I Need More Closet Space for My Family’s Skeletons

‘If you think you’re enlightened, spend a week with your family. ‘ Ram Dass

My family puts the D in dysfunctional; however, on the surface everything appears normal. The thing that makes my family truly dysfunctional is we all pretend NOT to feel the elephants or see the skeletons. We all know they’re here, and the silence is deafening.

In my opinion, displayed dysfunction is actually healthy. The mother-in-laws obviously hate each other. Mom is unhappy with her son dropping out of med school. Dad doesn’t like daughter’s new husband, but for good reasons. Whatever the case is, bringing it out into the open is in fact healthy. You might burn a bridge here. But should that bridge be burned? What if the ones that need the most burning are your mother, father, sibling, or grandparent? The fact that they are family members, the harder it is.

For example, my mother, complete narcissist. Only a RPG can blow up that bridge. Some bridges you just can’t bring yourself to burn. But no one is saying the things we are dying to hear. Instead, we are forced to choke back the trauma, pain, and memories that keep us up late at night. How do we heal our past experiences if the only option we have is to stuff it down again for another year.? When do the triggers become NOT triggers? How do we get the apologies that we need to move on?

Well, I have accepted that those apologies will never happen. Blocks of time that are hazy will never become clear. Acceptance and therapy is how I deal.

In movies, including mine, it’s about a chaotic family at odds with one another, but in my family… Ha, I wish we could have “knock down drag out fights.” Maybe if we did, we could move away from all the resentments and shameful pasts. But we keep silent because we want to protect those bridges and that’s why you can’t run from family.

My mother, aunts, and grandmother are experts at hiding secrets and shameful stories, years of skeletons being strategically packed away in closets to the point that every closet is an overstuffed version of ourselves. It is dreadfully uncomfortable thinking and praying for things to return to light and to be free from the pain of stuffing and shoving.

My Question is…

What is normal?

What are your holidays like? Full of elephants and skeletons stomping and hiding or is it explosive where no one holds back? Can we ever confront our family member(s) in Act 3 and get the result we want WITHOUT burning that bridge? In movies there is an ending, but in real life, there is NO ending; our story continues.