katie6

Here's a brief background for you all, since I'm not here a lot and haven't posted much (on another note, I'm still not sure if I belong in here or in the nar-anon forum, but anyway...): my parents are functional addicts. They drink, but I wouldn't call them alcoholics. I now am married to a wonderful man who isn't an addict or an alcoholic and we live 5 hours from my parents.

I went to visit them in May, my mom and I had tickets to a play and then my dad and I went to a baseball game. It was a really good visit. It was the first visit since I finished my first semester of graduate school, which has change me in more ways than I can even mention (in good ways!).

My mom called tonight and is asking me to come home for another visit in a few weeks. There is a family reunion on my dad's side, and another on my mom's side, plus one of my very best friends from high school who still lives there is having a party, and I haven't seen her in a long time. I just don't want to make the effort to go there if I am just going to be mocked by my parents some more.

Like I said, mom called tonight and she was drunk (or high, but I think drunk since she is on vacation from work this week). I HATE the way she talks to me when she is drunk. SHe seems to feel like everything is a personal attack and she just has this tone that I can't really describe. It's so sarcastic and mean. I just feel like she is making fun of me all the time. And I don't want to be around it.

On top of that, the way she is trying to get me to come home is by GUILTING me into it. And the more she does that, the less I want to go. Her mother died last summer, and this family thing will be around what would have been her birthday. So my mom pulls the "it's grandma's party" card out. My other grandmother is deceased as well, and she used that too. She said this weekend was for both of my grandmothers and that I should be there. I feel like if I go I am giving into her guilt trip and I HATE that.

And I don't want to be made fun of anymore or told I am wrong or that I remember things from my childhood wrong.

I'm so sorry this is so long. I guess I just needed to vent, and needed an outsiders perspective. I'd love any advice you guys could give, and I promise to try harder to be a better participant on this board. I feel lik I am all take and no give. Thanks though. I always feel good after coming here.

GingerM

It's a simple answer with a difficult follow through: tell your mom, when she calls you drunk, to call you back when she's sober. Do not discuss it any further with her. Do not argue with her over whether she's drunk or not. Don't even tell her why, if you don't want to.

mom: Hi, it's your mother (sounding obviously drunk)
you: Hi mom. Tell ya what, why don't you call me back when you're sober, we can talk then. *click*

If she calls back immediately don't answer the phone (caller ID is my friend!).

When she is sober (or maybe that's an 'if', not a 'when'), tell her that the things she says to you when she's drunk are very hurtful and you don't care to be around her when she's like that. Then you need to follow through.

If you're visiting, make sure you have a backup place to stay, then leave and go there. If it's on the phone, hang up. Let her know that when she's drunk you won't have anything to do with her, but when she's sober/straight, you're happy to have contact.

Guilt is something only you can make you feel.

Take care of YOU. If YOU don't want to go (for whatever reason) then don't go. If you're in grad school, then you are most definitely an adult, and therefore capable of making your own decisions without the need to be 'parented' by someone who is not even capable of taking care of themselves. Her guilting/pleading/begging/manipulating is not coming from a place of caring for you, it's all about her. You're the only one who can make your life all about you (as opposed to all about someone else's dysfunction).

Give to yourself. Give yourself permission to avoid unpleastries. Give yourself permission to avoid emotional scenes with negative consequences. You're an adult now, you don't have to do what anyone else tells you to do. Even me.

I recently went through something very similar with my own parents. I feel a lot better now, and much more sane being able to say "well, I can see you're having a little party, I think I'll head out now." or "call me back when you're sober". And practice makes perfect. I don't feel one smidgeon of guilt over it. Their choice to get drunk, my choice to leave. Pretty cut and dried.

I wish you luck!

DesertEyes

Hey there Katie,

You feel free to drop by whenever you want. This forum is a "guilt-free zone", so you're allowed to not beat on yourself. And you can belong to as many forums as you like.

Ginger's suggestions are right on. You mentioned in another thread that you went to some al-anon meetings. Have you continued attending? Have you found a sponsor? Have you found other al-anons you can call on a regular basis? Having people in real life that understand what I'm going thru has been a lifesaver for me.

If al-anon, nar-anon or similar 12 step program doesn't work for you there's also counseling and life coaching and all kinds of other resources out there.

Mike

GettingFree

Hi Katie & welcome.

Ginger covered a lot of great stuff. What I'll add has to do with the "shoulds".

For a long time, I was controlled by the idea of what I "should" do. It could be a "should" coming from others -- what they thought I should do -- or it could be my own internal scripts telling me what I thought I should do.

It's taken a long time for me to find freedom from both the external and internal versions. I began to give myself permission to ask "What do I "want" to do? Gee, what a notion! I get to ask what I really want to do, rather what I should do? And the answer is yes.

Of course, I still do things that may not be high on my enjoyment list in order to help or benefit others I care about -- but that's because I WANT to do it and CHOOSE to do it because of my feelings for them. Not because of guilt, or obligation.

I saw how much a sense of obligation was filling me with resentment. And I no longer want to live with that.

I am still practicing. I do not have it perfect. Establishing healthy boundaries for myself was, and continues to be, enormously important. It was very challenging at the beginning. Now, it's getting easier to set those boundaries. I'm getting better at being able to quickly do an internal check, to ask myself "Is this something I really want to do or am I thinking of agreeing because of other reasons such as guilt, obligation, fear of saying what I want, etc."

So with this question of going home, try taking your mom out of it completely. Ask yourself if you want to go for yourself, for your own reasons. If the answer is no, try and visualize saying no. Try and examine the feelings you have that come up with that. You may even have a physical reaction. Just see where it sits in your body. And come back to it later. Try it on again. And maybe you'll be able to practice it in 'real life'.

It gets easier,

best
gf

GingerM

Echoing what Getting Free said:

My therapist gave me the following tool:

Anytime you feel yourself doing something because you "should", see if you can reframe it using one of the following three statements -

1. I wish
2. I want
3. It would be in my best interest if

I should go to work today...I don't wish to, I don't want to, but it is in my best interest to do so. (Sometimes we can do things we don't want to do because it is in our best interest)

My parents shouldn't drink ... I WISH my parents wouldn't drink, but they do.

I should be a more attentive daughter/sister/friend ... Well, depending on the person, it may be in my best interest to do so, it may be that I want to do so because I think it's in their best interest, I may be wishing I had more time to spend with the person.

Once you get rid of "should" and replace it with "want/wish/best interest", you remove the expectation and it simply becomes a statement with no implied requirements to perform. It takes a HUGE amount of pressure off.

If I had to pick one thing that my therapist has helped me the most with, it is with getting rid of my "shoulds" (of course, like all of us, I'm not perfect, and I don't always succeed, but I'm much better). The freedom from that pressure to perform constantly hanging over my head has made my life shift on a pretty large scale.

Even in the work environment: It would not be in my best interest to rise to the bait of ChickenLittle coworker who is attempting to blame everything on me. (Historically, I would get sucked into that drama without even knowing it was happening until it was too late). Therefore, since it is not in my best interest, I CHOOSE not to respond to her. Sometimes I choose to respond to her, but I do so in my own way, not in the old patterns of getting sucked into the arguement. She no longer has any control over me.

What a wonderful tool he's given me (and he's given me permission to pass it along to whoever might make good use of it too!)

katie6

Thank you all. I appreciate knowing that I have been heard.

Ginger~ I would LOVE to be able to just tell her that I won't talk to her when she's drunk, but it is sooooo hard. I didn't talk much during the conversation, I mostly let her talk. I'm going to try that tactic next time, if I can remember. I just hate talking to her when she is drunk, it's so hard not to feel bad. I have tried telling her that what she says makes me feel bad, but she can always turn it around on to me, so I just stopped trying. I'll try the "should" thing as well. I want to go home and see the rest of my family, I wish I could go home and my parents wouldn't be high (but I know they will be because we are going to a family event and for some reason they can't handle my family without being high). It would be in my bset interest to...I don't know. There are costs and benefits to going and I don't know which outweighs the other.

Mike~ No meetings for me. I've never gone to one. I think about counseling every once in a while, I've been in it before, but these situations only come up once in a while (the benefits of living so far from my parents!). I am a fan of therapy though, and not at all against it when needed. I am in grad school for counseling after all! :wink2:

Getting Free~ Those were wonderful suggestions! Thank you! And what an easy asnwer. If I took my mom and the guilt out of the equation, I would definitely go. I was thnking some more about this. There are things that I do for my husband that I don't always want to do, but I enjoy knowing that he is happy when I do them. With this, I think if I went there my mom would feel she has "won" and I have "lost". How do I get past feeling like she "won"?

GingerM

If you go because you WANT to go, for your own amusement/benefit/enjoyment, then she has not won. The flip side of this coin is that if you DON'T go because you don't want to deal with your mother, then she has 'won'.

Do what you're going to do because it's what YOU want to do, try as hard as possible to get her out of the equation. Basically, quit playing her game. If you're not playing her game, then there can be no winner or loser.

If you go because you want to go, then she has no power over you to 'win' or 'lose'. If she brings it up in a manner indicating that she feels she's won, you can simply say "I came here because I wanted to, not because of anything you said or did" and hopefully be at peace with yourself knowing that the statement is a true one. She will live in whatever weird little world she chooses to live in, you can live in your world. She can think she 'won' if she wants to, but you will know the truth. That knowing is where the healing is.

edited to add: my dad once pulled one of these on me, saying something to the effect of "see? I told you if you just did what I said to do, it would be right". My response was "I did what *I* thought was the right thing to do, not what you told me I had to do. It just so happened that once in a while you may actually be right about something," and smirked at him. Maybe that was a bit on the mean side, but it sure stopped the gloating thing in a hurry

GettingFree

Katie,

Ginger's right. If you really want to go, but stay away in order to avoid feeling as if your mother has won, she has won. She is still determining your behavior, and that's where her win is.

It really comes down to this: if our actions are determined by someone else's actions, beliefs, judgements etc, in any way, they have 'won'. Or more accurately, we've given up the freedom and empowerment to act in our own best interests to get our own needs met.

best
gf

DesertEyes

Hey there katie,

Dealing with family is tough. Mine had my whole childhood to refine their manipulative ways. I wasn't able to work my way out of their clutches in just one day, but I managed a little bit at a time.

I started by setting time limits on how long I would talk on the phone. First I cut it down to one hour, at the end of which I'd make up some commitment and politely said "I have to go before I'm late and I'm hanging up now". Sometimes they remembered that I'd done that, sometimes they were so drunk they completely forgot it. Once I was good at that I cut them back to a half hour, then 20mins, and so on. I was training _them_ to get used to shorter times, and I was training _me_ to be more assertive.

Now I just look at the caller ID and if it's one of the nutcases in my family I just don't pick up. No guilt at all now.

Dealing with them in person was a lot harder, but I just followed the same approach. Instead of just trying to overcome the entire history of their behaviour with me I just slowly reduced the amount of time I spent with them.

As far as counseling, it did me a lot of good. Highly recommended. Oh yes, I got a degree in psych and went to grad school too. Going to counseling for myself was not only personally helpful, it gave me a great perspective on what the client goes thru.

The reason I recommend meetings is because you get to talk to people face to face. As helpful as the internet can be, nothing beats a real person. I happen to find Al-anon very helpful, but there are many other programs and groups that are just as good. Someday soon you'll be a shrink, and you'll be sending people to groups, so you might as well go see what their like for yourself

Once you find a combination of groups or meetings or therapist that fits your needs you'll be amazed at how quickly you'll be able to turn off the "guilties" and live your own life. I was able to finally tell my nutso relatives that if they wanted me to listen to all their problems I would gladly offer them a discount on my shrink fees. ( I was never a shrink, just a counselor for a few years) Whadya now, they quit calling me and I quit feeling guilty.

As far as feeling that your Mom has "won", I found that for me it was just a matter of practice. I had spent my whole childhood as a victim, and a re-actor, to my crazy families needs and manipulations. As I slowly figured out my own independent needs, and learned healthy behaviors of my own, I was able to see where I was making a decision based on _my_ needs and not theirs. Once I _knew_ that it was _my_ decision, then it didn't matter whether they agreed or not, whether they thought they'd "won" or not.

Whadya think?

Mike

katie6

You guys have given me a whole lot to think about. Thanks.

I have decided that if I don't go, that really means she has won, becuase that means her actions have determined my choices...again.

New development today: we got a reminder e-mail about the one family gathering from my aunt who is hosting the party. She said she is really looking forward to the party becuase all of the out of towners (she wrote out a list that included myself and my husband) were going to be there. I got really angry when i saw that, becuase my mom has been telling people I will be there. And for me not to show up now means I am a disappointment. So in order to save my "reputation" I am going to go. And to go to my friends party. NONE OF THIS is for my mom. It is all for me. And that I am sure of.

Mike~I'm not going to be a shrink, just a counselor. A school counselor actually. I don't think I want to go on for a doctorate. Counseling is much more fun anyway.

GettingFree

Hi Katie,

It sounds like you're making good progress in detaching and not basing your actions on whether you're trying to please your mom or are mad at your mom.

As I began to separate from the 'shoulds', I also began to look at my motivations for doing things. Doing something to save one's reputation is also an externally-based motivator -- your actions are being determined by what others will think of you. Will they think I'm a selfish, uncaring or irresponsible person for not showing up?

The answer for me at this point in my life is, who cares?

It still comes back to the question, what do I want? If I don't really feel like I want to attend something, but I'm afraid what people will think if I don't, and so I go, "they" have won. Not me.

My goal is to be unimpacted by what others think, especially those in the 'outer' circle. They can think what they think and if they're judgemental poops, so be it. That's their problem. My time is really valuable to me now, and I'm not going to give it up in order to shape people's views of me. As long as I'm comfortable with me, that's what counts.

best
gf