Ho-ho-honesty about the holidays

[debkor]

Hi gjazz,

You made me laugh outloud about being pissed off about potato's.  I thought about last year when I went on a rant and  went off and was very pissed about the potato's myself.  It went like this.....

LEAVE MY POTATO'S ALONE..YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO TOUCH MY POTATOS...and they all looked at me like I was nuts and we had a good laugh...(later)  I was too involved in my stress getting everything done and them mashing MY potato's....They mashed my freaking potato's when I only asked them to boil them... AND WAS really mad (lol)...no one will touch them now.. hehe. 
HAPPY HOLIDAY'S.....HAPPY HOLIDAY'S....

I share you being pissed off over potato's...lol.   

Love
Deb
                         

[Hopalong]

Boy am I happy to be a guest at holidays.
Going to Gennul's sister and BIL's, very brilliant academic folks, also kind and interesting.
Big but somehow cozy house, lots of music, hubby is a competitive cook. (Goody! Practice on me anytime!)
Taking 95 y/o friend...will go see Ma first.

My D is coming home! I won't see her until Friday evening but that's okay.
(She's doing the feast at step-mom's because she paid half her ticket.)

It will be a good wknd.

Gennulman is feeling depressed. Anniversary reaction to being homeless last winter, plus I'm convinced he has SAD. I loaned him my SAD light, haven't needed it myself lately. Really hope it helps him. He'll work through it, I hope.

He came over, brought his sister, and we all ate w/the minister. Here's a Unitarian Universalist joke he told us:

A UU minister came to a new church. One of the major parishoners, head of the board, explained that his tradition was to take the minister fishing every Monday, but did she really want to go? Sure, she said, I'll try that. The board guy is kind of challenging her, like: here's a woman minister, oh brother, let's see how she handles fishing. So off they go the next Monday. They're out on the lake in the boat when she says, Shoot, I left my jacket on the dock. She gets out of the boat, walks across the water to the dock and fetches her jacket, walks back across and climbs back in the boat. They troll around for a few hours but she doesn't catch anything. Later in the week the board guy is gossiping with one of his colleagues and he says, Not only can't she fish, but she can't swim either.

love,
Hops

[sunblue]

Hops:

Sounds like all in all you're gearing up for a lovely holiday.  How I envy you being around boats and docks at this time of year.  I'm sure it must be lovely.  I love the beach but weatherman says snow tomorrow!

Alas, today I caved.....I gave in and attended a non-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner hosted by my "healthy" brother.  I caved because I was just too tired emotionally to deal with all the drama that would have ensued if I hadn't.  But I should have just not gone.  I was feeling really angry and resentful and hurt by it all.  I looked around and everyone was perfectly happy.....They all have other plans on the real holiday.  I couldn't bring myself to speak much to my brother.....I was just reminded of how nothing I do or want or feel or think ever matters, and it never will.  But I KNOW that in my head.....Sometimes it's just a hard reality to swallow when you look around a room and see happy (relatively anyway) families and couples....who care about each other, ask about each other.  I guess it's always a reminder that I don't belong anywhere.  When I got home, I was just sad. 

As for an earlier post on this thread, I did have a therapist who wasn't exactly validating...I would have conversations with him about my need for empathy....but he refused to give it.  I think he felt that if he gave it, it was like giving me license to not do anything except wallow in it.  What I tried to explain to him was that I was someone who has NEVER received empathy from anyone and was in desperate need for it.  But he didn't understand.....

Only good thing about this coming holiday week is that it will be a short work week.  Even while I'll have to work everyday, at least I'll be away from my N boss for a couple of days.

I really hesitated posting today......I'm not feeling well and feel myself slipping....I think that sometimes people reach their thresholds....There is only so much that a person can be ignored and disrespected and unloved before it affects them.  And while today I just knew I should let the anger and resentment go, that it was not worth hanging onto, for the life of me I just couldn't.  Just one time in my life, I wish that what I wanted mattered to my FOO.  But of course it doesn't and won't.

This past week I had a conversation with a woman I work with....She lost her parents and has no family to spend the holiday with.  But, she has many good friends and they schedule holidays together and vacations and the like.  It is clear she doesn't want to open up that circle to anyone else...but still....I think how strange and unjust life can be....some people get their Hallmark holiday and others don't...

Well...at any rate, I already feel bad about posting.  I will just leave with the thought that all of you have a peaceful, pleasant holiday, as much as you can given the circumstances which bring us all here.  I hope that if you have your own family...husband or children, you can relish in that.  Even if we have no one in the non-virtual world who believes we matter, at least here we can acknowledge that we do.

Happy Holidays...

[gjazz]

Sun!  Don't fell BAD about posting!  POST!  That's the point!

One of the hardest days of my life--one I remember in the way I remember few things, which is with a almost physical punch to the gut TO THIS DAY, is Thanksgiving 1987.  I'd just moved to NYC.  I had no money.  I knew not a single person.  I had no job.  I lived in the Salvation Army and was getting used to having not enough food and no bathroom but at least being warm at night, and free of the hell my life had been until that point.  On Thanksgiving I walked the streets and looked into these golden windows and saw people gathered around tables and thought---what's wrong with me?  Why am I so effing worthless?  Why doesn't anyone give a rat's ass about me?

The only thing I could control was giving a rat's ass about others.  I didn't, then.  I made the disastrous choice of going to the bar on the corner and was accosted and yelled at by some drunk at the counter.  Oddly enough it was better than being alone, but it was pretty ugly.  A decade later, after my next move, I helped out at a community kitchen.  MUCH better!  Is there any way, Sun, that you could spend next Thursday with people WORSE off than you?  It's not ideal.  I know that.  I know it's hard.  I'm not suggesting it'll make everything OK.  I'm just saying maybe, just maybe, it might be the step that starts the journey of 1.000 miles.

[Hopalong]

Hi Sun,

No boats, no docks...that was in the joke, thassall. About her walking on water not being good enough.

I say ditto to everything Gjazz said. (Gjazz, I wish I knew you.) The only way I can really truly haul myself out of self-pity or depression or melancholy is to take an action that helps somebody else.

But it has to be direct, where I am face to face with the homeless person. Not by stacking cans or something. Our church hosts PACEM people for a week (we rotate with other churches). This week we have 40 homeless men livng at our church. We don't preach at them, sing to them or ask them to pray. We just dish up a good hot supper and sit at the tables and eat with them and talk.

When I sat with a double amputee who'd been sleeping under bridges and told me wistfully about his former life as a fisherman, before alcohol ate him, my going home to cope with some transitory loneliness and an Nmother (in a warm bed and warm house with full stomach) didn't seem quite the same as it did before.

You are working such long hours. I hope you can carve out a couple hours a week to volunteer with homeless people, or battered women, an illiterate adult, or a disabled child. It will help YOU. It will HELP you.

Really.

love to you, NOT GUILT,
Hops

[ann3]

Hi Sun,

Sorry you feel bad about posting, but I'm glad you posted.  I always like reading your posts, they are full of insightful observations and articulate descriptions of emotions.

Sun, you're right: some live a life in sunshine, full of Hallmark moments because they have a loving, supportive family, while other have the opposite.  If we were not blessed with a loving, supportive family, there's not much we can do about our family because we cannot change other people.  The only people we can change are ourselves. 

It hurts so much to realize and accept that our families are not supportive or loving.  But, for me, the light bulb moment was the realization that their lack of support & love was a reflection of their own problems within themselves and really had nothing to do with me.  Perhaps we especially feel our family's lack of support & love because they project their negative thinking upon us and as a result of that projection, we accept their negativities as if they were our own, as if our family's negative thinking is destined to be our own thinking.

But, our family's negative projections do not belong to us and do not define us.  We are separate people and we have the right to live our lives as we see fit and think our own  thoughts.  Once we stop caring about getting our family's approval, we can feel free.  I sometimes visualize my family's negative projections and lack of support as a layer of grime which I can wash off in the shower & emerge clean & new. 

I too had Thanksgiving yesterday and I am grateful that it's over, plus, I am grateful for all the good things in my life.

Hope you feel better, Sun.

xoxo,
ann

[gjazz]

Likewise, Hops.

Deb: here's the thing about my potatoes.  A month or so ago I asked my aunt, who is hosting Thanksgiving, what she would like me to bring.  She said, What would you like to bring?  I said I'd like to try a potato dish--scalloped potatoes layered with sweet onions, Gruyere, and scalloped yams.  So there'd be one, maybe two thin layers of orange yams in the middle.  She said, Great!  Then of course my mom gets involved.  She doesn't want me to make this.  I have no idea why but I think it's because she assumes other people would prefer mashed.  So she speaks to her sister and later says to me, "Don't make the scalloped potatoes too rich."  OK.  So, again, a week later, she speaks to her sister, and comes to me with, "Well, it's OK to make that dish but be sure it arrives hot because there won't be time to reheat it once you get there."   OK.  But I do have an hour drive.  I figure it'll still be warm, one blast in the oven.  Then she speaks to her sister again, and comes to me and says, "She says no casseroles, just make mashed potatoes."  I hit just the major plot turning points here, there were a few other potato references between those, little asides, comments.

Now, I know this isn't a big deal.  I know it's potatoes.  But for the love of....just leave it alone already!  Butt the f*** OUT!  SHEESH! 

[gjazz]

Potato update!

All along I've been confused over this mashed obsession. For years I was in charge of the mashed potatoes.  Everyone loved them.  Then, four years ago, due to timing issues I had to make them at my aunt and uncle's house, rather than make them at home and transport finished.  Now, many in my family are Skinnies.  They are obsessed with weight.  Fat is Not Good.  Well, they got an eyeful of me loading those Yukon Golds up with butter and cream and salt and parmesan cheese and...the axe fell.  My cousin (a male Skinny) was put in charge of boiling up a few Russets, adding nonfat, low-sodium chicken stock and, yes, the water they were boiled in (shudder), and I was relegated to canned cranberry. 

Turns out, they miss my potatoes.  They couldn't admit it, they didn't want to say so, couldn't admit aloud that they were wrong, but: they want the Fat Back.  Ha!

[debkor]

Hey gjazz,

Oh that sounds so good. I'm think I may just steal your recipe and make the mashed too.  The really FATTENING mashed potato's. I don't want NO FAT Thanksgiving I want all the really bad stuff and will really love eating it every mouthfull.   

This year it's a problem with Pies..Geesh!  who is making what Pies...who can't have double of Pies....Pies to cover every Pie there is....

I'm sitting in the Dentist today and he is speaking about some Major Work..let's do this..lets do that..we can this.. and I'm thinking..what about the Pies...Ya Doc...sure.. ya, ya...and back to my thoughts of pies...then he said do you want to go to sleep?   

Ya I'm tired, I must look really tired,..wait..WHAT for WHAT.....to remove your  molar...WHAT!!  I had no clue what he was talking about I was so involved thinking about Dinner on Thurs...So I gained some Pies, Potato's and lose a tooth...
My friend is having problems with String Beans..lol..her husband wants her to hand pick them one by one...and they are fighting over that and I'm depressed about a tooth. 

My D and her friends are having some drama going on and they are coming to my house instead of thier families....one G/M is off the wall and the Grand D can't take another year of it.  She is very old and very mean.  The other's M told her to just stay at college for the weekend because it's a short weekend and she only lives 45 mins away but they dont' feel like driving. 

My S won't be here due to his work schedule and it's his birthday so I'm sad about that. 

 but Argh...Ya have to really laugh at how this pie, potato, Holiday's unwind..eh!!

Sun,

Hang in there.  Sit back and put on some nice show/or book...think about Me possibly hitting someone with a Pie, hysterical over the Potato's and thinking about the last week I will ever have that molar in my mouth....and laugh. 

I'll be thinking about you all on Thanksgiving.  I can imagine ya all sitting at a table. 

Aw I don't think we are really ever alone when you hold things that are important to you in your heart.
You'll all be with me...keep us with you Sun. 

Love
Deb





 

[gjazz]

Deb:

You gotta have fat.  I don't use a recipe, just add butter, sour cream, a little whipping cream, salt and pepper to taste.  Then if I want, I flavor with one of the following: roasted garlic, horseradish (esp. if serving beef), parmesan cheese, etc.  The key is to peel your potatoes, cut into cubes and soak in cold water for, say, twenty minutes before boiling.  It's also a good idea to add the ingredients warm.  Just put butter, cream etc together in a saucepan and heat a little before adding to the mashed potatoes.  Enjoy!

[sunblue]

Luv the potato stories!  Makes me soooo wish I had a 50 pound bag of cold hard potatoes I could sling over my shoulder, and one by one, take out those potatoes and hammer them at my Nfamily....Yes, that would be quite a sight to see...Even if my aim wasn't all that great, I figure I'd have a 50/50 change of getting at least one really good shot in.

As it gets closer to the "real" Thanksgiving holiday...I feel myself drooping.  My N mom announced with glee she wouldn't be working on Friday, this from a woman who never, ever, ever took a day off to do anything with me as a child...or adult for that matter.  The reason she says this with glee is that it allows she and my co-D dad to spend five full days with my Nsister, the "chosen child".  Never a single thought about me.  My "healthy" brother will have his own family friends.  I guess sometimes it's the "glee" part that bothers me.  The knowledge that never once did she ever exhibit anything close to "glee" when it comes to me.  The knowledge that my oh-so-submissive co-D dad goes along with this and doesn't exhibit one twinge of guilt or regret about not spending the holiday with his other children.

Yes, reality, like the month of November, cold and harsh....But I will be going to Church on Thanksgiving....giving thanks for what one should give thanks for.  Trying not to focus on being there alone....Looking forward to being physically away from my N boss for a long weekend....and dreaming of those potatoes that I so wish I could use as a weapon of mass Narcissistic Destruction....

Gobble, gobble.

[sunblue]

Hello All:

Happy Pre-Thanksgiving......I feel the need to vent today...even though I'm telling myself I shouldn't...The holdiays always tend to bring it out in me.  I realized one of the reasons these holidays tend to be difficult for me is it is when family outbursts occur.  In my N family, these outbursts are rare, but so damaging.  My Nmom was in the category of "ignoring" rather than "obsessive."  She completely ignored us totally unless we served her purpose....So unless one of us dared to question her, disagree with her (which was rare), then all was well and no outbursts.

Fast forward to my latest outburst.  I really kicked myself afterward.....for letting it get to me and for not accepting my reality....but this is what happened.  Yesterday, my Nmom and Super-Codependent Dad, gave me directions on household tasks that needed to be taken care of this holiday weekend.  They announced they were leaving today (Wednesday) for spend the entire long holiday weekend (through Sunday) with my very Nsis and her boyfriend.  I felt the internal kick to the stomach, but did not say anything.  However, and this is the part where I kick myself....I got really upset about it and started crying.  They had already left the room but I guess heard my crying and returned to confront me....

I won't go into all the grimy details...but I questioned why they couldn't compromise and spend some time with all of their chidren, not just my sister.  My Nmom, in the very cold manor that only an N can pull off, informed me she does not feel sorry for me (that I would be alone), because it's my fault.  It's my fault, she said, because I refuse to "give in."  Her idea of "giving in" would be to accompany them to my Nsis' and do whatever they wanted, however they wanted...and to turn my back on my brother.  (A little history:  A dozen years again, my Nsis disowned my brother and his family because they didn't select her as Godmother.  Since since, she refused to be in the same room with him...and both my brother and I have separated ourselves from her.  Naturally, my Nmom sided with her and since then, spends every holiday, weekend, vacation, evening (via phone) with her and her alone.  You get the picture.)

It was quite clear that neither my Nmom or CO-D dad can see any other option in life but for everyone to go along with what they want.  Compromise is for other people, not them.  It is also my Nmom's way of punishing me....My Nmom complained, "Shouldn't I be allowed to have fun?  Why should I stay home on the holiday weekdn?"  Not surprisingly, the word "I" was populated throughout this entire outburst.  Meanwhile, my dad stood meekly by her side and did not utter a single, solitary word.  Ultimately, it is my Nmom's way or the highway....Never anything in the middle.  I tried, in vain, to make them see what they are doing..but of course it didn't work...It was fruitless.  They simply don't care about anyone but themselves as their chosen child Ndaughter.  And so they left.

Naturally, it has left me very upset, drained and feeling alone, not to mention stupid for falling into their trap.  So, I know I need to find someplace to live...and get out of the situation as best I can....But I also realized how entrenched their Narcississm has affected me.  I think, "So where should I go?"  Where do I look?  Should I relocate where I will have no one?  Then again, here I really have no one either?  When you grow up in a family where everything is about the Ns, then "you" don't exist.  But you have to learn to "exist" in order to make decisions about your life.  I feel like I am on this tiny island by myself far, far away from everything and everyone...I am invisible and withering away day by day, with no one to take notice. 

I don't want to go through this at Christmas too.  So, I think should I take a trip somewhere to get away?  Should I look to relocate?  In the end, mostly I just feel consumed with hurt and sadness and anger by it all....by the fact that they viciously threw in my face once again that I don't matter.

Alas, just a vent....I apologize...but after the outburst, I looked around me and just realized how alone I was in all of this.  I am thinking that perhaps some of you can relate to some of my experience. 

[gjazz]

Sun:

You aren't alone, you have the people on this board, and many have been through what you have.  I think relocating and rebuilding a life totally separate is a great idea.  Not an easy thing to accomplish, true, and it will take time.  But it sounds like staying where you are equals treading water.  If you move and start again, you might have a few years of making friends, growing into a job, being alone a lot--but you won't have the emotion kicks in the gut from your mother.  Any sister who cuts her brother from her life for not being chosen godmother is....what's the word?....let's go with mentally unsound.  For one thing, doing so proved his choice right.

Hang in there Sun.  Vent all you want.

[Hopalong]

Sun,
I'm so glad you're posting more.
This has motion in it.

I'm GLAD you're mad enough to speak so truthfully to yourself:

I think, "So where should I go?"  Where do I look?  Should I relocate where I will have no one?  Then again, here I really have no one either?

I remember feeling a similar desolation when the full reality of Narcissism sank in. I realized my mother would never, ever care enough that I would feel someone "always had my back." My father cared, in his way (quite similar to yours, he never confronted her dramas because it was against his honor code to not unequivocally support his wife...net result, he lost his power to her, and I felt abandoned). From the aged vantage point of 58, I can say now that I'm glad.

Because it forced me to face the actual facts. Narcissism really does render people incapable of love. AND, it's not really their fault. I personally believe that it is genetic predisposition coupled with mysterious psyche-+-environment mixtures we may understand fully in 500 years. But I don't want to give up on happiness because there's no adequate explanation or justification now.

So suffering the full pain of it all, led to to ultimately change my view of reality ("This must CHANGE! This must be DIFFERENT! Because it's not FAIR! And it's not RIGHT!") to: This is what IS. And what I do with my life AND my emotions is up to me.

Totally
up
to
me

For all those reasons I so heartfeltly hope you will relocate.  Being a stranger in a strange place will drive you into connections. It will force you to grow, and challenge your view of reality, and think new thoughts about new situations.

First, you become defiantly happy.

Later, you just find you're happy.

And as long as you stay where you are, that is precious life time that you aren't spending moving on.

love
Hops

[finding peace]

Oh Sun,

Please don’t apologize for the vent.  Your incubator’s (hope that doesn’t offend – it is how I refer to my NM), reaction to your tears, IMO, was unspeakably cruel. 

You deserve that vent – and much better to let it out.

I definitely think you should move out – the sooner the better. 

It was very hard for me when I finally took the plunge.  But, in retrospect, I wish I'd moved out a lot earlier; it was the best thing that ever happened to me.  I felt the same way that you do (and still do at times) about not knowing who I am, where to go, ....   I really didn’t have a clue who I was.

Moving out helped start the process to freedom.

I think a trip is a great idea.  Not sure where you are, but I hear that Williamsberg (sp?) VA is beautiful at that time of year.  Or maybe a SPA trip, where people spoil you?  The beach is always one of my favorite options – someplace warm with some sunlight and ocean sounds.

For tomorrow, how about renting some movies, cooking your favorite food (or order from a really good restaurant).

I will be thinking of you.

Take care,

FP

[I said this in my post to Iz, I am sorry if I am not making sense here – haven’t been able to think clearly today.  My pet died last night and I am a mess.    I got her just after I moved out of my parent's home.  When she was a kitten, she was playing with a pen, and got ink all over a new tapestry bedspread I had just bought – my incubator told me to put her down, just because she got some ink on a bedspread.  She was just doing what kitten's do, you know - but I guess that was unacceptable for the incubator.  That stain is still there – now it is a reminder of how much comfort she gave me.  I understand Sun, I do.  I can't wrap my mind around why they do what they do, but I do understand how it feels to be on the other end of it.]