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I havn't been out to a meeting in awhile with the holidays in full effect. There was a massive snowstorm in my area and my car is burried until tomorrow when I can dig it out
Overall the holidays went well. Me and my sister got together with my dad and he lasted the entire night sober. I was really happy about that. I was glad it went well.
Conversely, I received a scathing message from my uncle over facebook. It wasn't directed toward me personally but to all his nephews and nieces. That side of my family lives some 500km away in another city and we moved away some 15 years ago when I was about 12. Over the years we have been in touch but with time, even family can drift apart. It is my moms side of the family and my mother suffers from schizophrenia and has cut ties with society.
Me and my sister don't speak to my grandparents often. it's usually reserved for holidays and such. the message that was posted was as follows;
Merry Christmas to all, this will be my first Christmas alone as my 80ish year old parents are not well at all. So a message to my Nephews & Nieces: You better F-in phone them and wish them Merry Christmas unlike you have the other years because if you don't you are just a bunch of self-centered A-Holes. Enough said.
I didn't take it peronally but it bothered me. My uncle also grew up in an alcoholic home. He has harbored a lot of bitterness and resentment for how his life has turned out. he currently has a nerve disease that prohibits the use of his joints and lives on government assisstance. I have never been to his apartment but my grand-parents say it is a dump.
I did phone my grandparents. i didn't tell them about this message because it was irrelevant.
But I found reading that message that it just brought back a bunch of emotions that I have experienced in the past with being called shelfish because I wanted to look out for myself when I felt nobody else would. I want to break this cycle of misery and despair that has plagued my family for generations.
Families shouldn't treat each other like this. I see him and I see the effects of this disease through and through. I want this to stop and I have made decisions in my life that will create the life I want for my family and hopefully eliminate this childish behavior.
Hi Jim, and Merry Holidays to you! What comes to mind when I read this post is, what others think of me is none of my business. An uncle condemning me for stuff he thinks I don't do when HE doesn't know WHAT I actually do, well, thats just silly.
People post such dumb stuff on Facebook. Sorry, that's my take on facebook. Sounds like you are at peace with how you are with your grandparents, no one else is allowed to take that peace from you!
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
actually I can relate to your uncle, not saying he should have posted it on facebook, but as JerryF said, "sounds like he's hurting". I too am caring for an elderly parent, and have no family support. It has been very discouraging to me that my family has turned their back on me during this very difficult time in our lives. In addition to this, I have found that our church has basically been doing the same thing. Sometimes, to be quite honest, I feel like doing the very thing that your uncle did. Fortunately I have a program that tells me to "Live and Let Live" and "Let go and Let God". I also try to do a gratitude list everyday and this also helps, but the bottom line is I miss my family (and so does my mom) and she asks about them all the time. This is very hard to take because I can't "fix" it for her and have to explain to her over and over and over (because she forgets the last time I explained it) why her family isn't here. This is psychologically very damaging to me and causes me to have resentments to my family every time I have to make "excuses" for them to her. It may be that your uncle is experiencing some of this too.
Since mom has Alzheimer's, which is much like schizophrenia, in that she hallucinates (Sundowning) and has to take seroquel, which is actually an hallucinagic that is also prescribed for schizophrenia patients, this is also difficult on me and emotionally exausting. Trying to cope with someone seeing things that aren't there and comfort them, or being responsible for medicially managing that condition is extremely stress inducing, and the fact that your uncle is also disabled... I can't even imagine. Again, I agree here with JerryF, sounds like your uncle could use some al-anon to learn to "take care of himself" and what he can do to change his situation, rather than trying to "force" family to call or come through threats, but he (like me) may just not be able to "get-away" from your grandparents.
It is ironic that you talked about your own need to stand up for yourself in this situation by saying, "But I found reading that message that it just brought back a bunch of emotions that I have experienced in the past with being called selfish because I wanted to look out for myself when I felt nobody else would." This brought back to me a statement made to me by the pastor of a church that we were attending about two years ago to a request that I made as to why he had not been by to see my mother in the year that we had attended church there. He replied that, "It was not his job." That he had found that with a church of this size (1000 members, with approx. 500 attending each Sunday) he had not found it a good use of his time to visit each member individually. I told him that I understood that to visit EVERY member, might be a hardship, but to visit the sick and the elderly I DID feel like was part of his job. So, I respectively disagreed. He then blurted out that I was just being "selfish". I just quietly responded that if that was how he felt, we would not be back. And we left.
I think one of the main attributes of alanon is to show us how to take care of ourselves, set appropriate boundaries while at the same time having empathy and compassion for others. We may not always agree with their "take" on things, but al-anon gives us the tools to think of our "common welfare". Just like Tradition One states: Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity. Wow, wouldn't it be a great world, if we all could practice this tradition "in all our affairs!" I also want to thank you for your post, it is good for me to see (and feel) the 'other' side of this coin, so to speak.
Love and hugs, Overcome
-- Edited by Overcome on Friday 28th of December 2012 07:02:03 AM
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I can Overcome all things through my HP who strengthens me.
Aloha Jim...sounds like he's hurting and like the title to your post here "just looking for someone to listen/read." He's got problems and is hurting plus he's taking care of parents with mental disability while being on disability himself(?) If I got that right he needs a meeting...and more realistically some one to just call and say "I'm listening, sounds like you're hurting". Al-Anon's QTIP suggestion worked miracles for me and to prove it many of my reactions disappear when some things like this happen to me regardless of the persons importance to me.
See what your empathy and compassion angels tell you. In support (((hugs)))
Jim, this is another one of the posts where my instant reaction is "I would write a factual email to that jerky uncle and let him know how wrong he is." Um...it's not useful or helpful at all times to point out drunken, wrong behavior to drunken wrong people who don't want to hear it. Sorry this was said to you and I admire your ability to stand back and respond and process it at a deep level and in a way that breaks the cycle.
