Genna gehenna

Bad pain day.  So was yesterday, and the day before, but today is the worst.  I think it makes me remember the bad things that happen and forget the nice things.  Somehow it feels very isolating to be in pain and not have anyone notice.  I had Christmas lunch today with my extended family.  It was a struggle. 

I notice people’s attitudes to me gradually changing.  My aunt is warmer.  She sees me as a real person now, and talks about her garden and her work.  My cousin Rachel is warm too.  She doesn’t seem to look down at me at all.  My uncle, on the other hand, can’t stand me.  He used to be ambivalent and utterly disinterested, but in recent years I feel his scorn growing steadily.  He thinks me uncouth.  It’s a bit odd, really, because his wife and children come across as much better mannered than him, yet he’s the one acting – for want of a better word – snooty. 

I wonder if his distaste for me is personal or comes more from a distaste for his family of origin.  It could be either.  Do I make social blunders?  Of course!  I’ve spent my entire life in social isolation.  I think it’s a wonder I generally come across as normal.  My uncle might find my occasional clumsiness unacceptable, or it could be a broader thing.  He makes a show of adoring his mother, of supporting extended family dinners for unity.  But underneath it I sense a huge raging current of rejection of the lifestyle and people he was raised with.  It’s as though he comes together with us only to reaffirm his own identity by lumping us together and then differentiating himself from us.  Am I misreading it?  He seems to take a spiteful satisfaction in reminding himself, ‘I am not like this; I am not like that.’  He is not religious, not hiding timidly from the world for being too "worldly".  He’s not socially stunted, not lower middle class, not poor.  He didn’t raise his children in an abusive, authoritarian manner, and they didn’t end up emotionally crippled as a result. 

Am I simply a symbol to him of all that he wishes to leave behind?  Am I, with my chronic illness and psychological scars, the epitome of what’s wrong with the church our respective parents raised us in?  Is that the reason for his scorn?  Or is it my failure to measure up to his standards of success?  His politics have gotten awfully right-wing, and I don’t think he has any room in his heart – or his worldview – for the chronically ill.  No room for anyone who doesn’t gain for themselves great status, wealth or power.  To him, I believe, I’m a failure. 

As for me, mostly I’m dismayed that his disdain affects me so much.  I spent all my childhood and adolescence trying to connect with him, without success.  I’m over that.  I’m not seeking his interest or his company anymore.  But disgust from anyone still cuts me.