How it went with my phobic sister

I spent a while preparing mentally for my sister's visit and it went better than expected. I untangled a lot of what I think her transphobia is about, which isn't purely transphobia but more of a general omniphobia, a fear of many things and an inability to understand much from another's perspective. All very narcissistic, in fact. 

I also feel now that the religious group she belongs to that seemed so anti-LGBT may actually be fairly mainstream and the activity I was worried about may be more of her projection of what she thinks it's about than its actual policies, beliefs and interests. Her extremist stance stems from the cultlike upbringing we both had. In fact, her group seem a bit naive and disorganised rather than aggressive activists.

Her main focus these days is no longer LGBT people but complaining about venues that play piped music, a campaign she's had going for years but which is reaching a head. Personally, I find piped music mildly irritating but not anything like enough to spoil my dining or shopping experience. If it did, I'd choose another venue. Not her. For her, piped music in a café, shop, station or wherever is a deliberate act of oppression. She has been campaigning against her local supermarket but their reply was that hers was the only complaint, that other customers seemed to appreciate the groovy background sounds and the staff certainly did. So she either has to put up with the preference of the vast majority of people in there or shop elsewhere, right? I fail to see why the shop has to have silence merely for the one and only customer who dislikes it to the extent that she claims her rights are being trodden on. 

And this illustrates her approach to most things. The universe needs to bend to her will as she is allegedly suffering so much, yet she has no responsibility to accept other people's preferences or behaviours, however innocuous, or the mere existence of things that trigger a revulsion instinct in her. To illustrate, she has always had a fear of caterpillars and most other bugs, which is a common enough phobia, but instead of getting help to overcome it, other people have to assist in getting rid of the insects oppressing her. A friend of mine used to have crippling arachnophobia when we were students. He couldn't go in a room if it had a spider in it, get his bike out of the garage once because there was a spider there even though it was dead, and he couldn't walk down a street in a fishing village one day as the fishmonger's sign in the shape of an octopus reminded him of a spider. Then one day he realised his problem was crazy and he went and had therapy and, although he wouldn't say he now finds spiders cuddly, he at least has no problem chucking them out of the bathtub when necessary. So, he acknowledged he had a problem and he solved it. I shall pressurise my sister to get professional help on her phobias like bugs, piped music, unexpected noises, blue jeans, California, and all manner of other such oppressive things. If we start eliminating those irritants then I expect we may be able to work on the dislike she has for certain types of people, such as, I dunno, gay and trans people (or hippies or Anglicans or skateboarders, etc.), about whom she clearly knows so little. Bearing in mind, though, that after a certain age, people's habits are hard to change. 

 

I also began to challenge her unthinking bigotry as her doctrines seem to be very idiosyncratic and not at all mainstream. I got out of the crazed indoctrination of my upbringing when I was in my 20s; she hasn't and, in most ways, never will now but I think I can probably persuade her in due course that LGBT people needn't lie within the scope of her phobias as they are irrelevant to her. Besides, who's going to rid the world of all that piped music is she's busy gay-bashing? 

Given that she didn't spot that the clothes I was wearing, such as my Katie Mee shoes and Baby Angel jeans, were women's items, I think it's all a deeply introspective problem of her own.

So I think I have made some progress, at least, in establishing that her group are no more a threat to our community than many other religions are, and that we might be able to focus her attention on more constructive activities than complaining about the world being full of scary irritating things.

More than anything, I feel channels of communication can remain open rather than my having to give up on her altogether as I have had to do with my father.

 

My stash

I have booked a trip to England next week. Which will go ahead if strikes, especially in France but frankly just about everywhere, don't force me to rebook. 

The main thing to do is to go to my storage unit where the bulk of my possessions have been for nearly 5 years. And the most important items are in the 18 packing cases filled to bursting with lovely, delicious feminine clothes. 

Maybe I'll dive into heaps of dresses like Scrooge McDuck diving into the sea of dollars in his depository. It's been a long time, girls.

 

Sue x