What's Your F***ing Problem? Family Baggage Edition

WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?

Tomorrow I'll be getting together with my family and will once again be faced with the ghost of who I used to be.  While I have no problem accepting that there are no "do overs" in life, I wish that my family could accept that as well.  It's one thing for me to cringe at my old behavior, but it's something entirely different when my family continues to treat me as though I was still behaving in the same way.  It sets up this bizarre dance where I spend time with everyone but my siblings while they scour my every word and action for evidence that I'm the same person I was at age 6 or 16.  They always emerge victorious and I feel like crap.

To be fair to my siblings, I was an incredibly angry person for the first 25-30 years of my life.  I was angry as a very young child and that only intensified as the years went on and I added to my grudge collection.  At far too young an age I was responsible for my brother and sisters after school.  And they were the regular recipients of my anger.  So they have every reason to be angry about their childhood years.  I don't deny that.

I spent the first 5 years of my sobriety learning how to deal with my anger, changing my patterns of behavior, and making amends.  But it never took with my family.  My siblings cannot move on.  And they don't need to.  But it leaves us with this unhealthy unspoken pattern where my every word and action is given the worst possible interpretation and is seen as evidence that I’m the same bitch I always was.

They have this pretense that they're giving me another chance to show that I've changed, yet they don't won't allow for that.  The last round happened a few weeks ago.  My youngest sister called praising me far beyond anything I'd actually done to assist my brother getting into detox.  Then the conversation turned to what a bitch I still am.  Since we hadn't actually had a frank conversation for a few years, I foolishly bit.  I inquired what the particular issue was this time.

My sister referred to a conversation we'd had months ago and insisted, "I remember the exact words you said because they hurt me so much," despite the fact that she changed the wording 3 times.  Then she went to town on how I'd made her feel bad about herself, how I don't understand her at all, and described the deep pain I'd inflicted on her with that one sentence.  And there was nothing I could say of course, since she remembered my words exactly except for when they changed.  The actual context of the injurious conversation made it even clearer that there was no way to settle it.  She wanted her anger and pain.  Context, facts and consistency were no match for her emotions.

I have a good friend, a mentor of sorts, who is my mother's age.  She has 4 boys and she drank for a chunk of their childhood.  Her oldest two cannot forgive her nor will they even acknowledge that her alcoholism had an impact on them.  She has a good relationship with the youngest two who have more memories of a sober mother.  I’m the daughter she never had and she’s the mother I always wanted.  We’ve been close for 20 years.

There is no way to fix things with her oldest two; they won't allow for it.  I admire the way that she's able to let that go.  She doesn't deny her failings, she doesn’t push them to forgive her, and she doesn’t even ask them to acknowledge where they’re at.  She lets them be and interacts with them on their own terms.  It's such a loss for them, and for her, but it is a gulf that seems unable to be bridged.

I could enjoy these holiday meals with my family more easily if my siblings were like my friend’s oldest boys.  But I'm stuck with ‘see how you've wronged us’ replayed over and over again on each new interaction.  It's hard to let something go when it keeps reaching for you.

I think this Easter I'm just going to say, "Enough.  The past is done.  I can't undo it.  Can we all just acknowledge that and move on?  Let's just accept that you'll never trust me and we'll never be close.  Be happy that the four of you are close.  I'm glad that you’re all close and I’m okay with being on the outside.  Let’s just be polite and cordial and let the rest of it go."

And honest to God, I hope that when the dust settles here after the primaries we're all able to let go of dragging the past into the present.  Some of us may never be able to look beyond the diaries or interactions of some kossacks, some of us may, but let's all of us agree to let everyone be where they are in the moment.  Because otherwise it just sucks.