Woah No No No No Nope Uh-uh No

One of the many (many many many) things that I put up with within my relationship with my boyfriend is that his immediate family is very dramatic.

Now, my family, while being the picture of dysfunction, is actually quite stable and productive. While we rarely talk to each other, we also rarely have loud confrontations. My immediate family is not great at communicating, but tends to rely upon each other for advice and such when absolutely necessary and functions like a mostly well-oiled machine, getting shit done and tolerating each other. 

My darling Technicolor Boy, however, comes from a family of crazy. Granted, everyone's family is delightfully crazy in their own special ways, but when it comes to Technicolor Boy's family, it's like, hard core soap opera crazy. It is a diagnostic psychologist's dream, a veritable cornucopia of behavioral and emotional disorders.

Side note: in case anyone from this family actually ends up reading this at some point, bear in mind that I can think what I'd like and that you and only you can identify yourselves as the subjects of this post. You are not being publicly humiliated. I am simply airing out my frustrations, which is healthy and constructive, and if you doubt a single observation that I make, perhaps you ought to look critically and clinically at yourselves and maybe actually seek help. Not to be insulting or anything, I truly respect you all as individuals. I just have to point this shit out...  

I, frankly, derive a small amount of enjoyment from observing the dynamics of the family and from assessing each individual's personality flaws. It should be noted that I am so NOT an expert and am so NOT trying to out anyone here. I am just morbidly fascinated and I feel like I can apply my fairly developed psychological knowledge to analyzing each of their personalities.

They are all such textbook cases:

Dad - Family patriarch and bacon-bringer. Having mid-life crisis due to recent death of his mother. Feels lost and unneeded, trying to decide what he truly wants in life. Tends to sit back and let everyone do their thing. Would recommend humanistic psychological help to aid in attaining self actualization in lieu of his mother's death and recognition of his own advancing age.

Mom - Family matriarch. Far more sympathetic to the 'needs' of her children, is always looking to buy something for them or give them money because the tend to ignore her otherwise. Slight alcoholic, enjoys making drunken late-night phone calls to her children because she feels lonely and obsolete now that they only seem to need her for money. Would recommend volunteering in order to feel needed along with art therapy or some sort of expressive hobby to engage emotional releases in a healthy and constructive way.

Eldest son - Strayed from the family in order to pursue a career as an artist. Is amazingly talented and his career is finally picking up speed, however, he tends to use his blooming career as leverage during arguments in order to make his siblings feel under accomplished and stupid. This is likely due to feelings of personal shame and fear of weakness and being useless. Flouts his ego as a defense mechanism in order to avoid feeling that he, like some of his siblings, is going nowhere in life.  Does not associate closely with the rest of the family. Has one child, who is very cute and well taken care of by his girlfriend, who is not the child's legitimate mother.

Eldest daughter - Borderline personality disorder at its finest, she is a volatile combination of utter charm, extremely low self-esteem, and complete lust for attention. She derives her self-worth based upon the attention that she is receiving at any given point, probably due to feeling that attention was drawn away from her as a child due to the births of her younger siblings and that she will be forgotten or lost because her parents no longer focused on only her. Acts manically when she feels wanted and praised, becomes a pathological liar during manic stages to keep the attention high going, to the point where she begins to believe her own stories and has created almost an alternate persona for social situations. Likes it when things go her way, selfish and highly manipulative tendencies, likes to guilt-trip as a way to gain ends while simultaneously garnering sympathy for herself as a victim, which feeds her ever starving ego. During depressive stages, she is self-destructive, viciously mean, and spreads her suffering to others as a coping mechanism. Tends to resort to histrionics when she feels desperately unnoticed.  Has exhibited episodes of Munchausen syndrome and Munchausen's by proxy. Would recommend SSRI antidepressants, lithium as a mood stabilizer, cognitive therapy to restructure her thoughts concerning herself, a hobby or intense job to fill her time and provide her some purpose, and complete avoidance of any psychoanalytic therapy as it would likely trigger a manic episode (super liar mode).

Youngest daughter - A flawless case of unmitigated major depression, sharing many of the same low self-esteem issues as her older sister. Seeks self worth and affirmation through the approval of peers, which leads to crime and lack of work or productivity. Tends to conform. Has a history of abusive boyfriends likely due to craving male affection at any cost and feeling as though she deserves the abuse, along with a fear of losing one who 'truly loves' her. Has one child (aka an automatic unconditional love machine which feeds her need to be affirmed as needed/wanted), who is not well taken care of, and another on the way who was fathered by an abusive boyfriend. Would recommend intense cognitive therapy blended with humanistic techniques to promote own self worth so that she stops seeking approval from all the wrong places.

Youngest son (my boyfriend) - Intensely shy and easily overwhelmed. Avoids all confrontation of emotion due to significant depression. Has low self-worth and occasional depressive episodes, but self regulates by distracting himself by working, hobbies, and trying to constantly be surrounded by friends (and not alone with his thoughts). Gets discouraged very easily due to intense feelings of inadequacy in comparison to his older brother and father. Seeks happiness through purpose and success, deeply craves acceptance. Acts aloof and apathetic as a defense mechanism to mask deeper feelings of craving love and wanting to be needed. Would recommend psychoanalytic therapy to decipher roots of his inadequacy issues and to soften defensive behavior; prime candidate for hypnosis.

And scene. I am not a psychologist, but I think I want to be.

The moral of the story is, with all of the depressive personalities thrown together in one household, especially when the strong personalities belonging to the two eldest siblings rear their ugly sides, there is a constant flow of drama. It fluctuates depending on who's in whose house (please enjoy that brief moment of accurate grammar) and even as one who does their best to stay as far the fuck out of everything that I can, I cannot help but become completely exhausted by it all, even as an observer.

The issue now is that as I get closer and closer with my boyfriend, his family is beginning to lump me into their shenanigans, just as every significant boyfriend/spouse has gotten roped in. I have been able to successfully and deftly handle everything that they've thrown at me so far, but I fear bigger things on the horizon. The main thing is that the mother, whom I like and respect very much, likes me a lot due to the fact that I am educated, financially independent, and pay attention to her emotions when she expresses them to me instead of writing them off as theatrics.

I just don't want either of the daughters to isolate me as threat to them in the attention department (subconsciously; consciously, they'd likely find a personal flaw to capitalize upon or emphasize) and then victimize and/or villainize me as a response. I really like everyone in the family--at least, none of them have given me a reason to dislike them yet--and I don't want to be smeared, or have my boyfriend punished for being associated with me.

On the other side of that coin, I really, really, REALLY do not want any of their drama to spill into my life any more than the few times it has. I have my own life to live and unless my boyfriend decides to become my fiance (which is extremely unlikely and will stay that way, thank you very much), they really have no business drawing me into the toxic black hole of drama that they have cultivated for themselves.


My recently adopted response to any sort of drama that has even flicked a slimy tendril in my direction has been to ignore it and move rapidly onward with my life. I have shit to do!! Unfortunately, the eldest daughter, whom my boyfriend is on very sour terms with, has decided that she wants to date one of our roommates. From what I can tell so far, they've been contacting each other for a while behind my boyfriend's back. I personally don't care. If my roommate wants to stick his dick in crazy, he can go for it. She is nice and I like her, but I know what she will do the second she feels like we aren't paying enough attention to her.  I know for a fact that my boyfriend is very not okay with one of his good friends trying to date his sibling whom he love/hates. I can predict a shit storm coming our way because of all of this.

Nope. I am not dealing with this. Nope nope nope. No.


Julia