Wounded

I have been confronted once again about how different the world is from my viewpoint to my family's viewpoint. It's been little things up to this point. This last incident was rather intense and it has taken a few days to gain the emotional distance necessary to analyze what went wrong. I'm still not entirely certain.

I will explain.

My youngest sister is not the most intelligent of people. This would be excusable if she had some kind of learning disability. Lynn doesn't. She just refuses to accept new information unless it supports her status quo, which currently consists of playing video games all day. She sees no reason to attempt to do anything with herself. She has been surviving because she hasn't left home yet. She hasn't sought a college education, not because she can't afford it (the Pell Grant was made for someone in her situation), but because she simply doesn't want to do so.

 This is so far removed from my viewpoint of always learn something new that I can't comprehend it. I have to know what something is and why it is like it is. I have to have the correct name for it. If someone tells me something that I didn't know, I ask "really?" and verify it as soon as possible.

Wednesday evening, I asked Lynn to send me the URL of a page that I had up on the main computer so that I could bring up the page on the laptop. She didn't know what that was. After I explained what I wanted, she called it a barcode. I pointed out that it wasn't actually called that and she dismissed it. When I pointed out that knowing that was kind of necessary to function, my other sister PJ exploded at me.

How dare I call Lynn names? Some people just have difficulties understanding information! When I pointed out that I wasn't calling Lynn anything other than willfully ignorant, I got a lecture about how I should love her because she's family. Needless to say that my explanation about it being my love that made me want to see Lynn better herself was met with a scathing review of how hypocritical it was of me to say that when I had to move back in with Mother after refusing to get a job and now spend most of my time on the computer, ignoring my daughters.

Never mind that I spend most of my computer time filling out applications with frequent breaks for the girls' needs. All of which PJ does not see due to her not living with Mother. Never mind that I frequently look things up for the girls. (They miss my stones almost as much as I do and looking up "pretties" is a frequent event. Both girls also love to play Minecraft and watch videos about it on Youtube. There's one that Lilium loves called Minecraft Oasis. She has a file named that on ours now. She spelled oasis as ouases. That's really close for a seven-year-old.)

PJ finished by saying that God loves us just as we are and my expectation of change was selfish and wrong. Then she stormed out. (She got waylaid at the door by my youngest showing her a picture. At least she wasn't stupid enough to snap at my baby. It might have come to blows.)

I was angry at first. Then the hurt made itself known. I have been trying so hard to keep everything together. There were times that I really had felt like I could not sink any lower only to find the ground sliding out beneath me again. It is impressive if I go an entire day without a panic attack or a crying spell. Or worse: disassociation. I have difficulty focusing and remembering things. Everything is becoming fuzzy, which is a stress in and of itself. To have a family member dismiss all my efforts so readily... it hurt.

Why can't they see? Why don't they understand? Why am I so different? What is so wrong with me that I cannot fit into my family?

It broke my heart and stabbed me with the shards of it. The wounds may be invisible, but they still bleed.