Tough

I drew up a list of positive and negative influences in my life. Thankfully for me and years of working at it, my list of negative influences is very very short. My list of positive influences is inexhaustibly long. So for the most part it doesn't represent a dramatic reorganising of my life.

Just before Christmas last year I had the unpleasant task of telling my mother she was borderline negative influence on my life. She had returned home with the impact of an atom bomb, I can only speak for myself but I had survivors guilt (I moved out of home for the summer) and decided the only right thing to do was address it directly. So I told her she was a borderline negative influence.

She took it well, she approached me shortly afterwards to tell me it was the single most hurtful thing she'd ever heard in her life. I gave her a hug. I didn't get upset though to see her distress, the fact was that she had well and truly picked up the 'vibe' of it anyway.

Anyway that's in the past and now is now, after 4 months back overseas my folks have returned yet again, this time for 10 days. It's pushed me to the brink of sanity. I was going through a down period anyway and am in the middle (quite literally) of completing assignments. Because they are here only a brief time I am stuck in a dilemma.

Ideally I would just be able to suck it up and wait it out. Except Janice is in my hair, I can't live like this. I can't hack it I can't take it, it's killing me. Within 6 hours of her arrival I was ready to get all Meatloaf to her Gary Bussie.

I need all my self control to study, not stop myself from telling Janice where to go. She senses the cold shoulder though (which is as good as I can manage. Emotions are hard to hide) and has an almost pathological need to confirm it is there. By asking me inane questions which in turn is more infuriating and distracting and...

and...

I have tried being direct but nice and informing her I have assignments to do and if she would kindly leave me be, get out of my hair I would appreciate it. That didn't work.

I've fallen back on passive aggressive tactics, like describing how much I appreciate unsolicited advice. That was met with unsolicited advice.

I don't know what to do, but I'm afraid I'll do something, and it won't be pretty.