Death and Taxes (HELP!!)

Preface:

I wrote this on Monday, and I was going to be brave and just share it.  But then I panicked and couldn't.  I decided to first ask my mom for permission to share what was going on and reach out to others, and she responded in a panicky way that I took that as a solid no, so I sat on it and stewed for a bit, and then I came up with a plan that I thought would actually work.  I told my mom the plan, and I thought we'd be OK, because it only required the most minimal involvement and cooperation from all of them.  But no one will follow through, no one will cooperate, they won't even talk to each other, and it's not going to work, so this is back to where we're at.  I can't figure out a way to do this on my own.  I can't figure out how to get people organized and get this done, and I need help or ideas, or a dragon... or something.  So, without further ado.

The Original post:

I am dusting off my poor abandoned blog, and writing this because my family is in serious trouble, and it’s more than we can fix on our own.  We’ve been trying for months, we’ve explored every avenue we can think of, but it’s not enough and the situation is desperate.  I know that by writing this, I am betraying my mother’s confidence and violating her express wish to keep this private, to keep it in the family, to not let others know that she’s struggling and needs help.  But she is not the only one who is suffering and imperiled.  My sister is in trouble, the kids are in trouble, and they are being put in a situation that is far beyond what any kid should have to deal with.  So for their sake, I am breaking the rules.*  (I am actually terrified to post this, just white-knuckle, hands-shaking terrified. Such is the power of Family Guilt…)

The immediate crisis:

My mother is behind on her mortgage and is in danger of losing her house.  The foreclosure process is well underway.  She was able to negotiate a payment plan to get caught up over a 6-month period, and made some kind of balloon payment and the first 3 payments, but she can’t afford to make the final 3 back payments that she owes.  She is retired and cannot go back to work; she has no money left in savings or retirement funds; she also owes the IRS a substantial sum in back taxes.  We need to come up with about $4500 to pay that up by the end of the summer ($1500 per month for 3 more months, the first of these payments is due the end of June), and another $1000 or so (my rough estimate, it will probably more) to get a lawyer to help her negotiate with the IRS, and prevent them from also going after the house, as it’s her only asset, or garnishing her social security, as it's her only income.

She doesn’t want to ask for help from anyone outside the immediate family.  She doesn’t even want people within what I would consider the immediate family, people she talks to on a weekly basis, to know.  To be honest, I fear she wouldn’t have even told ME what was happening until it was too late, but my sister finally broke down sobbing and explained it all to me on New Years’ Eve, way too late to stop the worst of it, but at least a few months before the bank showed up to actually seize the house.

My mom has always been a hard-worker, stubborn as an ox, caring in her own coarse, roughly-worded way, proud beyond measure, and very (too) generous and cavalier with her money.  She made really good money as a Civil Engineer, but has also always been fantastically terrible at managing her finances, at knowing what she’s got and what she can afford, at remembering to pay bills, and above all, at saying “no.”  (I honestly don’t think the phrase “I can’t” is in her vocabulary, and if someone breaks down and cries at her, she just blindly writes a check without even looking to see if she’s got money to cover it.) 

She worked her ass off her whole life so she would always have enough money to take care of the people she feels responsible for, but our family has incurred more needs than anyone could have ever anticipated, and she has made some very rash decisions trying to fix things in ways that were unsustainable and disastrous.   She has been utterly lost since my dad died 8 years ago, and just did the only thing she knew how to do; she put her head down and kept working and doing the best that she could, but she is heartbroken and depressed, has no thought to care for herself, has nothing but need and misery surrounding her, and as far as I can see, no feeling of hope or ambition for anything more than this, or any desire to do anything but to keep grandma happy, and a roof over people’s heads.  This situation is all so sad I can barely breathe a lot of the time.  But there is no time for being sad right now, because there are problems that need to be solved.

I am going to sketch out a rough overview of what all is going on around this mess below, as diplomatically as possible, to give some context to the present situation, and then I will explain what kind of help we need.  Because we need help.  I need help.  I’ve exhausted every resource that I have at my disposal, and that I can think of.  I can’t walk away and let this all go up in flames, because there are too many vulnerable people in peril (ironically, they have largely imperiled each other,) and I can’t figure out a solution on my own.

Grandma:

My grandmother, “Grandma Nick” to me, Ruth, to most, became very ill last January.  She has congenital heart failure and dementia.  When she went into the hospital, she was dehydrated, suffering from a kidney infection, and so far gone physically and mentally that she was barely conscious, and when she was, she was completely “unstuck in time,” constantly jumping back and forth from the present, all the way back to her childhood.  Based on the condition of her heart and her kidneys, and some internal bleeding she was suffering from, the doctors said that she was dying and there was no hope, she had days to live, possibly months at the outside, but definitely no more than 6 months. 

Grandma worked for a time as a CNA in nursing homes, back in The Dalles in the 80’s.  What she saw there broke her heart, and she made her kids promise her that NO MATTER WHAT, she wouldn’t be put in a home, that she would be allowed to die in her own house, under her own recognizance, even if that meant dying alone in misery.  We tried several times to get her to move in with us leading up to this, but were always overruled because, I have now realized, my mom and my uncle are terrified of my grandma.  Even in her fragile state, they are SCARED TO DEATH of her of her judgement and disapproval.  To me, she’s just grandma, and I got the grandkids’ allotment of kindness, compassion, and patience that her own kids didn’t get, but to every one else, she is something else.

I love my grandma a lot, but I can also clearly recognize that grandma can be/is/was a mean old manipulative bitch, able to wield guilt and shame like a renaissance master.  (She does this because she knows what’s right for you, even if you don’t know or can’t see it, or heaven forbid, don’t agree.  The road to this Hell we are all in is paved in an intricate mosaic of conflicting and misguided good intentions.)  Grandma married my grandpa when she was 15 and he was shipping off to war.  She worked in the shipyards in WWIII, was the real Rosie the Riveter, an OG badass who went on to spend 50 years battling it out with my Grandpa, the Most Stubborn Man Alive, surviving myriad health problems and heartaches, and fighting through it all, and no one, definitely not her kids, is going to make her do one goddamn thing she doesn’t want to do.  (Except me, I can talk her into almost anything, but only when the gatekeepers will let me...)

When the doctors said she had to be discharged, I argued strongly that she be put in a care facility, even though that’s not what grandma wanted.  We just didn’t have the man power to provide the level of care that she needed.  My mom barely walks, my sister is extremely ill, I have 4 kids of my own, and a job, and a household to try and keep track of.  There just wasn’t anyone capable of providing 24-7 skilled nursing care at home, but there was a decent facility just a few blocks from my house that we could all get over to daily to keep her company . . . but I was categorically overruled (reasons were given, but I still don't know and probably will never know if any of them were actually true...), and she  was discharged on hospice to die at home.

My mom decided to move into grandma’s house with her, to supervise and assist with her care, and to hire caregivers to come in and do whatever we couldn’t.  This was perceived as a short-term solution to a short-term need, and it was profoundly expensive because initially it was 24-7 care.  It also didn’t work very well at first, because grandma doesn’t like caregivers and couldn’t remember who they were half the time, but even when she couldn’t find the strength to do anything else, she still had the strength, apparently, to battle.  My cousin was driving up and spending all of her days off helping, (she still does this a lot,) I went over as many days as I could, prepared meals to bring over, other cousins also came over and helped as much as they could, which was all really, really helpful, but it was still too much, and we were struggling.  After a few months of this, my uncle retired from his job in Eugene and moved up to also stay with them and help out.  And then things changed dramatically.

The important role that isolation and depression plays in the declining health of the elderly cannot be overstated.  Grandma, suddenly having her fondest wish come true of having both her kids back home with her, spending all day every day with her, decided to pull off one of the greatest rallies of all time.   She had been in bed, unconscious for 20+ hours a day, unable to lift her own spoon or get to the bathroom on her own and thus catheterized, hallucinating and talking to dead people; she was basically hopeless and just waiting for her heart to give out in the night.  But after a few days of Uncle Mike and Momma being there together, she scared everyone to death one morning by waking up on her own, and walking out to the refrigerator at 6 am to get herself a glass of milk.  After that initial shock, she continued to improve over for a time, and for a while was up and walking around quite a bit, getting snacks, playing cards again, going on drives, etc.  The doctors made it clear that she wasn’t cured, and still was in this “she could go any time” state, but she sure as hell isn’t planning on going anytime soon.  

Her recovery didn’t last forever, and while she is very, very far from the state she was in at first, she is on a slow, steady decline again, and is sleeping much of the day, and kind of winding down like a clock with a dying battery.  Well, exactly like a clock with a dying battery.  My mom’s car broke down, and they can no longer go on drives.  Grandma is feeling bored and frustrated that she is not getting better, and is giving up.  But not entirely, not immediately.  I have a feeling that if we could do some things to perk up her situation again, and get her out of the house here and there, she might rally once again, but we’re all in disaster mode right now, and no one can manage it.

In addition to the money my mom spent on caregivers, Momma also had to make a bunch of very expensive emergency repairs to the house, and a lot of other related things.  It made sense to her to do this at the time, at least this is how she reasoned it, because grandma has a lot of equity in her house, my mom and uncle are the sole heirs, and they agreed that after grandma died the house would be sold, and my mom would be reimbursed for the money she spent on grandma’s care and home repairs before anything else was done.  It was only a temporary hardship, it was to make grandma happy, and so, they reasoned, it was worth it.  

However, in the meantime, Momma has also continued to support my sister, my 2 nieces and my nephew, who are still living in her house (Momma’s house in Troutdale), paying for their utilities, car insurance and payments, helping them out with money for food, and above all medicine.  Because on top of all of this, my sister has been desperately ill this whole time, and in need of very extensive and expensive medical care, and that is the other half of this equation.

My Sister and Family:

This situation is a lot more complicated, and much harder and sadder to explain.  People get old, they get sick, they need care, they eventually die.  That is sad, but it’s the natural and expected trajectory of life.  This is different. 

My sister has been suffering from serious health problems for decades, as well as mental health concerns and some chemical dependency issues that arose after having to undergo a series of extremely painful surgeries, and then struggling in vain to find a diagnosis for a mysterious, underlying health condition that was plaguing her.  She went to the doctor a hundred times (many hundreds of times, thousands, at this point) because something was wrong with her body, but they couldn’t tell her what it was.  They’d run some tests, and give her some pain pills, and send her home with no answers, and then eventually just wrote her off as a pill junkie and stopped even trying to find answers.  Problems ensued…

And through it all, something WAS wrong with her body, or maybe enough time went on that something eventually became wrong with her body.  There’s no way to know for sure, except that she is very, very sick, now.  They didn’t figure out what until she finally presented with some new bizarre and distinctive symptoms that prompted a dermatologist, of all things, to finally take the matter seriously and start asking the right questions and running the right tests.  (My sister has Oregon health plan, which is better than having no insurance, I guess, but it turns you a parasitic nuisance in the eyes of most doctors, and makes getting long-term, serious care almost impossible.) 

A little more than a year ago, she was diagnosed with chronic sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that you can read about at your leisure, should you care to, but it’s not pleasant.  In some cases, it’s pretty mild; it only affects one part of the body, it flares up, it goes away.  In my sister’s case, though, it’s affecting her whole body: her skin, joints, lungs, heart, and liver all appear to be involved.  She has irregular heartbeats, trouble breathing, random terrible (I mean catastrophic) joint swelling, all of it.  It is possible that at some point, they will find a treatment protocol that will ease some of that, and best-case scenario, put it into remission.  But it hasn’t happened yet, and her doctors have apparently categorized her condition as terminal, meaning that someday, either the sarcoidosis, itself, or a side effect like a random bout of pneumonia or heart irregularity, will eventually cause her to die.

When she was first diagnosed, she was prescribed massive amounts of prednisone, which helps some, but not enough, and prednisone causes its own barrage of terrible side effects.  They recommended a bunch of additional medications, some of which cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars per fill, and she’s been going without most of those due to the cost.  She finally got a doctor that is working with the drug companies to try and get her the medicine for no or reduced cost, and she recently started an immune-suppressant that will hopefully reduce her need for prednisone, but it’s only been a few days, and that’s making her sick, too, and it’s scary because that increases her risk of infection so much...  It's all just terrifying.

Most days, she is too tired and ill to do anything but get dressed and attend doctor appointments.  She sleeps most of the time, and says she is surprised every morning to see that she has actually woken up alive.  She is miserable, frightened, and physically destroyed, and in emotional and physical anguish beyond the telling of it.  She is embarrassed about how much weight she has gained from the prednisone, and has a hard time going out even when she feels up to it.  She can’t work, will most likely never be able to work again, and is trying to get on disability.  But the average time to process a disability claim is something like 2 years in Oregon, and getting doctors to stay on top of the paperwork and write the requisite forms is hard enough when you are more-or-less functioning, and nearly impossible when you are not. 

The Family Dynamic

My sister and my mom, when they talk, mostly fight, because that is what they do, it is what they have always done.  They have both been resentfully dependent on one another for a very, very long time.  They don’t know how to talk to each other with any of the empathy or compassion that they are able to summon for other people.  There have been power struggles and frustration and manipulation, and enough tears to fill the sea.  Everyone is angry that no one is doing anything, but neither one of them can see that they are ALL incapacitated in one form or another, and are doing as much as they can.  It’s not enough, but it’s not for sheer lack of effort or desire.  They just can’t, and currently, they aren't speaking at all, even when the only thing we need to be able to help them, is for them to communicate and get on the same page.

My nieces and nephew are doing their best to take care of my sister and to take care of themselves.  They want to stay near their mom, and help her, provide her comfort, and keep her from worrying.  They are 21, 17, and 15 right now.  The oldest is struggling with her own issues, is not working and due to mental health issues, may frankly not be emotionally capable of working as things are.   She is also planning to have a major surgery in the next few months; I have no idea how that is going to work, and I fear that it’s a bad idea, but she is adamant.  I am exercising diplomacy here and not saying any more about it.

The youngest two are in free-fall, struggling to stay in school, not knowing what to do or how to help.   They keep the household running, prepare meals for themselves, do the laundry, take the trash out, try to keep things (kind of) tidy.  They could of course live with us, they will never be homeless and we would be happy to have them, and to be able to help THEM and let them be kids, but we don’t have room for everyone  even in our giant, weird house  (my sister and her oldest would have to stay with my mom at Grandma Nick’s house, so they also have a theoretical place to go, but it would put everyone in very tight quarters,) and the kids don’t want to leave their mom in such distress.

The kids right now are panicking because all they know for sure is that their mom is desperately ill and they are in danger of losing their home.  We don’t know if there is any way we can save it, which leaves them and their mom, and by extension them, without a place to live (again, this how they perceive it, because they can’t even THINK about leaving their mom under these conditions; we’ve talked to them about it, and it’s just not something their brains can hold). 

We thought, a few months ago, before we knew about the taxes, that we had something figured out that would work, that we could take out a personal loan to keep them afloat temporarily, and help my mom get her house refinanced, but then the problem was revealed to be exponentially bigger than we knew, refinancing is off the table, my mom is having a hard time following through on the bare minimum paperwork things that SHE and only she can do, and so we had to tell them “now we don’t know.”  Apparently having some hope and having that hope taken away was worse for my sister, at least, than not having any hope to begin with, so although we are still working very hard to find solutions, I am afraid to say so until anything is certain.

The kids are doing what they can, more than kids should ever have to do, and are trying their best to go through the mountains of stuff at the house looking for things they can sell.  They want to have a garage sale, to make some extra money to maybe help with the mortgage, or maybe set aside in case they do end up needing to find a new place to live with their mom, and to try and reduce the volume of stuff in the house that needs dealt with at some point, one way or another.  I honestly believe there is enough stuff in the way of sewing machines, fabric, records, collectible glass, etc. that we could sell enough to cover my mom’s back mortgage payments.  We all think that, and the kids are over there right now trying to figure it out.

But they’re kids, they’re scared, and they don’t know what to do, or how to do it, and the volume of STUFF in that house is so overwhelming.  (There is a subtheme in the family of hoarding: hoarding books, video games, movies, sewing machines, fabric, art glass, tools, etc. Everyone, my dad included, chose a genre or two of things to hoard, and just really went all-in on it.)  I am overwhelmed by it, and I don’t even live in it.  I get ambitious, and I go over there to look around and try to figure out where to start, what there is (there are, for example FOUR different sets of snow tires, only one of which is for a car that anyone still owns,) what we’re authorized to get rid of, what is easy to get rid of, and about 15 minutes in, my chest starts to tighten up, and I feel like I can’t breathe, because of the enormity of the situation, because I don’t know what’s what, because people chime in and say they were hoping to save X, Y, and Z, because of the tragedy of my sister’s condition, because my mom thinks everything is worth more than we could sell it for, because of the state of the house that my daddy put so much work into, because of the memories good and bad that I have in that place, at the thought of liquidating all of my daddy’s stuff, of losing the house that’s the last testament to him, of my mom possibly ending up with NOWHERE to live, if she’s not careful, and the room starts to go black, and I have to leave to keep from screaming or crying or passing out, because the last thing anyone needs is another person breaking down right now, and I’m no good to anyone like that. 

But nothing is getting done that needs to get done.  It just feels so futile, sometimes: can we really sell of a couple of small things here and a couple of small things there, and have any hope of saving the house?  There are so many small things that it seems like it should be doable, and a few larger things that would make a much bigger dent, and make it even easier: some broken down cars with intact bodies that could at least be sold for parts, a couple of very expensive sewing machines if we could only find a buyer, some really fancy power tools still new and in the box, enough fabric to costume an entire Broadway production.  Logically, it seems doable, but just, how, how, how can we ever hope to get it done with my husband and I being the only intact, semi-functioning grown-ups, and a bunch of teenager assistants, several of who are in severe emotional distress, all of whom need to be working on school for at least another few weeks?

THE CALL FOR HELP:

The thing that pushed me over into breaking my silence, breaking “the rules,” and speaking up about this is that my nephew is, right now, as we speak, going through and getting ready to sell off ALL of his Magic cards to help.  And I mean, staying up all night frantically scanning cards, trying to figure out what he has and how to sell it, every single card except his best commander deck that we won’t let him sell. 

And that is the nice thing about having a collectible hobby; when times get tough, you can sell your toys to pay the bills.  But HE’S A FREAKING KID, and he’s doing this in a panicked, frantic state, literally doing the only thing he can think of to try to help save his mom and save his home, and it shouldn’t have to be like this.  This is not OK, and we, the grownups, have to do better.

I honestly didn’t even realize how much I was still trying to play this broken game, according to this ridiculous, toxic set of rules, until I saw how stressed he was, and realized that of all of the things I have tried, I never once asked anyone else for help, or even advice, because I wasn’t supposed to for reasons both unspoken and explicit, and for some reason, it turns out, I’m apparently also terrified of my mom’s anger and disapproval to the point of dysfunction and self-destruction.  GO FUCKING FIGURE.  (Oh, God, ow.  I literally didn’t realize that was what was going on until just this moment.  I really hope I’m not doing this to my own kids…)

So, ANYWAY, sorry for the distraction. The important question, here, is there any way you can help?

UNREASONABLE FANTASY REQUEST:

I don’t expect, and I’m not really asking for, someone to swoop in and bail my mom out with a loan.  I mean, if you can, and you’re willing, that would be amazing and I would make her accept it, even though it would hurt her pride (there is so much more on the line than pride here, which is why I’m even mentioning it,) and there is no way I could guarantee you’d be repaid until my grandma passes away and her house gets sold and her estate is resolved, which could be months, but knowing grandma, could be years, could be never.  If anyone was unexpectedly immortal, it would be her.  I would also help ensure that you had a proper promissory note, and that the money got directly to the bank where it needs to go, and didn’t get diverted to any one of the short-term minor emergencies that will certainly arise in the next hours/weeks/days, as they continually do.  (For various reasons that I am diplomatically not explaining, none of these people can handle the responsibility of cash.) I absolutely do NOT expect that to happen, but times are tough, and I’m not above throwing it out there as a possibility.

REALISTIC, ACTUAL REQUEST:

What I really need, though, and am hoping that there are people out there who could possibly help with this, is going through The Stuff and liquidating things to come up with the funds my mom needs to get caught up on the mortgage and start dealing with the IRS.  Grandma Nick wants a bunch of her extra furniture and stuff sold, my mom’s house is a dragon’s hoard full of every kind of randomness.  But I suck at commerce, I get overwhelmed trying to figure out the best way to sell various things, how much to ask, etc., and garage sales blend together commerce and social anxiety in a way that gives me hives, and I am utterly overwhelmed and defeated right now and I don’t know where to start. 

• Even some assistance formulating, and following up with me occasionally to see that I am stick with a PLAN of action would be an amazing piece of help.  I do this for other people in my job all the time.  I apparently am not capable of doing it to myself.

• If you are willing or able to come over and help sell stuff, I’d be happy to give you a cut of whatever we get.  Like I keep trying to tell everyone, any amount of money is more than the no money you currently have, going through and selling this stuff is a lot of work, and I don’t know many people who can afford to work without getting some kind of compensation for their time.

• Advice would even help: is there anyone out there who could help me start going through this, or who can at least give me some advice on how to sell stuff like Fenton art glass, and tons of fabric? 

• Physical organization/mental health solidarity would also help.  Does anyone have the time or energy to meet me over at one of the houses some time, and spend an afternoon helping me pull stuff out that we can sell and getting it ready?  Or, do you want to help me throw the mother of all yard sales?  Like, how do I even advertise a yard sale so we can sell some of this collectible stuff to the people who would be interested in it?  I don’t know how to do these things properly, and I have a hard time doing things I don’t know how to do right.

• Do you know how to sell busted cars, because we’ve got a Mustang and an SUV that are both not running, but at least have some value in parts, and so forth?  How about snow tires, and random old card parts for a Pontiac my dad was going to fix up one day, but didn't get the chance.

• How about records, does anyone know the best way to sell a bunch of LPs, like Beatles, Sgt. Peppers with the original cutouts and everything?  Or sewing machines? Or a welding tank?  Or freaking horse tack?  (My mom still has Roy Tan’s saddle and tack in her garage; Roy Tan was the horse she had when I was a baby that was sold when I was three because he bit me.  WHY DO WE STILL HAVE HIS SADDLE IN THE GARAGE?!?)  Hyperventilating now . . . let me get it reigned (ha ha) back in.

• Does anyone know any reliable antique pickers who’d be able to look through the antique tools that daddy salvaged from my grandpa’s shops?

• Do you by chance just want to buy a bunch of Fenton art glass, random horse tack, antique tools, and random fabric?   Because I can also help you out there.  Are there agencies or people who do this stuff, and do you know any who are reliable?

I don’t know how to think about it or get started, or get organized or anything, but I feel like if I had even just a little bit of help from people who aren’t so painfully emotionally invested in the stuff and the situation, that we might be able to get some traction, and once we do, it might feel less futile and overwhelming, and make it easier to keep going.

I don’t know.  I don’t know what help exactly to ask for, because I don’t know what is reasonable to ask, so I’m just generally asking for help.

I’ll also take advice, but (no offense, this is frustration over how many dozens of fruitless phone calls I’ve made) before you say “I think there are agencies that will help with that, have you called x?”.   I probably have, but go ahead and mention them, and I’ll add them to the list just in case I’ve missed one.  I lost track of exactly how many different agencies I’ve been in contact with, after it got to the point that they started just referring me back to try places that I had already talked to.  I called every kind of senior services, adult assistance, mortgage help, whatever aid agency you can think of at the local, county, and state level. 

We also talked to a lawyer, we talked to an accountant, we talked to a real estate agent and a mortgage broker, I even crossed a line and consulted my LSAT students, because one of them is a tax-law professional, and some have connected parents who know things, and the answer has overwhelmingly been the same: My mom makes just enough money to not qualify for any kind of low-income or age-related assistance, there is no way she’s getting out of her taxes, but a lawyer could make the IRS leave her alone, she can’t refinance the mortgage, at least until she gets out of hoc and stays that way for an entire year, she doesn’t meet the conditions for an involuntary conservatorship or anything like that, and above all, with housing prices as they are, the number of people with their housing at risk, and the amount of equity she has in her house, it’s in everyone’s best interests for us to move mountains, if we have to, to keep her from losing her stupid. 

The problem is that moving mountains seems pretty easy compared with what we have to do.  Give me a mountain to move, I’ll damn sure get it moved.  Ask me to sell off a dragon’s hoard, though, and I can’t even start. 

And lastly, I’m sorry.  This is the first time I’ve even been able to talk about it openly in any kind of coherent sense, because I feel guilty talking about it, there is too much to explain in a passing conversation, it’s a pretty gigantic freaking downer, and it’s also hard to even organize my thoughts around what all is at stake, to just lay it all out to see how bad it really is.  But there, it’s all laid out, now, and it seems a little less overwhelming than it did before, so maybe, if nothing else, I’ve managed to help myself a bit so I can function better.  At the expense of my family’s honor and pride, of course, but honor and pride got us all here, and it doesn’t seem to be getting us out…

Thank you for reading, if you’ve kept at it this long.  If nothing else, it helps not feeling all alone with this, and having it out of my head.  -sigh-  Maybe now I can get some stuff done.

*The first rule of the codependent, dysfunctional family is that you do not speak about the codependent, dysfunctional family to anyone outside of the family.  You don’t tell people what’s going on at home, you keep your friends away from your house, you don’t bring shame on the family by exposing their behavior, and above all, you don’t risk other people pointing out to you that, “hey, you know that’s not how other families work, right?  You don’t ‘have to’ keep playing this game if you don’t want to.”  But if it never even occurs to you to ask “is this normal?” and compare notes with people on the outside, you just grow up assuming it is, marry someone from the same type of family, teach it to your kids, and the cycle repeats…