Can I celebrate Dysfunctional Families Day *and* my mother's birthday at the same time? It seems like the requirements might conflict.

For Southern Hemisphere readers, today is yet another day when your experience is overridden by the thoughtless majority, which is an equally valid reason.

We'd be better off celebrating that around Christmas time, in that case. All that 'White Christmas' and sleighs jinglebelling and so on in 30 degrees or more Celsius. It can get intolerable unless you're in the freezer section at the supermarket [insert frownie here]

Given that we (well, we who are in Australia, at anyrate) do Mothers Day and Fathers Day at different times to the Northern Hemisphere, doing Dysfunctional Families Day at another time has a precedent.

Nix @1:

Of course you can. It could be Happy birthday, Mum, you're the only one in the family who isn't completely messed up, or Happy birthday, Mum, I love you despite everything, or something else.

Not every family is dysfunctional. For me, this is about congratulating my friends on how they've survived bad situations, and my parents for how I have nothing more than that to celebrate.

Abi @3 - I'm with you. The older I get, the more I gratefully realize how much my family *didn't* screw me up.

(Well, except for when I was ten or eleven, and stayed home from school because I was running a fever, and my dad brought me a collection of Ray Bradbury stories and told me to read 'Fever Dream.')

We celebrate a different non-family day on the Saturday following Thanksgiving.

It's not Dysfunctional Family day, like you're suggesting (maybe we need both), it's just about everyone being back in their home town, but usually seeing only the people they're born to. We like to get everyone away for a day to see the people they choose to love as well.

you’d rather learn autotrepanning with a Black and Decker

Wasn't there a scene in Scanners where Michal Ironside's telepath character did just that so that he could let out the voices that were driving him nuts? I know, Ironside, playing a crazy person, what a concept.

That being said, one of the last converstions I had with my dad before he suddenly passed away in the early 1990s was one where he confided how scared he was when I was born. Not because my birth would have belonged in the Cronenberg oeuvre. My dad was scared that he wouldn't do a good job of raising a kid. My parents made mistakes, but they did the best they could.

Today I am going on a class picnic with my son. Without my son's father, who ... well, let's just say this holiday fits. Grrr, *sigh*, /deep breaths/

I need trepanning like a hole in the head.

Your family comes first, last and always - that attitude helped both sides of my family deal with being immigrants in America and find success.

Family has allowed us to deal with all the crap that the world can shower down on you, and laugh about it.

Are they a pain in the ass? Sure. But those feelings pass. The strength of family will not.

You know, I don't think giving my family a Dysfunctional Families Day card will make things better. I really don't think they'll take it in the intended spirit. OTOH, their reaction couldn't be worse than their reaction to birthday cards for birthdays, or to flowers for Mother's Day.

I am glad to have this holiday, though I will not be able to celebrate it whole-heartedly. On this day, I don't have to call my father (the narcissistic alcoholic) or my mother (the argumentative, conflicted neurotic). My husband will enjoy it too. He didn't visit his (ill-tempered, abusive) father in the nursing home, didn't go to his funeral, and refused to go out with his siblings two weeks ago when his mother's ashes (she was cold. Cold.) were interred.

However, I just can't get completely behind it because my husband and I have this really good relationship with our adult (only) daughter. I'm gonna go downtown and have lunch with her and we'll laugh and tell horrible jokes, and then she'll come home, drink my ginger ale, and make fun of her father, who will snicker helplessly. I hope I can get away with that partial celebration.

I'm celebrating by never, ever letting my father come anywhere near my daughters.

I do it a lot.

I just linked my friend Moira to this, as she was laid flat for the past couple days by a simple political forward email from her dad -- and they don't even disagree on the issues, just on their styles of discussing them.

She was much pleased.

JJ @ 9 for some of us, portions of family are significantly more traumatic than a pain in the ass....

I guess I'll just leave it there because it's really something I'd rather not talk about while any of the principles are still alive. I'm not posting this under my full name as I usually do because there are people that might be hurt if they use google and think they see themselves in this post.

My parents, too, did the best they could. But in my extended family are 2 brothers who didn't speak to each other at their mother's funeral, and a child who wasn't allowed to celebrate his birthday because it fell on the same day as his grandmother's birthday.

I try to keep these things in mind in raising my own children, all of whom still acknowledge me as of right now.

The link to the brilliant Dune card makes it worth any risk I could incur by celebrating this blessed day.

It's a year almost to the day since I moved 2,500 miles away from my less-than-functional kin, and it was the smartest thing I ever did. From this remove, I can acknowledge they did they best they could while still working to repair the damage.

Hell, I'm even thinking about starting a little dysfunctional family of my own out here. I think I might be able to bear the Kwisatz Haderach, but don't tell my mother . . .

#9: Your family comes first, last and always

What people with dysfunctional families have to recognize (and what people with functional families do not understand) is that you may believe this, but your family members do not; and you have to decide if you're going to let the dysfunctions continue or instead make your own family.

Jon @17 -- decide if you're going to let the dysfunctions continue or instead make your own family.

Yes, exactly. Family of choice is sometimes the only thing that helps you keep your sanity.

Which is why my family of choice and not my dysfunctional (extreme right, evangelical religious) family is the one helping me plan my wedding to my same-sex partner of 13 years. (And the wedding is in two weeks! eep!)

#18: Congratulations and mazel tov.

Congratulations, Shay, and best wishes!

Jon Meltzer @ 17: What people with dysfunctional families have to recognize (and what people with functional families do not understand) is that you may believe this, but your family members do not; and you have to decide if you're going to let the dysfunctions continue or instead make your own family.

Or else they believe it, but in a severely dysfunctional way. Like my boyfriend's paternal grandmother, who never forgave my boyfriend's father for marrying and having children -- and especially never forgave my boyfriend's mother for "stealing her son." He was supposed to stay at home his whole life and devote himself to taking care of his parents; a wife and children were unforgivable distractions. "Family came first" -- but "family" was defined as "ME ME ME."

This is why he and his wife moved their family halfway across the country as soon as they possibly could. One of his brothers refused to speak to him for seven years after they moved.

Sometimes my mother will apologize to my boyfriend if a couple members of my (large, extended, Catholic) family are having some sort of spat at a holiday. She always says "You're going to think we're totally dysfunctional." And my boyfriend laaaaughs, and says that when it's an argument that blows over within half an hour, and everyone is not drunk, screaming, and crying for the entire holiday, he considers it ridiculously Norman Rockwell.

I think his family needs this holiday.

JJ Fozz (and others, likely, before this thread is done):

This community includes some people who were very badly abused by their families. In some cases, I'm talking sexual abuse. In others, physical abuse (up to and including straightforward attempted murder) or severe and protracted emotional abuse.

This is different than, say, the way I fell out with my brother for a few years, or the way that many of us spend our adolescence estranged from our parents. There are people here whose parents (and other relatives) were a force of such destruction in their lives that the only viable* solution is to break off communication, or at least handle all contact with great care.

Most of the time, they also have to withstand the constant pressure to make these relationships work, when as a matter of fact they're not workable because the other party is so screwed up or manipulative that the only peace is total surrender. We agreed back in may that there would be a day on this site where that pressure wasn't going to be applied. Today is the date we agreed on, and here we are.

I'm glad beyond measure that there are families like yours, and mine, where the differences are not irreconcilable and any damage accidental and reparable. But that's not the universal experience.

-----
* and I mean that word literally

cool no problem, see you guys later

#21: Or else they believe it, but in a severely dysfunctional way.

Oh, yes. Interesting that they want you back when you finally say "no more". Everything will be better, they say.

#22: This is different than, say, the way I fell out with my brother for a few years, or the way that many of us spend our adolescence estranged from our parents

But only in degree. Okay, being physically abused is much worse than not being able to tolerate a parent or sibling. But both are still the lack of a functional relationship.

Job @24:
But only in degree. Okay, being physically abused is much worse than not being able to tolerate a parent or sibling. But both are still the lack of a functional relationship.

I'm not entirely sure of that.

For some people, it's hard to make the transition from the unequal relationship of parent and child to the more equal relationship of fellow adults. A period of isolation followed by a reinvention of the relationship may be the only way to do so.

It's like the marriages where the couple resolve differences through argument, verses those that resolve them through other means. Some people, and some pairs of people, work through breach and reconciliation rather than continuous, stable change.

The relationships that don't function include (among other flavors) those that cannot make that transition. But that's a different thing, in the end.

Actually, this year's autumnal equinox falls on September 22, at 11:44 EDT (15:44 UTC ≈ GMT).

Jon @ 24: Yeah, he tried for a long time before saying "No more." (At which point his parents said, essentially, "You can't quit! I'll fire you!") Even now he tries, gingerly, to make up with his brothers from afar. I guess it's going a little better since his parents passed away.

My boyfriend has pretty much written them all off (other than his own parents/siblings, who are the island of functionality), but it still seems like his dad can't, quite.

As someone who comes from a functional family, it's been those moments -- the moments of "Maybe this time, things will be okay, maybe this time they won't slap me in the face and we can be a family" -- and how long they can hang on, after years and decades of abuse -- that have let me grok just a little bit of what it's like.

It still focuses on family
I want a day that recognizes and appreciates that there are people who have NOT reproduced, who are NOT married (especially those who have NEVER been married), who are NOT living with someone else, who are NOT involved in a Relationship...

Being in one or more of those situations above, can and has driven peope into suicidal depression, particularly in the last quarter of the year, particularly in the last month of the year. One of my high school classmates, whom was also Hebrew school classmate, who graduated from Harvard, who was divorced and with a son, and who'd had to close down the family business and was depressed from the marriage failure and being unable to find a new career, suicided some years ago during "the holiday season" when all the "friends and familyyyyyyyyyy!" media pressure is on.

Perhaps there should be a "self-sufficiency day" at the end of the year, recognizing the alienation visited by Society and the evangelizers, the media, the ad industry, on peope who're solo.

On this day remember:

You are precious and loved
You have had a positive influence on people and don't even know it.
People you have never met look at you, look to you, and respect you.
Families are an accident of genetics; you are the result of a lifetime of struggle that has polished, shined, and formed you into the work of art you are today.
The old proverb is NOT, "You can judge a man [or woman] by the family they were born into."
Family obligations, like respect, are earned, not a right enabled by existence.
Family are those who care for you, not those who spawned you.
A stopped clock may be right twice a day, that doesn't mean it isn't a worthless piece of junk.
God, whatever He She or It may be (including an infinitely complex set of multi-variable equations) created you especially as a worthwhile and amazing project in your own right, not as someone else's servant, slave, accessory, or punching bag by divine right.
Live your life, and add joy to the lives of those who appreciate you.

To one and all, friends and family of the electronic bloodline, blessings, joy, strength and self-esteem be with you on this day.

And a last thought for the day, (quoted from memory, so perhaps not word-perfect) Keanu Reaves line from Parenthood:
"You need a license to buy a gun, hell, you even need to get a license to drive, but any butt-ream ing motherfucker can be a father."

As if we needed a reminder -- The world is not fair. But the corollary to this is that as with any game where people are cheating, your right is to leave and find a better game, our obligation from the outside is to watch the games of others and help those who need it.

Paula @28:

To be honest, I think most of the people who wanted this holiday were not thinking of themselves as parents and partners, but rather as offspring and siblings. In other words, the discussion that gave rise to this was about the near-universal* human experience of having and relating to parents, plus the usual distribution of having brothers and sisters.

Self-sufficiency is a perfectly valid choice, but it's not how we spend our childhoods.

-------
* barring the traditional orphanage upbringing

Timely, indeed- I went to a memorial service yesterday for my cousin's cousin, who I started first grade with, and today there's a baby shower for an entirely different cousin's eldest son's first child, due just before Christmas.

Sometimes close and functional families are wearing and expensive and one needs to be reminded things could be much worse.

Today I celebrate by sending blessings to you abi @ 22. It is beyond words precious to me that even some people who haven't been forced to live it can still 'get' it.

I'm also celebrating by using my wonderful freedom from assault and abuse to tell enablers like JJ Fozz @ 9 to g fck thmslves.

And also by cuddling my chosen family. Happy holiday, all!

Paula Lieberman @ 28 and Abi @ 30:

I don't think Paula's wrong though. Lord knows, from the single-by-choice, to the divorced, widowed, or "everyone moved away" set, being alone is hard. Humans are evolved as social beasts, and the rhythms of our society are structured around occasions designed for communal celebration.

I'd love to see in real life the type of place that occasionally shows up in fiction, where those who don't have these connections have a place to go. And by this, I'm talking more of something like a non-gendered Victorian gentleman's club than I am of something like Cheers. A home-away-from-home where one can find, develop, and celebrate with the "chosen family" as opposed to the genetic one.

Failing that, well, Making Light is a great place; possibly y'all can decide to mash in a "Singles Day" holiday between American Thanksgiving and New Years?

I started writing a response to Paula and stopped, erasing the whole thing because I realized how tense and angry and hurt I was becoming, just thinking about past interactions with my family.

So, for a different approach: I'm cherishing time today with my friend-kin John and Niki, watching the Saint's game even though I have no interest in football, but because I love them and enjoy time with them (Also, she has a bucket of live crawfish swimming in her refrigerator, and I want some of that crawfish boil!). I will also celebrate that I am increasingly able to spend time with my father and talk to him about my future without feeling like a disappointment.

I can celebrate how far I've come in my relationship with myself and my family, and that I'm continuing to make progress.

It's, perhaps, a bit more self-centered than the community had in mind when they made up this holiday, but it's where I am now, and instead of thinking of how I don't fit the mold, I can see how I do, and I like that.

How many children of a dysfunctional family does it take to change a light bulb?

Your brother would know.

Caroline @21 — "Family came first" -- but "family" was defined as "ME ME ME."

I think one of the most brilliant Beatles songs, lyrically, is "She's Leaving Home".

“How could she do this to me.

She (We never thought of ourselves)
Is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)”

I don't think that Lynn Johnston was intending to suggest adultery/illegitimacy in today's For Better or For Worse reprint. Though John does appear to be rather gobsmacked by the implication.

My own family, both immediate and extended, tends to not do very well at getting along with each other and with keeping stable relationships -- there's a lot of petty feuding going on. I don't see members of the extended family very often, and it's always a bit stressful when I do. I've never had any luck with romantic relationships myself, and I think that at least part of it is the lack of positive examples around me when I was growing up.

She's still alive and might, somehow, read this.

My mother screwed me up for having easy intimate relationships and gave me an intense fear of abandonment.

My sister... well she seems to hate me because I don't think my mother is a saint, even if I love her dearly.

She's also convinced my youngest sister that I am evil incarnate, and without any redeeming qualities and not to be trusted with the least bit of contact. I know this because she contacted me, asked for something and then wondered why on earth I'd think she wanted to catch up.

It had only been six years since she'd last been in touch.

So I'll probably never see my nephews.

People ask me why I don't see my family more. Henh.

Neil, #35: Close, but you're missing the VAP* emphasis. "Your BROTHER would know."

And @36: Oh, yes. The line that always gets me is, "She's leaving home after living alone for so many years."

Me, I'm going to be spending some time with chosen-family in between hurricane cleanup.

* Verbal Attack Pattern. Suzette Haden Elgin describes this in detail in her books on verbal self-defense; basically, it's what you mean when you say, "It wasn't what they said, it was the way they said it." It's also the thing that lets bullies repeat the bare words of what they said and convince everyone that you were out of line to get upset about it.

If it weren't for my (quite) dysfunctional family (in which alcoholism in various members has been the least harmful aspect) I would probably have grown up to be *gasp* normal. So I'm a bit warped, but I think I'm a better, or at least more interesting, person for it.

Which isn't to say that I'm not glad I'm a grownup and able to escape their sphere of influence...

mpe - I won't threadjack. If you want to explain yourself, feel free to email me.

My parents and I get along just fine these days. If you'd told me ten years ago that this would one day be the case I'd've called you a liar. For me, it worked to just ignore the past, tolerate their remaining foibles (as I do with friends and they do with me), and deliver the occasional smackdown (verbal, not physical). I make their occasional visits as pleasant as possible and don't try to go into the difficult stuff.

Our interactions are pleasant now. It was a lot of work to get there, and I don't think I'm done with therapy for good, but it was worth it. And by the way, it involved a solid decade of almost no contact at all; my father and I literally did not speak for 10 years.

I spend Thanksgiving with my family-by-choice, and have ever since I acquired them, even when I was living within easy traveling distance of my parents.

At Christmas I send rather than attend; it's what got me started on the chocolates. (Or is it? I can't quite remember at this point.) At any rate I spent one fairly excruciating Christmas with all the family together a few years ago, and realized I had no idea how to talk to them or what to get them as gifts, and they didn't know me any better. In ones and twos I can deal, but the whole 10-person clan (parents & sibs == 8, - 1 brother who died, + 2 spouses + 1 child) assembled together is more than I can really handle.

The worst part being, of course, that when you complain, people will tell you it's your fault--that you need to be more patient, not let the difficult relative get to you, etc. That it's all about your reacting badly.

The first time a therapist told me that my own difficult relative really, truly was difficult--rather than telling me, as family and friends had all my life, that I needed to be more understanding and adjust my own behavior--it was a life-changing and depression-lifting moment.

I'd gone to said therapist wondering how I could adjust my behavior, not expecting anything else, because it hadn't occurred to me that there could be anything else, or that distancing myself instead of letting myself get (emotionally) beaten up over and over again might really be okay.

Outsiders still find said difficult relative merely eccentric, though. And I still hear "you really let him get to you, don't you?" a bit too often.

JJ Fozz: Your first post in this thread made the ties of family all important (first, last and always).

That attitude (that one must care for one's family, that the relationship of kinship trumps the treatment by those kin) is part of that makes it so hard for people with dysfunctions in the family which make it impossible to deal with them so hard.

Because people (well meaning, careless or otherwise lacking in clue) will tell people who have been abused (emotionally, physically, financially, sexually) they need to, "just get over it," because family is all important.

Well, sometimes it ain't, and the, "strength of family" is just one more tool used to keep the victims in the orbit of the victimiser.

Lord, but I wrote that second sentence terribly.

The first typo makes it really bad.

is part of what makes it so hard for people with dysfunctions in the family so large as to make dealing with family hard, and sometimes impossible, is more of what I meant to say.

Apologies.

I wasn't giving advice to anyone Terry, I was simply stating how my family worked. I would never assume that what was good for me is good for anyone else.

Abi set me straight. I acknowledged her post. MPE left that message for me. I responded.

Can we not pile on JJ Fozz? He departed peacefully once abi explained (no flouncing, no threats to leave the site entirely, just realizing he doesn't have anything to contribute to this thread). Then mpe 32 used him as an example of people s/he tells to g fck thmslvs, which I thought was a little unfair given the circumstances (JJ being new here and having posted his first post without knowing the history and whatnot).

Let's not hijack the thread for telling JJ how he ought not to hijack the thread, when JJ has no intention whatsoever of hijacking the thread! And being mean to JJ won't make us feel better about anything. JJ has contributed positively in several threads, and is still getting used to us.

Could we cut him some damn slack, please? I'd really like not to have a dysfunctional family argument in this thread.

I raise a toast to the holiday.

When I tell people about my family, which I hardly ever do anymore, they alternate between horror and amusement, with a dash of disbelief and a liberal sprinkling of disgust.

Then I tell the punch line: "do you know what my father does for a living? He's a family therapist."

The stunned silence is always impressive.

Then there are the in-laws, the out-laws, and the ex-in-laws. At least one of these is the most dishonest person I have ever heard of: he had two therapists, unbeknownst to each other, because he wanted to be certain he wasn't being given "bad advice". And one wife, but two mistresses. All three of whom were born in the same (foreign) country. I think of him (ex-out-law) whenever the actual in-laws get pesky. Distance in time and space from him is a very comforting thing.

Almost as good as the distance (in time and space) from the one who worked in Europe as an assassin...

I raise a toast for this day, thank you, Abi, and get back to canning plums.

#35: Another day, another coffee-spattered keyboard.

#37: Well, Lynn Johnson's husband just left her and cleaned out their accounts. So at the least the strip is going to get analyzed for any reflections of that.

#48: As the son of two psychologists, I send a knowing nod.

Let me also raise a toast to this holiday.

My cousin is currently staying with my parents - her aunt and uncle. Her biological mother is dead and she's not on speaking terms with her father and stepmother. (Step- being a key prefix in that relationship, I'm not blaming my cousin.) A few days ago her boyfriend threw her out of the house with their toddler daughter. She doesn't have money, not having got a job yet after having the kid. She had nowhere else to go.

So yeah, my parents rock. A lot of others don't.

I appreciate what JJ Fozz said because it brought into focus, for me, the differences between my sister-in-law's family and my husband's family which has been a source of contention and conflict for both families. (My sister-in-law being married to my husband's brother.) Which means I now understand that dysfunction (although it is comparatively mild). I also appreciate that there are those here who really need to shut out the people in their lives who did them grave harm while under the guise of relation. (Sometimes blood is more toxic than water --to paraphrase a saying.) I hope that those individuals have found in some way or another a supportive situation and recognize that this is supposed to be a supportive community. Coincidentally, September 20 marked 14 years since my mother, who was the source of some pain for me, passed away. I was fortunate to have made some peace with the situation before that happened. And have continued the healing on my own and with my father.
I celebrate those who can and do live completely voluntarily and happily on their own with no spouses, significant others or children, etc. by choice. One of my good friends is such a person.
I leave you with this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt that helped me along:
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

Having no beverage to hand, I raise a vegan snickerdoodle in acknowledgement and gratitude for the holiday. As someone who moved thousands of miles away from my emotionally-screwed-up family, only to have them move next door to me two years later... yeah. It could have been a lot worse, but at least now I have an ulcer, so I can beg off family get-togethers with a doctor's note. heh. A toast to the urban family unit! w00t!

No Tolstoy quote yet? (Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way)

Raising my cup to each person who has survived the trama of truly disfunctional families by turning away and creating their own families of choice. You have my respect.

I also want to raise a cup to honesty since there is so much pressure to pretend to be close and cover over all the cracks and fault lines -- and not talking about all of the thousands and thousands of ways and reasons for families to be different in unhappy ways.

Family trama and its emotional reverberations exists and in thousands of different forms. And even families that present themselves as happy and functional have fault lines and issues. This Making Light space is designed to be a safe space to talk disfunction so that means dropping the cover-up.

I try to be honest about one major fault line in my family: Mental illness. My sister has serious mental problems, at various times called bipolar and schizophrenia. My paternal grandma had something seriously wrong also. My grandma never got treatment (that I know of). My sister is firmly in the mental health system. And thank the flying spagetti monster for that government system. Because mentally ill people can target family when having episodes (I'm talking knife attacks and other types of physical violence here, people) and family interactions can make things worse. The lovely social workers and mental health professionals are the best most wonderful folks to deal with this type of illness precisely because of the lack of emotional relationship.

And, to be honest, people with mental illness NEED extra support because their families turn away from them to protect against the hurt from the mental illness personality and also because it takes courage to say in public that you are related to a "crazy person." Because discrimination exists against both the person with the mental illness and the family.

In my sisters spiritual quests she has belonged to many different religious organizations from Reformed Jewish (part of our family tradition) to Wicca to her current Anglican affiliation. And one stop along the way was Assemblies of God. And the talk from the far right that family and church will take care of problems so we dont need a well funded social welfare system? Bullshit. Ive never seen people run farther and faster than the Assemblies of God churchfolk confronted with my sister in the midst of a serious mental illness episode. Because a serous mental health episode ain't pretty and no one will be around the type of manipulative nasty behavior that mental illness can provoke if they are not paid professionals. Properly medicated, when the medication is working and all is stable in her life, my sister can be a sweet and thoughtful person -- a huge contrast to the "having an episode" personality.

Still waiting to see how the Anglicans will respond to a major episode (better, I suspect, but mostly because I get the sense that the Anglicans are in general more willing to leave mental health treatment to mental health professionals and be friendly at arms length).

This comment is wandering all over the place, but I have two points. The first is that not just parents but sibling behavior can have long reverberations. I don't have kids and the long shadow cast by my sister's mental illness is one huge reason (emotionally - the actual odds of having a kid with mental illness means that most kids wont have a problem, even coming from a family like mine with a history of mental illness but you still have to weigh those odds and determine if you are emotionally prepared for the knife attacks, both verbal and physical).

My second point: Anyone who has survived where one or more parents has treated or untreated mental illness? You have my deep respect because I have some slight insight on how hard it is. Another toast to all the folks who have to jump into parenting nieces and nephews or grandchildren when their relatives are not up to the job.

Final thought - I love the Dune card. Our family problems have been made 1000% better by humor and sending a family member a Dune-like family disfunctional card is IMO a sign of being healthy and functional.

Did you write this post after shopping for Hallmark cards at your friendly neighborhood drugstore (CVS: not)?

The latent hostility in these cards (humor can be a form of hostility) makes picking from them for relatives difficult, to say the least. It's much easier to buy blank art cards at a museum and write your own messages.

Either Hallmark has decided to be "hip" and subversive or or people do harbor latent hostility towards their loved ones (or at least towards compulsory gift-giving).

Along with Tolstoy's quote, I think Philip Larkin's "This Be The Verse" should also be traditional:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Adelheid, #53: That quote is a double-edged blade, right up there with "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." If it helped you to cope, I salute you -- but I can't read it without thinking yeah, that's a get-out-of-jail-free card for verbal and emotional abusers all right. Because it's easy for bullies to sneer something like that at their chosen victims as "proof" that THEY can't possibly be at fault, it's all in the victim's head. That's not a useful thing for someone who's being abused to hear.

I like Tolstoy, but that quotation (from Anna Karenina) is one of his bigger clunkers.

Happy is as unique as unhappy. It's just that we tend not look at the mechanics of happy as much as we are often forced to notices the problems of unhappy.

Lee @ 58, yeah, the quote sounds similarly to my ears. My mother seems to find strength in it, and I've seen others who do too. But to me it's always sounded like "Why do you let yourself be hurt by hurtful things? What, you can't take the heat? Why don't you just grow a thicker skin? The fact that you're hurt proves you're weak and wrong; if you were really strong, you'd never experience pain when someone does or says something hurtful."

Relatives

Just the thought of them makes your jawbone ache:
those turkey dinners, those holidays with
the air around the woodstove baked to a stupor,
and Aunt Lil's tablecloth stained by her childhood's gravy.
A doggy wordless wisdom whimpers from
your uncle's collective eyes; their very jokes
creak with genetic sorrow, a strain
of common heritage that hurts the gut.

Sheer boredom and fascination! A spidering
of chromosomes webs even the infants in
and holds us fast around the spread
of rotting food, of too-sweet pie.
The cousins buzz, the nephews crawl;
to love one's self is to love them all.

--John Updike

After having a nervous breakdown stemming from the realization that I am most definitely not straight, I moved from Delaware to California to get away from my conservative Charismatic Christian family, and it was the best thing I ever did.

My mom is a narcissistic hypochondriac who was raped by her father, brother and babysitter.

My paternal grandmother accused me of not being a proper Christian because I still struggle with being sexually abused by an adopted grandfather; she got over being abused by her cousin, so why can't I?

My father is a self-hating bisexual alcoholic with crippling emotional immaturity who has lived with his mother ever since my mom demanded a divorce because he had sex with a man at a peep show (and didn't tell her until after putting her at risk for STD's).

My brother is the only person in the family worth giving a damn about. He didn't reject me when I came out to him. But now he's told me he's struggling to decide whether or not he can ever see or talk to me again, because he doesn't approve of the person I'm dating.

My family is deeply and painfully dysfunctional. But in spite of the fact that I'm still coping with the damage, I got out: I'm living on my own. Functioning. Making my own family.

To everyone who's had to do the same, I raise a toast to you, to your health, your growing strength.

To everyone who's helped a friend get free of their families, or any kind of abusive situation, I salute you and bless you. I never would have got free if it hadn't been for people like you.

Mara, I'm raising a toast to you -- and many others on this thread -- for your strength and courage.

May you all be well, and may you find families of choice that are full of real love.

Is this a day for people who were nearly strangled to death, threatened with knives, tortured with doors running over toes, had boiling soup poured over their hands because they weren't preparing dinner fast enough, locked in closets (yes, I identified with Harry Potter strongly from book 1), sent death threats, stalked, stalked, and oh extra on the stalking, had friends threatened, nearly had fingers pressed to the breaking point, and many other things I'm not telling you because this list is too long now, by their fathers and mothers?

Really and for true? Where I don't have to have people tell me "Family is all you've really got in this world" because if it's true I should just kill myself right now and have it be over with?

Too good to be true.

I celebrate every day with medication---actually, I kind of have to. Every day I'm steeped in the knowledge that I willingly traded almost everything I owned, everything I loved, every useful bit of legal paper, every friend I had, and even my name several times to escape. I know the real worth of life and identity. People think names are important---I know they are not.

You know, all my relatives would turn me into my parents, even seeing the result of the unhappier nights in a room with my father who needed to take his anger out on something alive. They have, too.

I also think when your kid is deathly sick and you refuse to take them to the doctor until the school and some law enforcement make you, that this should be filed under abuse and not mere neglect.

I have a very hard time convincing people I'm not a runaway for random teenage reasons---and I'm fucking 30. I don't think you should be shunned for getting away from your parents because they ripped your hands raw against carpeting and nearly ran you over with a car once to make some kind of point, I forget what it was.

I mean, really. I got everything *but* the kitchen sink of sexual abuse. Maybe nobody can make you feel inferior, and nobody can make you fear, but I tell you, brother and sister, there damn near ways to turn somebody insane.

I hate (temporarily) every single person who tells me "but family is your support in this life" because if that's true, I should just get my life over with.

On the other hand, I'm too goddamned stubborn to die.

I'd love it if this were really a holiday for me. But to tell the truth, too many people don't have families as messed up as mine, so all this is, is a sort of day for venting before they all go back to theirs. I got nothing on that end---and I'm not about to go back and try to work things out. Crazily enough, I did try that back in my early 20s. I got my wrist twisted up and my fingers nearly broken and the death threats for my troubles.

Family. Pah.

Every holiday is horrible for me. Because I remember what my father did to me on holidays, because they always stressed him out. And because there is no family for me to visit---unless, you know, I want to die.

You know, every day I go home with the knowledge that some day my father may have found me, and then, he for reals will kill me. This tends to set your priorities into "live in the now".

Anyways. I'd love a holiday like that.

mea #55: I know some about this. My husband is mentally ill; it seems to go on forever. He's getting some help now but in the last 18 monthes got neither medical or therapeutic help. He moved out and while it hurt me and the kids and horribly it has also given us some relief from living with a very sick person.

A lot of my energy goes into keeping our family as functional as possible. It helps that my family was functional.

... and this is the point where I really regret saying all that and not thinking *really hard* during the preview as to whether or not to spew. It's inconsiderate and not really needed even on a thread like this. There are all sorts of ways families go wrong. Mine is just a snowflake amongst a snowstorm, each snowflake unique and special...

I'll just go back to being quiet now.

I do kind of wish I'd found Making Light and hung out around here sooner.

Arachne: I'll celebrate with you, with medication and good whiskey. I didn't experience much in the way of physical abuse, but I would rather die than stay in my mother's house again.

There should be a holiday for people who'd rather forget Christmas.

@ Mara #67 -

First, *hugs*. Actually, *hugs* all around.

Ah, meds and whiskey. Sadly I am currently limited by home supplies to the horror of horrors, Diet Caffeine Free Cherry Coke.

... I should go out and buy some cupcakes.

There should be a holiday for people who'd rather forget Christmas.

Oh gods yes. I have thought that several times but never actually said it.

Anonymously, because ... because I wish it.

I am rebuilding myself, slowly but surely, after the slow drip drip drip of "teasing" and belittling and shaming. Failure was punished by humiliation, over and over and over. Success was... never noticed. Eleanor Roosevelt's quote only applies when there is some basis for understanding what "not inferior" even feels like.

I understand when someone says "everybody thinks my family is fine, but I don't" because my family looks great on the outside. Or even for some on the inside. It wasn't for me. It took a complete breakdown for me to realize how badly I was flawed. I can now think the unthinkable: I am a capable human being.

Celebrate ME today, and my continued progress towards functionality.

I celebrate this equinox for other reasons anyway, but I salute y'all for coming up with the idea and I extend sympathy to all those who were abused worse than I, or abused, period.
I think there should be a day for survivors of dysfunctional families, and also a day for single folks--I mean, if you are going to have "days" in the first place, which have some danger of being Hallmarked but good and then the cause forgotten for the rest of the year. I sometimes feel that the whole concept of dedicated days for this and that group of people, came about because someone wanted to sell some cards. I don't do cards.
I too survived horrors. The parties responsible have been called to account and made to understand that what they did was wrong... but deep down inside I can never trust them 100%, you just don't get over some of that stuff. It is worse when you can't hold onto friends for some reason. (I try to be considerate and polite and so on but I keep getting the ones that just fade away.) Sometimes it seems like the only intelligent conversation I have is online.
Anyway thanks for the reprint of the poem about how mum and dad fuck you up, and I hope somoene will do some nice ones about the equinox like they did for the winter solstice.

Much of the above resonates too well with me.

I blogged about one of the things that kept me sane through the ordeal of being in the total control of people who - oh, I don't know. They must have seen parenting rather differently than I do.

It turned out that the man who ran the pirate radio station that sustained my spirit died a few weeks ago. At the end of the post is a link to his daily ritual of affirmation - a reading of Desiderata.

I am only alive because I heard *every day* that "no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here".

Here it is, for anyone who needs to hear it said. Dysfunctional families can make us doubt that right to be here.

The 1950s were sick, sick, sick, sick.
I say that because of all the post-WWII propaganda which caused the US marriage rate to soar to the highest level it had ever gotten to.

Hordes of people married and had children because of social expectations and pressure--left to make their own decisions free of the 1950s social mandate of marry and reproduce and Birth Control is EVIL!!!, many of them wouldn't have married, and many more wouldn't have had had children, who grew up in situations varying from Clueless Parenting to outright severe child abuse.

My parents didn't mean to be abusive when they were--examples include I remember being in a car with my sister, when my grandmother was dying in a hospital in Woburn--actually she had died before my parents got to the hospital, driving from Leominster which at the time was an hour's drive west of Woburn, and my parents left my sister and I in the car in the parking lot, for what seemed like hours, presumably they were dealing with paperwork and grief and who knows what else... what I know is that I was 11 or so in a locked car with my sister, bored out of my mind and hating being in that car in the parking lot interminably, with nothing to do, nothing to read, except sit in the damned car....

I got blamed for being bored and/or thirsty... it never occurred to my parents to bring along things for their kids to amuse themselves with at auctions that went on for hours--there was one that there was really good stuff cheap at, and I was a small child, bored, unhappy, and apparently able at the time to make myself barf when upset and miserable and angry enough, so I did... I wanted OUT of there, and not to be bored and miserable. My parents never let me forget it. A few toys or a game or a jigsaw puzzle to occupy me and something to eat and drink and cloth for sun shield or warmth for comfort, and I would have perfectly happy... that sort of thing though NEVER occurred to them, and I was much too young at the time to have the cognition and forethought and knowledge to bring anything along. Later I never went anywhere for years without a deck of cards.... I used up a lifetime of solitaire as a child. Eventually books replaced the deck of cards as the security/boredom alleviator.

My parents have been gone for two years now. I have a sister, who calls me on her cell phone which is on only when she is using it to call people or expecting a call from her husband or such, while she is between a departure location and a destination. That pisses me off for a number of reasons. She got me tonight as I was doing yard work. I said I was working in the yard and trying to get some things done while there was still daylight.... She asked me what I was doing in the yard, which ticked me off... inquistions are not things I regard as polite. "But it shows I'm interested [so I am asking for the sake of politeness.]" she said. "I HATE smalltalk," I replied.... So, she then proceeded to tell me about what she had been doing, involving other women who are empty nesters (her younger son is now at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute. Both my sister and brother-in-law graduated from there, though it wasn't until they were office mates at IBM that they met; she was a year or two ahead of him)

(There's lot of geekery in my family tree, the RPI contingent above, a first cousin, a first cousin of my mother's, a first cousin of my father's, a second cousin's son, and various family connections with MIT degrees; a first cousin of my mothers who graduated from Caltech.... alas, I seem to come by my lack of social graces naturally.... the uncle with the four Harvard degrees in psychology, and the cousin who graded physics papers during his brother's wedding ceremony, made me look socially graceful....]

Arachne Jericho, #64 and #66: Please don't feel like you need to apologise. And please don't feel like you need to deprecate your experiences as 'a snowflake among a snowstorm.' And please, please, do not feel like you 'need to go back to being quiet now.'

I refer you to the quote on the front page of Making Light: "Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate."

Please stay.

@ debcha #73

Thanks. I'm grateful for your words. I'm grateful, actually, for this thread, even if there were some messages that made me lose my temper.

I am hanging around; I'm just contemplative right now. Today is a very bad day. Actually it's kind of been a string of bad days. It's like today coincided with an unfortunate bit in my life. And... I really need to get cupcakes! And food. I haven't felt like eating (for... over the last 24 hours), which is probably not a good sign, so I must go eat.

I try very hard to be functional and it's kind of unhappy when I lose it, even a little bit.

Could we cut him some damn slack, please? I'd really like not to have a dysfunctional family argument in this thread.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Agreed with Anonymous @43 about the value of finding a therapist, or for that matter anyone, to validate one's perceptions that something with the family member being discussed is Not Quite Right. I've seen three shrinks in my life, and each one made me feel better in the very first visit simply by responding with stunned silence to certain stories.

That kind of validation is hard to find. Found it here in this thread. Thanks.

Arachne, go eat. September has been Body Affects Mind Month for me-- I keep being surprised that two more hours of sleep makes my anxiety disappear.

Arachne Jericho, I second/third/fifth debcha @ 73. These things happened to you. You get to bear witness to the events of your life, however horrific or not quite drawing room material. There's no amount of sweeping under the rug or pretending that will unmake that stuff, so no point in trying either. You have my profoundest respect for surviving to tell the tale.

There's a number of things about Harry Potter's home life that strike me as being inappropriately cartooned. Those bits about being locked under the stairs and all? I know Rowling was going for an over-the-top description of Life of an Oppressed Talented Child, sort of like Cinderella without the softening of ages of retellings, but those parts squicked me in the same ways that watching The Three Stooges and similar skits bug me. It's just not very funny when you know how that same thing goes in real life.

So anyway, here's to ya. And if you don't have a bolthole planned out in case the loonies show up on your doorstep, plan one. You shouldn't ever need it, but having a plan helps some with the anxiety attacks.

Life's not like a romance novel
At the story's close,
Hap'ly ever after endings,
Versus lives morose-
Some folks they do have the fortune
Marry and lifelong,
Hap'ly ever after endings
For most that turn wrong!

Hap'ly ever after ending
Find your love who's true
But in real life unremitting
Oft those days are few--
Spouse abusal child neglect
Or cluelessness so high
Loves that do not pass the time test
Hatred and it's bye.

Family that one is born to
Or adopted in
Love's a word but so's dysfunction
Roll of dice for kin--
There are myths for kinship value
For some they are true
But for most there is dysfunction
Hardened painful glue.

Teachings how to be a fam'ly
What arbiters say,
That may or may not be the status
They allow no gray--
Deviants! they call all others
Who don't fit their mold
And they try to forcefit lifestyle
And all to it they hold.

Life's not like a romance novel
As each life unfolds
Hap'ly ever after endings,
Fictions that get sold,
Some folks they do have the fortune
Marry and live well,
But many know a world that's diff'rent
And family life from hell

Pace Xopher, and re: JJ Fozz - Words are important. Most of us here would agree that it's important to choose the right words, and own our words, because words are all we have to communicate with. And the reason that JJ Fozz's original post sounded to me not like a simple personal expression of his priorities but like a lecture to everyone else that Family Is Important Dammit was, quite simply, use of the second person in the first sentence:

"Your family comes first, last and always."

That first sentence set the tone for the whole post. Now that I go back and read it since JJ Fozz clarified what he meant (and I appreciate his doing so!), I can see the following sentences explain how this principle was a saving foundation for him and others in his family and the relationship they share. But when I first read it, that first sentence colored my reading of the rest, giving me the impression that the author sought to assert a universal truth and to offer personal experience as testimony to that universal truth.

It would probably have avoided bad feeling had that first sentence been worded in the first person: "My family comes first, last and always."

This may sound like a really picky point that only a total obsessive, anal-retentive person would care about - but I'm convinced that it's word choices like these that make the difference between communication and miscommunication. (And miscommunication leads to anger! And anger leads to suffering!)

--

I am fortunate in having a good relationship with most of my family; like someone else said upthread, it's worth being reminded that this is great good fortune and not something to be taken for granted. And because it's easy for me to take that for granted, I also find myself taking for granted the family I have accumulated through conscious choice and freedom of association, and the right to consider them family in truth. I'm guessing that many of us receive pressure from our accidental families (I'd say "genetic" but that would leave out us adopted kids) to hold our chosen families to a lower priority. I think it can be weirdly hard to resist that pressure when there's no dysfunction to point to as a reason for putting the chosen family first at times.

Which is a very roundabout way of saying: Today I acknowledge and celebrate my chosen family. They are precious to me, and there will be times when they come before the family I was born into, and that's valid and healthy and OK and even necessary.

(Mad hugz to Avedaggio, whom John and I very much consider family. Er... thanks for putting up with my shouting at the TV and all that! I only get like that when the Saints are playing, I swear...)

My family: hell, we had bad times and some good times, but my parents did their best to love me, and once I became an adult, I did my best to love them. My mother, in the last year of her life, said to me, "We didn't know very much about being parents." Her own childhood was awful, and she suffered from it daily.

I am awed by the courage and grace of the folks who have told their stories here -- and extend my heart to those who, for whatever reason, whatever horrors, whatever pain, can't speak. Peace to you.

Arachne, thank you for that long post, which I may link to the next time someone tells me "family is everything." May you be safe and find happiness.

People from functional families typically don't get it (our abi is exceptional in more ways than just that, happily).

Chris 75: This is why we can't have nice things.

I'm not sure quite what you mean here. It sounds like a criticism of what I said, and that's fine, but I don't understand the nature of the criticism. Could you elaborate?

#81: Sorry, Xopher. It was an unfortunately ambiguous attempt at mild humor intended as agreement with you.

Oh, OK. No problem at all.

Nicole, I don't disagree. At all.

#59: Really? Good to hear a different perspective. At least for me the Tolstoy quote rings true because it expresses what I feel when looking from the outside into a happy family. There might be lots of different flavors of happiness but looking INTO a happy family from the outside evokes a feeling of isolation and deviation from the norm.

#65 Sara_K – You and your kids – and your husband – have my best wishes. The most difficult and important thing when dealing with someone with mental illness, in my limited experience, is setting boundaries. And even when you KNOW that it is the illness talking, mean hurtful statements still sting and cut to the quick. And it can be very frustrating when the episode is over and the person with the illness doesn’t even remember doing such hurtful things. That is one thing that I’ve come to appreciate over the years – and talk to my sister about. People can have radically different memories of events or, especially when ill or medicated, absolutely no memory at all.

Mara at #62: good for you for having the courage to strike out on your own. And I’m sorry that you have to deal with the pain of your brother not being supportive when that is the one genetic relationship you think is worth salvaging. May he quickly come to his senses.

Arachne Jericho: Thank you for the courage to post your comment. I’ve been a lurker on Making Light for a long time, because I was too scared by the high level of conversation to jump in (uhm, does watching TV count as making something? What about if I am lousy at writing poems? What if I am completely unable to contemplate a situation where I’d need to decipher a message by pulling an old engineering text off my shelf?). But I felt I needed to say something on this thread because folks like me from lightly fractured families are conditioned to fake it and say everything is OK. That can crowd out the space for honest discussion. But talking about mental illness can be done in a clumsy way (because it can sound so “SHE has a problem, not me, no way, I’M the normal one”). I hope that my comment wasn’t one of the ones that made you frustrated.

And AMEN to the comment about Christmas. Virtually every single time my sister has had an episode it has been in the stretch from October to January. Holiday time. I spent some time living in a few non-christian countries and it is such a deep and enjoyable relief to not have The Cult Of Happy Christmas shoved down one’s throat. I wish there was a TV channel, radio channel, and newspaper that I could read during October to January that would completely NOT go down the holiday rabbit hole.

Yes, we probably do need a BadFamilyDay. ("Dysfunctional" is a useful descriptive word, but perhaps too fancy for something so basic.) Even people who had or are making Good Families can profit from a reminder of the alternative.

But I happen to prefer to observe the Autumn Equinox in a much broader & more elemental way, as a day of reflection and emphasis on the fact that the Cycle of Change may be moving into the worse -- I don't much like Winter -- but before too unbearably long (the Winter Solstice is only a few months away) will head for the better.

But whatever day is fixed upon for acknowledging familial dysfunction, I'd expect to observe it mostly by just continuing to be unmarried and childless. Hey, nudging 80, other scenarios are extremely unlikely. And probably go out -- alone, most likely -- for lunch or dinner at a Fancy (but not _too_ Expensive) Restaurant.

I'd spend a little time regretting that almost all of my long-time close friends are now dead. With a single exception, the best that's left is a handful of ... friendly close acquaintances, and (rather many) distant acquaintances. In a (well-functioning) Family, I suppose, these circles replenish themselves (with a little effort) from younger generations and in-laws.

This discussion makes me feel a bit uncomfortable because I detest the idea of establishing personal relationships on the basis of how _useful_ someone might be -- and there's some possibility I've leaned over backwards to avoid that, though I must confess to also being reluctant to assume the responsibilities involved in close & strong family/pseudo-kin relationships. Not to mention a disinclination to impose on others the work of trying to communicate with someone who's substantially deaf.

Mind you, mine was not, objectively, as terribly dysfunctional as many families I've heard about -- no hint of physical abuse, just constant (it seemed to me) stress and bickering, with frequent verbal pyrotechnics, between an unusually egocentric man and an inadequately self-confident but highly determined woman. Both Good People, I think, but they shouldn't have been married to each-other, or shouldn't have remained married nearly as long as they did, making themselves (and me) miserable much of the time. I'm too much like both of them to think I'd make a good spouse or parent, so I've deliberately avoided becoming either.

I'd also reflect on the thought that this dysfunctional family background is largely responsible for the person I became -- and, despite many shortcomings, I'm not all certain I'd want to be anyone else.

I've always had a rocky relationship with my parents-- they're not the kind of people who deal well with constant questioning, and I was the kind of kid who needed to know the why of everything. Combine that with their stubbornness, which I certainly inherited, and you can get a lot of personality conflicts.

At the low points, I haven't wanted to have anything to do with my parents. But the longest I've ever gone without speaking to them was a few months, after my dad said something really inexcusable and I told him I wouldn't talk to him at all if he was going to treat me like that. It worked for a while, but I get the sense we're slipping again.

When I first moved out of their house-- against their wishes, because they didn't think I knew how to take care of myself-- the friends I was moving in with got a chance to see how they act without company manners. One of my friends turned to me after they left and said "You know, you've always told me your mother is crazy, but I figured you meant it the way everyone does. But oh my god, your mother is crazy." I can't even *express* how much of a relief it was to get that independently confirmed.

The thing is, though, as I get older I start to understand the things that make them act the way they do. It's like I'd been wearing blinkers my whole childhood, and now that they're off I can see how much I was hampered by them-- and how hampered my parents are by the ones they still wear. So it gets easier to not blame myself when we can't get along.

I don't think I'd ever want to cut off contact with them, though. My dad doesn't speak to his parents or his sisters, and it's incredibly rough for everyone involved. I still hope my parents and I can understand each other someday, if I find the right words and they get a little better at listening.

Arachne Jericho: I am working on a time machine so I can go back in time and NAPALM a whole bunch of abusers. Yours are now on my list.

Because I hear your story and I want to protect your child self and tell you the truth: You don't deserve that. It's not your fault. You deserve to be loved and happy.

Don: Allow me to say thanks, you've always been a pleasant spot of company, and at times a genuine comfort.

@ Diatryma #76

I did go and get something to eat. French bread, liverwurst sausage. Comfort food, for me at least.

Also I got cupcakes and ate two of them. They were delicious.

@ pericat #77

Thanks. I will tell you, though, that sometimes I don't think I deserve all the kudos for living through the situation. Well. Okay. There were a couple iffy situations where I managed to successfully bolt and hide (in someone's house; in the apartment across the hall, which was a scary night) and I'm not sure he would really have held back those times.

But my father almost never really wanted to kill me all the way. Who would he have to talk to? He hated my mom, so he reserved special conversations with me. (Though said conversation also involved physical abuse, but there was talk inbetween the beatings...) Every time he hurt me to the point where I became a lot less responsive, he went way, and then came back and told me he was sorry and that he really loved me.

This confused the hell out of me as a child. And as a teenager. And frankly into my 20's. I could not make my family match up against all the families on TV and in books. It wasn't until I was in college that I started to realize why. Which is a very long time, granted, but my surrender was so complete for so long. The first memory I have is of violence.

Of course, that relationship with my father appears to confuse some other people. They don't understand the sick dynamic. They say "but your father DID love you" and all I can say is that there are some kinds of love that are worse than hatred. It's not a case of the love washing out the hate and making everything "ok". It doesn't work like that.

This, of course, makes it much harder to explain everything else, so I have tended to leave it out of conversation. This is probably the first time I'm saying it out loud again in over five years, because I think I won't get ridiculed here.

I loved Harry Potter because it was the first time I ever saw a---to me, anyways---relatively realistic portrayal of child abuse in a children's book. It was not over the top like a Dahl book; there were little tells that indicated to me that it was real, or most of it anyways. And I thought this was awesome, because I had never read something where it wasn't stretched out beyond control, swept under the rug, alluded to in off-scenes, or otherwise kept quiet. It was there.

The development of Harry Potter's relationship with his surrogate family also matured through the books, and got more realistic, to the point where it was very real. I liked that, though it's an odd reason to like that series.

Also, Harry Potter was a good person. Too often I've seen people equate abused children with growing up to be abusers and bad people. (Yes, I'm simplifying, but this is when I was in high school and you know how it is.) It happens, but not every single time. We aren't all people to be locked up and culled---I remember someone saying that in abusive relationships, *every* member should be locked up and never let out again, including children, because they would just grow up to be wrong.

Ah the ignorance. I've seen it too often to really be angry anymore.

I have friends on the island who are understanding, although they are thinking of moving away, so I'll need to figure out something else.

@ Xopher #81

Feel free to link. Over the years I have become rather less shy about telling the tale. It must be some form of late rebellion; my father made me swear special promises when I was little never to tell anybody what was going on.

It was all so sick and tangled. Well, *is*, to be realistic about it.

Someone gave me a book once; it was called _Toxic Parents_. I rather liked it, because there were chapters devoted to "you don't have to try to forgive". I have been told many times to forgive my parents. I think there are some things that you can't forgive people for, although I'm told that in time I can even forgive the strangling. I was not told that by the book, however. It's such an awesome book. Everybody with toxic parents should have a copy.

@ mea #84

Nope, it wasn't you. It was much, much earlier in the thread, but I'm over it now.

I mean, there are people out there who insist that what the Dursleys did to Harry was not abuse. *facepalm* So yeah. What can we do? Sometimes people just don't know until you tell them. And sometimes not even then.

It's the "not even then" that makes me really sick, and has been the cause of much suffering---and not just mentally either. I have lost some friends because, um, not to put down Christians or anything because I do have good Christian friends, but *these* guys became "born again" and decided that they needed to "mend my family" and did not understand that was not going to work.

I lost another name and identity through that.

@ Yatima #87

Thank you. Napalm is good.

I think I'm done rambling.

A sort of by the way... I have been told a few times that I'm being dangerously daring by posting on teh Internets with my name and everything. All I can say is... I'm tired of being afraid. I don't have anxiety attacks about the situation because I've just accepted it. And I can either be afraid forever and still die or I can be me and have conversations with people and still die. Sometimes this is a difficult concept to make other people understand.

My understanding friends introduced me to the phrase "It's not paranoia if they really *are* out to get you."

#29 ::: pedantic peasant

On this day remember:
You are precious and loved...

Thank you.

Thank you all for talking; thank you all for listening.

When I was 15, I saved as much money as I could from my job working at the Ascension Parish Library and planned to run away from home. I had looked up how to become an emancipated minor. I also knew that at 16, I could take the GED, and then perhaps apply to LSU. This all made sense to me, because I was willing to do anything to get the hell away from my insanely controlling father and mother.

I was luckier than some, because they loved me and they meant well, but I was miserable. My father didn't want me to turn out badly. So he read all my notebooks and eventually started stealing my mail.

I told my favorite teacher that I would be running away soon, so she wouldn't worry about me. Instead of turnin