Ask Anonymous

Anonymous asked:

I do not know if you will reply, but I feel like I should ask: what do you say when you simply do not want to explain your motives behind life decisions (like university degree) to nosy relatives (in this case godparents) because it is so laced with personal trauma stuff?  Furthermore, knowing whatever you say, they will use it as emotional manipulation and weapons to be used against me. (backstory is I found out they were sharing intimate conversations I had with my parents even when I explicitly told them not haha, that was fun). Through this experience, I learned that I must be more careful with what I say because not everyone deserves openness and honesty like I thought and will use it like it is nothing. Of course, I will do anything to avoid them, but God forbid, they actually track me down to the UK (which is where I will be studying abroad) because it is so plausible, and it is just me and them. And the Asian culture ingrained in me that says respect to elders above everything just absolutely prevents me from adopting the 'f--- you' or even 'that's private, sorry' attitude. I am still working so hard to detangle this toxic behavior but it is so hard, and I am tired, and most of all scared.

Answer:

I think one of the things we regret most in life are moments of inactions or choices which are caused or heavily influenced by other people. Because I think deep down, we knew what we should have done, what we wanted to do, and we saw the choice that was right for us. It is a lack of trust in our own voice and our own inside compass.

In very broad terms, it comes down to a boundary that is very difficult to establish but which in long term will be far less draining than trying to keep yourself from sharing anything with your family for the fear of being manipulated, insulted or thrown off your path. For me it is the boundary of learning to say, "I respect you and I understand and value your opinion, but I know this is the right choice for me". Because what you are doing now from what I can tell is trying not to share anything which is not an attempt of setting a boundary but an attempt to build a self-protection shield. It is not only long term very draining but also in every interaction because you are in hiding and every family dynamic works in such complicated ways that it is just a matter of time until someone gets through, and you get flooded / hurt not only by the opinions of your family members but also by yourself because there is a need / reason now to punish yourself or talk down to yourself because you could not keep yourself "safe". Does that make sense? (And those experiences will lead to you feeling the need to wall yourself in more and more and if you are not careful you will repeat the same patterns over and over again and it will not only affect the relationships with your family members but also will have an effect on relationships outside of your family.)

Love and understanding are in many families not the same thing or are not even on the same map. And I get the respect part and you will always want to share things with your family because they are your family. They will always love but they may not always understand you. But this attempt to shield yourself or even violently trying not to care about their opinions or to hate them is only taking away all the energy you need to build your own life. It is very difficult to change family dynamics because they are very rigid as so many individuals interact with each other... like a very complicated domino effect.

So rather than over and over again getting caught in that web and repeating the same patterns, get certain about what you want through lots of self-work, lots of practice of setting boundaries, become more emotionally mature and love yourself and the path that you are on. (Also sharing those experiences with someone outside of your family helps because you might have found some distance from your family, but you are still very much emotionally entangled.) The more you know yourself and what you want, the easier it gets to not constantly be in a defensive mode and anticipating someone manipulating you. It is about enjoying time with your family at times without needing to flip that switch into survival mode and going into that defensive shell. Because sadly every person and every family carries toxicity and family histories are very complicated and often (heavily) influenced by trauma. It of course depends on individual circumstances, the amount of trauma and the level of toxicity but the love you feel for your family is not insignificant and you cannot cut it off or cut it all away. There is a way of finding a distance from your family which is right for you and that distance can and will change over time. The task is to let it. You have to allow your love to ebb and flow without trying to cut yourself off from feeling / loving them even though they've hurt you significantly in the past. Does that make sense? 

I hope that does not come across as I am trying to encourage you to get stuck in a toxic minefield... but it rather comes across as me trying to convey that there is no black and white in families, but annoyingly only grey. All the best to you, I have tried my best to convey my thoughts and I hope they make sense to some degree.

When you try to hide any part of yourself from the world and from other people, you are hiding all of yourself. You cannot hide anything without hiding everything.