Because just what you need when you're trying to get through depression is an email like that...

I have been upset for the past 6hrs or so since I read the email that has prompted this post. Here is my response. I have tried very hard to respond like a mature adult because the last thing you want to do when complaining about someone treating you like a child is respond like one. I don't know if I succeeded - probably not as well as I would have liked - but it sure is better than what I would have wrote if I'd replied earlier.

To ___,

I'm sure it wasn't your intention, but your email comes across as that I am not welcome to come and stay with you. Also I feel like you are treating me like a child. I am certain that you would have expressed your house rules differently if you had been writing to an adult friend who was coming to stay with you.

Possibly you are lumping me in with ____. I hate it when people do that. I am not him.

I do not feel like coming to stay with you or even coming up for Easter lunch any more. I will think about it tomorrow and may change my mind but at this point I am not coming. I would rather be lonely by myself here and struggle with my depression on my own, than impose or be treated like a child.

Regards,

Jess

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Would a mature adult have just "let it go"? I know the person who wrote to me probably didn't mean to upset me. I know that they've been super busy recently and probably typed it out without thinking about how they were coming across. On the other hand I have no doubt that if they had been writing to a friend who was coming to stay with them they would have expressed things differently (regardless of how busy they were).

I'm reminded of a chapter from one of my favourite books. Since quoting the chapter would take up too much space, I have just included a couple of the most pertinent paragraphs here (emphasis mine):

"[...] there are things you can do when you react with pain and hurt to what another is being, saying, or doing. The first is to admit honestly to yourself and to another exactly how you are feeling. This many of you are afraid to do, because you think it will make you “look bad.” Somewhere, deep inside of you, you realize that it probably is ridiculous for you to “feel that way.” It probably is small of you. You are “bigger than that.” But you can’t help it. You still feel that way.

There is only one thing you can do. You must honor your feelings.

[....] Yes, the things that others think, say, or do will sometimes hurt you — until they do not anymore. What will get you from here to there most quickly is total honesty — being willing to assert, acknowledge, and declare exactly how you feel about a thing. Say your truth — kindly, but fully and completely. Live your truth, gently, but totally and consistently. Change your truth easily and quickly when your experience brings you new clarity.

No one in right mind, least of all God, would tell you, when you are hurt in a relationship, to “stand aside from it, cause it to mean nothing.” If you are now hurting, it is too late to cause it to mean nothing. Your task now is to decide what it does mean — and to demonstrate that. For in so doing, you choose and become Who You Seek to Be."

- Conversations with God Book 1