Gifts That Matter

I love this time of year; hanging with the kiddos, seeing generosity and random kindness on the street, dwelling on gratitude, the overall wind-down of yet another year and the reflection and memories that come with that, and the anticipation of a bright, shiny new one.  Man, those are the things I live for.

But I am beginning to be oh-so-tired of some of the parts of this season.
Holidays are celebrations, to me, ceremonies to mark the passage of another chunk of this great big ball of life.  This hasn't been the best year in the casa de Vanci, on the surface.  We've had lots of sickness, lots of issues to deal with, lots of pain (both the good, growing kind and the bad, I can't fix this kind.)  We've also had some goodness, sure, but a lot of the goodness that's come our way has been of the silver lining variety, so it's been bittersweet.  That's okay, it's all just part of being messy human beans, and I like that about us; we don't have to pretend to be anything other than we are.

I learned long ago to take the sweet however it comes and to make it my own.  I grew up in a world where there was never a good feeling without strings attached, there was never even a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down, there was very little kindness or compassion and what limited amount there was certainly wasn't freely given to me.  In fact, I provided a lot of that care for others, whether I wanted to or it was taken from me.

It's hard for me to find balance between my natural inclination to reach out to those around me and show them that they matter to me and my overwhelming desire to isolate and insulate myself from the world at large.  I'm not depressed and I'm not afraid of people, but I'm starting to become... well, disgusted is the word for it, with the people around me and their bastardization of this lovely season.

I cannot count how many times I have been asked this week, "Are you ready for Christmas?"
I respond the same way every time, "Sure I am.  Why can't it be tomorrow?"  And I smile.
And I'm stared at because this has become a weird answer to that question in a society that values price-tags over time spent.
The PC and correct answer to the question above, of course, is to launch into a monologue about how many gifts I have left to purchase, and to bitch about how expensive everything is.  I hear this exchange all day long.  And I don't get it.

As a group my co-workers and I decided that we wanted to do something for our boss.  There was an email chain circulating for quite a while with suggestions for this single, well-off, fifty year old woman who happens to be intensely private with her personal life.  A wine basket?  A cheese basket?  A chocolate basket?

Really?  Why not just collect the money, shred it up into confetti and give her that?  What's she going to do with yet another basket of crap?  She can afford her own wine, cheese and chocolate, trust me folks.
So I suggested that we make a charitable donation in her name.
Which was like the frickin' shot heard round the world for a couple of minutes there.  Dead stop.  Then everybody chimed in about what a great thing that would be.
Like it was a new idea, like no one had ever (gasp) done it that way before, like such a thing was unheard of.    So that's what we did and she was touched to tears by it.  It mattered to her that we had found a charity we knew she would support, and that we'd thought to do something for her and for others.

It's not lost on me that my focus on gifts that matter is born, at least partly, of my upbringing as an ACoN.  N's in general suck at gifts, and Nparents tend to use gift-giving as yet another weapon against their children, golden and scapegoat alike.  They use gifts like they use everything, to their benefit.  Growing up, the quantity and quality of gifts given to one child or another was in direct proportion to that child's conformity to their allotted role in my house.  When I was a good little scapegoat, a quietly acquiescent of the abuse victim, I got nicer things, or at least larger piles of middle of the road things.  When I began to speak out, stand up, make waves, the piles of things got smaller and the gifts I received became things that Nsis wanted or that GCYB had asked for - except that I'd get the generic brand or the size too small.  On one notable occasion, ENF gave me a giant box of his used pots and pans (dusty and wrapped in newspaper,) as my only Christmas gift.  This was at the last Christmas we spent with them, and was after I'd started making too much noise about what needed to change in the Clan.  Point taken.  At some point during a lifetime of this type of abuse, gifts stopped mattering much to me, no wonder.

And they don't count for much now, except that the gifts I receive now from the real people in my real life of a loving family of choice are often things that show how much I mean to the people around me.  DH and the DD's always get me things like sweatpants and soft blankets and warm socks and slippers.  On the surface that might not seem like much, but it's incredibly thoughtful as I am always cold.  (Right now it's snowing.  Again.  Nineteen inches accumulated in twenty-four hours.  TW, come take your weather back!)  My BIL and SIL always get me something that speaks to me; a book, a magazine subscription that supports one of my hobbies, etc.  They are gifts that say, Vanci we know you and we think you'll like this!

I try to do the same for all the people in my life, too.  I spend time thinking about them and what I know of them and trying to envision what will make them feel just a little more special or let them know that I see them, hear them, support them, love them for their very own skin and everything it holds in.  That's what makes the gifts matter to me, not the price tag or the trend du jour or what the Jones's have.   That's what takes the crassness out of the commercialization of the generous season, I guess.

So that's what I keep coming back to, what are the gifts that matter?

For me, the greatest gift I've ever been given was the support of the people around me as I've extricated myself from the Crazymaker Clan and stayed out.  They don't really get it, most of them, what it's like to live through that and to get away from that, but they don't have to.  They just love and support me anyway, even when they don't understand.

And the greatest gift I've given myself?  The peace of No Contact, of course, and permission to enjoy it.
So am I ready for Christmas number six without the Narcs and Minions?
Oh yessirree Bob.  Let's move it up to tomorrow.

Love,
Vanci

Not So Sweet Nothings

I received another call from NM today.  Although I’d hoped that my lack of response to her previous call would deter further attempts to contact me, I know from experience that my response or lack thereof is entirely incidental to her actions.  She’s going to do what she wants to do regardless of me: my actions, my thoughts, my feelings, my desires, my boundaries – what possible meaning do these trivial matters have to her when the world revolves around her, after all?
None.
Obviously.
I mean, read this blog of mine and you’ll come across a GOOD number of examples of exactly what NM, ENF, NSis, GCYB and all their ancillaries think of my boundaries: nothing.  They don’t care and haven’t ever cared what I say or do, as long as they get what they want.  When they stop getting what they want, the attack and stomp all over me and any boundaries that I’ve been brave enough to draw. 
They’ve left me largely alone for the last two and a half years because they couldn’t find any loopholes and really at the end of the day, I’m not worth the effort that it would take for them to adhere to my reasonable boundaries and tell the truth.  It saddens me that the GOOD number of examples to be found in the stories that I’ve posted here are a very small percentage of the violations they’re responsible for.  Just thinking of the myriad ways in which I’ve been ‘beat down, broke and used’ by them is overwhelming.  And those are just the examples that I've had time to put into writing in the last few months; there are so, so many ways that I’ve been hurt by them, individually and acting as a group.  They've expended so much effort manipulating me, gaslighting me, demeaning me, circumventing me, destroying me.  If they’d committed a tenth of that destructive energy to looking within themselves, well, wish in one hand, etc.

Here’s the voicemail I received,
“Vanci, I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk.  I know you haven’t been involved in my health problems over the last four years, but it’s looking like this could be my last Christmas.  I need to see the girls (pause) and you.  Please call me.”
If you are easily offended, please look away as I respond.
FUCK YOU!

Ahem.
Here’s what I heard,
“Vanci, I can’t believe you didn’t answer your phone again and the burden of effort is all on me.  You haven’t been around to help me with these ‘health problems’ because you’re a bad daughter and frankly you’re the cause of a lot of them.  So now I’m going to die, and I want to see MY granddaughters.  Oh, yeah, and you too.  You’d better call.  If I die, you'll be sooooorrrrryyyy!!!!!”
Here’s how I will respond:
"        "
(Crickets chirp.)
Nothing.  She gets nothing from me.

It would be great if I could type something about how she did the best she could with what she had, or that my childhood wasn’t that abusive or that she at least tried to respect me as a young adult or that things changed when I got older and she didn’t suck the life out of me anymore.  But that story starts with ‘Once upon a time…’ and ends with ‘happily ever after.’  And that’s as far from the truth of my life and my treatment at the hands of NM and ENF as far can be. 

She’s had four years to come clean, get honest, get help, reconnect, heal. 
In four years, she’s not done any of these things. 
But she might be dying (according to her voicemail,) so I suppose that’s as good an excuse as any to set aside all of those difficult things that she didn’t fix for herself and … put the burden back on me. 

After all, I was always such a good little peace-making carrier of sins.  I was a fantastic scapegoat.  Until I decided not to be anymore.  And after giving up THIRTY years of my life to be the sacrificial sin-bearer for the NFOO, I’ve paid more than I ever owed.
I won’t be carrying anything for them anymore.  Ever.  Again.   

I’m expecting retaliation for my continued non-response.  I can almost see the Parade of Minions lining up and getting ready to float down the street looking for me.
And guess what?  I know that NM’s recent wave of  pathetic attempts to guilt me into action have worked, just not quiiiiiiiiite in the way that she intended. 
She’s expecting me to jump up and do her bidding, give her what she wants.  Instead, those VM’s have sent me in another direction. 
I’m sharpening my sword of truth and ready for the attack that will inevitably come. 
No matter what or who it comes from, I’m ready.

She's reminded me of just how important it is for me to stand my ground.

These Crazymaking people of the NFOO are lying, cheating, abusive, horrific, mean, and downright nasty.  But I'm not worried, because I know exactly who they are these days, and more importantly, I know exactly who I am.  I'm a good person, I'm a kind person, I'm a strong person, I'm a kickass friend and mother and wife and worker and cook and writer and reader and listener.

I tell the truth and the truth is this: there is nothing that could happen, to me or to them or to anyone in the whole great world, that would spur me to reconnect with the horror that was my life within the NFOO.
Nothing.

That's what they'll get from me, and it's probably better than they deserve.

Love,
Vanci

It's A Bushwhack!

Tra la la, dum dee dum... I went about my day today.  It was crazy busy at work this morning with all sorts of, um, interesting goings on.  By interesting I mean, well, weird.  Full-moon-in-two-days-weird.  Nothing was wrong, but I was definitely up to my eyeballs in oddities that I know how to tackle but am presented with infrequently.  I was working up a metaphorical sweat (as my office has a steady year round temperature of about, oh, 61 degrees, there's never any actual sweat,) trying to accomplish a whole bunch of different things at once.

So, of course, my cell phone rang.
And, of course, the number display showed the phone number of the Crazymaker's Clan Compound.
Bugger.

I turned off the ringer - just as I would do with any other non-emergency call and I kept about my business.  I had a definite 'oh shite' moment, but a moment is truly and wholly all it was.  Like this:

1
2
3
4
5
Done.

I was under a deadline for a particular task, so I got back to it and I didn't stop even when my phone beeped to alert me to a voicemail.  Eventually, a couple of hours later, I informed my colleagues that I was going to take a break by saying, "Well, my crazy family called during all that, so I'm going to go take a break and check my voicemail, put my hair up because it's driving me crazy and have a snack."

Of these three tasks, I can honestly say that the slice of homemade banana bread I was looking forward to was my top priority.  Really, shouldn't homemade banana bread always be a top priority?  Ten seconds in the microwave, a dab of butter... mmmmm.  Bliss.

At any rate, the VM was from NM.
"Hi Vanci.  It's mom.  I needed to tell you something, it's kind of important, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd call me back at your convenience."

My reaction?  I laughed my damn ass off.  I almost shot banana bread out of my nose.  I mean, really.  Really?  Really, really?  Who does that?  What are we, ten years old?  "Psst, I have something important to tell you, but not right now."  Lord.

I was processing, after I stopped guffawing in the break room, to see how I felt about this cryptic message when my agile brain made a sudden leap that I didn't expect.  I immediately thought of the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?  There's a scene about two-thirds through the movie where two of the protagonists, Everett and Delmar, are hiding from the law in a movie theater in the middle of the day.  The movie stops, a whistle blows and an entire chain gang of convicts is marched into the theater in shackles where they proceed to take up many rows just a few back from Everett and Delmar in the otherwise empty theater.

Pete, the third main character who has been recently separated from the other two, happens to be in this chain gang.  Obviously, he was recaptured by the law - as opposed to being turned into a toad as Delmar had assumed.  Pete sees his buddies and leans forward to whisper as only John Turturro could:

"Do NOT!  Seek!  The treasure!!!!"

This, my friends, was the voice of sanity for me today.  Fittingly, it turns out that there really is no'treasure' in the movie, or at least not the type of treasure the boys really want, just as there would be none at the other end of any effort or journey I would make to return that phone call.

I can't remember if it's in the theater or later in the movie - when the boys show up at the 'treasure' location and find an ambush waiting for them, that one of the characters exclaims, "It's a bushwhack!"  But I knew right away that this is exactly that.

It's a bushwhack, an ambush, a sneak attack.  That voicemail was crafted to be nothing more than a big, shiny, fat, barbed and lethal hook.  I know this because I know the Narcs very, very well.  But even if I didn't, look at the logic:  if it was truly important information that I needed to know, why not just say it?  Why the drama?  The mystery?  The self-importance of 'you will call me or I will not tell you my secret?'

And do you know what the next step in my process was?  I don't care.  Whatever 'sort of important' information NM feels obliged to share with me, I simply do not care.  There is nothing, absolutely NOTHING, that I want from anyone in the NFOO, that I'm willing to give to anyone in the NFOO.  Nothing they can say or do in any way affects or effects my life.

The only news, honestly, that I could receive that would change my day would be that one of them has passed away.  And, to be truly honest, even if it sounds ugly, I am fairly certain that the effect this news would have would be relief.

Short of that, if NM has discovered some new disease on the internet that she can self-diagnose with, I don't care.  If a family pet died, I don't care.  If there's a recently discovered hereditary predisposition to random spontaneous combustion, I don't care.  If GCYB was abducted by aliens, I don't care.  If a long lost relative that I wasn't aware of just left me a million dollars in his will, I don't care.

So, do not seek the treasure.  Why?  Cause that way lies madness, dissatisfaction, harm, foul play, evil people and ultimately, nothing but a worm on a shiny hook.  The good guys just don't lay in wait in the bushes prepared to, well, whack their victim.

I won't be returning this or any calls.  There's no treasure there anyway.

Love,
Vanci

The Letter I Will Send

NM and EF,

You asked at the end of our meeting in my counselor's office several weeks ago: "How do we move forward?" 
Here's your answer - we don't.

Don't contact me, don't contact my daughters and DH has asked that you not contact him again either, ever, for any reason, in any way, shape or form. There are no longer any conceivable circumstances under which it will be appropriate for you to contact us.  Once more, to be clear: do not contact us, ever again, for any reason.

You're monsters.
Goodbye.
Vanci

Holding Boundaries

I was inspired by a recent post on Upsi's "You Don't Have to Dance for Them" blog to document my often-used process for making and keeping safe boundaries.  In the four years that I have been NC with my entire FOO, I've had to get very, very good at drawing, keeping and holding boundaries with them.  Apart from the pervasive Narc tendencies to push, then push, then push the Scapegoat some more, I also live in the same small town (about 7,000 people) that NM, EF, OS and YB and their anciliaries do.  With no geographical distance between us, my safe boundaries are part of the protection that I put on every morning before I go out into the world; keys? check, undies? check, boundaries? check.  I am in public most of the day and any one of my FOO Crazymakers can find me if they choose to at any time, so I keep my emotional tool belt stocked. 

My boundaries keep me safe and also give me the ability to know myself, even in the face of sudden direct or proxy attacks.  Should NM or one of her minions surface, internal knowledge of my safe, sane and reasonable boundaries is one of the tools that give me the immediate, intuitive knowledge of how to keep myself safe.  It's one of the ways that I know right away that I am being violated, disrespected and treated poorly and that I have every right to defend myself by choosing not to engage.

Having boundaries firmly in place allows me to say, calmly and with dignity, "As I've said, I have no interest in discussing this with you," and to head for an exit.

I'm a thinker and a system-designer in everything I do.  I see organizational layers where other people see messes, so it follows that I've condensed this very important part of my life (or my defense system, really) into a few bullet points.

When faced with a situation that screams for boundaries to be set, I ask myself these questions:

1. Is this a reasonable boundary?
Reasonable or unreasonable isn't an issue of how I feel about it, how comfortable I am with it or, in the early days, how I thought it would be received.  It's really a logistical question.  For example, my primary boundary with NM has been for some time, "I will only meet with you in the presence of a therapist(s)." 

NM's proven over and over again that without a third party observer present, she lapses into blaming me for her faults, gaslighting, revision of history and just plain makin' shit up.  It's unsafe and unproductive to even try to have a convo without a referee.  So, there must be a witness, and that's a reasonable request.  I use my therapist because it's one of the things I pay him for and he's a safe ally to me.  She's welcome to bring her therapist too, if she wants to make it more neutral.  Reasonable, right? 

It would be unreasonable of me to set this boundary if I didn't have a therapist available.  It would be unreasonable of me to say, "I will only meet with you on the sixtieth Tuesday of years in which the bluest lagoon on the planet has turned red."  If I find that I want to set an unreasonable boundary, I have to stop and consider that I'm not quite sure of my intentions.  If my intention is to make it difficult for NM to meet with me, then, really, I need to consider that my boundary should be something along the lines of, "I won't meet with you."  If my boundary is reasonable, I move on to number 2...

2.  Will I be able to maintain this boundary?

Clarity has been key for me in boundaries over and over again.  When dealing with a Narc, particularly the one who managed to get her claws into me when I was still pre-verbal, I've found that my first learned/instinctive reaction when I make a choice to 'defy' the Narc is one of confusion... followed by shame... followed by more confusion and self-doubt.  This is, after all, what I was hard-wired to do.  That's one of the reasons that it's so important for me to be clear - to make sure that I have at the ready a correct 're-learned' healthy response prepared ahead of time.  If I've been clear with myself that my boundary is reasonable, safe and that I deserve to have it respected, I don't fall back into my old patterns of acquiesence and acceptance of blame for defending myself like I used to. 

When I set a reasonable boundary that I fully undersand and can without a doubt stand behind, I am prepared for whatever the Narcs pull out of their crazy arsenal and throw at me. 
For example, using the above 'therapist-present' boundary, I can easily maintain it; it's clear, tangible, black-and-white.  Either NM makes an appointment to meet at the therapy office and we have a conversation, or we don't talk/meet/speak/write/etc.  An example of a non-maintainable boundary would be:
"I won't meet with you unless you're going to be nice/honest/kind/etc."
Those words are subjective, and pliable language is like modeling clay to a Narc; they can make it whatever they want it to be.  And they will, oh, yesssssss, they will.  And it will be my fault by the time they're done, so, if my boundary isn't clear enough to maintain, I have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to provide more clarity.
If I find that my boundary is reasonable, clear and maintainable, I move on to 3...

3. Am I willing to accept the consequences of this boundary, no matter what they are and even if I don't like them?
Here's the thing about Narcs: they do absolutely what they want to do, regardless of the cost to others, period.  They blame, they shift, they manipulate, they lie, they dodge, they justify, they rationalize, they reinvent reality and they selectively listen and remember in order to suit their needs, wants and desires.  Trying to pin a Narc down with the truth or reality is like trying to staple jello to a tree.

So, when I've set a clear, maintainable and appropriate boundary, I've created safety and sanity for myself.  My Narcs don't want me to have safety or sanity; if they did, they wouldn't abuse me in the first place.  It is ALL, really, ALL about them.

When I don't give them what they want, the reaction is overwhelmingly, violently, huge.  HUGE.
To have a relationship with a narcissist, one must abide by the narc's rules, which are really quite simple: what the Narc says is the truth; what the Narc does is right; the Narc's needs are met first, middle and last; the Narc gets credit for the good; the Narc takes no responsibility for the bad.

Boundaries that deny the Narc any of those things (which really means any boundary at all, doesn't it?) are game-changers.  Narcs don't like that.  So they attack.

When I set the original 'therapist-present' boundary, NM told me that she wouldn't abide by it.  She couched this, of course, in her manipulative statement that "mothers never give up on their daugters," which really meant that she would contact me however the hell she pleased.  I told her that was unacceptable to me and that I wouldn't answer her calls or notes, but if that's what she wanted, she could have it.  I hung up the phone.
So she had OS call me.  She had EF call me.  She had YB text me.  Uncle emailed me.  NM had OS drop off 'presents' for my DD's at my place of employment.  I gave them to charity.  She mailed me a package (more presents for DD's) with no return address.  I mailed them back with a letter reiterating my boundaries and clearly stating, again, that they were absolutely non-negotiable.  She called me the next day 'to talk about it.'  I told her that if she wanted to talk, she could respect my boundaries and make an appointment with the therapists.  She told me that she couldn't do that because she was 'uncomfortable' with my therapist.  I told her that we wouldn't be talking then and hung up the phone.

After another few rounds with all the minions, I was stressed enough to declare the same boundary with all of them.  I didn't want to have to do that; I'd held out hope that I could have some kind of normal relationship with at least OS and YB, but NM took my line in the sand and declared war, using her other children and EF as her army.  I drew a line.  They chose. 

Is that what I wanted?  Not neccesarily, but I had to be prepared to accept the outcome of my right action.  If I'm not ready to handle the outcome regardless of what it is, well, I'm not yet ready to set the boundary and I need to reinforce my support.  In this case, I was ready and I defended myself and through that process, I learned a lot. 
Specifically, I learned that the people who care about me care about my boundaries; they care about me, my thoughts, my feelings, my heart, my soul and my spirit.  And they show me that they care by supporting me in keeping myself safe.  If I had doubts about who those people are, well, boundaries create a clearer picture of who's who, when they work. 

I've managed to stay safe and sane for a long time now using this process as one of my tools.  I hope it helps someone else, too.

Love,
Vanci

Making Life More Fair

The majority of my day to day life is full of contentment; there's peace and safety, joy and humor, satisfaction in jobs well done, lots of learning and growing.  It's all good, most of the time, and when it's not, I've gotten very good at reminding myself that the dark clouds on my internal horizon are fleeting and infrequent.  And I've been given a built in sort of barometer to measure my attitude against - I happen to work in a place that is filled with some largely, well, unhappy people.

They tend to complain a lot.  I'm overgeneralizing, I know, and lumping a whole melting pot of personalities together under the umbrella of 'they,' but I'm talking about the vague sense of unrest, melancholy and joylessness that runs through the place as an undercurrent, so I feel okay about the blanket approach.

Every time I walk into the breakroom that all the departments in the building share, if there is another soul in the room, it seems that there is a gripe that needs to be aired.  Today there was carrot cake and angel food cake in celebration of one of our co-worker's birthday.  I walked into the room and commented on how nice the cakes looked.  There were two ladies sitting at the table eating cake.  One complained that there wasn't any chocolate cake.  The other complained that the cakes were ruining her diet. 

I thought, but did not say, "Oh shut up!  There's cake!  Free cake!  Two choices of cake!"  There is a part of me that reacts strongly, almost viscerally, to what I perceive as ungratefullness on the part of others.  I think this can be directly linked to the unfairness that I was shown from an early age by NM and EF and later in life by OS and YB too.  It's something that's difficult for me to talk about, though, because I was also taught early on that I am not allowed to notice or comment on the unfairness - my FOO firmly believed that lack of acknowledgement of a practice, behavior or thing has the magical ability to - poof! - make the unwanted thing just go away.

I was taught that I could not acknowledge the unfairness my parents excercised in how they treated their children, and that if I did need to point out the unfairness, well, that just meant that I was a whiner.  There was something wrong with me, don'tcha know... Didn't I understand how hard they were trying to support me?  Didn't I know that I was not an easy child to raise?  Didn't I realize that it was easier for me to take care of myself than it was for OS or YB, as I was so capable?  Really, they wanted me to believe, they were just leveling the playing field for me. 

Here's how it worked ~ school was easy for me, they said, becuase I'd always seemingly effortlessly acheived A's in all my classes.  Yes, all my classes, forever, at least until the 10th grade.  I skipped the 8th grade entirely, just went from 7th to 9th, and still carried A's.  It was more difficult for OS and YB, my parents explained, so really what they were paying compliments to OS and YB for on those report cards with A's and B's and C's was effort.  Which, of course implied that my A's came with no effort, and therefore I deserved no or less praise for my accomplishments.  I was minimized, as were my, ahem, efforts.

That's just one example of the way the game was played.  I swallowed it for years without complaint, largely because I didn't want to appear to be ungrateful.  I was trained to be grateful for scraps from the metaphorical table of love and affection, all while watching the golden children be fed a feast.

The saddest part to me is how well ingrained this minimization and de-humanizing became.  Right as the planet was cracking four years ago, we had our final Christmas with the FOO.  It was a typical one - NM and EF 'hosted' the festivites which worked out well for OS and YB as they (mid-30's and late 20's respectively) lived at the family home, too.  So, true to scapegoat form, I was the only family member who lived outside the clan bubble.  I packed up my DH and daughters... and the gifts... and the food... and the games and everything else Christmas-related and we hauled the 15 miles out to the clan compound.

I cooked a lot of the meal and helped to clean it up - again, this was an expectation fulfilled rather than a gift of service on my part.  The time came to open presents and everyone sat in a circle with their 'pile.'  OS and YB and even OS's husband had HUGE piles of gifts in front of them; 25-30 each, all but three or four from NM and EF.  My DH had about eight gifts in front of him.  I had one very large box.

I'd asked for pots and pans.  I normally hesitate to specify what kind of gift I would like - I'm not sure if this is due to my inner knowledge that 'they' wouldn't get me something I really wanted anyway or if it's because I was conditioned so early on and so consistently with the idea that it was my role to be grateful for whatever I received, even if it was only scraps.  But I was starting to grow and change before that last Christmas, and I was becoming stronger and clearer.  So, when I'd been asked what I would like for Christmas, I responded in a relatively normal way.  I asked for pots and pans.  Simple enough, right?

I noticed the gift count, but I thought, "Well, I'm sure that my gift was just more expensive than all the smaller gifts OS and YB have. Maybe they just packed a bunch of gifts into one big box."
When I opened the large box, it was full of pots and pans, alright.  Dusty, used pots and pans wrapped in newspaper.  EF explained that he 'just couldn't find any nice pans' that I would like, so he'd decided to take a bunch of his used pots and pans and give them to me instead.  Some of the pans still had little flecks of crusted-on food in them.

I swallowed the hurt and the pain and the shame and the absolute heart-break of the validation that I was, in fact, less important to my parents than my siblings and I said thank you.  It took awhile for OS and YB to make their way through their piles of gifts, so I watched and smiled and ooh'd and aah'd over what they received.  I played my role to perfect dysfunctional pitch, but there was just a smidge of uncomfortable truth breaking through my defensive walls.  I was so, so uncomfortable, even if I didn't allow it to show through the outer veneer. 

When we, finally, arrived home later that night, DH flipped his lid.  He pointed out the unfairness and wanted to know why I hadn't said anything.  "I can't believe they break the bank on OS and YB and they give you one crappy box of hand me downs!  I can't believe you accept the way they treat you!  They treat their dogs better than you; the dogs had more gifts than you!"  And then he delivered the kicker, the line that really cracked me open - I can still hear his voice as clear as day; "No one else in the entire WORLD is allowed to treat you like they do!  No one!"

 And it clicked for me.  It was only one tangible example of the scapegoating, the unfairness and the cruelty, but it's one of the first incidents that I was able to see from a slightly removed to normal perspective.  It helped me later on as I moved into No Contact with the FOO as a way to remember that I was slighted, that the family was 'out to get me' (and keep me in my place,) and that no matter how they tried to revise history, gaslight me, diminish me or flat out lie, it wasn't true.  It's not really paranoia if people are, in fact, out to get you, is it?

I carry a mental picture of that one box; those dusty/used/scratched up pans.  I take it out when I need a reminder that gratitude is my choice in life, but there's no rule that says I have to be grateful for being kicked around.  I don't have to be grateful for crumbs anymore; I don't need those poisoned scraps.

I'll make my own feast in life, and maybe I'll have a little of that carrot cake in the break room, too.

Love,
Vanci