I can't help it, I am going to write more
About the family party: if my mother knew that someone else was worrying this much about something to do with her, that was supposed to be lovely and fun, she would be appalled. She would certainly not expect anyone to drink if it would be bad for them. She would be as easygoing and as warm as she could.
but this is me, so it is vitally important that I do what is expected. she will never know that this is hard or dangerous for me, because she can never know that anything is hard or dangerous for me, or that anything is other than fine and dandy.
So what we have is a situation where I am worrying about this because the alternative is to admit that something is wrong, and feel so terribly impossible and guilty about that. that will never happen
My mother is like a person who (like me, who does this all the time, and I am interested in the word "baggage" because baggage in the literal and metaphorical senses is something I have huge issues with - I am very very slow to let go and recover, AND I always have FAR TOO MUCH CRAP in my ACTUAL bag) - who says "the priority for this journey is to relax and have fun and make things easy so I am going to pack very, very light. Bring nearly nothing. just some spare pants and a jumper." Ok that would be fine. but now it is "And what if I get invited out - must have some decent shoes" and "what if it pours with rain I must have a full chnage of clothes" and "well I need to bring a jacket if I am bringing those trousers" and so it goes on. In the end you have 3 huge bags and are totally miserable and laden down with them and it is NOT because you consciously abandoned the top priority - to relax and have fun. It is because you mistakenly believed you could do it all - you could be relaxed AND prepared for every eventuality AND always correct. And something had to give, and it was the one you were telling everyone, including yourself, was the top priority
My mother wrote me some heartfelt letters (which I found unbearable, and wrote to tell her this, and in return got ANOTHER ONE) when I was pregnant and unmarried about how terrible this was and how sad it made her. One of the sentences which blew my mind was "all I ever wanted for you was for you to be healthy and happy". I cannot remember anything being about me being healthy or happy when I was growing up. I can remember a lot of stuff about me not embarrassing her, not getting in her way, doing well at school, behaving correctly etc, which I suppose she honestly believed was just "extra". But I was suicidal a lot of the time that she was bothered about my O levels and my manners. It was not happy or healthy for me to be suicidal.
Anyway in the same vein here I am agonising about how I am going to manage not to have a drink at her party. If you asked her "would you like Mildred to do something, for appearances, and for your sake, that will make her very ill?" she would say "of course not!" and be appalled. But she just doesn't see it. She thinks I can be happy, and healthy, AND have a little drink, and be jolly, and have perfect manners, and wear the right things, which are just exactly sexy enough, and be confident, but not bumptious, and elegant, but self deprecating, and..... she doesn't see how I am fixed at all. Healthy and happy is so far beyond my reach right now, I really have to make a choice about what to jettison, like, for instance, booze
Sorry for another essay