Tag: thanksgiving


Pick A Day Already

10
December

It is almost Christmas, just two more weeks now, and I still don’t know when my parents and I get to go see Nana.  Apparently, my Aunt has yet to pick her day.  And since we can’t have Christmas together like a normal dysfunctional family and since, according to her, we “picked” Thanksgiving Day to spend with Nana, we can’t pick Christmas as well.

I don’t get how we picked Thanksgiving.  There is one day to celebrate Thanksgiving on and that’s Thanksgiving.  We didn’t say we wouldn’t eat with them.  That was my aunt’s decision.  And since all that we do on holidays is eat together, because they always seem like they’re ready to be somewhere else, I don’t get why we couldn’t stick food in our mouths at the same time and in the same place.  They would leave right after anyway, so I just don’t see why they can’t be grown-ups and bottle their hostilities towards us for an hour or so on two days this year.  I mean, I’ve been bottling it up (obviously) for years and they want me to continue bottling it up publicly, so why can’t they do it for two out of the 8760 hours in the year?  Apparently, that’s too much to expect.

And if we have to have separate holidays, then I think that we should get to pick Christmas.  Last year, we got snowed in on Christmas and they chose to eat lunch and open presents at my grandmother’s house on Christmas, without us.  And, according to Nana, the cousin-in-law was none-too-pleased that my parents and I weren’t willing to drive over an icy bridge, up and down an ice-and-snow-covered mountain, and down some country roads to get there in a car that’s 12 years old and didn’t even have much get-up-and-go when it was purchased, doesn’t have 4 wheel drive, and doesn’t have any winter weather gear (because this is Alabama) to celebrate Christmas with them.  Oh, and the drive would’ve been without the dogs because we haven’t been allowed to have them around this particular family member since we first got Xander.  (Odd, since they have a dog of their own now.)  So, we would’ve been leaving 5 dogs at home, without food, with a limited supply of water, and (for Willow) without their medicine.  We also would’ve had to take all of our medicine and some extra clothes with us, in case we got snowed in there.  So, I’m not exactly sure why she was upset at our not coming last year and I’m not sure how it is that they got to choose when they celebrated Christmas with Nana last year and how they get to choose it again this year.  Of course, they picked the day the family celebrated Christmas during the first few years that my cousin and his wife were married, thus leading to some issues for my family with regards to Christmas.  So, it’s always been them who gets to choose that day.  It kind of makes me feel like my family has never really been appreciated by their family.  And that’s not exactly the warm, fuzzy feeling that one should have on Christmas or at any time of the year.

It’s not like it should matter to me when we celebrate Christmas.  There are no presents to open in my immediate family, so it’s not like there will actually even be a Christmas here.  At least, not a materialistic type Christmas.  And Nana doesn’t buy presents anymore, so there won’t be anything like that from her.  So by not getting Christmas with her (again) I’m just missing out on one of the two days a year when I don’t (generally) have to cook.  Basically, I’m not getting one of my days off because some members of my family can’t put their big kid underwear on and deal with us for an hour or so.  Way to go, them.

I could easily end this by apologizing, but the more ridiculous they get with their behavior, the less I think I should.  Besides, like I’ve said many times (online and off), I haven’t said anything that I should really have to apologize for.  They’ve used the same language in conversations about other people.  Why do I have to apologize because my “conversation” is available for lots of people to read?  Their conversations are a lot more likely to be overheard by someone that could take offense than my posts are to be read by someone who would get upset.  Maybe I’m not completely competent about social mores, but how is their behavior any better than or my acceptable than mine?  How is it okay to insult or degrade people about their lives behind their backs if you’re doing it vocally, but it isn’t okay to rant about my own feelings about what goes on in my life on a website that I pay for?  Why is that okay?  Maybe whoever is reading my blog on their behalf (’cause I know they are) will be willing to have my aunt or uncle or cousin or even the in-law send me an email or something explaining that.

Sometimes I wish that I had a truly boring life.  One where my family got along and everything could be considered normal.  Then I realize that wishing for a different life won’t do any good because I’m stuck with this one.  I’m stuck in a family where our relationships are basically based on some antiquated caste system with the “better than” members not wanting to talk to or spend time with the “less than” members, where it is normal to have third parties read blog entries to find negative words and then report back about how “this” or “that” was said even when it wasn’t, where it was okay to give R-rated movies to me when I was 15 but the second I mentioned being suicidal or psychotic I started getting gifts most families would consider to be okay for a little girl, where censorship is okay when I judge but they’re allowed to spew whatever crap they want, where my dad has to get “groomed” (haircut and extra shaving) to keep them from calling him names behind his back, and where I’m told not to talk about them, but they get to lie to my only living grandparent about what I say so that maybe, just maybe she might decide to quit talking to me or loving me or something.  Yeah, that’s the family I get to have.  I should just accept it and move on.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Family, Holidays, Mental Health, My Family's Weirder Than Yours Is

You are the Silence in Between What I Thought and What I Said

25
November

Well, the computer came back today.  Yay.  It appears to be working fine.  Unfortunately, my external hard drive has to be reformatted again, so that makes me quite unhappy.  I guess I should just get used to this kind of geek-related disappointment.  So, I’m waiting on the formatting to finish.  I’m also trying to get my iPod to sync.  It keeps saying that it’s done syncing, but it hasn’t added ANY of the (1000+) songs that I spent the last couple of weeks listening to.  This is also disappointing.

In less disappointing news, I had a pretty good Thanksgiving.  Aside from my mom’s blood sugar dropping throughout the day, my getting a migraine from (of all the foods that could cause it) pinto beans, and finding out that my aunt is apparently going to get to pick what day she has Christmas with my grandmother before my parents and I get to (thus ensuring that she doesn’t have to see us), then it was actually quite good and bordering on superb.  Of course, when you factor all of that in, it knocks it down a few pegs.

I have to have blood work done sometime in the next week or so.  One of the doctors from the UAB Clinic wants to do his own hormone-research stuff to figure out why it is that I don’t get my period regularly.  Even though I’ve been diagnosed with PCOS, apparently, he feels the need to figure out what is going on.  So, good luck to him with that.  He thinks it is my thyroid, which is a theory I bet he will abandon when the blood work comes back with a low-end-of-normal reading on my thyroid function hormones.  Then he will probably give up.  If I sound convinced of this, it is because I am.  This is what always happens when doctors decide to check my thyroid.  I even told this doctor that, but he seems to think this time will be different.  (Maybe he is a bigger nut than I am.)

Oddly, right after he made the first call to find out if I had ever had the thyroid tests done, I got my period.  I was quite surprised by its appearance, since it had been many months since it had last come around.  Of course, it was very heavy, painful, and nausea-fever-and-dizziness-inducing.  It was not fun.  Of course, I don’t think it has ever been fun.  I think that it is over for now, which is odd, because I only got it for about a week and a day, but it could come back.  (Sometimes it just appears randomly a few days after it has supposedly quit.  It’s very rude like that.)

Tomorrow is the wonderful day which will test my dad’s anger management skills, aka the Iron Bowl.  I’m hoping that his ability to keep his temper in check this season will continue through the game tomorrow.  If he does, then it will be an Iron Bowl miracle.  There might even be holiday specials made in his honor if he manages it.

Comment » | Family, Geekery, Holidays, My Family's Weirder Than Yours Is, Sickness and Health

Come On Now

15
November

My mom decided to call her sister on Saturday to find out why exactly her sister’s family won’t be at Thanksgiving. It was, of course, my fault. Apparently, she is upset because she had been told that I called her an evil bitch. I didn’t remember doing this, so I decided to do a search. In the ten years that I have had this site, I have used the phrase “evil bitch” 3 times.

  • The most recent was in 2010. I referred to a psychiatrist as an evil bitch after she told me I smelled bad, even though I had showered, put on nice smelling clothes, etc. Valid use of the phrase, no?
  • The next most recent was in 2005. It was a reference to the furthest back entry where I had called a psychiatric nurse at the Mental Health Center the “Evil Bitch Monger from Hell”.

Clearly, since my aunt is not a psychiatrist or a psychiatric nurse, I didn’t call her an evil bitch.

I decided to try just evil next.

As for various forms of the word “bitch”, I said others described her decision about the separate Thanksgivings as bitchy, I described someone from the other side of the family as saying things that distressed me and led to me making bitchy responses, I mentioned an argument between my mom and me (later in the argument, my mom began talking about how awful I was vs. her sister, which led to sarcasm from me), I called myself bitchy, I called my eighth grade history teacher a bitchy person and said she was a misogynist, I described the call from my aunt’s daughter-in-law as being done to bitch me out, I described my mom’s mood swings as “incessant bitchiness” right before I first mentioned how frustrated I was about the video on the news, talking about nother bitchy psych nurse, a reference to myself, my mom calling me a bitch, saying my dad was bitchy about Farmville and Facebook, my being pissed at a former family friend, me mentioning a philosophy teacher that I felt was bitchy, and talking about the evil psychiatrist. That’s pretty much it when it comes to calling people bitchy or bitches or anything of the sort. So, technically, I didn’t call my aunt a bitch. I also didn’t call her evil.

She also said that I said that she made my life a living hell. I did accuse her of that as part of a meme I was participating in April. I spelled out my reasons for it, too, which I think she should read since apparently she has never read the actual entry. Other than that, my comments about her have been relatively mild. They have all been based on the same things that were discussed in the other post, which makes sense because we, as a family, have not dealt with the cause behind the feelings. Until we do that, the words will continue to be something that probably comes up. That isn’t a threat. It’s just part of what goes on until some kind of resolution happens.

It’s weird how she is upset over the 5 or 6 that had any negative content about her in the past year, but doesn’t realize I’ve also posted 1 where I was genuinely concerned about her after she had eye surgery, quite a few posts after Thanksgiving last year gushing about her cooking the meal, the 3 or so in the last year where I talk about missing her in some way, etc. That’s out of around 100 posts total that I’ve made on fuzzypinkslippers.com in the Family category and the 152 on the site overall the beginning of 2011. Most of the posts in the Family category refer to my mom or my dad or both. There are  probably more posts from the last year about going to court over my grass than there are about my aunt. So, I think a littler perspective might be helpful.

Now, if she wants to claim that I’ve been more harsh about her daughter in law, then that might be a legitimate issue, but…I haven’t even called her a bitch or evil.  I did accuse her of being a catalyst in tearing apart our family and of having a double standard about medications, but I didn’t even get all that vicious on her.  So really,  they need to get over it.  If what I say is causing them so much anxiety, stress or anger, then they are old enough to know how to click the little x in the corner of the browser.  They are also old enough to not have surrogate blog monitors check out the site for them.  I think that if they would lay off on the familial pressure (via the monitoring and the accusations they make to my mom and grandmother) then things might get better.  I keep posting things related to them because their anxiety heightens my anxiety and my paranoia.  I really wouldn’t think that people who are related to me would want to cause me to either get so angry that I have severe headaches or so depressed that I cry for hours on end because I’ve heard yet again how horrible (in terms of actions) yet insignificant (in terms of importance to them) I am.  Honestly, the best way to end all of this drama is for them to back off.  They want to prove that I’m immature or wild or needing to be controlled by my parents*…that’s fine, but this all seems like a way to bait me, which doesn’t make them come off as being much more mature than me.

*Yes, my aunt actually told my mother that my mom should be able to exert some kind of parental control on me about what I blog about because she is my parent.  Yes, my aunt knows that in less than four months, I will be 28.  She also knows that I am a lot better behaved at 27 than my mom was during her teens and twenties.  So, again…perspective.

3 comments » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Family, Holidays, My Family's Weirder Than Yours Is

A Face That Laughs Every Time I Fall

7
November

I had therapy this afternoon. As usual, I forgot that I had therapy today until I saw the appointment on the family appointment schedule/calendar. The appointment was going to be one where I discussed something that has been pestering me since I was a little kid. It was going to be one where I discussed something I’ve only mentioned to two or three people total in my life. Of course, therapy never seems to work out the way I plan on it working.

One main reason that I didn’t discuss that pestering issue is that Nana had called at about noon today. She’d told me that a certain relative had been talking to her about Thanksgiving. The relative asked if my parents and I were going to be at Thanksgiving dinner (lunch) on Thanksgiving Day. Nana said that of course we were going to be there. The relative then said that that meant she (and her family) would not be at that dinner and that they would have Thanksgiving some other time. I wasn’t too surprised by this, given the amount of drama that has been brewing related to it. I was okay with it, or so I thought.

Having them there in a “normal” year is a rather stressful thing for me anyway. I have internal fights and arguments in preparation for the day. I have panic attacks about what might happen if I mention certain things during dinner and cause an actual brawl. I stress out over how I might end up being belittled for my education (or “lack” thereof) or how I might see or hear them give someone (Nana, mom, or me) a difficult time about their use of pain medicine or some other relatively minor thing that ends up causing major family drama. So not having them there means that I won’t be feeling quite the same level of pre-Thanksgiving anxiety and stress. That should be a good thing.

It isn’t, though. I feel guilty. I feel like this drama is my fault, even though it wouldn’t have started if there weren’t issues with how the family functions to begin with. The drama has been there for a long time, even if it hadn’t been exposed. So I shouldn’t feel so horribly guilty about it, but I do. And I think that was the purpose of the boycott. Maybe that’s just my inherent paranoia, but it seems like this is a way to make me feel bad about the whole situation and to feel even less comfortable about my blog and my way of handling stress related to this kind of stuff.

It doesn’t really impact my decision about what I’ll talk about online, though. I will continue to talk about how I feel openly. I’ll do it even though it might be part of what drives a wedge between the two sides of my family. I’ll even do it knowing that there are still regular visitors from Oneonta and Guntersville/Arab/Boaz/Albertville, which I know must be them coming to check on me to see what I might be saying about them. (Yes, Analytics is still catching them checking out fuzzypinkslippers.com, my personal tumblr, my LJ, Hyperaware, and Blah Blah Biddy Blah. They may be visiting other sites of mine, which amps up my paranoia.)

Instead, it just makes me feel like it doesn’t matter that the problems with the family wouldn’t be discussed if I didn’t blog about it.  It makes me feel like my feelings about everything are insignificant.  And that is what I mainly talked about with my therapist.  Anytime I’m told not to talk about something or told, in general, to shut up or that someone doesn’t care, it triggers the internal belief that I am insignificant, which triggers the brutal depression and the worsening of social isolation.

It also makes me feel like I’m supposed to feel guilty about how I am tearing apart the family, even though I am not the one making the decision not to show up for Thanksgiving (for the third time in a decade) and I am not the one who is trying to make this about one part of the family being more important than another part. Knowing that family is extremely important to me and then trying to use it against me to make me feel guilty is about like handing a razor blade to a suicidal individual and challenging them to end their life.  It is using a known weapon and a known psychological stressor to manipulate one person into doing what you want, and that isn’t fair.

Between this ongoing drama with those family members and the repeating pattern of destructive interpersonal relationships, I broke down about how “people suck” and how I felt like I keep entering and perpetrating dysfunctional relationships because I get something out of being in those relationships.  (Almost twenty years of therapy and I just figured this out.)  She told me to look up the Karpman drama triangle, which I’ve added to examples of below:

Karpman drama triangle - ex 1
Karpman drama triangle - ex 2

So, I guess that internet theory about online drama perpetrators/victims being equally responsible for online drama also applies to real life.  I think, in many of the relationships, I am definitely continuing patterns of victim-like behavior and perpetrator-like behavior.  (Sometimes I trigger/accuse someone of doing something, which starts the whole cycle over again.)  My therapist compared the drama issue with something that foster kids do.  (She was a social worker with the agency we did foster care out of, and handled Stephanie’s case during part of Stephanie’s stay with us.)  Apparently, what I do is like what those kids do when they are so used to placements failing that they become convinced that a placement will fail and decide that they will make it fail so that they have some level of control over their lives.  I guess that makes sense.  I’ve always felt out of control when it comes to a lot of my life, so it would make sense that I would do something that causes me to not only be miserable, but also allows me to control when I am getting miserable.

I need to get out of that cycle.  I also need to form healthier attachments.  And more than all of that, I need to figure out a way to be happy.  I’m not talking about the little bursts of joy that any person might have during their life.  I need to find a way to have some kind of sustainable joy in life. I didn’t want to work on my mental health for years and I actually enjoyed periods of crippling depression because it was more predictable than happiness. I really need to change that mindset.  I need to learn how to deal with life and how to be happier.

So, I didn’t get to talk about one thing that may have been to blame for some (or many of my emotional issues), but I did get to talk about another.  It actually makes me feel grateful to the family member for reacting in a way that some close to me have referred to as being “immature” or “bitchy” because without that reaction, I might not have started working on one of my major psychological issues.  So, yay for that.  Maybe I should have more thoroughly pissed that person off much sooner.  I might have graduated from college.  I might have gotten married by now.  I might have felt happy.  Okay, maybe none of that would have happened, but it does make me wonder.

3 comments » | 10 Years of Madness, Blah Blah Biddy Blah, Confessions, Family, Friends, Holidays, Hyperaware, Internet, LiveJournal, Mental Health, My Sites, School, Tumblr

Why Do I Even Bother

28
October

Mom just got a call from her mom. Apparently, I’ve been up to no good again and saying “bad things” about certain people. I thought this was weird because I haven’t been saying anything recently about certain people. The last thing that I could find that is public is something from September. It was a rant about my mom taking me for granted while glorifying a particular family member, who I was (and still am) annoyed with over the lack of participation in my mom’s recovery process. I still feel my rant is justified. Of course, I still feel my rant from January is justified and I feel the rant I made in 2002 was justified, too. I also think that they have been taken way too seriously in some respects, while not seriously enough in others.

Since I know that those people are probably reading and will probably continue reading, I want to say this:

I have specifically asked, many times, that you not read this site if you don’t like what I say. I have also asked that you not take it off the computer or try to use it against me with other family. Apparently, this isn’t possible.

I am sorry that you were offended by what I said, but I’m not sorry that I said it. That may sound childish or rude, but let’s face it, I’m not exactly thought of as the most mature member of the family.

I do think that it was unfair in 2002 to shut me out of your life for 9 months until you suddenly decided that something might happen and that you couldn’t live with yourself if it did. I think it was even more unfair that for the next 9 years, even when I tried to make up for the 2002 post, I was basically ostracized within my own family. I think it was unfair that I spent two Thanksgivings when I was severely depressed wondering what I would have to do to make you spend time with me on a holiday that we used to enjoy together.

I think it is unfair that I am the bad one about the January thing in general. I find out something that was apparently so private that people who share DNA couldn’t know, but that was okay for hundreds of thousands of strangers to find out at the same time as those strangers. I get pissed about it. I make one tiny little comment, then become public enemy number one. Meanwhile, it is okay that that post that got her so upset was found only 6 or 7 hours after it was made meaning: she was checking up on me. Yeah, you can say that I apparently needed to be constantly monitored, but the thing is that I didn’t.

I also think that it was unfair that in January, when you talked to her after the post, you didn’t somehow emphasize that making a phone call to me would only further agitate me. You have known me since I was a little kid. Have I ever really been comfortable on the phone? No. Have I ever really been able to vocally defend myself? No. Didn’t it occur to you or to her husband or to anyone who may have thought that call was a good idea that it was, in fact, a bad one?

I shouldn’t be forced to feel guilty because I said things you didn’t like. I shouldn’t have to be told not to write about things that you don’t like. If I cater to you or to anyone else, then I won’t be writing about what is upsetting me anymore. I won’t be doing what the blog was basically set up for. Writing about my issues is how I deal with them. If I don’t write about them, I go more crazy than I already am. If that happens, then I go to the hospital. If that happens, then what? Are you going to move my mom and dad down to your house to make sure that they’re taken care of? Are you going to try to keep up with their health problems? Are you going to give my mom shots (insulin or otherwise) when she’s so out of it that she can’t give them to herself? If I don’t write about these things, these are questions that you will have to have answers for.

What I say doesn’t actually hurt this family in anyway. How have you been harmed by my words? Offended? Maybe, but not hurt. Whereas, I’ve dealt with having my education called into question multiple times, been treated like a dangerous fiend since my time IP, and hearing speculation that my grandmother (and then my mother) have drug problems because of their use of pain medicine. I’ve seen our family get torn apart because suddenly there is only room in the family for you and my uncle plus your son, his wife, and their son, and maybe your mom’s “adoptive” sister that you apparently communicate with more than you do with your own biological sister.

I will not quit writing about things. I will not apologize about your getting upset by them. I will not pretend that I’m okay that this family has been so dysfunctional for years now. I will remind you that you are an adult, you have a choice about what you do when you’re on the internet, and you make the choice to read these things. You know what you will find and you do it anyway because that justifies the anger that you have toward me. The subsequent acting-like-Janet-is-a-subhuman attitude is then okay because I brought it on myself. If you don’t want to be angry with me, then don’t read things I say. If you don’t want to know that I’m frustrated about you, then don’t read it. Or learn to skip posts that are categorized as “family” because they “might” be about you and they might be negative.

So, I shall say this now: back off and try to get over it. Oh, and stop opening that entry over-and-over. It will not be going away. It will not be edited. You need to move on.

I’m guessing this feud will probably hamper any Thanksgiving plans, but…it might be worth it. Sure, Thanksgiving is one of those rare days where I actually do eat a significant amount of food, and it is one of the few days that I get to see people I’m related to that aren’t my mother or father, but if I’m going to have to put up with this crap then I don’t want to spend the holiday with them. I want to spend it with Nana. At least she’s loved me and actually tried to be there for me through all of this.

I shouldn’t spend a family holiday with people who clearly don’t want me to be a part of their family.  I want to be where I’m wanted, and that probably won’t ever be in a room where she is.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Family, Holidays, Letters, Rants, So Damn Special

30 Days of Truth: Day 8

20
April

(I know that it has been forever since I started this meme, but I’m going to try to finish it up.)

Day 8 is devoted to:

Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.

You might think I would choose my (emotionally abusive) grandfather or the eighth grade history teacher that picked the girls in her classes. No, this will be devoted to a couple of people who are all from the same group of people. Who might they be? My cousin’s wife (not the funny one) and my maternal aunt.

The wife of the cousin shall go first.

It should come as no surprise to anyone, especially her, that she and I are never going to be buddy-buddy.  Ever since shortly after she married my cousin in 1999, she and I have pretty much been at odds.  I’m not sure if the first time that she really started acting like I was some kind of miscreant was when I accidentally (and yes, it was an accident) stepped on her wedding gown or when I made a small joke (at the beginning of her pregnancy) that it would be cool if their son was born on April 1.  (His due date was already supposed to be in April, around 2 weeks after the start of the month, so in terms of development, it wouldn’t have been a big bad thing.)  She acted like I was hoping for the death of her child.  He ended up being born February 18, the day after my 16th birthday.  He had some pretty hefty birth defects and I got why everyone was so concerned about him and was so careful with him.  The birth defects were treated with various surgeries and with stays in the hospital.  By the time he was a toddler, he was relatively healthy.

In 2002, I wrote a blog entry about her.  I was pissed off at her because she didn’t seem to care about discipline and because she wasn’t acting like she was concerned that (at 2) her son was not even attempting to talk.  Honestly, I was a bit concerned that he might have some form of developmental disorder, but if I had asked her, she would have shut me down.  (Anytime I’ve tried to ask what’s going on with him, she has shut me down or acted like I couldn’t possibly have a clue what was going on.)  At the same time, she was apparently telling my mom that she thought that there was nothing wrong with my mother.

The blog entry practically got me excommunicated from my own family and I was told to never talk about that part of our family on the blog again.  (I have, but no trouble occurred until earlier this year.)  I let my internal issues fester for years, knowing that I felt like a stranger in my own family and that this one person was basically keeping me from having the loving family that I once had.  I almost got used to having my family turn their backs (literally) toward me at family events.  I didn’t get used to seeing the eye rolls, having anything I did for the family (i.e. the Christmas where I cooked pretty much everything) treated like it was suspect, listening to the concern that maybe my grandmother was a drug addict (because she’s taken medicine for Degenerative Disc Disease), hearing that my education was worthless because it was at A&M, or having long-time family events called off (or rescheduled) for no reason.

The last thing I mentioned really bugged me because we have had a dinner on Decoration Sunday the same weekend in May every year.  Soon after the marriage, the dinners became harder and harder to get anyone from that side of the family to attend.  What made this even more annoying was that this was also the weekend of the family reunion for my mom’s father’s side of the family, and it was the only time of year that we got to see some people, including my last remaining great-uncle from my grandfather’s side of the family.  That Sunday was always special and it practically disappeared because she had to go camping or my cousin had to go to a golf tournament or something else that could’ve probably been done at any other time.  It also bugged me because there were years when my family couldn’t attend Christmas dinners because of work or illness.  We didn’t get those days moved so that they specifically fit our needs, we would just miss them.  But Christmas has been dictated by that side of the family since 1998.  In 2008 at Thanksgiving, they decided not to even make an attempt to come see us.  (They went to see friends, as they’d done the year before.)  That Thanksgiving happened to be the one where I spent the day prior cooking everything and then ended up being able to eat none of it when my mom’s sugar bottomed out.  I nearly lost my mother that year, and I didn’t even know how to get in touch with them–on the off chance that they even cared.  That Christmas, they didn’t want to celebrate it.  I balked at that.  I pretty much threw a tantrum that said that if they didn’t come then that meant that they really didn’t love us.  They came, but they were all-too-thrilled to leave as early as possible.  (They’ve left quickly since then.)

At Thanksgiving, my mom mentioned that she had been at the pain doctor the day before.  Whether my cousin’s wife realized it or not, she rolled her eyes and made a disgusted look.  After we ate, she and my aunt were talking about her son’s lack of appetite and how it might be related to his ADHD medicine.  When I asked about the medicine, she rolled her eyes and told me.  When I tried to give her some insight on how the medicine might be making him feel, she cut me off and acted like I was somehow invading on her privacy.  (I’ve actually taken ADHD medicine in the past, and I thought I might be able to help her figure a way to help him stop losing weight.)

At Christmas, my parents and I couldn’t show up because of snow storm.  They decided to celebrate it on Christmas with my grandmother anyway, even though they knew we couldn’t come.  The cousin’s wife was pissed because my parents and I had decided not to make a journey that went over the river and over a mountain to get there.  It didn’t seem to occur to her that we couldn’t get there because it was unsafe.  Our lives were worth the risk, I guess.

The final straw was when I was watching television and got to have a news anchor announce to the rest of the Tennessee Valley that my cousin’s son happened to have some sort of developmental disorder.  (He was in a performance art group for kids with disabilities and he was in the video, though they didn’t call him out by name.) I really didn’t appreciate finding out with the rest of the people in the viewing area.  It seemed like the sort of thing that could have been discussed in the almost 11 years since his birth.  I was pissed and I wrote a blog entry, which led to her calling me on the phone, getting my mom to hand me the phone, and then blessing me out.  She wanted me to apologize and to promise never to talk about her on here again.  I told her not to read about herself on here, but to never demand that I keep from talking about certain aspects of my life. Since then, the family has pretty much been split in two.  No one (from the aunt, uncle, cousin, & cousin’s wife) acknowledged the birthdays of my mom and me.  (Of course, my birthday has always been ignored by the cousin and his wife.) My cousin blocked me on Facebook.  The only way that we find out what has gone on in their family is through my grandmother, who (this time) wasn’t mad at me for what I said.

Now is the turn of my maternal aunt.

I think that the two of us started drifting in 2002.  I was annoyed at her reaction to the blog entry that had occurred back then and I didn’t appreciate being shut out of her life for almost 1 year afterward.  I have to wonder if she would’ve continued to freeze me out if her childhood friend hadn’t died or if I hadn’t had the same surgery that the friend had had prior to her death.  In 2003, things seemed to go back to normal for a little while, but it wasn’t long before I began to realize that I had completely lost her.

My aunt agreed with the cousin’s wife that my grandmother was abusing pain killers.  By all accounts, she was even going into my grandmother’s house and counting the pills.  She tried to get my mom to help do an intervention with her (and wanted her to go into a nursing home), which my mom only agreed to because my grandmother was falling down all the time.  After a medicine was changed, though, my grandmother didn’t fall as much, and my mom changed her opinion on the whole thing.  My aunt has still seemed to be of the opinion that no one really needs pain killers.

She has also participated in the discontinuation of family events, the non-contact, and some of the other unkind behaviors.  I probably would’ve let it slide except that she never called or came to check on my mom any of the times she has been in the hospital, including when she was near death from the blood sugar thing or when my mom’s had her ankles operated on.  In fact, for my mom to even get to talk to her sister, she’s had to make the long-distance calls to my aunt.  If my aunt ever calls, she only talks for a few minutes at a time.  (If my mom calls her, she’ll talk for an hour or more.)  The calling thing bugs me because my aunt and uncle have money, and they know that my parents and I don’t.

She also was the person who told my mother that she wouldn’t help my parents pay for my books for college because I would never graduate.  She’d gone from seeing me as this person who could do things to this person who would be a leech on society.  She never helped contribute to our family when we nearly lost our house or when we struggled to get even basic necessities paid for.  Instead, my dad’s sister would help.  His sister, who had always been a bit of an absentee, volunteered to help out.  She continued to help as long as she could, while my maternal aunt would go on trip after trip and buy expensive things, while continuing to claim that they had no money.

If you look at past blog entries, especially the last few years, my more annoying behaviors and attitudes corresponded quite well with the family issues.

 

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, 30 Days of Truth, Confessions, Family, FPS-Related, Holidays, memes

Fall Down, Go Boom, Eat Turkey, and Cry

26
November

I was going to blog yesterday (as in Wednesday, not Thursday) about therapy and how my therapist said I should move out because she thinks my parents are super-manipulative. I changed my mind, though, when I fell on Thursday morning as I was about to prepare the food for the pack.

kennel

Somehow, as I was walking past Gretchen’s kennel (similar to the picture above), my jeans got caught on the little metal thing that sticks out at the top that helps hold it closed. I was trying to manipulate my leg so that it would come off easily, but since it’s a swinging door, it had other plans. It pulled and I slid, which caused me to scrape my right knee while twisting my left. The left knee made this nice tearing sound, which I figured was no big deal. (With me, the tearing sound is generally a mild-to-severe sprain.) I iced it right after I got up, changed clothes, and fed the dogs. (My dad had to put the kennel back together, since my fun little fall was able to pull the door out and twist the metal thing I got snagged on.) I thought it would be okay, so we went to Guntersville.

The meal went as well as it could be expected. Luckily, there were no hospitalizations while down there (i.e. when my mom’s sugar dropped causing her body to begin shutting down and her kidneys to almost fail in 2008) and no one got injured while we were there. (Co-ordination in our family is kind of non-existent.) My aunt (and her crew) did a great job with the food. (I was happy my grandmother made mashed creamed potatoes and green beans [canola oil instead of water makes them so much better].) She did the typical thing in our family, which is getting nervous about the dressing. (Basically, if you mess up the chicken & dressing in our family, you end up feeling like you’ve ruined a dinner.) She did the other typical thing our family does, which is making it perfectly. (This is a feat, since none of us have an actual written recipe, so we have to basically do it “by ear”.)

When we were headed home, my knee was a bit swollen, and was inflamed enough that I could not straighten my knee at all. This led to a bit of muscle cramping in the right leg, since I was putting more weight on it than I should. I was so happy when I got home and was able to get to multiple ice packs, my last dose of D&C-prescribed Tramadol, and a muscle relaxer. After I took the drugs, I fell asleep, which helped a little. When I woke up, my knee worked a little better for about thirty minutes and then it was back to badness. Of course, by then, I was getting the rest of the fall-related pain/numbness/crap. (My back has a little scrape on it, my spine is a bit jarred, and I have bruises on my arms.) I’ve contemplated going to the ER or even calling a doctor tomorrow. I decided against the ER, since holidays are bad there. I’m not sure about doctors, since my dad has the whole Iron Bowl watching tomorrow. He would say that my knee is more important, but I would rather not have him miss it at all. It’s something he looks forward to all year, and is basically like his Christmas.

So, I guess I just have to wait and see with it. Luckily, I will have Gretchen making sure that I’m okay. (She’s being super-protective over me–even more than her usual obsessive-worrying ways.) So, I’m in good paws.

Comment » | Confessions, Family, General, Mental Health, Sickness and Health, Who I Was - Past

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