Ungrateful

[sunshine702]

Ungrateful.  How gifts of things is used as a manipulation.

This has been resonating with me greatly right now.  Both my parents have used gifts and help as manipulation I can now see. 

1. Cast offs.  My mom would often give us items that were the wrong color I asked for forest green and you gave me mint green.  It looks off.  Or the wrong size.  I told you I had a Twin you sent a Queen.  It kinda works.  But if you said anything you were UNGRATEFUL.  SUPER RUDE!  SPOILT! It was free why were you complaining.  I realize I have a real complex about this and will try super hard to get the mint green to work or tuck  in the extra fabric on the bedding.
She also does this recently with any online purchase she did that went wrong. 

I also tend to get upset about purchases /gifts that are SO NOT ME. I hate ironing and tend to do Items I don't have to — so a new steamer — while YOU like it I just will not use.  I hate to feel again UNGRATEFUL but some dog cookies?!  You know I love my dogs.  It is what THEY like not what I REALLY need like a pair of black flats for work .  If some HATES to cook I would not get them an chefs's knife kit ya know!!

Anyone else have stories like this.  I am really trying to come to terms with donating out the mint green item or maybe trying the steamer thing...

[sunshine702]

And listen I get it that people don't always get it right and sometimes regift something that did not work for me but hopefully you love it — the difference I think is in my heart.  I freely give it knowing you can donate it or toss if and that is ok.  Or there are tags under the box please return.  Or I thought this was SO YOU but oops maybe not.  That is ok.  For the past decade I have done good gifts at Christmas because of this twisted pretzel I have become on this weaponized topic. 

[sunshine702]

I think I have such anger is because my polite "no thank you or not at this time thanks" are completely IGNORED and my boundaries and wishes are completely disregarded.  Here is a story about a "gift".  So my mom had been talking about how she changed out her hangers to a more modern velvet kind. Would I like some?  No thank you.  My hangers were fine.  So she came out to ostensibly take me home from the hospital and  take care of me after a surgery.  I woke up after getting home that afternoon to her IN MY CLOSET CHANGING ALL OF MY HANGERS to the"correct" ones — which I HATED. I have 3 shedding white dogs the plastic did not show dog fur!!'

During a move recently I donated every last one of them.

I was in a vulnerable situation and it was really awful!!  Never again.  She will NOT be around me when I am sick!

[Call Me Cordelia]

Oh, I so hear you. My parents come by it honestly, all of my grandparents were hoarders, so our FOO's entire relationship with stuff and gifts and patterns of withholding and manipulation surrounding all of it was layer upon layer of messed up.

I could tell story after story about this, but one stands out the most to me right now. When I was 6-7 I really really wanted an American Girl doll. The catalog came in the mail and I would just pore over the pretty historical dresses and little accessories. I loved playing with my friends' dolls. But I was always told no, they are far too expensive. I got plenty of presents. Dollar amount easily exceeded the cost, they were just withholding. And it was more important that there be mountains of stuff under the tree than that I get what I wanted.

The Christmas I was ten, my mother went behind my father's back and got it for me. She wrote in the card it was a reward for being an extra-super-great helper that year. I was put in the role of "second mother" to my youngest sibling. So I was given a doll about two years too young for me, for taking on a role about ten years too old for me, if you're keeping score at home. She wrote that she carefully hid away cash from her under-the-table job to pay for it.

My response was a bit confused and not ecstatic enough for my father, who said to me that my entitlement was exactly why he had told my mother not to get the doll for me in the first place. I only wanted one because the other girls had them and it wouldn't be special if everyone else already had it. My mother was also disappointed and there were tears that her supreme sacrifices were not appreciated.

So yes, all of the feelings about gifts hit at this time of year. I am much better about feeling guilty for even wanting a present! It's natural and trauma response for me to be great at giving gifts, and now I want to be treated the way I treat others. And I also am trying not to try so dang hard all the time. Because I too have limits. And I get resentful when my efforts are not matched. So, I'm doing everyone a favor to cool it a little lol.