Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Thanksgiving?
KayZee:
Just wondering how everyone is spending thanksgiving?...And if anybody who plans on visiting with Ns needs moral support?
DH and I are driving up to see NM and enabling/Co-N D. Basically, we feel compelled to spend Thanksgiving with them because we are ducking out of Xmas, spending it in our own house with my husband's side of the family (a triumph).
My stomach is usually knotted with anxiety around this time of year, but I feel oddly calm for the moment (perhaps this will change as Wednesday nears). Am going to do my damndest to maintain some emotional distance.
Am pretty sure the visit will play out like this: NM criticizing my clothes, appearance, parenting; Co-N D ignoring me, talking over me at every available opportunity, then getting slurringly drunk. Going to try, as always, to let it all roll off my back. I have no expectations for a pleasant holiday nor any feelings of parental love, fellow-feeling or acceptance. NM will do everything she can to make us feel un-at-home, implicitly forbid us from using the refrigerator, etc.
Pretty much going in with this one boundary: Don't mess with my kids. Don't call my 2-year-old daughter a "brat" (I've called out NM on this before and she gets this evil smile saying, "Why not? Why not?" Try: Because it's name calling. Because it's bullying and weird.) Don't pretend that you're keeping an eye on my daughter and then "accidentally" let her get hurt or lost. (NM did this the last time she visited with us. Found DD hundreds of yards away from the house, minutes from being lost in some very dangerous craggy woods.) Don't change her clothes without asking. Co-N D: Don't lay down for a nap with my daughter after I've told you not to. This is makes you look like a pedophile whether you are or not. Is this really too much to ask? God, I would love to go NC.
As for those of you who are NC, do you still struggle with this time of year and the memories it evokes? Do you miss the idea of family, even if the family reality was always a bloody nightmare?
Just wondering...
Hope you all have a wonderful holiday.
Kay x
Guest:
Hi Kay
I hardly celebrate any occasions (we don't have kids). Many moons ago I used to visit each of my parents at their homes around Christmas time, on my own. They didn't visit me at all, apart from my graduation day, until I bought my own home aged 30. Then I got a few visits, on their terms, always disruptive, always all about them. Eventually I stopped visiting them so much and now I don't see any FOO. These festive times used to make me feel as though if I didn't turn up, people wouldn't love me, I suppose. Well, it doesn't matter what you do, they don't change.
Wondering Kay, why you want to subject yourself, H and kids to NM anyway? I mean, if you don't want to, simply don't do it. If you have good reasons for seeing her, then remind yourself of those reasons all the time you're there and stick to your rules. Otherwise, I'd lie and say I'm ill, I can't make it, I'm staying at home. Or going away for a retreat with my family. I'm having a breakdown/crisis which has nothing to do with them and they can kindly leave me the hell alone. You don't have to go NC to look after yourself and your family first. Just be very 'selfish' and do what you want to do. And don't tell them any more than those basics. So what if they think x, y and z? They'll only worry about themselves...
Anyway, do I miss family...I miss the family I didn't have, once in a while, being unrealistic and whimsical. I don't miss the ones I had. I'm very lucky to be able to do pretty much what I want to at this time of year. That's worth more than fantasies! Ah the freedom. :)
KayZee:
Freshwater,
Thank you so much for the reality check.
--- Quote ---Wondering Kay, why you want to subject yourself, H and kids to NM anyway? I mean, if you don't want to, simply don't do it.
--- End quote ---
It's nice to hear someone say, "You don't have to. It's okay if you don't want to."
It's easy to feel societal pressure around this time of year. It's not really a socially acceptable thing to admit "I don't like my family. I don't want to see them."
I guess you could say there are a few things that keep me going back:
- I never had any real relationship with my grandparents or other extended family growing up (NM didn't get along with them and felt jealous of any affinity I felt for my aunt.) Anyway, this was sort of confusing to me as a kid? Also, my NM and Co-N D used to say horrible things about my NGM in front of me from a very young age. As a result, I was secretly terrified of her, absorbed their anger for her, etc. I guess I've wanted to avoid repeating that pattern with my own kids. I didn't want to have to explain to my own young children why they don't know their grandparents. I worry that if I went NC, my kids would later think this was selfish of me?
- DH still really likes my Co-N D and visa versa. I really don't want to deprive my husband of this relationship. My NM has been so horrible to DH, I feel like he deserves some in-law love.
- Stockholm Syndrome/Guilt. I worry that NM and Co-N D will be "lonely" (without anyone to emotionally prop them up) or "bored" (without anyone to look down their noses at or bully). Other relatives hate my NM & Co-N D too much to celebrate with them anymore. GC sister always bails on them at the holidays, yet she remains the GC. How does that work? Also worry about alcoholic, Co-N D who NM fully terrorizes now. He's pretty cold to me/dismissive of me these days, but I worry that he'd hurt himself if I turned my back on them both.
- To prove I'm not the monster NM portrays me as to the rest of the family. She's had such a smear campaign against me in recent years. I guess I think if I keep going through the motions, keep showing up for holidays and calling on Sundays etc, it will prove (even just to myself) that I am not the heartless, crazy one.
If this sounds pretty bleak, it is. But somehow I find the strength to go through the motions of the hollow, empty, one-sided "relationship" I have with NM. I will cut it off in an instant if she ever goes after my children (she knows well enough to leave DH alone at this point). I guess I'm just not ready to go NC. Although I dream of it. Literally, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night thinking: I want to be free of them. I just want to be free. There's no escape. There's no escape. There's no escape.
Anyway, sorry for the heaviness. And all the personal detail.
I'm so glad for your freedom Freshwater. That's definitely something to be thankful for! You're an inspiration. Thanks for the insight.
Kay x
BonesMS:
I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do on Thanksgiving. With the NWombdonor dead, and the smear campaign she started years ago still going on, I've come to realize that no matter how hard I try to twist myself into a pretzel to earn my worth and win their approval, it will NEVER make a lick of difference! They believed everything she smeared on me and attempted to continue the verbal and emotional abuse after the NQueen !@#$ died. They stopped short of physical abuse after I told them I WILL call the cops if they EVER attempted a home invasion in order to beat me into submission as the family slave! (They had threatened to send the NGCB to my home to give me a beating because I DARED say NO to an unreasonable demand.) After that, any and all contact became NC.
I still grieve for the family I NEVER had. At times, the thought re-emerges that maybe my birth was a mistake, just like the Queen NWombdonor decreed. (She had told me, at one point, that she always wanted to abort me and wished I were dead. She announced, at the same time, that the NGCB was the ONLY child she ever wanted. She wasn't angry...just stated it in a businesslike tone.)
I HATE THE HOLIDAYS!
Bones
sKePTiKal:
--- Quote ---It's not really a socially acceptable thing to admit "I don't like my family. I don't want to see them."
--- End quote ---
Perhaps you simply think "other people" think it's not socially acceptable? You'd be surprised how many people would rather stay home in their jammies and be slugs the whole day. Even those with fairly normal families may not look forward to these "deals" - for all kinds of reasons. My SIL has 4 boys - I can predict that there will be at least one time-out; one fight that results in something broken or tears; and the parents won't be able to finish more than one sentence at a time, for yelling at one or the other boy. When they're here, my dog & hubs is a nervous wreck from trying to herd them every second... and I'm a nervous wreck trying to calm both of them down. Happy times.
The image of happy family at the holidays is - I believe - simply a marketing image; an ideal that almost never happens in reality. Try Elvis Costello's "The St. Stephen's Day Massacre" for another take on holiday family gatherings! It's fun.
Hubs and I have reservations at a fav restaurant for an interesting buffet. Haven't been invited out - rest of the family has other plans (my kids grew up with 4 sets of grandparents, so they know the drill of taking "turns" of where the go for holidays) and if I can pry hubs away from the football games & his normal nap - we'll play video games all day long.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version