How To Recover From Toxic Family Holiday Visit

[heyheyhey]

Hello everyone!

Happy holidays and all that :) ;).

I've just got back from a draining few days with my toxic family. Critical, abusive dad who jumps on and berates everyone for everything they say and do, selfish, controlling, over-dramatic mother who pushed me (or manipulated me) in to talking about why I have PTSD, which i really didn't want to do... this especially has left me feeling very upset and stirred up.

I've beaten up my punching bag, listened to music, been for a run, and chatted to a friend. I guess it will take some time. But I hate how controlling and selfish they are. It's none of my mums goddman business why I have PTSD, she basically pushed me into talking about it, after I told her I didn't want to talk about it by asking "Now that whatever has happened to you, has happened. Is there anything you would have done differently in the future?" Seriously, f*ck off, I hated that she was victim blaming and said "It happened in my own house. So apart from not go to sleep, no there is nothing i could have done". Then the next morning, she was flipping out to my step dad and saying how she had to come and see me and get up there ('up' where I live relative to the country), and was stressing out and being super dramatic, I don't want her anywhere near me. Also, her freaking out is just like getting it out there what happened, without actually saying what happened (I asked her not to tell anyone) - it upsets me, because I'm doing good, and was mostly living symptom free for a good while, and she is just brining it all back up again and saying like "this is the worst thing that could happen to a woman", it's like i was fine, and she has made me feel so much worse. She pushed me or manipulated me into talking about something I didn't want to talk about and then made it about her. Yes this was fused in with some hugs and some kind of version of sympathy, but she didn't respect my boundaries and made me upset talking about it and I didn't want her to know. Now my symptoms have flared up big time. Agh, I freaking hate her and hate my family! I feel like I want to write her an email saying i need to take some time away from her, because how she handled it triggered me. For anyone with a toxic family member - is this a good idea? Or is it pointless/will it make things worse?

My dad was also pressurising me into seeing him and saying I had to come down for a week. On the flip side, he was denying that I had PTSD and saying 'everyone gets anxious'. It's like everything they say is just WRONG and inappropriate, selfish and self-centred. They make me feel stressed and crazy, I ALWAYS feel awful after visiting them but this takes the cake this time, I feel like I can't win and can only win if they are not in my life. They seriously stress me out and are so toxic.

Anyway, has anyone got any tips on recovering? I feel wiped out and drained emotionally and physically, seeing my family is so bad for my mental health - I'm seriously considering having to cut them off... but feel bad...

Sometimes I don't know if they are really that bad, but surely healthy people or family shouldn't make you feel stressed, upset, and crazy? How much of that is normal? It's so exhausting and I don't deserve this, it makes it so hard to trust anyone or be close to anyone, when most of the people you have been 'close' to just abuse you on some level, I have bad self-worth but i know I don't deserve that, I try and be kind and caring to people, and this stuff just really destroys my self-esteem, especially when I was doing so well. Think i need to consider seriously cutting them out. So what if it's family? Abuse is abuse and this shit is bullshit.

 

[The Albatross]

Mister and MIL went face to face with a full blown alcoholic (my brother in law)... I was working. He shut down after he got home and was upset that his eldest daughter was there to full on witness the alcoholism and how uncomfortable he and his mother were. Merry Christmas. Ack.

 

[Heather]

I don't have any tips..sorry.

I feel for what you are going through.

I got paper plates as a Christmas present from my mom, not even fancy ones just plain old white paper plates. I feel: I don't know how I feel.

Hugs to you.

Do something nice for yourself.

I bought myself a cheesecake I've been eyeing for the past 10 days.

Maybe I should send a piece over to my mom on one of her paper plates

 

[heyheyhey]

Bloody hell, sorry guys - guess we all have awful family >.<. **sending virtual hugs to you all**. At least we aren't like them, is all I can say - some small consolation :/.

 

[Heather]

Well, trying not to be

 

[ladee]

They do not have the power to undo all the work you have done.
You are tired and raw. Give yourself time to get back on track. It's normal to feel this way after the way you were treated.
Then work like a dog this next year to not go next time.
Cutting them off while you are upset won't work. Do the work to not let it happen again.
You can email your mom but don't expect her to honor your boundries. You will just have to work at not replying.
Sorry it was so bad...but remember...they can't undo all the work you have accomplished
Gentle hugs.

 

[Friday]

Or is it pointless/will it make things worse?

This. Seriously, never provoke an argument that will just have to be repeated all over again when she wants to come visit, and in the meantime will just be stress & drama.

but surely healthy people or family shouldn't make you feel stressed, upset, and crazy?

LMFAO. Of course they do! I don't know a single person on planet earth whose family doesn't make them stressed out, upset, and crazy. Even between members who are the best of friends most of the time. The difference between healthy families & abusive ones are the degrees.

 

[Freedomfighter]

Hello everyone!

Happy holidays and all that :) ;).

I've just got back from a draining few days with...

OMG, so sorry about your pain in the a.. family. My family and I barely ever spoke about my PTSD. My mom understood, but my dad is so self centered and abusive himself it would have made absolutely no difference whether I told him or not. Not to mention that he began a long cycle of abuse in my life.
No, your family is not acting like family. If they are not supportive you have to own up to yourself and stand up for yourself by banishing all negative influences. It is incredibly tough, believe me.

But take heed: I watched my selfish father abuse my mom for a lifetime and she recently died, he is still chipper, running around, pretending to be a devout catholic, pretending to be a poor old man that needs help from everyone around him.

If you stay with your family you will not heal. I cut them all off, incredibly tough, but it had to be done.

 

[heyheyhey]

Thanks everyone - you are so right! For a long time i have known what a negative influence they are having on me - on my wellbeing, happiness, self-esteem. I come away feeling so shit every time, and the main reason I still go is because I feel bad about not going and feel bad it would hurt their feelings - but now I see more clearly, that they are just being shitty people and that now I have full blown PTSD, the stakes are higher and i can't sacrifice my mental health for them anyway. They are selfish and only care about themselves and getting what they want, like i'm over being treated like that by anyone and I'm not going to let myself be abused. I don't care if you're family, you don't have a right to abuse me and I'm not going to let myself being treated like that - I wish I could say that to them and don't know how to give a reason or explanation?

 

[heyheyhey]

This. Seriously, never provoke an argument that will just have to be repeated all over again when she wa...

They do not have the power to undo all the work you have done.
You are tired and raw. Give yourself time...

Thanks Laydee <3! I guess I will just not reply, but she pressurises me so much to see her - i feel like I need to give her some kind of reason or at least assert myself and make a case for it? But I can see it's going to be really hard.

 

[heyheyhey]

OMG, so sorry about your pain in the a.. family. My family and I barely ever spoke about my PTSD...

Thank you <3! I know you are right, they are abusive and it's bullshit. It's just hard because I guess it's the sense of guilt and obligation and not wanting to hurt them, but how long can you let yourself go through this? How did you go about doing it :)? How did you deal with the fallout/push back?

 

[LadyZane]

My mom is the cause of my CPTSD, so it's a little different, but after years and years of Christmases and other holidays like this, I finally decided enough was enough. I tried for years to do what she wanted, thinking on some subconscious level that if I could just get it right I could finally have a normal mom and a normal family, until one day it dawned on me that she was not reasonable at all and that nothing I was doing was wrong -- and more importantly that nothing I could ever do would change anything.

I tried a few times to establish boundaries after some blowout disagreement, telling her that she was not behaving like a mother should and that I wasn't going to see her or speak to her if she couldn't respect me as a person. Three or four times this happened, and I eventually let her back in -- in large part because I felt bad for the rest of my "family" (mostly steps and step-in-laws, nice people but nobody I'm closer to than say a random coworker) and didn't want to upset other people or inconvenience them. Finally, I went full no-contact. I sent her a short email after an incident saying I had decided not to continue our relationship and that I would not answer her calls or return her emails, and that if she didn't already understand why I would make this decision, I thought she had more than enough information already to make sense of it on her own in her own time in her own way, and that I didn't feel I needed to explain myself any further. That was it.

My "family" mostly accepted it without comment -- they don't talk about feelings or personal things -- and my younger half-brother took it horribly, even going so far as to berate me and call me names via text message. He said I was being a coward, and I told him that if I was really a coward I'd be backing down and letting him tell me what to do, which I wasn't. I told him I wasn't mad at my mom or at him, but that I knew what was best for me and I didn't need him to understand it. This went on for a long time until it eventually died down. It wasn't pleasant by any means, but I don't regret a thing and I feel so much better all the time now.

Even if your PTSD stems from something that's unrelated to your family, they sound unsupportive at best and abusive at worst. I don't agree with people who throw up their hands and chuckle and say, well everybody's family is crazy! Sure, but not like this. I think people who say that mean well, but they have no frame of reference for understanding truly toxic families -- either that or they are unable to recognize how truly toxic their own families are and need to explain it away as a form of self-protection (like I did for a long time). I get it, it's just not accurate and it's not helpful. Trust yourself. You know how you feel and you know what you want. Will the fallout be crappy? Yes. Is it worth it? It was for me.