Ruminating About the Fucktangle Again

[Starboard Song]

Just sharing that I lost it the last three days.

I keep a few documents around:

• Error 404: Mother Not Found - documentation of every communication since our crisis began
• Ask Any Friend or Counselor - a drafted email for my FIL documenting evidence that he is lying about me
• Rejection in Three Weeks - a more conciliatory drafted email explaining the reality of their rejection of us
• A True and Fair Narrative - a drafted email to my MIL laying out the true whole story of her current plight
• This Was Abuse And Is Not Excused - a deeply pissed off email to my MIL documenting her smear campaign in the community against us

This week something set me off, and I opened up the first one, Error 404: Mother Not Found. Oh boy, it was like watching a really good shoot-em-up movie. Heart racing. Vigilance and fear pumping. And I just read the last one, an email drafted years ago, waiting, that documents her smear campaign against us. It is a brutal take down. Whew!

And now I have to let it all go.

We've been NC for 7 years and have maintained perfect radio silence for 4 1/2 years. Their communications to us are down to two pieces of mail a year or so. Indulging in outreach to smear their faces in their poop would make them angry and only make noise. I'd show up in their Christmas letter for it, and mail volume to us would certainly climb. Man, I want the excuse. I want it sooo bad. But I won't manufacture one, and I will continue to behave myself.

Whatever set me off, it is time to set it back down. I'm gonna reach over here now and sing a Guy Clark song, and feel the pulse and pressure drop to normal levels before I get to the bridge.

[moglow]

What set it off, Starboard - A sighting? You run across old pictures? Did the kids ask questions or bring it up in some way? Or is it possibly a phase of the moon? I say this knowing how random things can hit me, out of the blue and suddenly there it is with nowhere to go. Reading that old stuff is kind of cathartic for me, seeing where I was when I wrote it and feeling where I am now. I suspect it helped more than hurt.

Those fucktangles though ...

[Cat of the Canals]

I'm not glad you had to ruminate on all of this yet again, but I am glad you shared here, because it makes me feel less horrible about the times I have the strong urge to smear their faces in it. And I suppose the fact that we resist the impulse is the very thing that separates us from them, so I can take solace in that, too.

[Starboard Song]

What set it off, Starboard - A sighting?

Nothing at all. Totally random, I think.

[moglow]

I am glad you shared here, because it makes me feel less horrible about the times I have the strong urge to smear their faces in it. And I suppose the fact that we resist the impulse is the very thing that separates us from them, so I can take solace in that, too.

This - Safety in numbers, as it were. Restraint is a wonderful thing.

[bee well]

Hi Starboard Song,

I don't have 7 years out/ 4.5 years radio silence (high five on that by the way) but I can relate to those feelings that come up when I get into things related to the f-tangles. Reminds me of how messed up it all is/was...

This is great: "Their communications to us are down to two pieces of mail a year or so. Indulging in outreach to smear their faces in their poop would make them angry and only make noise. I'd show up in their Christmas letter for it, and mail volume to us would certainly climb. Man, I want the excuse. I want it sooo bad. But I won't manufacture one, and I will continue to behave myself.

Whatever set me off, it is time to set it back down. I'm gonna reach over here now and sing a Guy Clark song, and feel the pulse and pressure drop to normal levels before I get to the bridge."

I'd bet that old Guy Clark Song helped. And I'm glad you aren't following urges to "read" the Inlaws' "beads." Two pieces of mail a year is more than enough...

[NarcKiddo]

It is astonishing how these surges can appear as if from nowhere.

I've not gone NC and for the moment my decision is that I will not knowingly trigger any situation that would justify my doing so. I would likely be unable to resist explaining why, in glorious technicolour, and I'd rather not.

There's a song I listen to without a problem in the gym when it comes up on my playlist. "White woman's instagram" by Bo Burnham. But it has a verse in it about a daughter missing her mother who has been gone a decade and that had me crying on the treadmill the other day. Bizarre.

I hope you're feeling better now, Starboard.

[Starboard Song]

I'm letting it pass.

Last night I had one dream where a woman I know kidnapped me and took me to this place managed by my MIL. My SIL (who is sweet) was there, telling me if I just behave it will all be OK. In another dream we went to a rental vacation place. When we got there a truck like my FIL's was parked up against the door making it hard to get in. Inside, we learned we had rented half the house. The other half was my in-law's, and they were going to spend all their time in the common areas.

So... it hasn't passed yet. But it will and always does. During these times my injustice meter redlines, and I become highly sensitive to even the tiniest provocation. Now, I am the Most Mild-Mannered Man Alive, so be being on a hair trigger isn't even noticeable to those around me. But I feel it in my little heart until this passes.

Thank you!

[moglow]

Mo dream interpretation: They're renting space in your head and require eviction. Wondering if it would help to have the showdown of all showdowns, even if only yelling it all out at a picture of them sitting in a chair across from you? Or write all this out until you're tired and burn it after?

I know it'll pass and I also know that getting there depletes you/us a little. I'll get my ukulele off her wall hook later today and practice some chords [since I can't actually play], vicariously send musical healing your way.

We're here with you, Starboard.

[Starboard Song]

I'll get my ukulele off her wall hook later today and practice some chords [since I can't actually play], vicariously send musical healing your way.

Strum a few times. You only need three chords. And then sing some sweet, gentle ballad.  I will feel it from here.

[bloomie]

Oh, you are taking another trip around the mountain, I see.  (what I call these revisits)

Sustaining NC with family members due to their mistreatment of our family takes holding a consistent clear view of just how unsafe and damaging these folks have been/can be. That is a negative syphoning of my emotional energy that I realize I have come to be acclimated to.  Like a tiny rock in my shoe when I am hiking on a fabulous trail, until something awakens me to how much I do not want any of the yuck in any part of my life. So, for me, not so much about injustice, but about frustration that I still have to deal with this ugly and negative specter over our happy lives.

Because with in law parents and family members, they are not 'gone'. You are most likely not completely free of some kind of mutual ties or at least the discomfort of how this estrangement can overshadow other loving extended family ties and activities. It is nearly impossible, for us anyway, to have zero knowledge and awareness of what is happening or what the latest version of events (as you mentioned, we also have been included in the naughty section of holiday newsletters) is.

Maybe you needed the energy surge to stay the course and now you have laid it down. Maybe for good. Maybe not. It's okay. Do what you need to do as part of the process of a dealing with a very unnatural state of affairs.

My favorite song to sing when I am making another trip around the mountain is Kacey Musgraves "Step Off".