As I have written before, I live in an affluent area and sometimes it is very tough. There are people wealthier then me who are nice people and some are friends so this is not an article putting down the rich. There are nice richer people. I would be classist to lump all the rich together. However there are some un-nice ones and trends in society where to be poor, they treat you like less then a human being. Sometimes I find these things hard to deal with. It gives me flashbacks to treatment from my family obviously.
When I told one friend, that the ex-friend [the local project friend] had refused to eat one thing in my apt for four years, she told me, "That's classism" right there. I told her, "There were times she saw the kitchen perfectly clean instead of a wreck", she told me, "It doesn't matter." It is something that always worried me. I have to admit, I feel more free and less stressed out, since the ending of this friendship. One new point, Never trust anyone who won't eat your food! Seriously, that is a major red flag. I was thinking about this too, My mother never would eat food I made either! She refused all meal invitations. Some of the weirdest things came to my mind much later. I realized my mother never was seen in public with me outside of the visit to the veggie stand since 1994. Some may ask what was important about 1994? Late in 1994 is when my extreme weight gain started.
This is one of the subtle things of class discrimination. People don't eat your food. They consider your house "dirty", because the rug is old even if you have bleached down the kitchen or every dish gets blasted by hot water in a dishwasher. It is a way to play superiority games. We see these played out and not so unsubtle levels.
Have you ever had a frenemy who refuses to eat food in your home?
Have you ever been told, you wear the same thing too many times?
Have you ever been told why don't you get a new carpet or your walls need painted?
Have you ever had someone look down their nose at you?
Have you ever heard gossip getting back to you where people make remarks about how little you own or how you have "nothing"?
You may have faced some classism.
Sadly some of us face classism in our own families too.
One moment of classism I had with my mother is glaring. She asked me "When was the last time you saw a dentist and got your teeth cleaned?" I told her honestly at that time it was 15 years ago. She was outraged and started screaming at me. I said, "Where was I supposed to get the money for it?" and then told her she was clueless about how people who were poorer lived. Today I have a charity dentist and lots of teeth cleaning and dental care but back then I hadn't found the program yet. I lived in a rural town with absolute no dental programs. This was one episode where sheer class blindness and narcissistic obtuseness ruled. She took her own comfort in life for granted.
I found out recently that wedding I was not invited to, that my cousin married someone who has MAJOR connections. He had famous people as friends on his Facebook account in media. I recognized the names of several. My cousin was connected enough with her very good job right out of college but he is definitely up a few levels. Do you think there is a reason my narcissistic mother made sure I was not invited to this wedding? I sure do. My mother isn't even a blood relative and I am. Aunt Confused's granddaughter married a man with multiple connections and whose father is a multimillionaire stock broker at a famous Stock Exchange and is friends with capitalists with recognizable names to those who read websites like Zero Hedge.
It's weird to see such a discrepancy of wealth in one family, and the narcissists all make sure to cut people off blood related or not. Would my father care that my mother managed to destroy my relationships with his family too? Probably not. I even wrote in my NC letter, that I noticed some of the family seemed to enjoy connections and never wanted for a job or anything while the rest struggled. This cousin who married the wealthy connected man came out of college and instantly had a high level job. I also noticed that ex-wife of a cousin went from bank teller to bank vice president within several years who was friendly with my mother. One thing when I was looking for a teaching job, had a full certificate and experience, my mother's best friend was one of the top administrators for a state department of education. I got no help or job leads. They got many friends jobs at their government agency.
Some may say, "Hey Nepotism sucks, people should make their own way!" And that's true to a point but you realize how the real world works, and that is what all the networking stuff is about isn't it? My mother got her government job through my father even sans college degree. I or my husband never got such intense breaks. Imagine having no college and you make $45,000 a year while being married to a husband that makes much more, doing easy 9-5 paperwork with full benefits, vacations and time off when you need it and you get to hold the job for 26 years, no lay-offs and full retirement. Is there any wonder my mother doesn't understand my life at all?
Facebook was like a veil-stripping place for me, in some odd ways. I noticed my sister and brother were friends of people my mother was friends with who I never met. Some of these were work friends. My mother was friends with all of my sister's friends and her in-laws. I noticed one cousin who I never met in my life with an odd name that was friends with everyone. How did I get left out? How did they know people I never even met. She really did hide me as an "embarassment" and kept me away from people. I simply was hidden away. I find myself wondering if she even told people she had a second daughter--I am the oldest. The proof for what I experienced was in the pudding. The always being put last, and treated like a nobody and ostracized not only from the family but extended family friends, and others in the community was right before my eyes.
One uncle works high level in one company and even owns a vacation home, while his brother and his kids struggle. Aunt Scapegoat who had plenty of classism to beat her down from all the narcissists, is also his sister and my mother's sister. This is my factory working lost boy uncle, whose three late 20 something old adult children still live at home working low level minimum wage jobs. Sadly they are scapegoated as well. My brother repeated to me, "Why are they such lazy bums?" Why don't they leave home?" I said to him, "why don't any of the others help them out?"
It makes me sick how the brainwashed of my family all echo my mother. I know one new target of my mother is my brother's girlfriend since suddenly I heard from two about how she wasn't taking care of my brother properly since his heart surgery. I defended her to one person but stayed out of it otherwise. Why do they all listen to my mother so intently? I will never understand.
I had intense classism with my sister. My sister actually lives on an allowance. This means I have more control over my household finances then she does. Would you want to be married to a man doling out a 100 dollars a week to you outside of his 200,000 a year salary or be married and share every dime where the money is considered "ours" and fully mixed together while being poor? I thought allowances for wives went out with the 1800s and the days women could not own property. I would take the latter. I was shocked my sister told me this, but it does not surprise me. She basically is a child in the house, being given dimes from her husband. The few times I saw my sister here nose would literal be in the air and she'd be tsking every minute.
One thing when you are no contact there will be a narcissist housecleaning, sometimes of your entire life, you start down the list with toxic destructive friends and then realize the other bullcrap you have been putting up with in various places.
It sucks when you face extreme classism from your family and then get more from the world. It is a place where oppression intermingles with the personal even more so. I have written about the shame of what was done to me before on this blog. It sucks when one's kinfolk form part of the chattering classes set only to look down on you for life.
When one is severely obese, I believe classism is worsened, because fat is such a class marker in America. To bear both poverty and obesity as my blog illustrates on multiple articles, is a very hard combo. Being fat would be bad enough. I had something recently happen to me where I am unsure how to handle it. Aspie life-skill books don't detail what to do when snobs kick you in the face.
Last week, I was at my stamp club, and this older lady in it, informed me that her and another member were meeting at her house to trade stamps. Most of my stamp club is far wealthier and have vast stamp collections that take up entire rooms. They are wealthy baby boomers and silent generation people with expendable incomes. Their lives have not matched mine. Several travel to stamp conferences all over the region. This would not be a problem for me but sadly I am being closed out despite my best efforts.
I love stamps and that gets me to show up and I can buy stamps at our meetings but I kept thinking I am seen as an "interloper" and felt I wasn't being "accepted". I thought "Oh maybe I am just shy" but then when the older lady told me her and the other member were meeting privately to exchange stamps, I thought, "Why wasn't I invited?" They closed down the Saturday informal meeting I used to go to and decided to visit each other in their homes instead and left me out. This bothered me and sadly I thought this had to do with my lower economic status. I haven't said anything but maybe I should. It's hard to fathom what to do.
So one gets this feeling of constantly being closed out, when you are poor. I do not think we imagine things but these things happen. The ironic thing is I would buy stamps at the club. Not a huge or giant amount but enough. With the stamp club I would keep going even if I don't have one friend in the group. It's sad I am going for the stamps not the people though.
I used to visit this rock and gem club years in town, and this crowd was even wealthier. I have a small rock collection of geodes and other rocks and minerals, which I like so decided to attend. One day they were gathering together some rocks to put on display. I brought in a very large rock myself. I can't remember the type it is, I used to know but here is the actual rock below so I was contributing to the display as well:
And I was going around and looking at everything and noticed the vice president of the club kept giving me the stink eye. Now at this time I had been attending for about a year and half though I missed some meetings from being housebound. She comes up to me and says in a vicious voice, "Some people just join this club to steal from us!" I took her in the eye and ask her "What are you saying to me, I've been in this group for a year and half, you have my address even, I'm not here to steal anything!" I got so upset, knowing I was around snobbish horrible people I walked out never to return. She chased after me and I would not stop or turn around, I was done. It would have been dangerous for me to stay as I could have been scapegoated by someone with ill intentions and that very well probably was her. I had one of the other members of the club return my donated rocks to the display and never went back.
There have been other and not so subtle events, such as even my leaving that church recently. While some other issues festered there, classism had something to do with it.
I have seen people who are poorer then me even ostracized. In my old town I had homeless friends. I would be chastised for even talking to these folks. It was crazy like someone not having money meant they were supposed to be tossed away. One told me how doctors and others treated her and it was not very nice. I was very hurt once in my old town when some gossip got back to me about me being poor. It is crazy. Who are these people who sit and measure people like this? I think America is growing into even more of a classist society. It's not just the going without but the meanness and stigma used for oppression.
What scares me is I deal with this much crap, and I am not homeless. I was even semi-stable working class for over 10 years of our marriage when my husband had his newspaper jobs. I live in basic 600-800 square foot apartments with bathrooms, and a tub and even have a dishwasher in this one. I have lived far far poorer in boarding houses and 1 room apartments, which makes now look like the Candy Days even being on social security and needing to visit food pantries from time to time. It's sick that I had to put up with this crap. And the me of today being NC two years, is done with the nonsense unloaded on on my head. I also have realized someone as disabled as me, did do the best they could with what they had. The snobs can shove it.
I don't like snobs of any sort. They make me ill. I'm done trying to impress anyone so my patience for the snobs of the world which include my mother and many members of my family has grown very very thin. Snobs hurt people. I see the classist discrimination they give to others. They live by pushing people down and competition at all costs. In our growing narcissistic society, classism is growing far worse.
People who are classist against people are committing evil. One thing about those who become snobs, is they care most about conformity. They seem like empty people where everything is about materialism and comparing their shopping habits. Life becomes about showing off one's acquisitions and status and bragging about vacations and children as trophies. I am not sure what do about these local snobs. Walk away from them because I am not here to reform them is the only answer I have while finding the nice people [even ones in different socioeconomic classes then me] who treat people and me like human beings.
