Experiencing Numbing Disconnection in Family Gathering

Recovering from the weekend- stay at my in-laws. I am furious at them for who they are. It made me feel bashed and discarded even though they are always so nice to me on the outside. They really just hate themselves so they can't bring themselves to see others.

It causes them to project all their anger at others. Like I saw my father in law staring at me while I ate and I had this icky feeling that he was blaming me for all his problems. All because I wanted some space from them. Interestingly, my mother inlaw thanked me for coming and it was like she knew how much I sacrificed to come. That was true. My sister inlaw that's single ignored me like a poisonous snake, ready to snap if she even looked at me. Her false high pitch voice showed how fake she was being when she said sugary well wishes to me. The scary thing was I don't think she was aware of her feelings herself. She was so used to having to make others happy that she resented everyone. I felt there the pain and discomfort of every moment together; because they avoided eye contact with each other and always stuck to small talk.  Never a serious, deep moment.

My 6 year old nephew even said, "We are not a happy family." Out of the blue. But he is also stuck in a trap of having to please everyone and fearing real feelings. He said it near me so I believe it was his way of trying to get help. He always sidled up to me and I also went to play with him and my daughter whenever I felt too fed up with the adults. I managed to squeeze in some wisdom about repression with her new baby to my other sister inlaw, his mother, because she is less tight minded about reality than the rest... And she almost crumbled when listening to her daughter's tears so she said she couldn't. It reminded her too much of other sad situations. I said good, if you know why you feel upset you can separate it from reality and see that your baby crying is not about that, and you can listen because she just needs to vent. Just like you cry sometimes to someone to release your pain. She answered, "I don't cry, I am happy and get myself moving when stress comes." I realized that her own defenses against pain will get passed to her daughter as control patterns... Because she was the mother.

My younger sister inlaw became furious at me when I was holding the baby and listening to her tears, because "She is the mother and can chose what to do with her baby." I realized she was triggered. Later I explained to the mother the importance of listening to your babies feelings, in order to show them that feelings are okay to have, and my younger sister in law overheard and liked it. She apologized to me profusely for her angry tone, and I said I understood that she was triggered. She denied that she was "holding a grudge" because she doesn't believe in that. She apologized again later on and said that she discussed it with her sister and mother and they agreed that it wasn't right. It was weird that she had even spoken about it with everyone. Everything has to be so dramatic and played up for it to be significant when it comes to relationships.

The first night there my husband admitted to me that maybe this was a bad idea. I thought that he was making progress. I asked him if he felt like they saw him as not good enough, and he said that he always felt like they never got him. I was happy and felt supported and with him.

I hated being there because they are stuck in their emotions, without seeing beyond it to the truth. That they do not need to be miserable. The parents complain about their health and act like their life controls them, and they are helpless. This makes their kids feel helpless too, as they run around trying to make them feel better. To no avail. Like Ollie Mathews says, you can never get them to see their fault so all you can do is expose them. I should have. I was just scared of fighting. It is not worth it because they think they are perfect. I just want to stay away.

I am at a place where I see my pain and issues, but also see beyond it so I can be happy alone. It was funny, while there I escaped to sit outside in nature, and felt so alone yet comforted that I had my own voice and truth. One that they will not see but that I was still there. Not dependent on their validation.

Facing my pain about adoption is something they'll never do because they only like to talk about their own pain about family loss. And they stick with their own family even when they hurt them. So why would they not see my family loss as something painful? When they joked about my husband wishing he had a brother, and then my husband turned to me and said, do you wish you had a sister? I wanted to bop him on the head and retorted, "I lost my whole family, remember? So I have no family..." and they pretended not to hear.

But then I wondered, if it hurts me so to have them ignore my truth, and it hurts my baby niece when they ignore her pain and hold her "facing out" while her little eyes dart around desperate for attention, my daughter must feel really bad when I ignore her mood too.