Very small instance, but it really, really bugged me.
I(16f) had a hard day today, with much mental and physical stress. I was working all day, and was excited to come home, eat, and go to sleep. The rule in my 5 person household (2 sisters, me, mom and dad) is that whoever cooks doesn’t have to clean and the rest of the family should help out. Despite this, I was the only one in the kitchen cleaning il the mess my dad made. I was grateful he cooked, so I didn’t complain.
While I was washing dishes and watching the rest of my family sit on their phones at the table, I called out to ask if anyone could help me move out heavy cast iron pans back into the oven (I admit that I can totally do it, but I hate it and they’re really heavy. It was just a simple ask that wouldn’t take too long and would really lighten my load so I could clean the stove). My sister mumbled out a ‘yeah’ but neither she nor the rest of my family moved, so I asked again. I said “No? Nobody? Okay, whatever.” It was sort of snarky, I know. I moved the pans and cleaned the stove. While I was moving them my dad asked “oh, are you doing it?” and I was sort of annoyed so I responded with a tone that reflected it. My sister got defensive and said that I should’ve specified that I needed help NOW not later, and that they couldn’t read my mind. I said that none of them had helped clean up, and asked when else I would be asking for the help to be given? I said that instead of making me read THEIR minds, they could’ve asked “now?” to clear up their confusion. I wasn’t even totally sure they’d heard me the first time. I said that if someone asked me for help and didn’t specify when, I would assume they meant now, not whenever I felt like it. I kept kind of going off like this, which I feel bad for because it was just my last straw of the day, but it might have been a shitty thing to do.
NAH. Look, I’m not saying your family was being great, but they were being pretty normal lazy about helping especially when they knew you could do it alone. Their behavior doesn’t sound like it justifies your reaction, and by the end of the post it sounds like you start to realize this.
What really happened here is that none of this was ever about cast iron. This was about you having a hard day and wanting love and support, so you asked for a minor favor from your family so you could feel like you weren’t alone and carrying everything (literally and figuratively) by yourself. So when they didn’t jump to help you, it felt like them saying they didn’t love you and it felt like you being even more alone. That made you sad which made you scared and overwhelmed and so you lashed out in anger, so that they’d HAVE to pay attention to you and you can get some general frustrations out on them.
You’re 16, and many adults never learn to do this, but instead of asking if your family are jerks the first question to ask is “why does this bother me so much” so you can figure out what you need. And then you can go to your family and say sorry I lost it, it was a rough day and I needed to feel loved and cared for and I should just say that instead of trying to do a lot of subtext with a pan.
Your family loves you. You had a pretty normal reaction. No one is a monster here, just a lot going on. Give yourself and your family grace.