Who Needs a Therapist When (Pt. 3)

Me. I need a therapist. Thank you internet for being one. All tips will go to someday affording a real professional.

So, I usually visit family for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. Every year. And every year it is incredibly stressful. Like, panic attacks and sleepless nights and even worse dreams and irregular period/weird body stuff kind of stress.

The thing is, being back with my folks isn't actually THAT stressful. It is more like floating in suspended animation. Or like trying to time travel back to an earlier version of myself. It's stressful. It just isn't so stressful that it would warrant my near-total and complete meltdown before I visit.

This year, I went twice. Once for Thanksgiving, and once a week before Christmas because my little sister was finally back from her Mormon Mission. Which meant that instead of my usual three week spiral of increasing anxiety, followed by recovery, I got to do my usual three week spiral, then come home and start it back up again. Suffice it to say, the last several weeks have been some of the worst anxiety of my adult life.

This year was also especially bad because my parents are divorcing. That in itself isn't actually stressful. My mother has been trying to divorce my dad in slow-motion for the last 30 years. She finally reached a breaking point, and honestly, it is a bit of a relief.

Except that my dad, somehow, despite their relationship becoming increasingly antagonistic over the years, didn't see it coming. And he is upset. So, this years Thanksgiving involved an intervention for my own father—encouraging him to please please please go out and seek social interactions that aren't his children. It involved a lot of side glances and silences when there was no good way to respond to his complaints about life and my mom. It involved a lot of emotional labor for a man who already demands a lot of emotional labor from me. It involved a lot of being polite when I am still furious at him for things he did months ago and that he will never understand why it wasn't okay.

This year also involved a new highlight. Not only was my twin brother not attending the main Thanksgiving because of my older brother, but he wasn't even trying. He had his own quiet one with my mother, her boyfriend at the time, and me. I thought this meant my older brother's chaos might, for once, be contained.

Lol. Instead, my older brother decided to pick a fight with my little brother's wife. A girl who already dislikes the chaos and noise of our big get togethers. A girl who, rightfully, has the power to veto her and my little brother attending events. And I just want to shake my older brother. He has always been like this. He thrives on the chaos and the emotional upheaval of others. He loves the noise and the mess and the constant near-disasters. He just cannot get it through his head that he is the only one who likes it. He sees his siblings and their S.O.'s withdrawal from chaos as weakness. Maybe it is. But it is a weakness that might lose him all of his adult relationships. Because going home takes enough out of me without me also having to withstand all that unnecessary drama.

Going back this second time wasn't so bad. I didn't have to entertain my father, and I didn't have to deal with my older brother's shit even once. It was mostly just me, my little sister, and my mom.

It still was a lot of trimming down who I am, concealing and suppressing and just pretending to be the person they expect me to be. It was still a lot of talking and interacting and spending time with someone else every waking moment.

It was still me going to their church service even though I want nothing to do with that religion ever again because it is central to their lives, and arguing with them about it would accomplish only one thing: making them sad. They aren't going to understand why. It is as unfathomable to them as my decision to drink coffee and live in Colorado and not marry my S.O. right away.

Maybe that is the issue. I see my family, who I have spent so long learning what they need and want to be happy, who I have fought for and truly love.

And they don't even know me. They don't want to know me and I don't want them to know me. It would be nothing but disappointment and anger and sadness on all sides. I'm not so delusional that I think that my strictly Mormon family is suddenly going to be supportive of the parts of my life that have been vital to my continued existence. I know where that limit is—and while I'm willing to meet them halfway, their whole belief system is built on the idea that there is no halfway.

I'm not sure where to go next with any of this. I'm not sure what to do with the knowledge that either I decide to actively become antagonistic knowing that it will change very little, or live on quietly as a lie to the people who should know me best.

In the meantime, this holiday I am grateful that I don't have to see them again for a few months.

Last Week's (Pt. 2)

(Pt. 1)