I was a living, breathing mousetrap over the holidays – ready to snap with the slightest provocation. I didn’t mean to be that way. I was cool as a cucumber while packing, Zen as fuck on the drive. Opened the door to my sister’s house, and my eyebrows climbed into my hairline. My tear ducts went wasabi mode. Hello, I am Anne, not even slightly crazy WHY DO YOU ASK?
The holiday itself went like holidays do – boring and exhausting, suddenly painful and then sweepingly sentimental. It was bewildering how angry I was at everyone. They were all players in that HANDY DANDY DYSFUNCTION FLOWCHART, you see. And since I’d read up on it, I understood how they had colluded to allow bad things to happen.
It hadn’t pissed me off to know that, when it was a theoretical idea in my head. I believe none of us had a good grasp of what was happening, myself included. Can’t blame people for not doing any better than I did in the same situation. These were the people on my side.
When I actually saw their faces, I wanted to punch them. It was a little shocking.
Instead, I excused myself early and slept a lot. When I rejoined the group, I could feel the occasional tendrils of messed-up interactions, prodding at me and getting under my skin, making me feel hopeless and trapped — Hey, you want to play that game we’ve been playing the last twenty years? Here’s an easy lob to get us started. OK, now you go.
By day three of the holiday, I was writhing with the pain of interacting with this group of needling jerkwad jackholes, who (I had recently discovered), had actually been (however subconsciously) colluding to dick me over for decades. It was really easy to stay pissed forever. And super powerful too, to be righteously furious. Fuck all those fuckers, right?
And this is totally corny, but as I was curled up on my sister’s guest bed, seething, I thought, “If this was a really great movie instead of my suck-ass life, what would I want the hero to do?” And while burning all my familial bridges to the ground while I cackle madly in the flames would be simple, and dramatic, and satisfying, in my case, it’s not particularly heroic.
I’m not surrounded by super villains. I’m related to a bunch of imperfect people who are trying to do their best with the skills they have. Sometimes, their behavior sucks ass. They have bad patterns that need to change. They love me. And God, when I tally it up, there are not many people on earth who love me.
I haven’t figured out how to stay in this family and not get sucked back into dysfunction, but it would be amazing if I could. I think if I were the hero in my own story, I could fix myself and be strong for them, too, without giving up on them. If I were heroic, I would see they are struggling in the wake of these changes, and I could let them struggle without getting scared and running away. I would be strong in my own decisions and let them move around me without wavering myself. If I were good enough to do that, maybe I could help everyone get better instead of taking what I learned and fleeing.
Or maybe that’s naïve. I dunno. Maybe we’re broken in a way that won’t ever look the same again. But we made it through the holiday. So that’s something.
Oh, so much sympathy. It’s hard. But over time, you get stronger, and it gets easier (promise). Do you have a therapist or a wise friend you can talk to about it all? Outside perspective (and maybe someone you can email or call when you’re stuck in the middle of it) can be so so very helpful.
Also helpful: listening to “Your Fire, Your Soul” by Dar Williams, possibly in the car driving in the dark, while weeping just a little. Or maybe that’s just me.
Stay strong, Anne.
Holy poops! I get it. I’ve got a form of dysfunction in my family too and reading this post was like my thoughts on someone else’s paper. I’ve had similar ‘punch you in your stupid face’ response, and am (still, near four years on) trying to keep in mind the same things, they’re just doing the best with what they’ve got, a lot of modeled behavior that’s not typical for a grown ass adult, but, they are my family. I want to change them all, but their behavior is not mine to change. I didn’t see it before, but your thought that they’re all struggling with the changes hit home. I mean I saw that with my family, but it just pissed me off that they tried to control me like a child even harder. Never occured that they were completely lost as to how to handle the new me and just leaning on the old tricks hoping something would work. They will most likely go on, being how they are (which is totally f*cking annoying and childish to me), and I can accept that and hope they respect my efforts at personal growth and change, or I can be done with them. I’m still trudging the accept route, and it’s getting easier. It’s taken a lot of hard feelings, difficult conversations and more bending on my end than I’d like, but we’re starting to get to a tenative peace where we can enjoy things like the holidays, extended visits and even phone calls.
I personally believe it’s all a choice. I choose to be happy. I choose to be true to myself. And I choose to keep them in my life, albeit in a limited capacity because I can see the good in them, and I can see where previous generations messed them up. And I feel like a hypocrite choosing the family I’ve created with my husband and casting aside the family that created me. That may sound like obligation, but to me, it’s just another step in personal growth, accepting as is. And, now that I have a daughter, I understand that the absolute worst thing that she could ever do to hurt me would be to cut me out of her life (no psychological or physiologicl damage was inflicted upon me, mom and I are just different).
I don’t think it’s naive. I think it’s courageous to try. Ultimately I think you have to do what’s right and good for you. It’s the figuring out that’s hard. I agree with parodie that an outside person to talk to would be helpful. I’ve thought a million times that for my family, we could probably fix this all if we lived close enough to do family counseling. Wishful thinking probably.
At the very least, you are not the only one, just probably one of the braver ones for putting it out there, for random strangers to comment on. Thank you for that, and the honesty. If only life was easy. Agreed, stay strong.
My God but you have an amazing bunch of readers. I cannot hope to add anything to what Alyssa said, and I echo parodie about the counseling – I regularly (= every 3-5 years or so) go to counseling once a week for a couple of months duration to help me work through specific issues.
However, I am going to pinch your ‘What would Julia Roberts do?’ mantra and apply it to all sorts of areas of my life – thank you! xx
So while reading your description of the effects of the dysfunction, the analyst in me is wondering about root causes. Have you gotten that far in self-reflection yet? Often identifying these can fast-track a healing solution. (And by fast-track, I mean shave off a decade or so).
Wishing you strength and wisdom. And eventually peace.
Mmmm… in my experience, a person like yourself is sometimes sent into a family to break the traditions of sickness. Spirits of valor and will, who say “enough” and choose not to be acted upon, but rather, to act. Party on, my mighty friend. You have a noble work to do.
It’s hard to know what to do when you see the patterns of dysfunction more clearly. Everyone has invested years in this twisted structure, and even though it perpetuates misery for everyone, it’s what they know.
Change is hard for most people, but that doesn’t mean you should wait for them to change with you.
You are now, in some ways, as alien to them as that kid from Krypton was to Earth. Assimilate (on the surface) when needed, but remember your supersuit and always keep a lookout for convenient phone booths.
You’ll figure this out. Like anything in life, the first thousand times are the hardest (family motto).
Wishing you the best.