Yuck. Ugh. No. Why.

[Call Me Cordelia]

A cousin of my husband's, whom I have never met, just included me and my husband on a massive invite to "extended family Christmas Zoom." Two hours before it starts. All the names were listed except my husband's name had a question mark after it, and where my name would have been in the list right after his was only question marks. Everyone else and their spouses were listed normally. What the bloody hell.

Zoom calls with lots of people are terrible even when you actually know and like everyone.

But this is the Christmas where both sides of the uPD family have erased my name. My distant cousin addresses a Christmas card to me using my mother's name, and this cousin just doesn't bother remembering it, but she has my email address? I appear to have been flushed. But what the bloody hell making the effort to send this to me. If I were to "rejoin the family" it wouldn't be via Zoom!

Of course the moral of the story, for all reading this cautionary tale, is I shouldn't have even opened the e-mail.  But it's still irritating.

[notrightinthehead]

Gosh! I am so sorry Cordelia! I send you a big hug! Remember: you matter. You are worthy. You are appreciated.

I would take this as an attempt to bait. The less reactive you are the stronger the provocation must be. Whatever they might think or intend, it seems they have forgotten your name. You managed to grey rock out of their lives. It might still hurt a bit, there will always be a scar. And you will go on with your life, growing. Developing into a healthier, stronger person. In spite of them.

[Cat of the Canals]

If I were to "rejoin the family" it wouldn't be via Zoom!

Right? Some people don't get it. This cousin REALLY doesn't get it. Whatever his intentions may have been, this cousin's piss poor attempt at extending an invitation only made things worse.

Every word out of my MIL's mouth about HER in-laws (my husband's stepdad's family) is trash talk. And then she periodically tries to cajole my husband into joining their family zoom call.  We are endlessly amused that MIL thinks he'd want anything to do with people she constantly maligns. Like, "Yes, I'd love to do a holiday zoom with the people who are 'so horrible' to you!" (To be clear, they've always been warm and welcoming, but H has never been close to them, which is the real reason why he doesn't join in.)

[treesgrowslowly]

I am sorry for this unfortunate email landing in your inbox.

Notrightinthehead took the words right outta my mouth! Baiting is exactly what came to mind for me when you describe how they managed to forget your name but listed everyone else properly. Facepalm.

Maybe in your mind you can see it as them expressing "here's a list of the people we see as compliant with our plans".

You are wise to the theatre that is a massive group zoom call. Like you said, what does this type of massive zoom call even accomplish?

In any extended family it does seem like there is that one person who plans these group events....I'd like to see the research that proves these are anything except a complete waste of time and drain on our energy lol!

Like, what can you really enjoy during a massive zoom meet up? I don't even understand the point. Seems like a perfect set up for the narcs to shine and the rest of us to shrink and count the minutes until it's over.

Sounds like platforming the narcs and giving them an audience, and using the holiday to guilt people into joining in.

Omg this time of year brings on some real FOG behaviours in our relatives!!

Trees

[NarcKiddo]

FFS! That's grim in every particular.

[moglow]

Okay I'll be the one - I'd have been sorely tempted to respond to all:


Gosh I'm so sorry we'll miss it! If we'd had a bit more notice I'm sure DH and I would have loved to chat with y'all. All the best in the new year to everyone!
DH and Cordelia (and now you know 😊)


(and then quietly block the lot of them)

[Call Me Cordelia]

Hahaha thanks, everyone. It's especially ludicrous because my email address IS MY NAME. 100% on an identified narc getting it all up and then deploying FMs to round up the rest of the monkeys for the show. UN aunt deployed her brother who deployed his daughter who sent this steaming pile of nope.

I can only imagine what we missed. "Let's all go around and say what we're grateful for this year. I'll start I'm grateful for my super-successful career and my new book deal! I'm writing my autobiography! It's a trilogy.... Oh, well I guess it's time to move on. Please send me your happy memories to include in my book! Susie, why don't you go next?" "I'm grateful for my wonderful Mom!" Many of us are grateful for... technical difficulties. 

I feel as though I "should" simply ignore and let it bounce off, but applying the patterns and seeing how this is absolutely not personal, just narc systems just narcing along with or without me, and some good old ridicule, really helps with the anger. I really appreciate your responses because it really helps me gain that balance that I can do for myself in my head, but the emotions still lag behind. It still baffles me how people can be this way, even hanging around here like I do.

[Preamble]

Call Me Cordelia that sounds horrible.  Currently I think that there is a faint chance any problems could be reduced through one-on-one contact with no agenda, but that group contact can only go one way.

[treesgrowslowly]

Hahaha thanks, everyone. It's especially ludicrous because my email address IS MY NAME. 100% on an identified narc getting it all up and then deploying FMs to round up the rest of the monkeys for the show. UN aunt deployed her brother who deployed his daughter who sent this steaming pile of nope.

I can only imagine what we missed. "Let's all go around and say what we're grateful for this year. I'll start I'm grateful for my super-successful career and my new book deal! I'm writing my autobiography! It's a trilogy.... Oh, well I guess it's time to move on. Please send me your happy memories to include in my book! Susie, why don't you go next?" "I'm grateful for my wonderful Mom!" Many of us are grateful for... technical difficulties. 

I feel as though I "should" simply ignore and let it bounce off, but applying the patterns and seeing how this is absolutely not personal, just narc systems just narcing along with or without me, and some good old ridicule, really helps with the anger. I really appreciate your responses because it really helps me gain that balance that I can do for myself in my head, but the emotions still lag behind. It still baffles me how people can be this way, even hanging around here like I do.

"Grateful for technical difficulties" - hilarious!! 

One thing I learned and re-learned throughout the last year that might apply to your last paragraph here:

Emotions are good information. Feeling annoyed at how loopy / stupid / infantile / narcissistic something is, is just you having an accurate read of something in front of you.

As you can see, you're not alone in thinking that this massive group Zoom call is part of "narc systems narcing along with or without you" as you wrote.

This year I learned to 'allow' the feeling of disgust. Feeling disgusted by some of the things I see people doing is not wrong. Although mostly it would be wrong to act on that feeling, obviously. Feeling annoyed or angry / disgusted / frustrated is my own nervous system saying "I don't agree with this thing these people are doing". It's perfectly normal to feel that stuff. Not to say it's not annoying though too!

I love the concept from crappy childhood fairy on youtube, where she talks about "crap fitting". How many of us have done that?!! (raises hand). And then as we recover from FOG, we realize we're not going to fit ourselves to people's crap anymore. This Zoom invite kinda sounds like a request to fit yourself to some crap you do not want to fit yourself too. Bravo to you for knowing this about yourself!

Trees

[sandpiper]

Yuck.
I have nothing to contribute here, just sympathy and yep, let's all stay off the beach when the red flags are out and the shark warning siren is sounding as loud as it is here.
RE: Zoom meetings, we have two indoor cats who love to participate in these & if you lock them out of the room there's a massive tantrum. We're still doing zoom yoga classes & everyone has gotten used to our yoga teaching saying 'Piper! All I can see is your cat's rectum!'
Sounds like that would've been the perfect response for PD Xmas zoom.