A Toxic Family Christmas? Step this way...

[Hissy]

“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ” ? Norman Vincent Peale

So sadly this is not the case for many. Christmas can be a particularly horrid time.

If this sounds familiar, and you need somewhere to come feel at home, sit, vent and ask WTF is going on, please post here or join the rest of us over at the luxuriously appointed and elegantly decorated Stately Homes Thread

My mother every year without fail came to me and said she didn't want to but would as her dh and my siblings liked it. Once there she was utter gloom and then afterwards would say 'I just don't enjoy family company I prefer my frineds' So 2 yrs ago I stopped it

That was the kind and decent thing to do, Noddy.

Last contact I've had with my bipolar/alcoholic mother was a stream of abusive texts. Yet i think she is still going to pass on christmas presents.

I've just been out shopping for hers, and wondering if I ought to text her to let her know the offer is still open for xmas dinner (hate the thought of her being "ill" and on her own) and when should I drop her presents off!

But part of me is so sick of it all.

I couldn't take any more I felt so insulted. I made so much effort for all of us and she rubbished it every year. And when my dp sister died unexpectedly and we were in the throes of all that she made one of her 'family are not my cup of tea' comments and I just flipped. Everyone else that she has fallen out wth over the years wondered what took me so long!

Blimey! You lot make my family look like pussycats! Mind you, mine aren't so keen to see me at Christmas anymore, now I can't afford divine presents

Hissy:

Non-mol application and leaflet

Forms of legal wording

Extensive notes on application wording

Extensive comment on drafting the application

Go for it

I can laugh now at her nonsense. She never liked anything

Totally identify with the happy family act bullshit.

Thank god my mother has pretty much stopped actively taking pot shots at me now. Her general behaviour is childish, selfish and offensive but as long as I don't call her on I get off ok. I can about manage it for 36 hours tops.

The downside is that she's all but given up on any happy family act between her and my father. Meaning me and dh get full force of her and her paranoid ravings about his supposed failings and her narc tantrums at him. Sometimes I try to call her on it and defend him. He doesn't appreciate it, he only enables her anyway and he never did the same for me.

After a few years respite when dh was new on the scene she's now decided he's fully fledged family now and can be exposed to whatever dirty laundry she feels like. And now I'm a proper grown up and have had years of being the recipient of all her unedited rantings about my dad, she no longer feels any desire to 'protect' me from it.

It makes me so angry. I didn't spend three decades perfecting the happy family act for her to just decide to drop out even when I'm sticking to my script word fucking perfect.

Wow. Didn't even realise that was exactly what I find so hard about it until I wrote it down!

Oh and thanks for the FOG info. Spot on.

Fear of the extended hysteria if I don't do what I'm supposed to. Fear that if I go off script too much I'll end up going too far and dredging up the past just to get gaslighted. Been there, done that, no fucking point.

Obligation because I'm an only child, there's no other family or friends, they're old, and they live so close anyway nc isn't acheivable.

Guilt because despite being an abusive witch she's also unwell. Agoraphobia, ME ( supposedly- not saying its not real, just I don't think she has it), prescription drug addiction, depression ( probably, undiagnosed). And my dad has, I think, significant memory problems, although impossible to know extent because all info is filtered through my mother's agenda of hysteria, exaggeration, lies, blaming, pity party bullshit.

Thanks Garlic.

I've discussed this with the therapist last night, and I have said that I feel like I will write a legally worded letter to them all down there and make it all clear that I won't allow contact between ANY of them and me/DS for any reason in any way shape or form. I'll sit on this decision until the end of January, and then if I still feel it's what I want to do, will do it.

One of my RL friends has suggested legal advice too, but I know that my letter, if correctly worded, is a path to a more legally binding agreement should it be needed in future.

I don't think a full on non-mol is the thing to do for now.

Sigh.. dd smashed my house up with a hammer this morning.

Merry fucking christmas

I really hope you called the police. Your dd needs to take some adult responsibility and break out this cycle of unacceptable behaviour.

Police crispy now.

NOW!

Oh god, are you alright?!

this is WAY beyond normal behaviour. You do need the police .. and she needs help. A lot of it.

I'm fine thanks guys.. she's gone. I have a see through door now, and holey walls :o She actually hit things hard enough that the hammer broke, the head flew off and almost hit my son on the head.

She's seeing her liaison officer and then going elsewhere she says.

I told her that if she needs to collect anything then she needs to arrange a police escort or give someone else a list and let them collect it because I don't want to see her.

She's also stolen from her brother and took his girlfriend's purse. She's been a busy girl today but apparently we're all lying because we want to get rid of her

Crispy are you ok? Can you keep her away for a bit?

I'm hiding in my bedroom with some cooking sherry. Had a load of family and friends around for lunch. One friend asks my mother what her favourite memory of me growing up was. I think the other 8 people around the table were expecting a heart warming anicdote about learning to ride a bike, passing exams or some other milestone. Nope, we got:

'Betty was a horrible child, the only time I saw her get what she deserved was when her father, at the end of his tether, grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground until she was blue. It worked, she never did (something painfully trivial) again.

I topped up the wine and picked up everyone's jaws from the floor.

Sigh. Only 48 hours to go.

Betty, that's a perfect example of how powerful normalisation can be! Thinking nothing of telling people about the violence ... my parents used to do that sometimes, everyone would assume they were joking
Keep channelling the Buddha!

Crispy, what a shocking episode. How are you feeling?

Betty, please don't spend another day with your 'family' again?

You'll have all those jaw droppers in total support of you I think. That's hideously cruel.

It's bonkers isn't it garlic! She completely and 100% genuinely thought she was being appropriate and entertaining.

It just shows me how utterly pointless it's been in the past when I've tried to make her see why we aren't close and what my issues are with my childhood. It's like talking to a brick wall so I don't bother anymore and engage with her infrequently and coolly.

Crispy, call 101 now and report her, have her prosecuted if you can and then get a non-mol.

Bloody hell Betty :(

I'm really really ok.. this is kind of normal for her, although it hasn't happened for a while.

I won't report her unless she comes back making trouble again, my mum already has an injunction against dd, if I do it too then she's really got no one. My son wants to call the police and use mum's injunction to get her gone, but she has gone so no point for the time being I think.

I just keep wondering what I did wrong for her to be like this. I divorced their dad because he was an abusive alcoholic, but they were both under 5 then and he didn't keep in contact with them. He's now on remand for killing his current wife. I've not had streams of men in and out of the house, just two very long term relationships since, both of more than 6 years. Who knows, perhaps she's on the stately homes thread slating me :o

Oh my god betty - can you leave earlier?
Wishing everyone here an Xmas that's as safe and good as possible.

ahahahahahahahahahaaa heard it all now.. apparently if I say sorry then she'll be fine with me

ermmm not gonna happen

Crispy, are you familiar with the teeny percentage of abusive men that apparently can change?

St Lundy says that this is rare, however can change when ALL support is lost as a result of their abuse.

No friends, no family. Nowhere left to go.

Call the police and get the order and make sure she loses all the support she has, it might just work in giving her the shake she needs.

Call WA or Respect for advice on how to handle this.

Does your son live with you? In the house that she's attacked?

If so, why is he not allowed the safety and security of making sure she is kept away from his home?

Unite! Get this woman held to account, if for nothing else, do it for your ds.

Merry Christmas Hissy :o

No, my son has his own place but he's staying at my mum's for the christmas. He wants to see her off once and for all too.. he's had enough, found last night that she'd stolen something of his that was meant as a present for someone :( She buggered off - didn't come back all night but I've had a couple of shitty texts from her this morning that she's going to come with a police officer to get her stuff on Friday and I better stay out of her room in the meantime other wise a smashed door will be the least of my worries blah blah blah.. I didn't even bother replying.

Food is almost all ready, then I'll bring it all to mum's. I will stay for her sake.. she's 85 and she said if she's still around next year then she's going to book up and go somewhere, she's had enough too.

I'll report back tonight on how bad the dramarama was :o

Hope everyone has a good day, lots of love xxxx