How Many PD's Does It Take To Sour A Celebration?

[Lookin 2 B Free]

I don't live with any anymore.  I'm VLC or NC with pretty much all family who are.  But there's one I can't avoid.  That's all it takes to bring a pall over the Christmas gathering.  I don't know if I'll ever host one again.  Not that we can't do a little gift and greeting exchange.  But the whole day long thing just feels like punishment.  That's exactly what it feels like.  And maybe that's what it is, though I don't know what I'm being punished for, just like I often didn't know  with my ex.

I can't seem to help having it get to me.  I'm not responding in any way except internally, & trying to get through the day. 

If I were with friends, we'd have a good time and feel grateful for each other, like we always do.  If I were alone, I'd find a way to be there for others, connect spiritually, and count my blessings, of which I have many.  I'm trying to do that anyway.  But something inside me wilts in these situations.  I don't feel I'm equipped and it just brings me down and kind of makes me sick at heart. 

If anyone reading this is having a hard time this day or this season, love and blessings to you. 

[Gwendolyn]

Hi and thanks for sharing.
I'm alone today.  I am barred from husband's family Christmas as well as my sister's Christmas.

I can relate to the discomfort.  For me the fakery and performance aspect of playing "perfect family" on demand at holidays became so hard and I dreaded going.

I have massive family dysfunction and I have had therapy and many years of sobriety and realize many of these family members are toxic to me.  It's a rough day for ant of us to have to deal with PD family and friends and I want to validate for you that whatever vibe or crazy making undertone flows through your holiday gathering is real and it's affecting you and it's worth examining.

It might well be your gut telling you something you didn't want to know or accept...there's that.

I'm guessing you're quite sensitive and there's a degree of overwhelm surrounding these gatherings and only you can decide if it's worth it going forward.

I hear you today and I know you've done your best and had high hopes for your event.  Celebrate the good parts and be kind to yourself today.

Hugs

Gwendolyn

[Lookin 2 B Free]

Thanks, Gwendolyn.  I hope you found a way to be good to yourself yesterday and not suffer too much because of family.  And any others of you who find dealng with a pwPD especially hard this time of year.  My heart goes out to you.  I wish you well.

I guess it's the "inmate running the asylum" deal.  Propped up by a few enablers, this person running roughshod over everyone else.  Having grown up with a pwPD, I used to have tremendous tolerance for this; I used to be one of those enablers.   I can't stand being around it anymore. Really, I've just had it dealing with this. 

I would never put up with it were this person not a gatekeeper to two others I love very much and want to be in my life.  It's the price I pay for not having them taken away from me.  I guess I feel kind of angry at having to pay a price at all when all I want to do is to love and spend time with 2 people who are a part of my family.  Maybe I have more to learn about how to deal with it and I'll be more comfortable when I do.  I don't know.

I can be very grateful this holiday season that I no longer live with a PD ....  that I have been able to work with a trauma T and am now at the point where I believe I deserve to be treated with decency, as an equal  ...  that I have developed long term friendships that include mutual trust and love, and an ability to respect that we each have our own ideas about and way's of doing things -- we're autonomous individuals -- and *that's okay*!!!

Thanks to all of you who show up here and share so people like me can learn how to do this thing!

Free

[Boat Babe]

I just had a good friend send me a one line text : thank fuck it's over.

It's so sad that the holidays bring us pain, grief and continuing trauma.  I just echo my friend. Thank fuck it's over.

[Pepin]

I just had a good friend send me a one line text : thank fuck it's over.

It's so sad that the holidays bring us pain, grief and continuing trauma.  I just echo my friend. Thank fuck it's over.

This is generally my sentiment as well.  For just about my entire married life up until this year, there was one person who soured any gathering, CN MIL.  At first she seemed alright, behaving herself and figuring out her footing while she accepted that I was going nowhere as DH's wife and then mother of our children.  It was only after the children were no longer babies that things started to change with her behavior.  It was like she just couldn't keep up with the growth of anyone and she became a massive dead weight.  And we all had to just deal with her.  She was the one person I could not escape like the other PDs that I have dealt with - that either I forced NC with or gradually discarded.  Since DH couldn't admit to her dysfunction, she had to be a part of our lives.