Sad

My Thanksgiving started off amazingly. I ran a ten mile race in the morning and was on top of the world.

I came home and got ready to head over to my parents' house. Because I was planning on doing this race and wouldn't get there until mid-afternoon, I decided that we would stay overnight. That way, everyone was happy and got their way. Well, my mom has been passive-aggressive about it for the last week, anyway. Every time I would call to ask or tell her something, I got a cold, "Hi. What's up." I've been ignoring it and figured that she'd just get over it once we were there.

She called around 1:00 pm, while we were en route, and said that she was worried that I hadn't called when we got on the road. (mind you, I had told her that we would get on the road around 11, so we would be there between 1:30 and 2:00) Then, she said that she wanted to make sure that I hadn't gotten hurt during the race or that something happened and I was in the emergency room. Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.

We arrived shortly before 2 and I tried to tell her about the race. She half-listened with the "mmmhmmm, that's nice" replies. I stopped trying to tell her. Okay, whatever. It isn't something that she deems worthy of praise, I suppose. She then made a snide comment to my brother that she won't be running any race to get a medal anytime soon. Sigh. Okay, whatever.

C is over-excited, bouncing around and getting itchy to eat, so he keeps trying to steal corn muffins. I told him that he would have them at dinner, along with green beans and that I wanted him to try some mashed potatoes. He starts acting like I'm serving up poison, of course, and my mom offered to put a couple unmashed aside and my brother has to make a snide comment about, "Oh great. Doing something special for him instead of making him eat what there is." I kept my cool and said that it is about texture for him. He asked if C likes french fries. I said that he does and again explained that it isn't the fact that it is a potato; it is the texture. He kept harping on it and bitching to no one in particular that we didn't get anything different and had to eat what was put in front of us. My mom actually defended and said that she tried different ways for him to like tomatoes. My brother just kept harping on about it and my dad chimes in that you ate what you were given and that was that. I STILL kept my cool and said that accomplishes nothing other than, "I'm the boss." So what. That's not the goal. The goal was to get him to try new textures.

Thirty minutes later at dinner and C is wired and still whining about trying the potatoes. My dad tells C to "relax" and that he's "heard enough". Okay, I'm starting to boil by now. I start trying to get C to try the potato under protest. 3 bites and he'll earn dessert. I'm sure that I don't have to tell most of you all about the gag reflex that comes into play when a new texture enters the mouth of a kid with sensory processing issues. My brother actually stands up from the table in a huff, throws down his napkin in a big scene and storms out the front door.

Two minutes later, my father says passive-aggressively, "I just can't sit here and watch C about to throw up. It's making me sick to my stomach." And HE leaves the table.

This is when I completely lost my shit.

I shot at my mom that I was tired of the judgement. My mom replies, "He was getting sick to his stomach!" I yelled that he is a 62 year old BABY who had kids and needs to get over it. (did he vomit every time we spit up??) I went on and said that C's disability is NO different than if he was a child in a wheelchair. Would they call him lazy and tell him to walk? She replies, "You don't want C to talk back to you and you're not setting a good example by talking back to me."

This is when I jumped up from the table to go clean up because, by this time, (the yelling probably didn't help), he did spit up a bit. My mom follows me into the kitchen and I slammed the cupboard door. My mom gets on my ass about how she doesn't slam stuff at my house. I went off and started yelling about how I am completely tired of the judgment from the two of them and the disparaging comments that they make every time we get together. My mom yells back that I'm taking it out on her. I replied that I was venting and she says that I'm hypersensitive. I asked, exactly what was my reaction supposed to be when they both got up from the table because of my son? I screamed that I'm tired of the fact that they won't accept that he has autism and mentioned the comments on my father's birthday. I said that I didn't say anything because it was his birthday, but that it is constant. She again went back to the hypersensitivity thing and I screamed, "How about a little GRACE?!?!" She yelled back, pointed her finger in my face and said, "How about YOU have a little grace?!" I took her hand out of my face and pushed it away. She actually said, "Did you just push me?" I said, "NO, I got your hand out of my face." She then went back to how I was taking it out on her. I stopped and said, "You're right. I'm going to tell the people who need to hear it."

I went storming down the hall where my brother, his girlfriend and my father were hiding in the office like pussies (and probably talking about how crazy I am). I got three words out of my mouth and my brother starts yelling back and saying, "Why are you yelling at me? Why are you yelling at me?" over and over. (my family's typical MO is to deflect) Then, he gets right in my face and starts screaming something like, "You wanna yell?!" and starts aggressively walking me back to the wall. I have to tell you that I have never felt so much rage. I grabbed him by the neck and pushed him to the other side of the room. This is when my father grabbed me and was holding my arms. My brother is still screaming at me and I kicked him and told him that he might be my brother but I will kick his ASS. He started to come back at me... while my father is still holding my arms. Fortunately, R heard the commotion and did exactly the same thing that I had just done to my brother. I ripped away from my father and said that we were leaving.

My mother grabs me and physically shoves me into the spare bedroom and shuts the door and won't let me leave. I told her that she needed to get out of the way. She pretty much told me no. I pointed to the door and then the window and told her that I was going out of the room one way or the other. She starts yelling at me that I am not respecting her and that I need to listen to her. I shot back that she lost all authority over me (she always throws God into it) when I married R. Now, GET OUT OF THE WAY. She still wouldn't go and I opened the blinds, to get ready to climb out the window. I was getting out of that room one way or another. She finally moved. I left and started throwing all of our stuff in the car.

As I'm walking through, my mom is whining that she knew that "this" was going too well (I assume that she meant our family getting along, since Thanksgiving had only been going on for 2 hours). She's had a hell week "and now this". I said, "Oh, poor you." I told her that they have both played the martyr for 20 years and never accept responsibility for their own part in anything. She starts trying to hit below the belt. She screams that I had a choice to leave. I screamed back, "Why did my choice have an ultimatum of 12 noon and when I wanted to stay until 3 when E could drive me, I had to walk instead?!" My mom started screaming and my father yelled at me something to the effect of "that's enough", to which I replied, "F*** you, Dad." I was seriously enraged by this point. My mother takes this opportunity to try to hit below the belt and screams, "And YOU are going to teach autistic children?!?" (this is a blog topic for another day) I ignored it. She then yelled, "And YOU go to church?? You're a hypocrite!" I yelled back that the church is full of hypocrites and I'm not perfect, just forgiven. She yells back that I'm not being a very good example to C. (this is such a joke in so many ways) I told her that she acts like she was the perfect mother when she kicked both of her kids out of the house. Yes. BOTH. My brother got kicked out of the house when he was 20, the weekend that I brought R home to meet my parents for the first time. My father held a BB gun to him, to get him to leave. Yeah, model parents.

Apparently, I hit a bit of a sore spot with dear ol' mom because I was about to open the front door with more stuff in my hands and she ran up behind me and grabbed me by the hair, my mother's favorite disciplinary action, screaming that I made a choice to leave. Never in my life have I put my hands on my mother but enough is enough. I'm 38 years old. It wasn't acceptable at 16 and it really isn't acceptable now. And, too bad for her because I'm going to fight back now. I figured tit for tat and grabbed her head of hair and whipped her to the ground while screaming at her to get off of me. My brother comes around the corner and grabs me from behind. He is pulling me away from her... as she still has my entire head of hair in her hand. I'm screaming that she has my hair. I turned around and pushed him, telling him to get the f*** off of me. Now, my mom is bawling and the two suck-ups in her life are comforting her. R tells me to go outside. I told him that I still need my shoes. I had to walk out the back door, through the back yard and to the car without shoes. C was in the back yard with S's girlfriend and I told him that we were leaving. He protested, of course, and it broke my heart. He's so innocent and has no idea how mean they really are to him without him realizing it. I don't think that they love C. I think that they're in love with the idea of C, the grandchild. I told him that I was leaving and he came with me. During the first scuffle in the office, R was cleaning C up and he missed it. During the second scuffle, he was in the back yard with my brother's girlfriend. When we got in the car, I cried because I was so angry and had so much more that I wanted to say. C asked if I was upset and apologized that I was mad because he didn't like the potato. This made it even worse. I got my act together and told him the truth: Uncle S and Grandpa were not very nice to you and it made Mommy very angry.

They'll never change. The comments are said to hurt me right now but C will eventually understand that they are made about him. This was the straw that broke the camel's back and that's because there were so many straws that I'm not allowed to address. I'm almost 39 years old and can't disagree with anything that my parents (and brother) say or do without a "scolding". They will never view me as an adult, they will never stop judging and I have to accept that I need to walk away from this toxic relationship.

I definitely blew up and that's all on me. But, how many times am I supposed to swallow being offended and having them treat C like a second class citizen? They make me feel so horrible and say and do such shitty things to C and I'm supposed to sit there and take it in the name of harmony and respect. My ears are burning because I know that they all sat around and talked about how horrible I am for ruining Thanksgiving. The funny thing is that it only got physical because they both went after ME, but that's not how it will be remembered, I'm sure.

And that's why I'm sad.