@KNOWITALL So remember I said I know how you feel? I am in a situation right now with my bff. What is happening is I am a vegetarian she is a meat eater. I was once a meat eater, I understand, but at the same time she is inconsiderate of my feelings towards it. Although I think in some crazy way she thinks she is being considerate. Take for example, while filling up the gas tank after finishing she gets in the car and says “You’re going to hate me! There was a bunch of bugs around the tank and I killed them.” Me: no answer. I’m thinking why would you tell me that? It bothered me the entire day.
Then you have my sister who said something uncalled for I’m not going to repeat it here to me while we were locked up in my small car on the highway (which is a manual that I am the only one who can drive) in rush hour traffic so I was stressed enough already not to mention I could feel the mania creeping up on me all day that entire day until it exploded in the car at the worst time. I almost killed my mother, sister and I. Where’s the cops when you need them? I was similar to this :/ But IMHO I hate the medias depiction of bipolar as “demonic”. Really?
Anyway, after all that I realized I had 2 choices:
#1 is that I can completely isolate myself from family and friends because I don’t like their behavior patterns…but who am I really?
And
#2 is to completely accept who they are as the people I have come to know and love, sometimes they have no filters, so sometimes I need to not take it so personal.
The issues of insensitivity with your cousins are theirs not yours, it is however your choice if you choose to let what they say control your life/thoughts. Ultimate forgiveness is when you choose to not let those things control you.
Forgive me for saying so, but if there is one thing to learn from your “sperm donor dad”, is that ignorance is bliss. I tell my brother’s son that all the time. My brother deadbeat dad has ignored my nephew as his son, and I mean you should learn a lesson from this. :) here is a good quote I tell my nephew, I think it fits you perfectly ;)
“Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.”
^Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer.”
― Douglas Adams, “Mostly Harmless”
I have come to realize that being a vegetarian not everyone cares about being sensitive to your feelings. And if you push all of those who you love away instead of understanding why or how it can lead to a very isolated life.