The one where I whine a lot

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I am currently living with my aunt.  She is not my aunt by blood, she is chosen family, and she is white.  As I'm sure you can understand, this has made things complicated, because she has a variety of issues that aren't mine to share, but she is prone to shouting when she's upset, which distresses me, because yelling distresses me.

She makes me anxious, but I keep wanting her to be loving and supportive towards me, and even if she wants to, and she does, she is not mentally capable of offering me the emotional support I need, even though she is very generous about financial support, I've been living in her home rent-free for several months.

Now, I've known about some of her issues since before moving in, and others I learned after, but I will admit that I have fallen prey to dismissing a lot of her stuff, making her the bad guy in my personal narrative, just because I feel like I have no power over my life, and at least if I know who the enemy is, I have that much more control.  It's not right of me, and it's not fair, but that's what I've been doing.

Recently, I've been hearing more about issues that pertain to my aunt, but not me, and it makes me uncomfortable.  It frustrates me and it angers me and I wish it weren't so.  Because if I think of my aunt as human, I can't think of her as the bad guy anymore.  And if she's not the bad guy, does that mean I am?

Obviously, I know that there aren't really people who are purely bad or purely good and I have privileges just as she does, but I knew it academically before, in my head knowledge.  Now it's emotional knowledge that I really don't want to have.  The old adage of ignorance is bliss really holds true.

I have to reassess my perception of myself and my privilege as it pertains to her and to other people.  I just have to keep in mind that I am responsible for growing, noone is responsible for making me feel comfortable in my privilege.

So the long and short of this post is "I don't WANNA!"  With a temper tantrum for good measure.  As long as I do it anyway, I can pout in my head and just a little on my blog, I think.