Bullying neighbor
So I'm struggling with depression and anxiety and one of the worst triggers is my next door neighbor. She lives there with her son, and whenever the weather allows it she is outside on the garden with him. The thing is she's always making mean snipy comments, indirectly, but clearly about me and my husband. She gossips to the other neighbors putting us in a bad light and telling the children in the playground to stay away from us that we are dangerous people. I feel really socially distanced because of this and am anxious for my own neighbors because I've on occasion have been verbally abused by them as a reaction to her lies. People actually seem to believe her without hearing my side of the story. I feel anxious and lonely, I'm trying so hard to make a connection with my neighborhood, i offered to help clean the playground, i turn the water sprinklers for the kids on in the summer, i try to be friendly to the people I meet in the street. But they always seem to ignore me or glare at me. I really don't know anymore how to feel better about this. Moving doesn't seem like a viable option either. As there's a shortage of housing and it's really hard to find another house. Any tips on how to not get pulled down by this behavior? I'm a bloody adult and i feel like I'm stuck in the unpopular club of high school all over.
Your neighbor is acting quite immature, and your worries, reasons, feelings are all accepted without doubt. Nobody deserves to be made to feel like this, it's a shame we live in such a world where people spread and believe in all sorts of rumours and ill talks. I'm sorry I'm not sure how to advice you, but I'm here and support you in everyway, I really hope your neighbor starts to realise what she is doing is really toxic and eventually stops doing it. Wish you a better day:) Stay strong, everything you feel is valid and accepted:)
I am so sorry you are feeling disconnected from your neighbors...I have been in your situation before and you can't make people like you. I would stop putting effort into those relationships and start seeking healthy relationships in church, or community groups...I have found my church family to be supportive, but most of all I found that Jesus brought me out of a similar situation when my name was being dragged through the mud and nobody wanted to be around me...this is just my personal experience, if you want me to tell you more of my experience just reply...
Thank you both for your support. It means a lot to have people to talk to online about my feelings who will not just tell me to stop feeling this way or just to ignore her. Those are advices I get daily from friends and family, but they don't understand that it's really hard to ignore these feelings if you are living right in the middle of a constant reminder. I have tried over and over to tell myself just to ignore her, yet the sound of her voice makes me feel angry and powerless. It feels unfair that while she is making my (and my husbands) life a living hell that there is nothing I can do to stop her. I have went to the police, to the renting company, I have tried going to a mediator to come to terms with her and tried to get along for years only for her demands to get higher and higher. She's unreasonable and she literally tells people on the phone in her garden, so she makes sure we hear her, that she wants to 'bully us away' out of our own house. I just can't seem to come to terms with the fact that we live in a society where this kind of behaviour is simply gotten away with and there is nothing to do against this kind of injustice.