now have to navigate that with some social grace. The social network includes folks who don't know what happened and I have no idea how to extract myself without raising questions and causing a certain amount of drama.

It's hard to explain what happened without dragging you through petty details that no one who is not directly involved cares about. Short hand, I was verbally bitchslapped like a bad dog in front of everyone. My husband witnessed the whole thing and his first question to me when we talked about it later was 'Why do you spend time with these women?'

And I thought, you know what? Why do I bother with them? They've never been a good match for me. I stayed with the group because it was the easy button for keeping the toddler busy.

(Strangely the toddler doesn't like most of the kids, which must be a sign of some kind.)

Being sick didn't help me make any strong social connections either. Part of this is due to being sick. I couldn't do all the mommy bonding events and that left me the odd mom out.

This may not seem like a big deal or maybe it appears over-dramatized, I don't know. What I do know is that it shook me to my core. I became very insecure about who I was and if I was worthy. I was called names and assigned unflattering labels. Spoken to like the lowest of the low.

So I've spent the last week going to my real friends, the people who've known me for decades, asking them what the truth was. Because I was no longer sure. Maybe I secretly was a horrible person and was just too dumb to see it.

But my friends have rejected that and reassured me the things that were said to me were not true. Even if they were, there were ways to address them with kindness and respect, neither of which were utilized the day of the mommy drive-by.

The whole experience has been emotionally wrenching for me. Some of it centered on the toddler's diagnosis, something she just received from the neurologist, which I may or may not delve into in a later post. The last time I shared anything about it, I was publicly ripped apart

2 comments:

  1. Wow, that is awful. I know it's not exclusive to women, but find the use of character assassination as a means of dealing with conflict to be one of the most despicable traits of our gender.

    I don't blame you for feeling so torn up about it. It's a horrible thing even in better circumstances. For someone who has more limited social engagement due to health problems, it can feel really devastating because your time and energy are in such short supply and are so precious. :( I wish you luck in navigating the path out of this group.

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  2. Aww hang in there. Life is too short for toxicity of any kind

    p.s. new blog address http://mastcellactivation.blogspot.ca/

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