Relationship of the Living Dead

          What a pain in the tush! Christmas is always so difficult. I can't just go to the mall for a book or a coffee. I have to fight through throngs of rude people. Most things I shop online for this time of year, but a girl does need toilet paper, and I can't get it today. *grimace* We tried one year to do Christmas and found it far too stressful that we swore to never, ever do it again. Even being near it makes my teeth clench and my nerves tense all day. I never had to deal with that as a child, but... that's one very small comfort.

            Since I left home, my family has found religion, and suddenly all of the holidays that were sins before are mandatory - except that naughty, nasty eeeeeeevil Halloween, of course.

            Every year for Christmas I could expect a huge package full of... stuffed animals or Christian knick-knacks with a "Jesus Loves You" card. Every year I'd be crushed - right into a pulp. Their gifts were wrong on so many levels. So many times they infantalize me, sending me candy and merry-go-rounds and stuffed toys. Me, now well into my 30's. They knew well by now that I was an Athiest, after having read and noted many similarities between various world mythologies. I'd also long shared with them their god's long love of punishing children instead of the guilty party. Even IF I were wrong, they could never respect my wishes. They came year after year after year, and eventually I returned them.

            Birthdays were the same, but this was my Father's domain. I was born on his favorite performer's birthday, and he couldn't let it go. The problem was, I can't bring myself to care for the guy.  Every day on my birthday I hear their music on the radio, I see their movies on TV, and I just want to scream. It's my birthday, dammit. And my Dad... started sending me their memorabilia - after 30-some years of knowing how I felt. I said, please, please, send me something from "this comedian" or "that actress" who also shares my birthday, but send me something I like. Newp. Again, I began returning them.

           I know. This is really just the least way they could disappoint me. It's just the way they show they don't know me, and that they dismiss me, and that they don't try.

          A better part of the year ago now, I wrote them telling them finally that I had PTSD and what it was like. I said that I didn't see why I should keep up a relationship that was so terribly painful for me, and why I shouldn't feel that I need to keep quiet about that happened. I said I needed to recover from it and I couldn't ever do that with their presence in my life... and that they'd never see or hear from me again.

Here's your candle.

          I blocked all of her possible emails, and as I did I noticed she'd changed her icon to a candle in the window. Anything to seem the wronged, because every little thing I've ever done has to get attention for her. When I was two, it was the fact that I was reading. I was a little star she could show off how she'd taught me. That was great until, just as they were poised to move me ahead two years, the school stopped that program. I wasn't special again until she realized I was modeling (like I had been 10 years previous) - then I was her best friend, to brag about and show off, again. ...As long as I didn't bring "it" up and make her into a "bad guy", ever.

        Yesterday I got a postcard for Christmas asking me to get in touch. It's in the trash now.

Bah Humbug,
-DC