I was on the phone with my mother the other day, and she let me know that my aunt told her that my cousin in Brooklyn just got laid off. That’s sad news, I responded, but I’m sure he’ll find a new job soon if he looks hard enough. She then added he was given six months’ severance paid at 100%. Okay, I said, if I felt sorry for him at all, all of that has now quickly dissipated. Who gets six months 100% paid severance after getting laid off?

She suggested I call him “to comfort him,” and I balked and told her the idea was ridiculous. When the entire country was in a recession in early 2009 when I got laid off and stayed unemployed for almost three months, where was my cousin to “comfort” me? He never called once, and at the wedding of his brother that I flew to attend, he barely said one word to me because he was angry I told him to stop complaining so much. That was a cue to him to stop calling or reaching out to me at all.

I told her I don’t want to spend any time on my ungrateful cousins or my psychotic aunt anymore. No more unneeded family dysfunction; the wedding was the end of the “optional” contact. The most I’m willing to tolerate at this point is just the dysfunction of my parents, and even that, I can only take in small doses.