Sigh...

[GoingNorth]

Well, I just reamed an "iffy" Facebook Friend a new one.

She added me to a closed group consisting of alumnae from the suburban junior high school I attended. I visited the page and found that it consisted of people who had made my life a living hell during my middle school years.

Visited their individual FB pages and they are still as catty, y, and shallow as they'd been 40 years go.

I removed my self from the page, blocked any members from adding me as a friend, got ahold of the one friend, and reamed her out. Etiquette says you don't add someone to a group without asking their permission first.

Bad enough my kid sister is marrying into the family that made my high school years hell to the point that I effectively quit school at 14. There I have no choice.

I DO have a choice in whom I associate with on Facebook.

I told iffy FB friend that if something like this happens again, I will unfriend her. It is not the first time she has overstepped her boundaries, which were laid out quite clearly when she first friended me. One of those boundaries is that I not be added to closed groups without giving my permission.

I do believe people can change, and some have, but I am not undoing 20 years of agonizingly hard work in therapy by exposing myself to people who haven't changed. I will not be a victim anymore,, and were I to remain in this group, that would be the role I would be expected to resume.

I may be being unreasonable, but after all these years, I have to put self-protection first.

To make matter's even worse, my sister invited me to stay after the wedding reception with a group of select friends to "smoke a few bowls and do a few lines" (she being recovering coke addict) and was less than amused when I informed her that mum and I would be leaving immediately after the reception so that I cold get mum home and still get home at a reasonable hour.

It's about a 120 mile round trip for me from my apartment to mum's place to P&R's place and back again. Mum won't make the drive after dark, her vision isn't up to it and the route goes through a rather seedy area.

Not to mention that I have no interested in a pot and coke party at the best of times, and when I'm the driver most certainly isn't the best of times. I told sister I'd appreciate it if non-alcoholic bevrages or at least some mixers that were drinkable without alcohol were available because A. I don't drink if I'm driving, PERIOD, and b. no way would I consume anything that "slows me down", with the type of crowd that will be at that reception.

UGH...I finally escaped my past and it's knocking at my door again. BOUNDARIES BOUNDARIES BOUNDARIES>

 

[InsaneCdn]

Ugh!
I know what you mean...

Sending hugs and a virtual flower bouquet to bury your nose in (to get rid of the "smell")

 

[GoingNorth]

For some reason, likely my own naivete, it never occurred to me, perhaps because it never happened during all the years previous when I lived in the area, that I'd face being dragged back into "that" crowd if I moved to within a reasonable driving distance.

Of course, it never occurred to me that my sister would re-marry INTO that crowd, leaving no way to avoid dealing with them short of going NC with her, which I don't want to do as too often, my mother and I are the only voices of sanity in her life.

Sometimes my mother is too sane and my sister shuts down due to the dynamics of their relationship. Dynamics that don't exist in ours.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Etiquette says you don't add someone to a group without asking their permission first.

True.

It was an extreme violation of your privacy. And it was very disrespectful, to do something like that without clearing it with you.

Perhaps it is not true that this person has your best interests at heart.

I may be being unreasonable, but after all these years, I have to put self-protection first.

Not self protection Going: self.

Visited their individual FB pages and they are still as catty, y, and shallow as they'd been 40 years go.

You did the right thing.

Kudos.

:O)

It's about a 120 mile round trip for me from my apartment to mum's place to P&R's place and back again. Mum won't make the drive after dark, her vision isn't up to it and the route goes through a rather seedy area.

Not to mention that I have no interested in a pot and coke party at the best of times, and when I'm the driver most certainly isn't the best of times. I told sister I'd appreciate it if non-alcoholic bevrages or at least some mixers that were drinkable without alcohol were available because A. I don't drink if I'm driving, PERIOD, and b. no way would I consume anything that "slows me down", with the type of crowd that will be at that reception.

You are not required to justify your very correct response.

If the party were held in your basement and your mom were spending the night, you would still be correct in saying, "NO."

Bring ice cold ginger ale or good, clean ice water in a cooler in your trunk. From the way things sound, you might be wise to consider snacks for mom and yourself for the trip, and for the event itself.

Most of all Going, you have created a life you love. You have loved deeply and been loved deeply. You have experienced joy and tragedy and growth.

Those are the only things that mean anything at all, in the living of a life.

I applaud you.

Remember we will be here waiting to learn how this thing went down. Time with our families ~ I don't know why it always seems to turn into something terrible. I am not talking at all with my Family of Origin. I am chicken. I admit that. I get to do that.

You are wading right in.

Woot!

Cedar

 

[PatriotsGirl]

I know exactly how you feel. I was ridiculed and my school life was a nightmare. It most definitely affected my life and I, too, quit school just as soon as I was old enough. Karma came around a bit some of those people, though. I see it on Facebook. Most of the ones that were horrible to me have had pretty stinky lives and some still do. Some have apologized profusely but others are just wallowing in their koi...

I would avoid the drug party, too. Not my thing - maybe when I was young, but certainly not now...

 

[GoingNorth]

Cedar,
The thing that is so surreal about all this is that R. is re-marrying right back into the same crowd she ran with in high school, a crowd that frightened Difficult Child me to the point that *I* warned my parents about them.

The man that she is marrying lives with his brother who is one of the "jocks" who chucked me through a window my freshman year of HS. Karma has caught up with him as he is an end stage alcoholic in the process of dying due to his disease.

That whole crowd will be at the wedding reception. I will attend with my head held high. I've beaten my demons for the most part. I have my suspicions that most of them are still paying the piper for theirs.

It will be interesting to see however they have turned out. I do not know if my mother will attend or not, actually. She strongly disapproves of the marriage,and rightfully so, in my opinion.

Sister's husband-to-be disapproves of alcohol due to all of his family members being alcoholics, but other drugs are OK, so sister has happily gone back to other addictions, she seems to be sort of a "generic addict", if there is such a thing, able to switch fluidly between substances/activities.

PG, I have seen Karma starting to operate with what little I have heard of this circle of sisters, as well as with what I read on the Facebook pages of the members of the group I was placed in by my "iffy" FB friend. I am by no means religious, but it does seem that what goes around does indeed come around, doesn't it?

Cedar, I am hoping to be able to keep some distance from the family situation. I think in some respects, my being forced, due to financial reasons (rents being too high) to stay in the Milwaukee area, as opposed to moving to the WI/IL state line, may turn out to be a blessing in disguise, even though at the moment, that is feeling too close, LOL!

My sister, however, lives very close to the state line, and less than an hour from Milwaukee. She is the sort of personality who will not hesitate to invite herself and her husband over to visit, or vice versa, or worse, to call from five minutes away and announce that she's "in the area" and dropping by for a visit.

I'm sure I'll have to re-iterate the old boundaries that were in place when Stu and I lived in Chicago, as either she doesn't remember, or has "conveniently" forgotten.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

The thing that is so surreal about all this is that R. is re-marrying right back into the same crowd she ran with in high schoo

Change is the hardest thing. It's scary. You took your chances, and created a different kind of life for yourself because you did.

I agree. It is surreal. Once we can see with some measure of clarity regarding ourselves, we cannot unsee what is masquerading as clarity, or as love, or as any smallest worthwhile thing, in our families. We just cannot continue to pretend, along with them, that because everyone is laughing so hard, everything must be okay, here.

It is lonely for us either way. Lonely to be there where nothing is real and everything is, as you described it, surreal. That is a very good descriptor.

Surreal.

Almost more real than real could ever be.

A clinker, instead of a gold coin.

Sister's husband-to-be disapproves of alcohol due to all of his family members being alcoholics, but other drugs are OK, so sister has happily gone back to other addictions, she seems to be sort of a "generic addict", if there is such a thing, able to switch fluidly between substances/activities.

Well, not to point another finger at myself here? But my children seem to have that same capacity to switch between addictive substances with impunity.

Who could say whether it is genetics or intense emotional pain at the heart of it? Probably, like everything in life, a mixture of two equally true things. And about twelve other true things no one is even minimally aware of.

So, we do the best we know. And, as Maya teaches, when we know better, we do better.

So, that's a pretty good thing to know, then.

may turn out to be a blessing in disguise, even though at the moment, that is feeling too close, LOL!

When I have seen my FOO after a long time without seeing them, or without seeing them together? It is disconcerting. Disorienting would be a better word.

Surreal, like you said, Going.

Cedar