Open Up or Close off? (Warning: Rant)

[Dorothy]

LW, these circumstances pretty much repeat themselves in your life, evidenced by your various threads in this vein, and evidenced by your posts in this particular thread.

Its gotta be getting sooooo old for you. Your options, unless you can do magic, seem to be pretty limited. But fear not-- that’s true for all of us in tough situations. That’s what makes them tough. And have hope-- some of your limited options have exciting probable outcomes.

Option 1: make no changes. Your family is mean. You react to their meanness. Results: same old.

Option 2: make changes in your own behavior with the secret intent if vanquishing your opponent ie., trying to show them you don’t need them: trying to show them they’re idiots: trying to prove to them anything. Results: same old, but with the added despair that nothing works. You’re trapped.

Option 3: change your behaviors with only ONE motivation-- seeking to deepen your relationship with GOD. Then, you speak when its necessary. Remain silent when necessary. The reaction of the crowd is NOTHING to you because their reaction isn’t the point. You’re not seeking their approval. You’re not intentionally provoking their disapproval.

A guy who embarks in this path does note the (at least initial) dialing up of negative crowd behavior. People work hard at maintaining comfortable I-win paradigms. There will be some push-back if you decide to be the game-changer. There will be even more push-back if you decide you’re no longer in the game.

The outcome of option 3 is hard-won, self-disciplined freedom.

So, Contestant, what’ll you have? Option 1? Option 2? Or option 3?

Great post!

 

[LoyalViews]

The advice given so far is just excellent! I wanted to add that whenever you feel mad, or in pain, just think of the betrayal, scourging, spitting, neglect and ostracising Our Lord faced from the soldiers. Even more so, they CRUCIFIED Him! Imagine the sorrow and pain Our Blessed Lady, the Mother of God also experienced at the sight of her Divine Son being scourged with the spear, insulted by the crowd.

Meditating on that always makes me forget about the way others are treating me. I’m praying for you!

God Bless :byzsoc:

 

[exoflare]

If you’re not a teenager anymore, what is it that’s forcing you to maintain contact with your family still? Sorry if you’ve addressed this already and I just missed it.

 

[Robertanthony]

If you’re not a teenager anymore, what is it that’s forcing you to maintain contact with your family still? Sorry if you’ve addressed this already and I just missed it.

As a senior member of the AFC (anti-fantasy crowd), I don’t know if I’m allowed to post in LW’s thread, but since Goldorak was my absolute childhood hero, I guess it’s okay! Lost Wanderer is a young adult still living with his folks who has hopes of making it big writing/drawing fiction .

One problem I see is that when you come from a family where your basic emotional needs aren’t met (I know from personal experience), you end up facing the outside world inadequately, and sometimes the outside world reacts to you exactly how you project yourself, so if you have no self-worth and self-esteem, you’re made to feel like the 5th wheel, people will pick up on that and treat you likewise. Personally, pretty much all my interactions with anybody outside my immediate family circle has confirmed the fact that I’m the 5th wheel. So it’s not as if you can leave your family behind, forget all about them and find all the emotional/spiritual confirmation you’ve been denied alll along from the outside world. I would say that challenges with socialisation compound the burden that coming from a malnourishing/dysfunctional family entails. By that I mean shyness and introversion.

 

[EasterJoy]

I don’t see how my motivation matters. Even if unintentional, my presence and attempts to interact are met with regret, anger, and hatred. They’re a punishment whereas my lack of activity and descent into almost non-existence is Godsent for these people. They demand me to change but such change either sickens me or is just not me (or worse, downright contradicts what’s left of my Catholic identity.)

No, no, no, I didn’t mean what they take as a punishment, but what you meant as a punishment, whether they take it that way or not. That kind of motivation in you will do your soul harm.

No, your efforts to socialize charitably with them are not, objectively speaking, punishments. If a child takes a parents’ rule that they go to Mass every Sunday as some sort of a punishment, that doesn’t make it a punishment. Mass could be used as a punishment–you behave, or I’ll make you go to Mass tomorrow morning–but the fact that someone takes it that way does not make it that way.

You describe experiencing their interactions with you as entirely hostile and demeaning, excepting to the extent that they succeed in manipulating you or forcing you into bending to their will. You’d do well to put some space between yourself and them.

I think you remember this passage from Holy Scripture:

Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. As you enter a house, wish it peace. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you. Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words - go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. Matt. 10:11-14

and the one that follows it soon after:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man ‘against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household.’ Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matt. 10: 34-39

I’ve come to take the passage about shaking the dust from our feet as an instruction to let bad situations that cannot be mended by our best efforts a matter for God to deal with. The latter passage tells me that when our families come between us and God, it has to be God who wins. As the airlines say, you cannot help anyone else if you don’t have the oxygen mask over your own face.

Hold on to that which gives you life, and accept that there will be things and people that you have to avoid for a time, in order to hold on to that which is primary.

Do not punish yourself about putting space between yourself and your family. Do not try to punish them about it, should they come after you backpedalling when they see they have pushed you into getting a spine. Rather, continue to get whatever help you need to mature in your understanding of how to deal with others. The day may come when you may be able to get it into your family’s head that you deserve to be treated with dignity and will not accept anything else for yourself or anyone else, but for now you have made a case for distance.

“Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.”
Matt. 7:6

Read the Gospels, and especially the Passion. Over and over and over. Our Lord prayed for those who were killing him, and yet he also said, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” John 18:23 There is so much in those accounts that can help any of us, but especially those of us who are being persecuted.