Toxic People Part 2: The Wacky Neighbor

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm doing something wrong. How do I keep ending up around people who lie and manipulate situations? There seems to be a string of people who come into my life and end up leaving it with the opinion that I'm a villain.

Most recently my neighbor has been going around telling people that I'm running the neighborhood like a dictator. Here's the hardest part, my husband and I have gone out of our way to help this woman and her family. There have been times when I have dragged my poor husband into situations he would rather not be in because we wanted to be good neighbors. We have taken her grocery shopping when she couldn't drive, started teaching her son how to drive, fixed and paid for our shared fence, picked things up for her from the store, etc. We even brought her over some Thanksgiving food because she told us that all she had was split pea soup. Throughout all of this, she has only brought negativity. We were constantly trying to give her a positive perspective instead of the negative ones she's always coming up with and quite frankly it was tiring.

Since we met her, I got the sense that she perceived us to be "better than her." We try not to communicate that. We are sincere in what we do. There's no pretense or malicious motivation behind our actions and we very much try to be humble in our approach. But I do understand that some people are intimidated by that and may perceive it in an arrogant way.

She is a substitute teacher and she has two grown sons in their twenties. One son lives with her and doesn't do anything, while the other is going to college. Right before Christmas break she kept repeating that she and her sons were going to be at home for two weeks essentially stuck because her license has been temporarily suspended (and neither son has a driver's license). She also mentioned how much they love watching movies. We have two big binders of movies, probably several hundred total. I had only sincere motives when I offered to lend them our binders. I told her that she and her sons could keep them throughout the break. This is going to sound strange but somehow I feel like this was the tipping point. She wasn't all that excited about borrowing our movies but when she told her sons, they were thrilled. We brought the movies over the next day and both sons, especially the one that lives with her, were wide-eyed about our movie selection. They made comments about how great our taste in movies were. That's when I felt it in the air. There was a strange heaviness. My husband and I were having great conversation with her sons and she kept trying to take our attention away from her sons with different topics other than the movies. Anyway, it was a short visit because we were on our way to dinner. I brushed off that eerie feeling.

She's constantly texting random things. She speaks that way too. It's very difficult to keep track of what she's saying because she speaks fast and jumps from topic to topic to topic. Sometimes she says things that are so random you wonder if you've missed something. Eventually you come to realize that she just says totally random things in the middle of other conversations. We had, from the beginning, nicknamed her "Chatty."

So the next day she sends me a string of random babble and within that string of texts she mentions that they have not watched a movie from our collection yet. That's it. Later that night she texts me that they watched several of her movies and none of ours. The next day she texts me that they watched one of our movies but two of hers. The following day she says again that they watched only her movies. She adds that they prefer her movies. A couple days later she texts that they have only watched one of our movies and watched almost all of hers so she's going to return our movies to us. It was already strange that she was giving me an update about it almost every day, but it's as if she was trying to "win" some kind of competition against us. Very odd.

Then things got even more interesting. Her text messages and live conversations started to delve into my pregnancy. She was lecturing me about not knowing what labor is like and how much she loved her epidurals. I am having a natural birth and she staunchly disagrees with my decision. I don't know why or how she became so vested in my labor decision. She would tell me how lucky I am that I don't have to work but I would if I had to, etc. I responded by saying that I'm skeptical of luck and if I were in a situation where I had to work, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant. We planned this pregnancy and we planned it specifically so I wouldn't have to work. I wouldn't consider that luck. But maybe this is where I should have kept my mouth shut and just let her and people like her believe whatever they want. I could have simply said, "yes, I'm very lucky."

She began to really get on me about my labor decision and her negativity was bringing me down. I stopped responding to most of her text messages and when I would respond it would be short and to the point. I didn't want to continue the labor conversation with her because we simply had two differing views and quite frankly she has already had her kids. What I do with my labor has nothing to do with her.

Finally, the night that it all blew up. We saw her at our HOA board meeting. During the meeting she kept trying to drone on and on about her sob story as she always does in almost every conversation. Anyway, after the meeting there was pizza and snacks, paid for by our other neighbor, the HOA President and us. While we were having great conversation, she kept trying to bring the attention back to whatever she was saying. The President, his roommate, and I were talking about my baby's name being associated with the tv show, Firefly. We were talking about it for only a few seconds when she chimes in about two other random shows that she watches that none of us had heard of before. Quite frankly we all ignored her and continued on with our conversation that segued into my labor. The President and his roommate were ecstatic about my natural labor decision (a rare reaction) and we all began having a great positive conversation about it. Then Chatty started getting defensive and asking the roommate things like, "have you ever had a kid?" I could feel her tension growing. The rest of us were totally chill and relaxed and having a good time. Then when the roommate was going to start telling me a story about her friend she began by saying, "My friend did the whole Kaiser approach..." and she was interrupted by Chatty erupting into, "You know what, I'm gonna leave because now you're just pissing me off! Don't dis Kaiser!" I said, "No one's "dissing" Kaiser." Then she just spouted off like a madwoman about how she's 20/30 years older than all of us and she storms out of the house yelling, "You don't have to be all religious about it!" Meanwhile, she made sure to grab TONS of food to take home with her while she was yelling at all of us. She not only was being disrespectful by causing a scene in someone else's house, she pulled the ultimate trashy move by taking a bunch a food with her!

She left and we were standing there wondering 'what the hell just happened?!' Funny enough, none of us were all that surprised. The moment you meet her, you sense there is an instability about her. Maybe this should have been my cue to keep our distance. But I was so engulfed in my desire to be good neighbors and have a neighborhood where we all look out for one another. I think maybe idealism is just another word for naivety!

A few hours later, she emails the board and the property manager that she's resigning as a board member and goes on and on in an email that insults us all.

The next day she texted me. This is what she said verbatim:

Thanks for loaning the binders. We three only used Collateral. None of the others appealed to us. Sorry. We watched nearly all of mine as I have a lot. Plus we prefer old black and whites. All good. I am minimalistic so I don't like having a bunch of stuff I don't need hence why I left the TMG book for another person. I have too much on my plate and too long. That said, I left the originals of copies in side of binder...that Bryan copied a mo ago..I d like those back. But no rush..just forgot to take them out. It's old junk anyway. Kari Jenny had a brain tumor when she was a child and has a metal shunt in her scalp that wraps around her pelvis. She had 2 c sections. Due to it. My friend who took me to work has a heart problem. She had 2 c sections. You show a lack of understanding AND you haven't experienced it yet and if you have complications, god forbid, thankfully there is a hospital near. And they also pamper you there. Been there, done that. I would never for me choose midwives and it's because of western meds that women don't die in childbirth like they did 100 years ago. It's a fact. I had both mine vaginally and had epidurals. I also worked fulltime with Jordan. You struggle with being pg but are so cock sure labors a cinch. Yet you have never been thru it. Good luck. Arrogance and know it all ness are turn off. And Kaiser saved my life..so I defend what is true and for others situations.

My response to her:
I have worked hard to keep negativity out of my life. I don't need your assumptions and false accusations especially while I'm pregnant. Everything you are attributing to me is incorrect and the way you're going about it is rude, condescending, and just plain mean. Please do not contact me again.

She texted back:
Oh you poor girl. No ones negative..u r young.

My text to her:
I won't ask again. Please do not contact me.

Notice that she AGAIN spoke of the movies. TOTALLY WEIRD! Anyway, I think she was stunned that I decided not to continue to engage her. She is boiling in her anger because I have cut off a pipeline. I'm simply not going to put up with this type of behavior. I have grown impatient and no longer give people ample chances. I have never said I was against modern medicine and never ever did I say or even imply labor would be easy. When I speak of labor, yes I am excited. I'm ready for it. I know it's going to be hard and I know it's going to hurt...A LOT! But that doesn't mean I'm scared. I'm looking forward to it. Maybe that's what she views as my arrogance? How else am I supposed to view labor? With fear? No thank you. That's just not me and I'm okay with her view. She can fear it all she wants. She's not the one giving birth to my baby.

Anyway, the bottom line is she's now telling people that we're evil and essentially we're not good for the neighborhood. We have done nothing but work hard for this neighborhood and she knows it. Everything we do is for the good of the neighborhood. We're not hoodwinking anyone but all of a sudden we're the evil villains that have to be watched. I particularly have busted my ass for this HOA and for her to attempt to put a dark cloud over it upsets me. I know I shouldn't let such an unstable person get to me, but it's hard not to let it seep in just a little, especially when she's attempting to convince others.

I would say that all of this will die down eventually but this is a women who still talks about her divorce like it was yesterday (it was 20 years ago). I just wish we would have kept our distance from her earlier. I should have known not to get too close to such a person, neighbor or not. Are we foolish for trying to help her? Should we not change the way we approach people or should we learn from this and not try so hard?

Maybe it all comes back to balance. We tried too hard to help her when we should have been realistic about her instability and kept our distance. Because in the end, helping her too much created a higher probability of chaos than if we were to have just been cold to her. Helping her too much has turned into negativity so how much did we really help her?

Toxic People

I haven't written a blog post on any of my blogs in months! The reason being that I'm pregnant and have had a rough go of it. I started this one, Leftover Casserole, as a diary of sorts. I hadn't had any inspiration to write in it as most of my thoughts and feelings were more suited toward my other blogs that were specifically oriented toward certain subjects; politics, movies, superficial rants, and food (on Instagram). Further, any conflicting personal feelings I had I have been able to discuss them with my husband or my sister and feel a sense of satisfaction or closure with the issue(s).
What I realized is that sometimes I want to plot out my feelings or even just free write about it. That somehow speaking about it doesn't create that deep reflection the way writing about it does.

Since being pregnant I have filtered through many social interactions and relationships with a different lens. My perspective has already changed and I haven't even given birth yet. There were many people in my life that were either negative and/or toxic. I decided that I needed to make hard decisions on who I let in my life because whoever is in my life will be in my baby's life. If these people affect me in ways that does not make me feel good, my daughter, whether directly or indirectly, will surely receive that negativity as well.

Previously, I would keep toxic people in my life and reconcile it because they're family. In other situations, I would egotistically convince myself that I'm doing them some good by staying in their lives. Overall, I did not value myself enough. I thought that having relationships with these people required a sacrifice on my part; that somehow I needed to give up my well-being because social construct "told" me to keep these relationships.

I decided to throw out my perceived social pressures. I evaluated the people in my life and removed toxic people. I thought it was going to be very difficult, both practically and emotionally. It was not. I was surprised at how easy it was and continues to be. I wrap my decision in my motherly instinct to protect my daughter, but a part of me thinks she was just a catalyst to help me value myself more.

I cut out three family members, one friend, and significantly reduced my contact and communication with a fourth family member. That may sound crazy...and maybe it is. But one thing I know is that my mental and emotional health has drastically improved since doing so. I am at peace with my decision.

I could easily list off why those particular people got the ax from my life but that's for another entry. What I am coping with now is filtering out new toxic people. I'm trying not to label people toxic too soon as to give them the benefit of the doubt that they may not be as toxic as I immediately assess them to be. That's not working out very well. My initial assessments of people are accurate. Giving people the benefit of the doubt is leading me into that negativity cesspool. I can see the signs of destruction, yet I still want to believe that I won't be lead into the darkness. That somehow I'm wrong about them and they'll prove it to me! Why do I continue to be slow on the ax? Granted lately it's been much faster. It took all my life to ax my family members and several years to ax my friend. Recently, I have removed one person almost immediately and am trying to figure out how to remove one that entered my life 7 months ago.

Why would I think I would be able to prevent all the negative people from entering my gates? I don't have a magic meter! Right? Or do I? Am I not listening to my instincts enough? Am I hoping too much? Am I somehow holding onto hope that these people are good because I'm afraid I'll cut too many people out and begin to isolate my family?

Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. I have always been able to assess people quickly, I just haven't made it a habit to use that as a determination of whether I should let them into my life. I guess I never really thought I had that power. The power to create my own sphere. The power to say I don't want you in my life. I thought if they were in my life, there was nothing I could really do about it. With that complacency I think I may have actually facilitated the exact opposite. By not being proactive about limiting or eliminating the relationship, I'm actually cultivating it to grow to become a larger part of my life.

A part of me feels sympathy for these people. I'm sad for them. I wish I could remove their pain. This is the most difficult part of it all. Dealing with reducing and/or eliminating contact with these broken people is tricky because they're already vulnerable. But I need to be realistic. I don't have the power to fix them. If I don't protect myself and my family from them, I may end up broken myself.