Monday, December 9, 2019

I'm dreading Christmas. Do I have to go home?

It's that time of year again where we celebrate the awesomeness of families.  But if your home is more like Arrested Development meets Jax Teller's family from Sons of Anarchy, then this will be a super tricky period.

Butting heads

Talking about mean families is taboo, especially during big holidays. While child abuse, emotional abuse and physical abuse is rampant, many 'nice' people prefer to close their eyes to all that nastiness. They go about, refuting the idea that not all of us have a warm loving home.

So if you want to talk about your emotions and circumstances, you might hear incredibly stupid, and downright dangerous advice like,

"They're your family, forgive them."
"They don't mean it. Just don't listen."
"You must have done something. Just pray and be good to them."

And that's how you end up in hospital because mummy dearest went overboard this time with the beating or daddy finally convinced you that you're so worthless you actually went and slit your wrists.

If your family are horrible, this post is to help you navigate through some decisions and to offer you some practical advice.

#1 HOW TO DECIDE IF YOU GO OR OPT OUT
The pressure to go home and act as if you're a Disney family where all is peace and love can be overwhelming. Also, abusive families tend to do a good job into conditioning victims to keep coming back for more. And their helpful enablers are there to guilt you into it, too.

That's why you end up talking yourself into going home, only to get there and think, "Doh!  How did I forget?"

Now we're a few weeks away, I think it's important to ask a series of questions.
If you go:
·         Are you in physical danger, as in does you family hit, slap or threaten violence?
·         Will your family harass or tease you until you are visibly upset and/or can't take it anymore?
·         Do your family treat your partner like rubbish?
If you can say yes to any of these, then my question would be, why go? If they can't even meet this low standard of human decency, you are under no obligation to put yourself or your partner into such awful circumstances.

If you decide to skip it, here's how to do it with minimum fuss.
1.       Don't announce your intentions in advance. If you say you're not going, you get all the flying monkeys, the screaming hordes who think it's best for you to go and have a terrible time because it suits their notions of 'what looks right'. Plan not to go, and keep it secret so you're not pressured.
2.       On the day, send a text and claim you missed the flight, bus or had to go into work. Then switch off your phone. Then do what makes you happy. If that means tickets to the beach resort, awesome!
3.       After the holiday, you can choose to engage and reset the rules. Or you can choose to walk away for a year or forever.
4.       Remember: your family don't own you. Disengaging can take some doing (you may need to move home or switch phone numbers) but there are lots of people who are estranged and they thrive.  Just make sure you're safe as you go about it.

#2 IF YOU WANT TO GO BUT LIMIT YOUR ENGAGEMENT
(This is also the system for if you skip this holiday and then engage later but want to change the rules)
Start by thinking over what usually happens. Like, most families have a set pattern of behaviour that governs the abuse.

It starts with the soup. Mum serves up a bowl and Dad will point out that I'm too fat and should skip this. Ten minutes later, they're both telling me I won't marry, am in the wrong career, and basically that if I were just completely different, they'd be much happier.

Run the last few times they went at you through your head and work out how they work.
Now work out what the abuse does to you.
You must warn the family in advance where your boundaries are, so write it down.
Then resolve what you will do if it happens. Like, one warning and then you leave.
Finally, and this is the tough step, you need to announce your new hard limits. This is best done via text.

To follow our example, you'd text to mum and dad:

"Mum, Dad, this year I want no personal remarks about my body, my career or anything else. It's not 'advice' and it's not helpful. It's just mean."

They won't take it lying down. Abusive people enjoy their power and they will gaslight you, harass you, play the victim and more. Expect,

"You're so sensitive."
"You're our child. You're not allowed to tell us what to do. "
"We never say things like that. You're imagining it. Also, your mum has fainted from your totally false accusations."

And the text from Uncle Ken who rants, "You're so ungrateful! I'm disgusted by you!"

Remember: at this point you can still choose not to go. Seeing you've opened the conversation, you may consider being up front, "If you feel that way, I'll skip this year." Or, just say nothing and on the day tell them you won't be there.

If they promise better behaviour, then you need to go to step two: harness your support group.

You may have uncles, aunts, cousins or friends who attend who will back you up when the abuse starts. Talk to them in advance so they know what's going to happen. If trouble strikes, they may defend you but most likely they will only be willing to redirect the conversation.

"Dad, I told you, no personal remarks. They're hurtful. Aunt Peg, do tell me about your garden. How's it going?"

Alternatively, have a friend or two who is on your side stand by on text.

Finally, remember that if your boundaries are ignored, you must do as you said and leave. This is important because your family need to learn that you are serious about demanding respect.  

Leaving is best done in style. Don't yell or scream, just exit. Again, abusive families will pretend to be sick, have fits, hurt themselves and will threaten to cut you off forever. Don't fall for their playacting! If you go back, they'll bully you until the end of your life.  Just keep going.

Walking out once won't fix it but if you keep walking out when they're being mean, they will eventually learn to behave themselves.

I know it's tough and you may be scared of what they will do. But believe me, it's better to be away from all that hurt than volunteering for it. I hope this helps.

Photo Credit: Image by Peter Dargatz from Pixabay