The Holidays

The holidays are hard for a lot of people. There certainly is a lot of ETOH self medicating going on at family get togethers, even among those who do not live with mental illness.

I love my family and enjoy spending time with them the rest of the year; so why can't I get through a Christmas Eve party and Christmas day without PRN clonazepam and risperdal sprinkled throughout the day?

Even good things can be stressful at least for me. My co-workers tried to throw a surprize party for me once... I caught on that there was going to be a "party" at lunch break and didn't have my valium on me... OMG... Thought I was going to have to go to the ER before it was over!!!! I now carry my anxiety meds with me at all times and most people who know me know to give me a day or so warning minium even on the good stuff!

I've been thinking about it more because I do fine at summer barbecues I organize and the same group of people are there. The difference over the holidays is that my niece and nephew are there and they are poorly behaved and it totally stresses me out. That, and the whole thing of gift giving drives me crazy. I would have boozed it away, but didn't want to be the "drunk uncle" at the party.

I always say family draws out the worst in you. Usually because they do not see what you have become but what you were....the little kid they remember you to be. My brother and I don't get along so well because he still sees me as the bratty little sister that always followed him around. They never see you as the person you ARE but as the person you WERE. And that is very irritating to the point you go back to being that earlier version of you!

I think it is also because family members can be very aggressive about inforcing their understanding of you over and on top of your own; in effect saying that they know you better than you know yourself, which for me is very triggering. Most of the women in my family do a lot of this, and it is not a nice way to treat people. You basically reduce them to being figments of the imagination, somehow. BRRRRRR. HUGGGGSSS!

Lonegael --- "figments of the imagination" Great phrasing! So true!

I live on the opposite side of the country from any relative, and that is just fine by me. I was never comfortable at the gatherings of the past. The one side I had access to (story in itself), was not a group to overdo it on the alcohol, and the sparseness of its availability kept me in line too. Not that there isn't an issue there for sure (a cousin died just this year of), but the ones who were didn't spend much time at all at the gatherings (uncomfortable too??). The biggest issue was this uptight slant...projecting a kind of "Norman Rockwell" way, simply by ignoring anything "amiss" or unpleasant. Denial much? (The cousin who died this year? No obituarary.... Yeah.) Judgemental, for sure. My life has always rather strange , so it was easier to keep shut up and give short, generalized answers if put on the spot.

The other side of the family, I'm now known to again, but have never attended any gatherings (nor been invited, though they are nice to me). Plenty of alcholics on that side of the family tree, though a number are dead, so... no idea what a gathering would be like.

The ex-in law family? Had a really annoying habit of not only telling you what you should be doing with your life, but informing you what your opinions were. Any conversation would involve being bullied until, in exasperation, you'd agree, just to get them to STFU! Needless to say, I had nothing to say. My shyness helped somewhat on that front, though it was also considered yet more evidence of my weirdness. Soooo glad that whole scene is EX!

So, what on earth to enjoy?! Spend for a plane ticket? Don't think so! Not surprisingly I am considered fallen off the edge of the earth, though that is my doing in never responding to, say, to Xmas cards in earlier years (signed names only). What to say anyway?

HOWEVER. This year received a very sweet note on a card from BF's dad. It was so nice.