Holidays and vacations
Last time on Choosing Peace, we started exploring Special Days—the sabotage and the blessings. Today you’ll read about a comedian, a mysterious caller, and hunting season.
The shadow and the light
Special Days are a big deal—birthdays, vacations, certain holidays, etc. A very big deal. When someone ruins them, we’re seriously hurt. The memories stay with us. The abuse looms like a large shadow over future events. It’s depressing when you can’t look forward to Special Days. It feels like you have nothing to look forward to. What can we do to protect our Special Days? Receive the Lord’s blessings on Special Days and employ wise strategic planning.
What do I mean when I say Receive the Lord’s blessings? It means—acknowledge each blessing, receive it with gratitude, and give God the glory. Praise him. Thank him. And tell people what God did for you. That reminds me of this sweet children’s hymn we used to sing at my grandparents’ church in Mississippi. I sang it in my SUV one day last week on my way to St. Matt’s. Sweet.
Can God shower us with blessings on our Special Days? Let’s see. Last year on our anniversary, I received two lovely gifts from people who had no idea that it was my anniversary—and both gifts were yellow, my favorite color. Remember from part 1: God is in the details. One of the ladies on the Flower Team at St. Matt’s left a beautiful arrangement of yellow flowers on my desk. Later that morning, one of the members stopped by, hoping to give away some of his father’s books. Guess what I found in his pile? A book of Jonathan Edwards’ sermons. Old. Smelled like my grandpa’s books. Yellow. Absolutely amazing. Thanks be to God, who said loud and clear: Frankie Ann, Happy Anniversary to you! I love you.
God sees me. God knows me. God loves me.
Higher and better
In part 1, I shared my birthday blessings from last month—remarkable gifts from God. On some Special Days, God pours out his blessings in personal and memorable ways. On other Special Days, he says, “My grace is sufficient for you.” In other words: Revel in my love—in what Jesus did and continues to do for you. Lay down your expectations and disappointments, and be at peace. I am here. I. Am. Here.
Be blessed by this prayer from Ephesians 3. As I read that prayer today, the words immeasurably more stood out to me. Immeasurably more.
Beginning the trips
In part 1, I described how I started using strategic planning to protect myself from Special Day Sabotage. Part of my strategic planning involved special trips. Brandon doesn’t like traveling. I love it. So instead of missing out on something that brings me great joy, I decided to start planning my own trips. It started with my Writing Retreat on Labor Day weekend, a week before my 60th birthday.
Glen Rose
Later in September, my friend Cynthia and I took an overnight trip to my favorite small town—Glen Rose, Texas. We stayed in a wonderful historic cottage, ate in the beautiful dining room, and yakked late into the night. To me, an overnight trip equals a mini-vacation. It’s a big deal—something I really look forward to.
The next morning, our friend Millie joined us for breakfast, a visit to Fossil Rim and much more. What a great time. Laughter. Good food. Good friends. And the glory of God’s amazing creation.
A comedy show
Early this month, my pal Charlene sent me a video of comedian Leanne Morgan. I totally cracked up. Her three upcoming shows in Fort Worth were sold out, so Charlene suggested the February show in Wichita Falls. How perfect is that? It gives us something to look forward to. It gives us a road trip. It gives us an overnight stay. It gives Frankie Ann something she loves to do—the gift of travel. And it gives me at least partial protection from Special Day Sabotage. The comedy show is the week of Valentine’s Day. I told Brandon that it’s my Valentine’s Day gift to myself. In other words, “I’m making sure my Valentine’s rocks. You can do nothing or ignore it if you want, but I’m making it special.”
Since my Valentine’s announcement was in close succession to my Brandon-free Birthday Plans, he did the math and mentioned that I’m making Special Day plans without him. I said, “Valentine’s Day is actually on Wednesday that week. You’re free to take me out for a nice dinner if you want.” Translation: “My plans do not preclude you from doing something thoughtful for me; but—given our history—I’m not waiting around anymore or relying on you. I’ll make my Special Days special—or God will.”
Return of the queen
Why do some people sabotage Special Days? See the section called Truth Revealed in part 1. For much more, read the Sociopaths series. Here are some bigger questions.
Can we break generational traumas?
Generational curses?
Absolutely—with God’s help—
and with truth, wisdom and courage.
Generational traumas and curses are often vividly displayed before, during and after holidays and other Special Days. Those times of the year can be particularly revealing and hurtful. Until they aren’t.
The mysterious caller, the weapon and the timing
Last week, Brandon received a strange voice mail. The mysterious caller didn’t happen to leave his name. Supposedly, something serious, yet not mentioned, was going on with Brandon’s sociopathic mother—Delia, The Destroyer; I mean Her Majesty, the Sadistic Control Freak. Translation: “See the fishing lure dangling in front of your face? It’s moving—colorful and sparkly. Doesn’t it look interesting? Tempting? Aren’t you the least bit curious?” Mystery Man said, “Call me back.” We said: “No way, wack-a-doo.”
That reminds me of this little segment from the first series: “We don’t need to grab the bait. If we do, we’ll wind up with a hook slicing our faces open, choking for air. Never a good scenario for us. Always a Rip-snorting Good Time scenario for the ones doing the fishing—the sociopaths.” As usual, we proceeded with our Secret Weapon: Silence. The Lord is our protector. He gave us our Secret Weapon and so much more. Do you need God’s protection? Read Psalm 91, The Protection Psalm—one of my favorite scriptures. I recite it every morning. To explore this psalm very deeply, I highly recommend Psalm 91 by Peggy Joyce Ruth. (See this Resources page for additional books.)
Back to the strange voice mail. After doing a reverse lookup, Brandon found out that the mysterious caller was his mother’s fairly-new husband. Let’s call him Walter. Surprise, surprise, surprise! I knew my sociopathic mother-in-law was behind the phone call. And Brandon knew the reason for the timing. Why now? What’s coming next month? Thanksgiving. The beginning of The Holiday Season—better known as Hunting Season for people like Delia.
Her majesty’s hunting season
In this post, I described Delia as The Gamemaker from “The Hunger Games.” More specifically, she’s the hunter and we’re the prey. And the hunter hires accomplices—I mean mercenaries—to help accomplish her mission. Her newest accomplice is her husband Walter. But wait! There’s more. Delia’s sister and brother-in-law have been dropping notes to our son Logan via Facebook this year. They’ve never contacted him in his 21 years of life; but all of a sudden, they just can’t wait to hear how he’s doing in college. Right.
Delia’s behind it all because that’s the way she rolls. If she isn’t getting what—or who—she wants with her own tactics, she calls in the reinforcements. And she badgers them until they do what she wants. Hunting Season is in full swing, Peaceful Readers. Her Majesty has wrangled three new accomplices. Wow.
How she looks
Here’s some more about holidays from Portrait of a Sociopath, part 2:
The essential image
I didn’t really get this holiday thing with [my mother-in-law] until Matt, our counselor, said: “If you don’t come, it makes her look bad.” That was a total news flash to me. I knew immediately, though, that he was absolutely right. It’s not that she wants to see us or spend time with us. From her sociopathic point of view, Her Majesty has an image to protect: The Norman Rockwell, We’re A Happy, Normal Family image.
In other words, if we don’t show up at family holiday gatherings, weddings, reunions and so forth, people will wonder why. They’ll ask questions that Her Majesty doesn’t want to answer. She’ll look like she’s lost control over her family cluster….
Of course, when questioned about our absence, Delia will simply lie about us to make us look like the bad guys. That’s the way she rolls. She’s not a big fan of the truth. She prefers a constant, energetic game of I’m Perfect and You’re The Problem. C’est la vie.
The backstory
What made holidays traumatic for Brandon? Plenty. Let’s do an important rewind and repeat from this post in the Sociopaths series.
Christmas chaos
Holidays were even worse [than vacations]—intense drama-fests at regularly-scheduled intervals, with sociopaths spinning around, dramatically declaring how wonderful everything was. As you can imagine, the Christmas Chaos was epic. Shelly—the poster child for Histrionic Personality Disorder—would get up in the middle of the night and open up her brother Brandon’s Christmas presents, re-wrap them, and then tell him everything he was getting before he unwrapped anything. Shelly’s #1 job at Christmas was to be the center of attention and to ruin the day for her brother—the chosen victim in the family.
Stolen gifts and much more
In How a Sociopath’s Victim Feels, part 5, I wrote about sociopaths being thieves. What did Shelly’s emotionally abusive behavior at Christmas steal from Brandon? She stole his joy. She stole his gifts—literally. She was the first to see and touch them, and after Christmas, she routinely broke them. She stole Christmas. Brandon hated Christmas. He really, really did. He dreaded Christmas most of all.
Pomp and circumstance
Did Christmas get better for Brandon after he grew up and we got married? No. Shelly was still Shelly. She just had a larger audience and more victims.
Christmas was the pinnacle of the year for Shelly. You could feel it in the air—the pomp and circumstance; the late, dramatic arrival—so everyone was held hostage, waiting for her to show up; the lengthy monologues about every gift she so painstakingly selected and sacrificially purchased (announcing to everyone in the room what she bought before the “recipient”—I mean victim—opened it); the catty remarks; the attacks; the theatrical display of her large cooler filled with prescription drugs…. Blah, blah, blah.
Basically, she ran the show, demanded everyone’s attention and adoration, stole the day from her audience, and took great pleasure in bombastically ruining the day—especially for Brandon—Target #1.
The impact
So—not surprisingly—Brandon would say every year: “I hate holidays.” “I hate Christmas.” Whenever he’d say those things, I felt sad—for him, for us, for Logan. I didn’t think that would ever change….
Redeeming the days
Yes, indeed—our Special Days can be unpredictable. Here’s an update from the last post:
Brandon grew up in an unbelievably sick and violent place—and he adapted to his environment. The sociopaths molded him. Vacations and holidays were especially bad. Brandon’s made some progress in our 25 years of marriage. He no longer spends several months per year saying “I hate holidays” or “I hate Christmas.” I’m thankful for that. Truly. But he definitely has a long way to go.
Like I mentioned last time, understanding why Brandon sometimes sabotages Special Days doesn’t change the reality for me. We have a serious problem that Brandon has difficulty seeing. I decided to take active steps toward solving the problem so our Special Days can be redeemed. The goal is for our Special Days to truly be days of peace, gratitude and celebration—with joyful anticipation and fond memories, like God intended. (See part 1 for an example of how Logan and I thwarted some attempted Special Day Sabotage.)
Holidays and vacations
Where do we go from here? Since Thanksgiving and Christmas have been peaceful and good for a number of years—praise the Lord—I don’t need to do any strategic planning for those holidays. Heavy sigh. Actually, come to think of it, we did spend last Christmas in the emergency room and opened our presents two days late. Never a dull moment in The Smythe Family. What about next year? Charlene and I have something wonderful planned for the week of Valentine’s and I have plenty of time to come up with something for Mother’s Day.
How about vacations? Brandon has several weeks of vacation coming and routinely mentions his great need for a break, but he hasn’t asked for the time off yet. What’s that about? Ahhh, yes. Like I said: Never a dull moment in The Smythe Family. Will we actually take a vacation this fall? That’s a mystery, known only by God. As they say: “Time will tell.” Thankfully, my Writing Retreat and trips with friends are filling my cup in The Travel Department.
Do you need something to look forward to? What will you schedule by yourself or with a friend?
Encountering Jesus through the word and prayer
If you’ve experienced traumatic Special Days, it might be time to do some strategic planning for the holidays. Drink in the important prayer at the end of part 1.
My favorite Psalm begins like this:
The LORD is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?
Psalm 27:1, New Heart English Bible
Be encouraged and strengthened by the truth of God’s word. Dig into my 12 favorite scriptures.
Pray and ask God what he has for you this Thanksgiving and Christmas. What does he have for you? And remember:
God sees me. God knows me. God loves me.
Coming next: We’ll explore Special Days of serving and renewal. Come back next time.
Thanks for reading and for Choosing Peace.
Truth from The Word: Psalm 63
Song: “My Weapon” by Natalie Grant
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