Christmas has not been my thing for quite sometime now … It has traumatized me throughout the years for many different reasons …
MANY times, over the last 38 years, my brother is in the hospital … when I say hospital, I am talking about the Mental Hospital, or a mental ward, or on a L2K hold (Nevada’s mental illness hold code) or a 5150, as they say in Cali, as he likes to run to California a lot when he is manic. We, my family, or me, would go the to institution … not just for Christmas, but MANY different holidays … to see him, and inadvertently see others on the ward, in that mentally ill state. MANY times, we are all getting gaslighted or grilled or chastised by staff members who are in charge for the day … not to mention the heartbreak it brings, especially when I had to watch my mother go through that …
When my parents were alive, they would fight with each other during our time together on the Holiday, and/or always, actually, even though they had been divorced for many years, we would all celebrate together and there was total dysfunction … Mom yelling at everyone that nothing was done right, no loud laughing, ALWAYS the sour puss face … it was torture …
So, traumatizing that I would spend only a little bit of time with them … I would give them Christmas Eve and I would tell them I was going to spend Christmas with friends (Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep, My Lord of the Rings/Hobbit friends, etc … ) and go to the movies by myself …
Trying to buy presents for everyone, rush, rush, rush to buy and spend and wrap and give … ridiculous … the pressure to not miss anyone … too much … I give all year long … very generously … so I do not like being dictated to that I need to buy everyone a present on a given day … part of my buck against authority … which is funny, if you think about it … bucking against the Christmas Police … HA! Like that movie Christmas with the Kranks, which I watched for the first time this year … I loved their objective of not doing Christmas … the ending was great, even though they didn’t get the one planned on … I still identified with, and loved, the ‘Don’t make me do Christmas if I don’t want to” spirit!
Decorating my home is overwhelming, I already have so much to do … I just can’t do it anymore …
Seeing others with their matching pajamas and perfect families always made me feel left out … I wanted a family of my own, not being stuck with my original crazy ass family …
I am Happy to Celebrate Jesus’ Birthday, I think the decorations and lights are nice and pretty to look at and I like the Christmas music for a month or so … but I am happy when all the Hub Bubalo is all over …
Not a fan of making a big deal out of Christmas …
Last year, I had mentioned that at a meeting, in my share, that Christmas was hard for me and I was traumatized by it …
Afterwards, two of the ladies who do not normally come to the group but once in a while, decided after hearing my 5-minute share that they knew what was going on with me …
I followed them to the front room where they were getting ready to leave, just to say hi and this is what I got … One said, “Well I’m not going to say Merry Christmas to you!” … the other said I needed to let the past be in the past and focus on today … (at that time my brother was in the hospital, so I was going to trapse into the mental institution yet again, so it was currently happening, NOT in the past)
I was traumatized further by their reactions to my saying hello to them … is that what they got out of my share? To NOT greet me and to give me misinformed advice? Glad they don’t come very often … but I remember feeling defeated by their actions and words … it still hurts when I think of it … I was trying to be friendly and got cut down by their flippant, ignorant attitudes …
Trauma is like that, it is attached to the soul, so the wounds cut deep and take along time to heal … they also replay like a skipping record, like Rainman, over and over and over again … they are hard to get rid of … not your ‘normal’ obsession … no … it is far deeper and wider than just a normal compulsive thought … it will haunt you forever unless you can wrangle it to the ground and kill it with love and understanding …
This year my brother was not in the hospital … in fact he asked to go to Target to get a special gift for me that he thought would be perfect … I drove him there, waited in the car and he picked it out all by himself … that touched me that he wanted to do something special for me … he wrapped it all by himself which was amazing because I do not even know where he found the wrapping paper! He can barely tie his own shoes, (He currently has two different color shoestrings … not a fad, just what he put back into the shoes after they took the shoestrings out at the nut ward) … so for him to wrap the gift, was a surprise …
I was so curious as to what he thought would be perfect for me … I unwrapped the gift … it was a water filter that you screw onto your kitchen faucet … sorry to say, but a cheap kitchen faucet at that … the basic kind …
Yes, I was moved and touched that my brother took it upon himself to get me a gift he thought would be “perfect”, wrapped it himself and gave it with so much love in his heart … yes, it is so beautiful … bittersweet beautiful …
You see, I have a custom kitchen with a special faucet and insta-hot & cold water filtration system as well as a whole house filtration system … my brother has not ever been able to pay attention to detail of almost anything, let alone anything in my home, so he has no clue that I have the best filtration system money can buy, that the gift he purchased, would not fit my faucet or that I have no need for such an item … that may sound cold on my part … I am not trying to be cold here … stating facts …
I have a brother that cannot see me or how I am … he is so far in his own head that he is not aware of most of what I do … that I need to work for living, that I am hyper aware and do not need to be told “Watch out! Don’t step on that toy!”, or how much of his life that I handle, he is not even aware of how much I do for him because he is delusion and thick brained from his meds or is so manic he is not in touch with reality and creating his own …
That is why the gift is bittersweet … I so appreciate all his effort and loving heart, and yet it hurts that he has no clue who I am or what I need … him giving gifts that have no relevance to who I am or what I need in my life … I understand the situation, but that does not mean it is not really hard some days …
I feel I am obligated to babysit him every Christmas or he has no one … that may sound harsh too, but you try being with someone who is mentally ill all the time and tell me how you like it … especially at this ‘joyous’ time of year … its fucking hard! No wonder Christmas is hard for me … I feel trapped/chained to my mentally ill brother every year whether he is in the nut house or not … what I am supposed to do? Just leave him alone? I cannot, in good consciousness, do that, but it difficult beyond description to do year, after year, after year …
I decided to be honest with him about the gift because I didn’t want him looking for it the next time he was in my home … I did not want to keep up a lie … I made a big deal of it in front of everyone of how great it was and then when we were alone, I told him I already have a water filtration system, and I so much appreciated his thoughtfulness … he was good about it and told me the receipt was on his desk …
How sweet, how bittersweet …
I always hear the voices of those who would criticize my observation of this occurrence … they have not lived my life … I wish people would just allow people to have their feelings without trying to change them or ‘fix’ them … allow them to grieve the part of them that wishes they had a normal brother (which I do, have another brother, that sees me, so thank God for that!) But it saddens me that this 58-year-old, 350 lb. brother, is like a child, that I need to look out for … always …
I love him … very much … he loves me … very much … He has been a burden and a constant learning tool … I have learned more about compassion, love, patience, tolerance, advocacy, mental illness, mental health, the medical system, the VA system and many, many other things that only going through this kind of trial would have taught me … I even believe it is far more than most others have had to endure, so how can I expect them to understand? Why would I be offended by anything they say against me if they have not been through it and CAN NOT understand it?
Recently, I heard God tell me ‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper’ Is. 54:17. I felt like he was specifically talking about people’s opinions to me … no one’s opinion can hurt me … yet it still does because I care too much … I believe God is trying to help me get past that … thank you God!
I can hear people telling me to rise above, just be happy, think of other things, do this, do that … fuck off!
I need to grieve this as long as I need to … to be able to move on … it is hard to move on when you are still in it … I am talking about the situation … I am still in it … for who knows how long … that is depressing to not have an end date …
I know God will make it all ok and that He is doing His doing His thing to bring good out of all of it … but in the meantime … it is killing me softly … everyday … Help, Jesus, Help!
I write these words for myself, but also for anyone else going through it … you are not alone … Its ok to not be all up Christmas’ Ass … for whatever reason that is for you … you do you … I’ll do me … maybe someday Christmas will be joyous again for us … until then … I’ll do what I can to get through it and be glad when it’s done …
I think it is also a bit amusing that some people will be worried about me if they read this … I have actually never been more proud of me for writing my truth and putting it out there … Good Job, Me! Keep up the Good Work!
Merry Fuckin’ Christmas Ya Filthy Animals, and Happy Birthday Jesus!