Please feel free to ask Aunt Acid your questions at advice@the-toast.net.
Dear Aunt Acid,
I’m going on holiday with a friend soon. We’ve only known each other for two years but we’re close. It’s a short trip for her birthday, and we’re going to visit one of my favourite cities (I’ve been there before, but she hasn’t), because she has some childhood friends living there at the moment. I’m scared of traveling with her, because in the past when I’ve been on holidays with friends it hasn’t gone well. I feel like when I travel with people I’m unlikeable — I get very nervous that we’ll want to do different things, then spend all my time worrying about whether they’re enjoying themselves and make myself miserable. Different cities make me overstimulated and annoying, I get buzzy and hyper and then angry with myself for being such a pain.
My friendships don’t tend to survive travel. I have a long-term and fairly severe anxiety problem that I mainly manage with routine and meditation, though I am seeking therapy at the moment because it’s been getting worse. Obviously this kind of self-care is difficult when you’re with another person for four days straight. She does know about my anxiety, and she’s been supportive in the past, but I’m scared she’ll see me differently after this trip. I want her to enjoy her birthday and I don’t want her worrying about me, which is why I haven’t talked to her about how nervous I am. How do I protect her from my anxiety? Can I talk to her about it without dooming our trip to failure? I really don’t want to cancel it.
Ali
Dear Ali,
Oh, please don’t cancel the trip. Avoiding the thing you’re afraid of gives the fear oxygen — MiracleGro, even — and your fear is already oversized.
I know you’re scared to talk to your friend, but the first and most important step in dealing with the fear is to sit down and talk with her. She’s a good friend. She might even know you better than you assume she does. You’re close enough that she wants to travel with you! Traveling with someone can be more intimate than sex. It can certainly be as revealing.
So sit down with her in a place and a time that feels comfortable to you and tell her you’re scared. Tell her you sometimes find yourself behaving in off-kilter ways while you travel, ways that other people can find alienating (or so you fear). Tell her you’re so anxious you’ll lose her friendship that you’ve considered canceling altogether. You’re not telling her to get her to reassure you. You’re telling her simply to tell her. She’ll have a better sense of what she’s in for and of what’s going on in your head, and you will feel better for having been honest and up-front.
Don’t expect the conversation to extinguish your anxiety; your anxiety won’t go that easy. It’s braided and baked into you, part of your dough. She won’t have any magic words to change that. Honesty doesn’t trump anxiety. What it does often do is reduce it down to proper proportions, make it a more manageable size.
Once your anxiety is a more manageable size, you two together can come up with a plan to, you know, manage it. Figure out how you can work some kind of routine self care into your life on the road. Meditation in the hotel room before breakfast, perhaps. A mid-afternoon yoga break. At least one meal a day of healthy food, maybe assembled from fresh ingredients rather than purchased from a restaurant. Anything that interrupts the momentum of the day, that allows you to pause and collect yourself, to take note of what you need and how to get it, will help.
Odds are your friend will have some things to say, too. Maybe she has asthma, or allergies, and must take certain precautions. Maybe she snores and she’s been embarrassed to warn you. Maybe she’s freakishly frugal. Everyone has quirks that come out when they travel; you’re not the only one who gets thrown off by being in a new and different place. Hearing what she’s anxious about may actually help you. At the very least it will remind you that you’re not alone in being a human being who requires consideration. We are each of us an imperfect bundle of nerves and needs. She’s lovable anyway, right? So are you. Try to remember that.
Tenderly,
Aunt Acid
Dear Aunt Acid,
I am a high schooler. A few years back I found out my dad is prejudiced, and so is his entire side of the family. Shocking it took me so many years to see it, right? It started when I began seeing my boyfriend, who is black. I showed my dad a picture of my boyfriend and he responded with a racist comment. I had never noticed it before, but that side of my family has a habit of making racial comments. Once they found out I was infatuated with this guy they swarmed me with their insults and prejudice. I found out my father and grandmother also do not approve of any of my friends, because some of them are gay, transgender, or have depression.
My father criticizes my relationship often and tries to convince me to find other boys, or cheat. The thing is, he has not had very good relationships himself and cheated on my mother before their divorce. He smiles to my face and then blows up on my mother on the phone, saying she is a horrible parent for allowing me to have the friends and the boyfriend I do. My grandmother also likes to make comments about my mother and her “poor” parenting. I have cut off most of my communication with her besides the occasional text.
I find my dad and his family are very toxic people in my life. I keep wondering if I should continue to see them. Besides the prejudice and bigotry, they are nice people. I do love them, which makes this decision hard. I need advice on what to do.
Ashley
Dear Ashley,
Oh my goodness. You say these particular members of your family “are nice people,” aside from all the ways that they are bigoted and cruel, and it is amazing how that can happen. It is also amazing how “nice” can mean so little. Maybe they volunteer at soup kitchens, or maybe they just haven’t killed anyone with an axe lately/yet. My main concern for you is that they’re not being nice to you, and they show no signs of wanting to change.
If you had just started dating your boyfriend, and your dad had said a couple of racist things but had apologized for them, the situation would be different, maybe. If he were making an effort to come around and see this guy who makes you happy as an individual human being rather than a collection of sinister clichés, there could be hope. Instead, the picture you paint—not merely of your dad but his whole side of the family—is bleak. Super bleak. Bleaker than the prospect of cabbage for dinner, bleaker than Bleak House, bleaker than a Scandinavian winter. If you want to give up and cut these people off, you are entirely within your rights.
Here’s the thing, though. People can change sometimes. They need two things: 1) time, and 2) really fucking good motivation. Before you excommunicate your (very flawed) loved ones, you could, if you wanted to, try to be that motivation. It seems like you will probably be leaving home soon, either to go to college or simply because your high school days are over. Once you’re out of your father’s immediate vicinity, you could use the best leverage you’ve got—that would be you—to try to effect change. Tell him, “I’m sorry, Dad, but I can only hang out with you, or come to Christmas and Thanksgiving, if you agree to be civil about and to [boyfriend]. If you are racist or rude, we will simply leave: no warning, no apology. If you want a relationship with me, I need you to respect my choices and the people in my life.” Even while you still live at home, you can set similar limits: “Dad, I’m done listening to you talk about [boyfriend] like that. If you make an insulting comment about him, the conversation will be over. I will walk away, period.”
And if he does anyway, follow through. Don’t engage. Just leave. Make those rules and stick to them. If your dad has to choose between his retrograde bluster and his daughter, hopefully he will choose his daughter. If he doesn’t, or if he can’t, well, you can always try a temporary excommunication: cut him off for some length of time (say, a year). You can do that and still remain open to the possibility that he may make a genuine effort, if only because he misses you so much, in the future.
I do believe that cutting off genuinely toxic people can be the best gift we give ourselves, at the holidays or anytime. I also believe that, when those people are close members of the family, cutting them off should be the last thing we try.
Meanwhile, whatever you choose to do, take care of yourself. Remember that although adolescence is rough, this too shall pass. Seek support from your friends and chosen family. Yes, your instincts are correct; people of color and trans people are people and deserving of respect. Your father and folks who think otherwise are in the minority, and they are all the more flailingly desperate because they know they’re outnumbered. They might be singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” but you know, and you’re right, that actually it belongs to us. We are sure as hell not giving it up.
Courage,
Aunt Acid
Note: Letters have been edited and condensed.
To the first LW, I think Aunt Acid’s advice is great. I would also add, though – your worst-case scenario is that you and your friend will want to do different things. So ask yourself, why is that bad? It seems like you simultaneously might have guilt for having your own preferences and that you’re taking way too much responsibility for making someone else’s trip fun.
So try to let go of that! Maybe you schedule a few things you want to do together, interspersed with blocks of solo time. “Ok, you want to see the art gallery, and I want to go to the science museum. Let’s split up and I’ll meet you at lunch at XYZ.” Or, “Why don’t you and your childhood friends go catch up – I’d like to veg in the hotel this evening watching whatever garbage is showing on TLC right now.” It’s really okay!
Yes! One of my very favorite travel memories ever was watching a million episodes of Say Yes to the Dress with my husband in some very picturesque city that we were too tired and stressed out to explore. We can both identify an a-line dress now, which feels like an accomplishment.
I only ever watch TLC in hotels and it’s somehow always Say Yes to the Dress, and it’s always psychologically engineered to snooker me in even though I don’t care at all.
How does “Say Yes to the Dress” manage to do that? I’ve found myself watching several episodes in a row on Netflix before, and I cannot understand why. I’d probably get pretty bored sitting on a couch watching a friend try on like eight dresses that look very similar to one another, but somehow this show makes the experience captivating.
One of my fondest honeymoon memories is watching The Simpsons in bed with my husband, in a comically expensive hotel, and not feeling Any Remorse At All about leaving San Francisco to be explored by other, more ambitious, honeymooners.
Likewise, my husband and I spent a night during our honeymoon in downtown Halifax…watching the entire Harry Potter marathon on TV in a harbourfront hotel. It was FANTASTIC.
Right?? These cities have already been explored! There is no such thing as a modern-day explorer! I will be relaxing on my vacation as intended.
Yes! My husband and I watched just oodles of Property Brothers and Top Gear during the afternoons on our honeymoon in Santa Barbara,and I was just having very happy memories yesterday of watching Top Chef Texas on an iPhone propped up on an end table in our Venetian Air BnB. Somehow the conscious choice to just NOT be On A Big Vacation for a couple hours makes it feel so much more delicious than at home.
If you have the means to afford it, by all means stay in separate hotel rooms or separate airBNBs! I’m not a crazy anxious traveler alone because I have all my little routines, but when I feel like someone is watching me get ready or watching me veg out/be lazy (even if it’s recharging!), that’s when I tense up.
I was going to say something similar – just because you’re going on a trip together does not obligate you to spend all of your time together. You can play it by ear, but I’ve also done the following when traveling with friends/family that have different interests – we make a list of everything we’re individually interested in seeing. To the extent our “stuff” overlaps, we actually make plans to see those things together (usually coordinating around meals), and then we split up to go do our own things for the rest of the day. So it’s not so much of a “I need emergency alone time” as it is more like making plans like we always do. In our normal lives we don’t spend 24 hours a day together either.
Travel anxiety! I have it, and it can be totally overwhelming. I really recommend watching ‘Travel Man’ with Richard Ayoade. The basic premise is that he’s an anxious traveller, but goes places anyway and experiences a mild amount of enjoyment. For me it just helped to see someone who was so exactly like me in terms of general discomfort with people/new experiences/etc. Good luck though! I’ve got millions of little tips, but I’ll leave them as a reply to myself, so this doesn’t turn into a wall of text.
Hmm, all my tips boil down to: take lots of naps, do things separately as needed, and bring own snacks everywhere.
It can be a wonderful thing to say “You go on ahead to that cool place you want to see. I’m going to take some downtime and maybe nap. Let’s meet back up for dinner?” Because you are on vacation just as much as the other person.
Also seconding the snacks. Nothing soothes me like nibbling my own snacks that I brought for me.
It’s also great because sometimes when you’re done napping and your travel buddy gets back, they have discovered something awesome and want to show it to you. (My friend took me a bookshop/wine bar she discovered while wandering around Paris while I napped, and it was the best thing ever.)
Seconding bring snacks! Do not let yourself get hangry and fall into the spiral of ‘Where do you want to eat?’
Yes! Nothing adds to the pressure of a situation like hangry-ness: I’ve made terrible food choices because ‘closer’ was more important than ‘tastier’ in the moment, which can totally be avoided with a ziplock baggie of sliced apples and a handful of goldfish.
My entire trip to Rome was me and my mother wandering around trying to find somewhere to eat. We chose badly every single time. (She doesn’t really eat and I’m crap at restaurants and always want to keep walking in case there’s somewhere better around the corner, there never is)
It’s so hard to know! I love food so much, but often have very bad restaurant luck when traveling.
Rome (and Italy in general) is tricky, too, because the restaurants seem to be open only for specific windows of time? When I was in Rome, we never seemed to manage to get out of the hotel early enough to find an open cafe and were stuck with the snacky breakfast that the hotel provided. And even the cafes don’t really serve what I tend to think of as breakfast? Then certain restaurants would be open for lunch but not necessarily dinner and vice versa. On the plus side: it’s hard to get too hangry when one is eating gelato three times a day.
G – goldfish? Is that an autocorrect?
It’s Pepperidge Farm® snack cracker! Although I was kinda tempted to let that image stand.
“I dunno, where do you want to eat?”
“I dunno. I think maybe a burger, but maybe also Thai? I just know that I don’t want sushi, Vietnamese, pub food, or anything from any of the thirteen restaurants I can see right now. I want something…else.”
‘What do you want to eat?’
‘Oh I don’t mind’
‘OK, what about this burger place?’
‘No, I don’t want a burger’
‘OK lets keep walking and see what there is’
*walk for 3 hours and eventually just end up back at the hostel without eating*
I went on holiday with a group of friends once, and we got around this problem by having a designated Decision Person every day. (There were seven of us, so choosing somewhere to eat would have been a struggle otherwise.) It was their job have the final say in order to stop us wandering around for ages, trying to spare the others’ feelings by suggesting something that was not their top choice.
The solution my spouse and I have for this is that the person who rejects a restaurant suggestion has to come up with the next suggestion. It avoids endless rounds of the “No I don’t feel like that either” game and has probably saved our marriage.
I was extremely proud (and grateful) that I remembered to bring snacks and a water bottle on my last trip to Ikea. Nothing can send a mildly stressful situation into an anxiety death spiral like insufficient nutrition.
Richard Ayoade is a balm for the soul
LW: Just wanted to say it’s OK to travel with someone and not do all the same things together all the time. It doesn’t mean they hate you! And it sounds like you might need some of that alone time to deal with your anxiety. Definitely talk with your friend about it beforehand, figure out what your travel styles are, things like that. This sounds exactly like a problem that can be helped by communication and a little pre-planning.
Knowing your travel styles is so important! Staying connected at the hip the whole time versus needing lots of alone time; doing everything possible versus doing a few cool things and then downtime; Excel-spreadsheet-level planning versus winging it – neither style is more right than the other, but you do need to be compatible or willing to negotiate for co-travel to work.
Yes! I only a couple of years ago, after many stressful trips with both family and friends, figured out that I need to be an Excel spreadsheet-level planner to really be able to enjoy myself. I’m not an absolute stickler about following said spreadsheet if something better presents itself, but worrying ahead of time about all the details of where to go, the relevant timetables, how to get there, and acceptable places to eat (including reservations, if needed), at the minimum, lets me chill the fuck out in the moment and actually have fun. Spontaneity? That’s right here on the schedule from 3-4! Granted, you have to have traveling companions who are cool with it to at least some degree, but so far it’s worked awesomely for my travel anxiety. YMMV, of course.
Speaking as someone who Googles maps for the airports I’ll be transiting through, I salute you. Planning ahead also leaves me with a lot more energy for dealing with unexpected crises when they happen!
Maps of airports…that is a wonderful idea that will be making an appearance in my Travel Folder of Doom and I salute you as well.
Scandinavian winters aren’t bleak! They’re delightful and full of saunas and skating and punsch. You must be thinking of Russian winters.
(I should mention that I saw Leviathan on a plane recently, which is possibly the bleakest movie ever made.)
Also cabbage for dinner can be delightful. Esp roasted savoy or cabbage with bratwurst and lots of good mustard… mmmmmmm
#hyggelife, right?
Straight up.
It is a deficiency of the English language that we don’t have a real equivalent for either hygge or for the Swedish word lagom.
Yesss we need a lagom! Or an aggressive ad campaign to just adopt it into English as-is, though I guess that’s not really lagom.
NO THEY ARE REALLY DAMN BLEAK.
#notbitter #latitude60 #eternaldarkness
I do recall being on the verge of losing my shit when I hadn’t seen the sun in ten straight days one time during the Swedish winter. That light felt beyond amazing on Day Eleven, like there was still hope in the world.
IIRC we had 2 hours of sunshine during the entire month of November. The latitude conspires with the weather to create a world without real light. All overcast, all the time. Everything is monochrome.
The cold and the snow won’t always seem impressive to people from a northern continental climate (Russia, the US Midwest, Canada), and most of us don’t live anywhere near the Arctic circle (but Americans seem to feel that Seattle is dark, even though it’s level with Paris on a 40-something latitude?), so at least it’s not literally night 24/7 for most people. But the never-ending overcast, man.
I follow a bunch of good blogs from people who’ve moved here as adults. They usually move here in the spring, summer or early autumn, and their first culture clash posts mock our obsession with weather and the sidewalk cafes that hand out blankets to their customers when it’s too cold to drink coffee outside without blankets (a real thing, yes). Their first Scandinavian winter brings them to their knees. Spring makes them convert to literal sun worship.
Yeah, I hear you on that overcast, monochrome light. That was how I didn’t see the sun for ten straight days–it was a combination of December, lousy weather, and working all day at a computer in the building basement. It was the worst.
When I lived there, I had a theory about why everyone queued so readily and quietly for everything–post office, deli counter, you name it: never any argument about who was ahead of whom, never anyone pushing to get ahead, just everyone patiently waiting their turn. I figured it sprang from the same attitude that teaches you to keep your head down and wait out the winter. As in, there’s no sense in fighting against the winter; it can only be endured.
When I told this theory to a Swedish friend of mine, she laughed and said she’d never thought about it that way. (She was also mildly horrified to hear that people in other parts of the world do NOT politely queue, and the only way to get anything done is to push through the rugby scrum). Then she immediately added that she had always thought that attitude of “I should just endure” was the reason why people struggling with alcoholism and depression didn’t ask for help. So it manifests in a bunch of different ways, but endurance is what weathers the bleakness.
And yes, I remember the blankets at cafes, and I miss them now that I’m back in the US.
I feel like when I travel with people I’m unlikeable — I get very nervous that we’ll want to do different things, then spend all my time worrying about whether they’re enjoying themselves and make myself miserable.
As a person with some anxiety and who has friends who are a bit like this; there is nothing worse than hanging out with someone who is clearly not enjoying themselves but won’t admit it because they want you to have fun. Just be honest and everyone is much happier.
Its ok to split up and do different things for a bit; and its also ok to go along with your friend to something that they want to do but you’re not super into, but don’t put the guilt trip on them, you’re choosing to go; say it to them ‘hey, I’m not super into this, but I’ll give it an hour if we can do something I want to do after’
LW2: DUMP THEM. I dgaf when it comes to family, just because they’re family doesn’t mean they get a pass for being assholes; call them on it maybe once, if they don’t change then just disengage from them completely. Odds are, most of them won’t notice, and if they do ask you why tell them the truth, they are assholes and you enjoy the company of you’re BF and other hellwardbound friends more than their company.
LW2: If you are in the US, if you have plans to go to college in the US, tread a bit more carefully than you might otherwise. Unless you or your mother is independently wealthy enough to pay for college out of pocket without breaking a sweat, you have the FAFSA to worry about, and you will likely need that information from your father, even if he will not be contributing to your college education.
Many colleges are aware that some parents are not around to fill out the forms, or may try to withhold their information as an abusive tactic to get their way, and many colleges have policies for these sorts of situations. But every college will handle it differently, and it’s usually a way bigger hassle than you want to have to deal with.
Also, might be worth talking to your mother about. There may be other concerns, in terms of visitation, child support, etc, that depending on your particular situation, may make things more complicated for your family. Or it’s possible that NONE of that is a concern, and you don’t need to worry about it. But she will certainly end up involved depending on your choice, so it’s worth bouncing it off her if you have a good relationship with her (and maybe even if you don’t!).
Yes! I hadn’t even thought about college and financial aid when I wrote my wall of text below, but this is also an important consideration.
Ugh. This is just so complicated and hard, on the bureaucratic side, when dealing with toxic family members is already so complicated and hard on the emotional side. I feel for you, LW2.
I’m glad you chimed in with an Actual Situation on the custody thing– custody agreements (and how they’re implemented) vary SO MUCH that it’s really difficult to ever give good general advice other than “be careful”.
Absolutely they do! I think the thing is that these things are all being settled in family court, so it’s not like there’s a jury trial — as far as I understand it, it mostly comes down to a particular judge and how they’re interpreting the law and the agreement. Not to mention that it’s all about the law and the parents making decisions that spell out, in legally binding ways, how the kids will spend their time and who they’ll live with, which makes it complicated as the kids get older and want to exercise their agency in these areas. Throw all the messy emotions into the mix with the parents’ feelings about the kid and about one another, and even about any other people getting involved in the family situation (like step-parents), and you end up with a very sticky situation very quickly, in which the law is just one part, but the consequences for going against it can be very not good.
My list for why it’s stupid to make college financial aid for legal adults dependent on the presumption of their parents support is so, so long.
Who tells their child to cheat on their significant other? Dude is out of his mind.
Apparently someone who has no problem cheating on their wife, either. Ugh. Trashcan people, all of ’em.
The kind of person who doesn’t see black people as “significant”.
My mom once “joked” that I should have my IUD removed and not tell my boyfriend.
An additional recommendation to the great advice provided for LW2, if you’re reading comments on this piece: check out some of Captain Awkward’s posts about setting boundaries with family if you decide this is the route you want to go. Another Toastie pointed me to these and I have found them tremendously helpful for dealing with toxic family members.
HEARTILY seconding Captain Awkward, she is the best.
Thirding. Captain Awkward taught me how to person. If you’re coming from any kind of gaslighting/manipulating or otherwise crappy family, she is tremendously valuable.
My dad has a “friend” (I say that in quotes because they aren’t too close) whose daughter is dating a black man. I never generally liked this friend of my dad’s, and when we found out who his daughter was dating, I saw why: He’s INCREDIBLY racist.
Now, my dad’s friend — before his daughter starting dating this man — would rant and rave about how wonderful his daughter is, how smart she is, how accomplished she is at school/at her new job/at EVERYTHING. But now that she’s dating a black guy…nothing. Doesn’t say a word about her anymore, according to my dad. My dad thinks his friend is being too harsh and too stubborn to see that he is ruining his relationship with his daughter over this (keep in mind, my father is very Southern Roots, very Conservative Republican). But even he sees how wrong it is.
Which is why I have even less respect for this “friend” of my dad’s. He’s actually willing to throw away his relationship with his very smart, responsible, trustworthy daughter because of this. She apparently doesn’t talk to her father anymore, and I’m proud of her for it. He really doesn’t deserve to have a relationship with her, in my opinion. I hope this isn’t what Ashley has to do – I hope her father will come to respect her and her decisions as long as she is happy and safe with the person she is dating. Edit: Also want to say though, that this daughter is 25 or 26 years old, and she’s an adult…so not speaking to her father is easy since she is independent.
Good advice for LW1. I went on a similar trip (long weekend in a new city as a birthday present for us both) with a friend I have known for years but not been that close to, and I was not aware of her anxiety about flying, getting enough sleep (ie 9+ hours), and drinking (she was anxious about being hungover and so never wanted to have more than one drink in a given night even though we were in a city known for its bars).
All of that was totally fine (I value her friendship and comfort over a boozy night out), but I would have much preferred to know ahead of time so I could calibrate my expectations and also we could talk/plan around it. Once we were there and I was enthusiastically suggesting nightclubs, I suspect it was much harder for her to tell me what she needed and see my (momentary) disappointment than if we’d talked pre-trip about our desires and expectations a little bit more. Then I got worried about whether she was worried about whether I was having fun — a totally unnecessary anxiety spiral. In the middle of that anxiety spiral, it was much harder to talk about solutions (such as splitting up, which I am perfectly fine with) without making the problem seem bigger than it actually was and making everyone feel worse.
That said, we still had a great vacation! I was taken aback, but as I said, it was momentary, and then I adjusted to the trip we were having rather than the one I expected to have, and had a wonderful time. So try to trust your friend! Good luck.
LW2: While I agree with Aunt Acid’s advice in general (you shouldn’t have to subject yourself to toxic people, which includes people who are openly bigoted and like to shove their bigotry in your face, even when those people are family), I want to bring up two things.
1) In terms of the shitty things your family members are doing/saying, most of the focus here was on the racism and homo-/transphobia, but I notice that you also said that your dad and your grandma tend to talk negatively about your mom. As someone from a divorced/blended family, I absolutely sympathize with the uncomfortable position you get put in when these people who are all supposed to be united in their love for you instead put you in the middle while they shit talk each other. It’s not fair to you, and it’s so awful to have to sit there and listen to somebody you care about bad mouth somebody else you care about, and feel like you’re guilty for listening to it, but also like pushing back would be picking a side. It sucks, and your family members are wrong for putting you in such a hard spot. You would be 100% in the right to say something like, “Dad/Grandma, I love you, but I also love my mom, and I’m not comfortable listening to you bad mouth her. If you’re angry at her, you need to vent to someone who’s not me.” No matter what they’re saying about her, whether it’s another expression of their bigotry about your boyfriend and friends, or whether it’s a more banal topic like that they think she should be more strict about making you do chores, or whatever. Telling them to knock it off and not put you in the middle is valid.
2) The advice about cutting your dad off for a year could be tricky to implement since, as a minor, you may still be under the control of custody agreement weirdness. As one horrible example, when my aunt and her husband split up because he left her for somebody new (among myriad other reasons), their daughters were angry at their dad, and didn’t want to see him. I can’t remember exactly how old they were, but I believe they were somewhere in the 11-14 age range — still relatively young, but old enough to have opinions about who they wanted to spend their time with. When their mom didn’t force them to go visit their dad, though, he/his lawyer argued that she was keeping them from him, and this snowballed into a family court mess that ended up with my aunt spending a weekend in jail. I was away at college at the time, so I missed some of the details and nuances of all this going on, and I think her jail stay had more to do with not paying/being able to pay some kind of court fees than literally a direct sentence because of keeping the girls at home, but still — it was a mess. You say you’re in high school, but I don’t know if that means you’re 14 or 18, and I don’t know what state you’re in or what your state/county laws are regarding parental rights and custody, and I’m certainly not a lawyer, so take all of this with a grain of salt, but I would just recommend being careful about implementing any sort of cut off of your dad, if you’re on the younger end of that age spectrum. If you do decide that you want to take some time away from your dad (the type of temporary cut off that Aunt Acid describes here is called a Time Out on the DWIL forums that Nicole wrote about a while back — just like you would give a toddler, to teach them what is and isn’t acceptable behavior) — I would suggest talking to your mom about it first, and maybe finding out what the actual terms of your parents’ custody agreement are. If you’re not comfortable talking to your mom about this (whether because it feels too much like bad mouthing one parent to the other, or because you don’t think she would support a cut off, or whatever other reason), or if you do talk to your mom/look at the custody arrangement and decide that a (temporary or not) cut off isn’t feasible right now, remember that you can always stick to the “walking away” part of Aunt Acid’s advice. Go to another part of your dad’s house. Go to your room, if you have one there. Go for a walk. Go out with friends. Go read a book. Go browse the Toast on your phone/computer. Whatever you’re able to do to disengage and communicate that the way they’re treating you and/or the discussion of how horrible it is that your boyfriend is black/your friend is gay/etc. is unacceptable.
Good luck! I’ll be sending positive vibes your way. 🙂
I wish I could give you a million upvotes for this comment, but I’ll have to settle for one. Well put.
I’ll be thinking a lot about the travel advice. My mom and I take summer trips together and I’m really worn out on them– I want to cancel this summer while we still only have general plans, nothing scheduled. It’s a scramble of reasons and difficulties but maybe I can sort it out.
LW1: My best travel hacks are:
1) stay in a place with a kitchen, so that you can store food and make meals on your own schedule (Air BnB is a lifesaver, but there are plenty of little hotels that also offer this)
2) Ask her to come up with an activity and a meal for every other day you’re there. Four day trip = two meals to plan and two outings to do. You do the same. Even if you’re not feeling her choices, they are limited and finite.
3) Agree in advance on some daily block of time that is your own. Perhaps every day before noon is your solo time, or all the pre-dinner hours. If you want to nap, or take a bath, or catch up on emails, that’s your time! If you want to hit a bar while she naps, takes a bath, or checks her emails, that’s your time too! You are under no obligation to engage, entertain, or anything else.
Travel anxiety is super common, especially if you’re still in the “Oh god, I hope we’re real friends” stages. But Aunt Acid is right: figuring out all your personal travel hacks and workarounds is SO much better than cancelling the trip altogether.
A+++ Cabaret reference
Hello, everyone.
Thank you all so, so much – especially Aunt Acid. We are recently returned and still friends. Everything was okay! It was more than okay, actually.
My friend pinned me down, the day after I wrote this, and straight out asked me how we were going to deal with my anxiety while we were away – was I bringing medication, did I need meditation time – and we sorted it out. It was scary, but it worked. And it was very much what Aunt Acid said it would be! We made a plan, and we dealt with it.
I’m still not over my travel fears, and I don’t think I will ever fully be, but I’m working on it.
You are all very kind and lovely. Thank you xx
Hooray! I’m so glad it went well!
Awesome! I just typed out a reply for you, because I didn’t see this comment. That’s so great. You were both great.
This is so great to hear!
I’m a person with depression who has been spending one week a year on holiday (vacation in US English) with the same group of friends for close on 10 years now, both before and after my diagnosis/medication. Those people have seen a lot of mood swings and strange behaviours over the years (eg one year on new year’s eve I locked myself in the bathroom and cut all my hair off) and it constantly amazes me that they still love and value me – that they WANT to spend their precious travel time and dollars with me – despite all the weird shit they put up with around me.
It sounds like you might have found a friend like that, which is one of the best things you can find! I hope you have a long and happy friendship with her full of mutual support and fun experiences. And I know it’s a long road back from travel anxiety, but I hope it helps to have someone who will help you travel on it.
I wish my family would get on board with the “not everyone has to be together all of the time while vacationing” train. I’ve successfully managed to split up and reunite on trips with friends, but with my family it is impossible to shake everyone and be alone. I try to sneak off but they always find me.
LW 1 – I dunno if this helps, but maybe think of it like this: you, who have anxiety, are less chill than other people, because that’s what anxiety basically is. Maybe you’re freaking out because you think of surprises as being A Very Big Deal? And maybe your friend, who does NOT have anxiety, will be way less stressed out by you telling her about your travel problem than you would be if someone surprised you with a problem?
In that case, it might help to think about how your friend typically deals with minor inconveniences. (And it’s definitely minor – it doesn’t change your trip in a major way, nobody loses any money, no one is hurt.) Does she usually take things in stride? Then she’ll take this in stride too. 🙂
i cannot even picture the kind of upbringing where up and walking away while your dad is shitting all over you and your friends is a viable option for a minor living in the house, that might actually terminate the conversation or reduce the volume. I’m pretty sure ‘toxic bigot who loudly denigrates you, your mother, and your friends in front of you all the time’ and ‘profound respect for the boundaries of a person they have total control over’ don’t go together often, at any rate.
here’s hoping you’re getting the hell out soon LW, once you don’t actually have to live with ’em their bullshit pretty much ceases to be a major (or obligatory) concern in your life
Yeah, that’s my only problem with ‘setting boundaries’ class of advice. Not that its bad advice – it’s definitely not – but it goes on the assumption that even shitty people have some level of respect for other’s autonomy. Even though setting boundaries worked for me in the long run, I’d still be wary to do it again with certain people because the reaction was so thermonuclear and traumatizing. Even people who don’t seem like monsters are liable to completely lose their shit when someone they’re used to dominating starts asserting boundaries. In some cases (not mine, thankfully) it could even be physically dangerous for the boundary-setter. Idk, it’s hard. I guess the advice has to be tailored to each individual situation. It’s important to acknowledge that there’s usually a *reason* someone’s unreasonable behaviour has gone unchallenged for so long.
“Even while you still live at home, you can set similar limits: “Dad, I’m done listening to you talk about [boyfriend] like that. If you make an insulting comment about him, the conversation will be over. I will walk away, period.””
That….might not work. If I had said that to my dad as a teenager, at best I would have been quietly told off in a way that would have been humiliating. At worst I would have been screamed at, he would have banged on things near me, AND i would have been intentionally humiliated.
I honestly didn’t realize that the way I grew up was emotionally (and sometimes physically) abusive until I left home–I thought everyone’s parents did that shit–so I could have written a letter like this and thought my parents were wonderful people, still. (Though: my parents weren’t this racist. I dated a black dude in high school and they didn’t even blink. They already knew him as the polite and nerdy kid across the street though.)
Yeah… I posted a hugely long comment up there earlier, and I didn’t even pay lip service to the idea that communicating these types of boundaries may not be possible/safe for the LW in her current situation, even though that absolutely may be the case! So much of the advice that we give to people dealing with toxic relatives, and particularly toxic/abusive parents, is about asserting their agency, and setting and enforcing boundaries, and just generally speaking up for their needs, but that becomes so immensely tricky when you’re dealing with someone who is still dependent on their parents, and in separated families, that can be even messier due to where the person lives or how they get around or how legal custody arrangements are set up. Like, this LW may not be able to make such a vocal statement to her dad, but she may have a room at her dad’s house where, if the conversation in the living room takes a bigoted or abusive turn, she can go and shut the door and remove herself from the situation, and she can communicate her boundary that way, which is basically what I was advocating in my comment. BUT, like you’ve pointed out here, depending on how her dad is, that might actually serve to escalate the situation if her dad takes offense and follows her to shout more abuse at her. And even if it doesn’t, if she’s dependent on her dad for a ride back to her mom’s at the end of the weekend, or to school on Monday, or whatever, then it’s not like she can really keep up with enforcing that boundary in that way, when she’s still going to be forced to shut herself up into the small space of a moving vehicle with him.
Ugh. Sorry, I know I’m still lingering around in the comments on this post hours later. It just really struck a chord with me. : /
Getting up and walking away while my dad was hurling invective in my direction might have gotten me grabbed or hit, even into my teenage years. I never, EVER, would have even DARED.
Even into my early twenties, when my dad said something really horrible about people in Iraq right after 9/11, and I replied with something like “that’s really hurtful, could you not talk like that around me,” he angrily replied that it was his house and he could say whatever he wants about anyone and if I didn’t like it I could fucking leave. (He has since apologized for that comment–he’s apologized for a lot of things.)
I’m so glad you’ve gotten apologies from your dad for some of his abusive behavior! I hope that means that he’s realized how wrong he was and has worked to change. Regardless, though, I’m sorry you had to deal with any of that, and I’m glad that it sounds like it’s better now, both because you’re an adult and have more power, and because (I hope) your dad has improved the way he behaves towards you.
I, luckily, never had to face this kind of physical abuse, and my parents were mostly well-meaning in regards to this kind of thing, but it was definitely still a sticky mess in a lot of ways. My maternal grandma would often make comments about how I “had to” go to my dad’s for the weekend, and she was mostly trying to be supportive of me (I think), but it still made me uncomfortable for her to frame it as a negative thing. And my mom would sometimes get nit-picky about how much time I spent at my dad’s on my weekends there — like, my step-mom would often pick me up on Fridays on her way home from working second shift, which means I left at about 3:30 or 4pm on Friday afternoons, and then didn’t get home until after dinner on Sunday night, and she would make irritated comments about how they were only supposed to have me for 48 hours, since a weekend is two days. Once, I mentioned this to my step-mom, that maybe she should go ahead and take me back to my mom’s around the same time that she’d picked me up, since my dad wasn’t even home (he played on a community softball league Sunday afternoons). This resulted in quite the angry drive back to my mom’s house… where I found her napping. :-/ This has led to some baggage that I still deal with when my husband and I go back to our home town (we’re both from the same town) and try to navigate splitting up visiting time between both sides of my family and his family too. And I’m definitely well-aware that I had it easy! Abuse didn’t figure into these disagreements, but it was still a painful mess in certain ways, and it’s had lingering effects on me as an adult. I’m sure that in situations like yours, or like the LW’s, where at least one parent is overbearing, abusive, taking the kind of authoritarian stance where they feel like they should be able to spew whatever hurtful and bigoted views they want and anybody (up to and including their own child!) who doesn’t like it can go screw, makes it a million times harder, and the lack of power/agency that minor children have in situations like this just makes it even more heartbreakingly complicated.
[ETA, just because I feel like I need to clarify — Looking back at my comment, I feel like it comes across as so whiny, like, “my step-mom was mad one time!” What I’m trying to say is that this is just an example of a pattern of uncomfortable situations that resulted from the complicated relationships between the two sides of my family. My parents have been divorced from one another since before I could even talk, so this really has gone on for my entire life. But again: I had it easy, relatively speaking!]
Basically, LW2, if you’re still reading, do whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe! You’ve got people here who are on your side, who want what’s best for you, who are here to tell you that you deserve to be able to stand up for your needs and that the way your dad and grandma are treating you with regards to your mom, your boyfriend, and your friends (and possibly just in general, but these are the only things you’ve given us info on) is wrong and that you deserve better. BUT, you know your situation best, and we support you in doing whatever you need to do to protect yourself, up to and including just keeping your head down for right now.
It *is* a lot better now, thank the universe. My mom credits this to a couples therapist they went to, who was willing to tell my dad “you’re a bully and a jackass.” Not like that, I imagine. Though maybe they did, I don’t know!
I will chime in with this about anxious people travelling – the above advice is great and since it looks like the traveller and her friend have seriously planned this trip out to the point that if she drops out the friend won’t be able to go, then she should go – sometimes, if you’re really having a bad wave of anxiety, you should cancel trips. It’s obviously easier if you’re travelling in a group of more than two, but even if you’ve put money down, just take the financial hit and bow out if the alternative is making everyone around you miserable or lowering their level of enjoyment because they feel the need to take care of you or make sure you’re having a good time when your brain chemistry is doing its best to make sure that you are NOT having a good time.
I disagree. If someone’s illness flares up to the point that THEY would suffer if they went, then they should consider staying home. But they aren’t “making” other people feel miserable or “lowering” anyone’s level of enjoyment just by having a disorder! If other people start to believe that they must take care of the anxious person (and that this is a bad thing that the anxious person should have prevented by not being around), that’s on them. Nobody’s making them feel that. There’s no need to bow out, because it’s not rude to do activities with your friends while having a disability. Not even if the disability is noticeable.
I will chime in with this about anxious people travelling – the above advice is great and since it looks like the traveller and her friend have seriously planned this trip out to the point that if she drops out the friend won't be able to go, then she should go – sometimes, if you're really having a bad wave of anxiety, you should cancel trips. It's obviously easier if you're travelling in a group of more than two, but even if you've put money down, just take the financial hit and bow out if the alternative is making everyone around you miserable or lowering their level of enjoyment because they feel the need to take care of you or make sure you're having a good time when your brain chemistry is doing its best to make sure that you are NOT having a good time.
Well, I’m not saying that people who have anxiety disorders shouldn’t go on trips or have to stay home all the time – but as someone who has been the friend who has ruined other people’s good times because I went out when I was in a bad way, I stand by what I said. If I’m feeling well, then there’s no reason why I shouldn’t go out. If, however, I’m feeling really terrible about myself and the world in general and am going to be a neurotic mess for the night/weekend, yeah, I think it’s in everyone’s best interest that I stay home. Because if I get set off by something while I’m out and about and have a screaming/ranting/crying fit? It’s going to ruin my friends’ good time. I need to be responsible and accept what I can and cannot handle at any given time, so if a group of friends and I planned on going out to dinner at my favorite restaurant, but by the time the day rolls around, I feel like I’m going to have a meltdown at the smallest provocation, I’m doing myself and everyone else a big favor by staying home.
Well, I'm not saying that people who have anxiety disorders shouldn't go on trips or have to stay home all the time – but as someone who has been the friend who has ruined other people's good times because I went out when I was in a bad way, I stand by what I said. If I'm feeling well, then there's no reason why I shouldn't go out. If, however, I'm feeling really terrible about myself and the world in general and am going to be a neurotic mess for the night/weekend, yeah, I think it's in everyone's best interest that I stay home. Because if I get set off by something while I'm out and about and have a screaming/ranting/crying fit? It's going to ruin my friends' good time. I need to be responsible and accept what I can and cannot handle at any given time, so if a group of friends and I planned on going out to dinner at my favorite restaurant, but by the time the day rolls around, I feel like I'm going to have a meltdown at the smallest provocation, I'm doing myself and everyone else a big favor by staying home.