I’m freaking out right now. (a little long)

[Moontiger]

It will take some time to explain all of this.

 

My parents are coming to visit this weekend. My relationship with my mom is strained right now. I don’t like talking to her unless of I have to for reason that it would take pages to explain fully. When I do see her I always try to be nice and polite and not feed into what I call “her crazies”. This requires me to be bit emotionally distant.

 

My father, juju gods love him, totally enables my mom. When a conflict arises he doesn’t want to solve it so much as just make it go away so there is peace in the family. I’m actually closer to him then probably anyone in my family and I feel very sorry for many of the things he has had to put up with over the years.

 

I’m going to be moving out of sister’s place after their visit and while I am in school my father has agreed to pay my rent. This is because the field I am trying to get into takes a lot of time and is very difficult to break into. I am EXTREMELY grateful for this and have been pouring over job listings trying to find anything with in the field that will help me pay the bills but have had no luck so far.

 

Every time my family gets together I get very frustrated because they expect me to be open with them while not being open themselves (example, my sister wants to know all the details of my dating life while only ever introducing one person she dated to the family who she is now married to.) They constantly try to talk me out of things I want to do (nothing bad. And sadly, I have given into them a lot in the past), and I am constantly criticized in “nice” ways (a lot of backhanded compliments). They push me to do things I do not want to do. They have it in their minds that I need to go into child care or some other sort of job where I help people. I have no interest in anything they suggest but they will not let it go.

 

When I try to talk about what I do want to do all I get is negative feedback. Everything they say I already know but they feel the need to constantly repeat themselves. I never feel able to stand up to them so I have become more or less emotionally closed off from most of my family. It’s the only way I have found that gets them to leave me alone.

 

I am feeling stressed for number of reasons:

 

1) My BF is meeting them for the first time. He has seen how upset I get after interacting with them. Luckily he is the calmest person I know and I can trust him to not engage with the “crazies” if anything starts.

 

2) A few months ago I realized I had not gotten my driver’s license renewed. I thought I had another year. Only my dad knows this. On Friday my BF is taking me to the DMV to take the driver’s test. (I really hope I don’t have to reregister my car here) At noon I have to be at the house to let my mom in. (Dad has a business meeting and will come later).

 

3) I am supposed to be moving stuff over to my new place this weekend but with everything else that probably won’t happen.

 

Ok, sorry for the very long post. Can any out there help me calm down?

[Seraphim]

OK, think about it this way. In the entire span of life it is a weekend, right? Two little days in the scope of thousands. How much of the "crazies" can happen in two days? If your bf is very calm then it should not be an issues. Also too every single solitary family I know on the entire planet has a family member that causes the "crazies" so I would not worry about how it looks from the outside. If it is any comfort to you when I was your age I thought MY family was the most mental on the planet and then I got to know my husband's and found they had more "crazies" than mine and almost in a worse way. I wouldn't sweat it.