What does it mean to be "wearied with their teasings"? Mosiah 7:1

What does it mean to be "wearied with their teasings"? Mosiah 7:1

I think that this phrase really jumped out to me the last time I read the Book of Mormon because it perfectly encapsulates the way that I feel when people, especially people I love, tease me too much.

Synonyms for weary include: make tired, annoy, depress, dishearten, bore, exhaust, irk, exasperate, fade, burden, cloy, debilitate, distress, disgust, sink, overwork, harass, enervate, fatigue, and sicken.

Here's a secret about me. I am pretty sensitive to teasing. Sometimes it makes me laugh, and sometimes I shrug it off. My husband teases me a lot. But his teasing is usually very gentle and tame. I also know to expect it. He does it for a reaction. It is a way of flirting, I guess. I know what to expect because I've lived with him for over a decade.

For example, I decided to buy a mint chocolate chip icecream last week. I haven't bought that kind for about nine years, because I know Danny doesn't like it. He always says that mint-anything tastes like toothpaste. I decided to buy that kind because I like it, plus a kind I knew he would like. I mentally prepared myself for the teasing that would come. When he makes his toothpaste comment, I am going to affirm that it is just fine for me to buy icecream that I like, too. That scene played out exactly as predicted.

Sometimes my mood is not predictable or under my direct control. Sometimes I reread a series of written texts that I've had and am really shocked, later, to think about how differently they read when I am in a totally different mood. I have to be very careful, very much on my guard, to make sure that I don't trust my emotions. They aren't trustworthy. They are fickle. They change. They aren't based on good data. They're probably based on some stupid combination of hormones that I can't control directly. I don't like it. But that's how it is.

My mom cannot stand teasing. Not even a little bit. She is not capable of understanding sarcasm. Rather, she has to be, since she lives in a world full of sarcasm, and her four children have pretty sharp wits (especially my younger sister Sarah, probably the wittiest person I know). But she doesn't really speak that language, and it doesn't suit her when she tries. She is much better at speaking genuine, heartfelt words. She loves to talk about what she's reading, and she's always reading something, which you should talk about with her if you get the chance.

I was raised in a house that had very little friendly teasing. Danny's house, on the other hand - that is how people expressed affection. It has been challenging sometimes for me to force myself to remember that it's just a way of saying, "I notice you."

Self-deprecation, self-teasing - even that can be cloying to my soul. I want to admire myself, not to feel so...wearied by my own feelings of inadequacy, even the ones that are kind of funny. I don't especially love the mental image of plastering spreadsheet wallpaper on my walls, even if it is kind of a funny mental image. I don't want to be pathetic. I want to be appreciated and loved.

But of course, teasing isn't a signal of being unappreciated or unloved. It just sometimes can feel that way because feelings are dumb.

Answer:
King Mosiah's people were constantly asking, teasing, annoying, badgering, pestering, provoking, aggravating etc. him about the people who went to live in the land of Lehi-Nephi, so he sent 16 strong men to try to find them, including my favorite person from the entire Book of Mormon, Ammon. But more on that in some other post.

Update: Danny and my daughter Jane tell me that there are actually two Ammons in the Book of Mormon, and that the one who is my favorite is not this one.