Every now and then we're forced to take a look at our lives and re-evaluate our situations.
This is something I've been forced to do recently. It's never an easy decision to make - cutting someone completely from your life - but, unfortunately, sometimes, it's necessary.
On the run up to Christmas I deleted my Facebook in the attempts to ease the pain at the upcoming celebrations. it would have my sons first Christmas - he'd have been 11 months old - and we'd planned on ignoring the holiday completely.
It didn't go as we'd planned.
Throughout the year we'd been dealing with a family member writing daily status updates about Edward. I'm not completely unreasonable - although under the circumstances I think I'm allowed to be a little unreasonable - I understand there are a lot of people who didn't get to play the roles they were meant for. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. But, this person took over sole responsibility of grieving.
No matter what kind of day we were having would be upset as soon as we logged on to Facebook. It was a daily reminder of what we've lost. They'd comment on everything anyone would put up about Ted. Every picture, every status, there they'd be with a like and a comment and eventually it just became too much.
This, along with the updates from my best friend about her son, made it difficult. (I do want to point out that I love the updates from my friend. Her son is the cutest little thing and I love them both dearly. However, because he was born the day after Edward died, looking at him is sometimes a reminder of where Edward would be if he were here.)
After deleting my Facebook, I became a lot more unreachable. My mobile phone had completely died some months previous and I'd been using Facebook as something of a messaging service.
Paddy hadn't deleted his, but you don't always want to go through someone's partner to get hold of them.
Closer to Christmas Paddy messaged the family member asking them to stop the status'. He'd wanted to do this for a while but I'd always told him not to. But I don't want to be the person to tell him what opinions he can and cannot have about his own son. That's not my place.
We'd read through the message several times to make sure everything made sense and it wasn't rude or hurtful in anyway. The initial message we got back was filled with understanding and apologies. The next was not.
This person has been in a relationship with a controlling man for the past two years. This man was once in a relationship with my best friend, (I live in small town) and it ended the day he tried to kill her. (so NOT joking) Needless to say, we do not get on.
You could tell the minute she'd shown him the message because the air of the message became hostile and the writing was not her own.
She continued her onslaught against my partner, calling him some awful names and even bringing up the fact that she'd helped to sort out Edward's funeral bill.
When we left to visit Paddy's family for a while, everything calmed down - for us at least - and we were completely stress free.
When we returned, it took less than a day to realise that nothing had died down at all.
The family member had thrown a fit, writing status after status slagging off both my partner and myself. It annoyed me a little that she's clearly not grasped any of the points we'd made, but what upset me more were the comments written by others underneath.
People that I've known my entire life now feeling that they had the right to have a public opinion on my son's I re-death and the right to question my grief. Anger took hold of me and I re-activated my Facebook.
I wrote a comment on the one status that upset me the most. Only one. I pointed out that I was the mother of the child as well as the object of slander. The entire status was deleted after that. I also wrote my own status, stating why I re-activated my Facebook as well as setting a few things straight.
I've not said anything else on the matter - I've said what I needed to say - and I've also not spoken to the family member since.
Just because someone is related to you or you've known someone for a long time, does not mean you owe them your time.
If someone is poisonous to your life and they don't make you feel good about yourself, you don't need them.
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