problem- holidays (TRIGGER WARNING)

Googley - Wishing you strength and peace. I am so glad you took control over where you will stay. This is the KEY to staying in one piece both emotionally and physically. I really think staying with your friend is the best thing you can do for yourself. Also you may want to consider your own wheels ... just in case, this way you keep control of you and always have a choice in whether or not you stay! lots of well wishes for you

I don't really feel good. I feel like I gave in again. I know that during college I went home because I had to since the dorms were closed. Every time I told myself that things were going to be better than last time. They never were, and often they were worse. I feel like I have fallen back into that mindset again. Like it is back sliding.

There is another wrinkle in the situation. My friend who said I could stay with them while I was in town, (the reason I said okay) now say that I can't actually stay with them for half the time I am there. So now I am scrambling around trying to find somewhere to stay. I suck at asking for things. Which is why I jumped at it when he offered. Now I have to do something that makes me totally uncomfortable, asking for things. I have asked a couple of people, but no one has been able to put me up. I can't go back to my high school friends because most of them don't live in Seattle, so they are, if in town, staying with parents, or don't have apartments large enough to have guest rooms.

UGH!!!!!! I can't believe this has become such a clusterF*^ck.

(((Googley)))

Can you cut your time short?

I did end up finding someone to stay with for one night, then return to my friend's house. It was really awkward. My friend ended up doing some calling on my behalf and found a place. I couldn't make the trip shorter as the plane tickets are already bought.

Googley,

I feel deeply for you. I really do.

First, please believe that none of this is your fault. Emotionally abusive parents are experts at making you dance to their tune and then making you feel guilty for everything that doesn't go their way. None of this song-and-dance would be happening if they weren't so horrible to you. You're doing what you need to survive.

Believe me when I tell you that I know all about the guilt and the stress and the pressure to please them. Please try not to be so hard on yourself. I remember one Thanksgiving when my parents decided to come for a visit, all the way from another country. They insisted we go for a trip the weekend they arrived. I had to make all the arrangements (my sister got off by claiming she wasn't responsible enough).

So they came off of an 18-hour flight from the other side of the world only to hop back onto a plane during Thanksgiving weekend to Phoenix. Needless to say, it was a disaster. My father criticized everything. I was angry, but at the same time I felt like a complete idiot, like I did everything wrong. How I wished I'd told them NO. Now I realize, though, that it would have been more grief than it was worth at that point in my development. I had less knowledge about emotional abuse than you do, so you're way ahead of me right there.

You're being manipulated by people who live for nothing else! It's not as simple as just "putting your foot down." Believe me, I know!

Rainbow

P.S. Whoops! Posted this before I saw that you'd managed to arrange things. Please try not to feel bad about getting your friend's help. That's what friends are for. Wouldn't you do the same for him if it were the other way around?

I can understand how you feel that it is backsliding because it would be better if you just stayed at your home and seeing your parents will be hard. But you did accomplish something in all of this because you didn't want to say flat out no and you still found a way to make it better for yourself. So I can understand how you could feel right now but you still did good. And very good asking for what you need!

Thanks everyone for the support. I still feel like I gave in. Especially since I have been contacting friends from high school and a lot of them are not going to be there for Christmas. This makes me really sad because I expected this to be the good thing about the trip.

I'm sorry that you are feeling sad about the trip right now.

Is this how you see it? You didn't want to go at all. You gave in and agreed to go. Then you made other arrangements that perhaps lessened, but did not overcome, the damage of giving in.

You'd still rather not go, especially since now you know that friends from high school that you thought you would see, that would have helped you lessen the damage, won't be there after all.

Can you see the arrangements you made to lessen the damage as being good, significant, positive steps for you? Or do you only see them as minor in comparison to the fact of going home at all?

Dear Googley,

I noticed so often in your posts you have written "I gave in."
Do you think this would be something to talk about with T?

I do this too. I have one phrase about something that usually sticks right with me...

E

u have every right to not stay IN the house.

at a certain point in life, they need to understand that.

They're your parents...they may not understand everything but,
I'm sure if they searched deep enough they could find plenty of reasons
y your not willing to stay with them.

i'm not sure if u r. but just commenting.