OP here--updating. Family friend has agreed to take my one dog (she offered when she heard the story) my mother & step father have not called me since the conversation and I havent called them either--dont really have anything to say right now. Leaving monday! Thanks for all the advice. Sometimes my family tells me I am overly sensitive or over react so I always approach my feelings towards them with caution!
Y'know. given this one example that *we* have, I would suggest you strongly consider the possibility that this is one of those counter-attacks that people do when they know deep down that they are rude but they don't want to admit it and apologize. It may not be you at all--it may be them.
Though, wait--maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe we have TWO examples. Did you get the 'you're too sensitive' reaction when your mom and your stepdad stranded you without a ride by reneging on whether they'd give you a lift back home?
If so, then don't even consider that "counter-attack" as a possibility. Consider it to be a certainty.
I completely agree.
For years - most of my life, in fact - I got the "you're too sensitive" and "don't be such a drama queen" lines from my whole family. Easter weekend, my mother was "watching" the kids (my sisters and mine) while I was prepping food for dinner. Suddenly, I spotted LK out of the corner of my eye heading towards the stairs. She was an inch away from stepping right off the top step and tumbling down. I should note, these are hard steps that go to a hard floor below. LK, like her momma, tends to not watch where she goes and often requires an extra vigilant eye for this.
I dropped what I was doing, sopping hands and all, and grabbed her in two long strides across the kitchen while yelling "LK, STOP!"
My mother then launched into me about being a drama queen and continued on about how I'd always been such a drama queen and I need to trust that LK will learn to use the stairs. After all, she's a year and a half and plenty old enough to know how to go up and down stairs. Etc. Yadda yadda, and on and on.
I told her that LK has enough bruises for now, thanks, and she doesn't need more. Then I put LK under the care of her
7 year old cousin. She was safer under the care of my niece than she was with my mom. And then I completely ignored my mother while she continued to rib me about being such a drama queen.
If my kid is about to tumble head first down a flight of stairs, I don't care if I look like a "drama queen", I'm going to stop it from happening. Same thing if she's about to touch a hot stove, put her hand in a lion's mouth, or kiss a tarantula.
(Incidentally, this is the story I alluded to in my "shiny spine" thread - apparently I'd said my piece so casually with the same tone you might use to say "Oh, no thanks, but thanks for the offer" to a cup of tea).
As I have been building my own shiny spine, I have gone back over all the incidents growing up where I was a "drama queen" or "dramatic" or "too sensitive" or "over-reacting", and I began to recognize a pattern where it was rarely MY behaviour that was out of line - it was nearly always theirs. My reactions have pretty much always been appropriate to the situation.
So, mad OP, because your mother and step father promised to do something for you and backed out of for no good reason and with very little warning? That's not overly sensitive. That is well placed and reasonable anger at upsetting behaviour.
