Supportive but Not

I hear the distain when friends/family talk about others with mental illness "I think she/he's doing it for attention, well they better not expect any from me!", "They should just Get Better!", "I can't believe they said that, again!" "I can't believe they're doing this to me." "You know I'm so tired after I worked All Day Long, you do nothing all day, how can you be tired?!" and yet they claim to be supportive.

Things have been going down hill, very quickly.

Today a friend, after I e-mailed her that I was canceling my classes tomorrow and wouldn't need her assistance with a ride, replied, "Will you or can you tell me what's going on? You don't seem yourself." Therefore I (wrongly) assumed I had a choice in telling her.

She has a LOT of other stuff going on in her life right now, so I replied that no, I was choosing at this time to not tell her so that she could focus on the other stuff in her life right then.

That got, "Oh. So I worry and not know why. I love being in the dark." Right, because this is all about you.

I know from prior history that she is fairly incapable of putting herself in someone else's shoes, even if she has been in a similar situation herself in the past. She just can't do it. So I try not to put her or myself in situations where I need her to do that for her to give support, as I know I won't get any, it will simply become all about her. As it quickly did today.

Finally I caved, I said, fine I will tell you a small portion of what is going on. And she never replied back. Maybe some of the things I said hit home, as phrases she has flung in my face while claiming to be supportive. I don't know. Maybe she's made it all about her. Or maybe she actually listened and decided that since I didn't want to talk right now, it would be unwise to try to force me to do so. I don't know.

Then later in the evening, my mother made a comment about "That poor church has to do an entire addition to become complaint with ADA. In Europe they never do things like that! People are just expected to get better! [ie they should do that here too!]" Right because disabled people should be excluded if they can't walk up stairs. I should have expected such a comment out of her, but still it caused such shock. I can't believe people can be such bigots, and one is my own mother. My own mother who has a disabled daughter, a father with Alzheimers and is in a wheel chair, and a mother who has had 2 knee replacements and uses a cane. And she still doesn't get it. And I doubt she ever will.

I'm tired of that kind of 'support'. I'm tired of the double face. I'm tired of the comments, the off hand remarks, the distain, the looking down the end of their nose at you. I beat myself up enough as it is, I don't need their help in the matter.