Drunk Uncle Boundaries Part 2

Wait, What?


Two days of nobody reading my blog and my self-esteem has crumbled to the ground. Haha. I just wanted a hundred views, and you surpassed that in a week, so I am very impressed with you all1 You’ve made my dreams come true! You’ve made me feel heard! “Drunk Uncle Boundaries” itself got the most views of any post so far! But you didn’t keep me accountable. It’s okay. It’s the holidays. All bets are off when it’s the holidays!

I returned from my crazy trip less than an hour ago, and it was a wild ride. I think I managed to accidentally or on purpose offend almost everyone in my family who I tried setting up boundaries with. I forgot one of the most important things about boundaries: I can’t control other people. I wanted to help everyone, and in trying to help everyone, I noticed bad things that had been happening for decades, and those weren’t going to change, no matter what therapeutic insight I threw their way. They weren’t looking for it. They weren’t open to it. And they didn’t want it to begin with! So I stopped trying. 

But how specifically did it go, you ask? One of my least favorite religious icons was praised by someone, and when asked why they liked him, when he went against everything the Bible said to do, they said things like “every time he talks, he makes me feel good” and “well, the way people believe is just their opinion”. Got called a narcissist. Tried to collaborate to help someone turn the hurt of the grieving into the healing of honoring the person so they would smile at remembering the person instead of crying every time they missed them. That person probably thought I was trying to close the chapter on the person who died like everyone else on her family, but I more than a lot of people know the dangers of wallowing in grief and what that can do to someone’s life. And honestly it takes someone from the outside to say “hey, this is how it’s affecting your life” to realize the damage and move on from it. It’s like a slap in the face.

I had to take five minutes to research trans issues because nobody in my family had the decency to do so. They were just “informed by the news” and were wrongly mistaken. I had five minutes of research on Google and enough encounters at my doctors office and talking to *gasp* TRANS PEOPLE to know how hard it is for them to get the simplest thing to BE trans. So no, they aren’t cutting up little boys and little girls “before they’re ready” or doing anything irreversible. Someone had the gall to mention “that girl has too masculine a voice for me” and oh the hell I would have unleashed if things had been different. But it was their opinion. And they’re entitled to their opinion. Just like I’m entitled to my opinion that you’re dead wrong for saying someone is too masculine or feminine for you. I mean, have that opinion. Just keep it in your head like everyone else does.

And that was just the first night. So how am I doing with boundaries?

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