Psycho-Babble Social Thread 1100851

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Brain damage from a family meeting?

Posted by Lamdage22 on September 12, 2018, at 3:09:03

My family had a get together last weekend from Friday through sunday and it was so stressful that i had to puke on sunday twice. I left early. I got bad comments from family members how i cant leave my father alone on his birthday. I think i am not going anymore. It left me unable to work for the whole week. I have suffered a great deal under my father and is obnoxious girlfriend. My brother had the "guts" to say that the girlfriend is an enrichment to the family in his speech. He has no soul. Maybe this is why i puked.


Isnt family supposed to be something that supports you?

 

Re: Brain damage from a family meeting? » Lamdage22

Posted by alexandra_k on September 13, 2018, at 18:47:55

In reply to Brain damage from a family meeting?, posted by Lamdage22 on September 12, 2018, at 3:09:03

family can be a pain when you don't get to pick them.

> Isnt family supposed to be something that supports you?

well... it's supposed to be mutual.

so... sometimes you want them to suck it up, and do what you want. and othertimes... to be fair... you gotta suck it up, and do what they want. maybe... for a day. if possible. on a special occasion. like, maybe, a person's birthday. there are social norms around birthdays.

i don't know how things are in your family.

does your father do nice things for you, on your birthday? does the girlfriend?

if they do... then i think that does mean you should try and suck it up for one day, if at all possible.

on the other hand... throwing up twice and missing a week of work sounds like a lot of stress, yeah. that's a pretty huge birthday present...

 

Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?

Posted by alexandra_k on September 13, 2018, at 18:53:10

In reply to Re: Brain damage from a family meeting? » Lamdage22, posted by alexandra_k on September 13, 2018, at 18:47:55

see... my way out of this whole situation is to not to birthdays.

actually, no, that's not it.

when i was a kid my birthday was only acknowledged by my mother and my father sometimes. sometimes it was like they forgot. and i never told them. but it hurt a lot. especially because sometimes my father would make a big deal out of it. plan a big surprise meal out and so on. so i would think that a nice suprise was coming all day... or that he was teasing me by kidding about having my most detested meal for dinner (beans on toast) for my birthday. only it turned out he wasn't kidding. which, i guess, means he simply forgot. because he genuinely wasn't a mean man.

anyway... i don't like people knowing my birthday because i don't like to celebrate my own birthday anymore. it just reminds me of that time all the way back when... and then being so poor for however long... and my families were about not doing presents because of the poverty thing it took pressure off...

but americans are very fond indeed of their... social practices. of there being rituals about the sorts of things you do on birthdays and christmas and thanksgiving and so on.

i don't know how Germans are...

anyway...

 

Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?

Posted by alexandra_k on September 13, 2018, at 19:04:37

In reply to Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?, posted by alexandra_k on September 13, 2018, at 18:53:10

so, it probably depends on what they did for you, last birthday. or birthdays over the years.

i think it was just once, that he forgot. but i've never let that go. i don't want to ever feel the way i felt that day. the disappointment. and the thought of celebrating my own birthday, now, or of letting people know it's my birthday, just feels like setting things up for that. and also i genuinely don't like being the centre of attention. i mean, it is nice when people do nice things for you... but it doesn't have to be about a particular day.

i don't know.

and then my mother went out with a guy over quite a few years, and he didn't believe in celebrating birthdays so that added to another layer of it. actually. so, yeah. my mother didn't really, either. even now... she will say 'hey, your birthday is coming up here's some money to buy yourself something' which is nice, yeah. but there isn't a thing about saying happy birthday on the day.

and i never got raised, for example, going out with mum to buy dad a birthday present. or even making or drawing him a card or a picture or even helping cook a special meal. so that was never part of my upbringing.

i remember going to a couple peoples birthday parties. i remember having a couple birthday parties when i was a kid. relatively early on.

i think i started out quite normal and things got more and more bizarre the older i got. a lot of my earliest memories are of quite normal and happy and actually relatively wealthy things. we used to have the biggest swimming pool in the neighbourhood. a large section... a unit to rent out... but my mother got crazier and crazier and my father got more and more distant and then he went away. so. there you go.

i haven't told anybody that. about my father forgetting my birthday.

 

Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?

Posted by Lamdage22 on September 14, 2018, at 2:14:49

In reply to Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?, posted by alexandra_k on September 13, 2018, at 19:04:37

My father does a lot but i dont think he ever threw up for me;)

 

Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?

Posted by Lamdage22 on September 14, 2018, at 9:03:04

In reply to Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?, posted by Lamdage22 on September 14, 2018, at 2:14:49

I just think that i have suffered some kind of irreversible damage to my brain. I was doing so well before the weekend

 

Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?

Posted by Lamdage22 on September 14, 2018, at 9:03:54

In reply to Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?, posted by Lamdage22 on September 14, 2018, at 9:03:04

To be fair i also suffer from social anxiety

 

Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?

Posted by alexandra_k on September 14, 2018, at 19:48:01

In reply to Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?, posted by Lamdage22 on September 14, 2018, at 9:03:04

aw, Lamdage. you a good person. it seems to me. you are always kind to others on these boards, from everything I've seen.

it sounds like a really hard weekend. step-parents can be hard, too. or parents girlfriends. my Father used to blow a bit hot then cold with me depending on his girlfriend at the time. not that he had heaps, but he had a few until marrying the next one. one was really great to me (hence wonderful birthday, i think that was probably it) but the next one... the one he ended up marrying was... cold. stern. not a warm women, i don't think. but sensible. good head on her shoulders. the previous (lovely) one was into crystals and this weird body healing laying of hands... i don't know... he played along for a while, but i think that got to be a bit much. next one wasn't awful to me... just... awkward. and came in with a pre-existing anxiety about my not accepting her and i was... i was just a kid. i didn't have enough... whatever... for the both of us... not after my mother...

a lot of people find family time the most stressful because of all the expectation. like around everything having to be perfect for christmas or thanksgiving or whatever. it is... easier... to opt out in a sense. only that's never entirely satisfactory, either, because then it's a day of... grieving. i guess. because society will not let you opt out.

if you really can't / don't want to do it... maybe something else nice, instead? you have been saying about conflict with him recently...

but i thought a little further back it sounded like you did feel he had your back in (at least trying) to help... create... a good living space for you, maybe with some people who are enjoyable company for you? I don't know.

((((Lamdage))) <-- good vibes to you.

> I just think that i have suffered some kind of irreversible damage to my brain. I was doing so well before the weekend

 

Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?

Posted by Lamdage22 on September 15, 2018, at 10:56:23

In reply to Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?, posted by alexandra_k on September 14, 2018, at 19:48:01

Well some people take it for a weakness unfortunately

 

Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?

Posted by alexandra_k on September 15, 2018, at 23:06:10

In reply to Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?, posted by Lamdage22 on September 15, 2018, at 10:56:23

yeah, some people do.


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