#i'm sorry but i'm sleep-deprived and have precisely one IRL friend I can talk to about this

[billgavemeextrachips]

Reasons I don’t want to see my extended family at the holidays

1. I can’t, in good conscience, just “let it slide” or “agree to disagree” with the horrible things they say. I’ve read articles online about families being polarized or split apart over politics, and they all seem to bemoan some bygone era when people just didn’t talk politics in polite company. But you know what? That’s not an option anymore. I’m a queer, disabled woman- my life is political. Our culture shoves politics in everyone’s faces- from Facebook to the NFL. (The latter was politicized when they started glorifying the military, years before the police brutality protests began. Please note that I support taking a knee and don’t find that to be ‘making things political” when that venue already was.) Also doesn’t help that my grandfather loudly complains about every Indian-American and Latino he comes into contact with. I am not even kidding. How do I even suggest to them that we “just not talk about it” without censoring my grandfather, and putting myself back in the closet?

2. I can’t argue back, either. I tried having “friendly debates” with an aunt for two years (2014-2016.) Dozens of times, I left Panera or a high school guard competition, loudly declaring to my mom on the ride home that I like talking politics with her sister! It’s fun right!?!?!? I’m so glad at least *one* conservative in her family will listen to my views without belittling me for being young and naive and over-educated, or just plain shouting me down!!! (Shows you how much the rest of her family respects me, that I interpreted basic human politeness and refrains from ad hominem attacks as this amaaazing show of compassion from my aunt.) Meanwhile I had an elevated heart rate for hours after these “fun” debates, and spent days thinking of all the things I should have said better. And all that effort for what? My aunt still supported Trump from the very beginning of the primaries- and brags about it. She still thinks the Klan in her county are just harmless, senile old eccentrics, and all taxes are robbery.

And attempts to have discussions with other members of the family have resulted in me fleeing the scene, physically shaking, ending up at a complete loss for words, and even self-harming. All for none of them- not even the “nice, fun” one- to budge an inch. My breaking down and failing to articulate a point to these people can’t possibly be helping any progressive/tolerant causes. If anything it’s hurting the causes. Along with my mental health.

3. When the take-a-knee protests came up in conversation last Sunday, I was physically afraid of my grandfather. He’s 81, but he’s still this 6′, barrel-chested man who does most of the maintenance on his own properties. I’ve never heard him yell so loud, or so deep. Above the clamor of half a dozen people shouting me down at once, in the dark around that campfire, what stands out to me was him growling, right next to me, Now you listen here! That’s not something you say to someone you’re even remotely open to listening to. That’s a command. Almost a threat. And maybe I’m a coward for being afraid of just that, when he hasn’t raised a hand to me since I was a toddler. But then call me a coward.

The truth is, if I had a girlfriend/wife/family of my own, and/or lived far enough away, I would have stopped spending time around my grandfather years ago. My parents tried once. Back in 2002, when we announced we were adopting from China my grandfather was my father’s (his son-in-law’s) employer. And his response to finding out he’d have another grandchild, who happened to be brown and born on the other side of the world?

“Well we’re not putting her on the company health insurance.”

He did not budge on that until he met my sister- a year and a half later. In the meantime, we moved hundreds of miles away, only to come crawling back when unlucky circumstances and plain bad financial decisions pushed my parents into bankruptcy. They felt they couldn’t make it, living that far from my mother’s parents. Not emotionally, and certainly not financially. 

I doubt my grandfather has ever apologized for his response to us adopting. He doesn’t do apologies. What he does do, and always has, is pay for family members’ houses and cars and medical treatments and college tuitions. As a wealthy man, who grew up one of 13 siblings in a working-class family in the Great Depression, I’m sure financial providence is a sincere expression of love coming from him.

I can see that, and that’s part of why this hurts so much. Why I’m losing sleep and feeling selfish.

But just because my grandfather’s not deliberately puppet-mastering us all, doesn’t mean I haven’t felt the strings pull My mom has begged me ever since I came out to her (four years ago!) to never, ever tell her parents. I don’t know what she’s afraid of. Could be anything from our entire branch of the family being disinherited, down to just the “let’s-not-talk-about-this” awkwardness her family is way too good at maintaining. Which is totally why I’ve never asked her what, exactly, she’s afraid of. I am a product of these people. I came out to my grandparents via a Post-It note stuck to my monthly “car payment” check in the mail. Which I usually hand-deliver, because that’s how fucking close this family is, emotionally and geographically.

But even though it’s “close,” and not abusive per se, my relationship with the extended family is not healthy. I have lost sleep for days before every big family gathering since 2011. Since I began self-harming in 2013, I’ve had more incidents after family arguments than any other trigger, and it’s a goddamn miracle that I’ve kept my 8-months-clean streak going with all that’s been bouncing around my head since Sunday. Every time I’m around them- especially a group of them- I seem to do more damage to my mental health, their esteem of “liberals,” and any remaining positive feelings between us. Maybe I’m the toxic one here. I don’t know. I don’t fucking care anymore. I just can’t do it.

I can’t do it.

I’m not saying I don’t want to ever speak to any of them ever again ever. No. I just... I can’t go to Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. Or New Year’s at my uncle’s house, which has the same guest list as the family Christmas, PLUS people from the evangelical megachurch I grew up in. 

I just can’t. I haven’t figured out how to tell any of my family this. I’m hoping my therapist will help. I hope- I think- that she won’t pull the same thing the internet articles did, this whole “blood is thicker than politics” bullshit that just makes me feel overdramatic and wrongheaded for taking a long-overdue stance for my own self-regard and personal boundaries.