The reason I post this is because I truly want others to be honest in their relationships.  I hope my experience will help others open up to their families and test their own theories about how voluntary their relationships are.

Since I was young I have had a strong desire to practice what I preach, so when I discovered market anarchy or volunteerism (with the help of my girlfriend and FDR) I started to realize that the only way to practice what I preached was to maintain my positive and honest relationships and dissolve the negative dishonest relationships in my life.  The book that began to get my mind stirring about this idea of really living your values was On Truth, The Tyranny of Illusion.  The warning in the front of the book truly sent a wave of anxiety through me:  ”From a short-term, merely practical standpoint, you really do not want to read this book. This book will mess up your life, as you know it”.  I pushed forward, despite my anxiety, curious as to how a book could do such a thing.  The warning was accurate.  My life had been turned upside down, or more accurately, right side up.

After reading On Truth, I was skeptical that my own parents would react poorly when I wanted to speak about myself and my experience as a child.  I was nervous about approaching them about being an atheist anarchist and speak openly about my feelings.  I was afraid they would reject who I was and that I would not want them in my life any longer.  So, nearly a year ago I went to go visit them for Christmas and on the plane ride over I decided that it was now or never to be open and honest with my parents and see what happened.

Fortunately I recorded my thoughts immediately after I had my first honest conversation with them.  Below is what happened on Christmas Eve last year.  I have inserted commentary in italics in between paragraphs since I now have a better perspective on what happened that night.

12/25/2007

I thought about it the entire plane ride over.  I had to be honest with my parents.  I was tired of the anxiety and depression I felt every time I came to California to visit them, and it was time to stretch my new found skills in talking about how I felt.  I wasn’t sure when I wanted to lay my heart on my sleeve immediately, but for some reason I couldn’t wait until after Christmas.

I sat in the bathtub at my parents house for an hour debating whether I should bring up my past with them.  I was very scared but overcame the fear when I thought about spending another year without being honest.

I started with a fairly innocuous confession (compared to the honesty storm to come) by telling my parents that I was a full blown anarchist.  I told them that I was against violence in this world and my entire philosophy in life spawned from that idea (non-aggression principle).  They seemed fairly open and curious about my idea and asked me how I expected it to happen.  Well, that’s when I got to the root.  I told them that I thought it would get done by demonstrating anarchy in my own life.  I would raise a family with kids who had the chance to grow up with ideas outside of the normal things that you are taught in state schools.

I realize now that I wanted them to be open and curious, but I clearly remember the pure cynicism in their eyes when I announced I was an anarchist.

They asked me some questions that seemed to invite me to share some personal experiences I had with them as parents.  I said, “This is all going to sound a little weird for Christmas Eve conversion, but I think I want to go here…”  I asked my mom outright, “What did you feel, honestly, when you found out I was an atheist last year?”  My mom replied, “I am ok with it.”  I asked again, “But really, how did you feel?”  My mom said carefully, “I respected your decision but felt disappointed, but hopeful that one day you’d change your mind.”  I felt quite angry at hearing that because it was an attack on my intelligence, as if my decision to become an atheist was whimsical. We then got into a quick discussion about the existence of god, and how it was illogical believe in one, but ultimately it came down to “faith”.  I explained how faith is the absence of logic (since they insisted on continuing a logical debate) but they disagreed with no real reason to why faith was not the absence of logic.  I felt very frustrated with this interaction and decided to shift gears.

I think it was smart of me to disengage from this conversation because if my parents refused to use logic, there was no point in continuing the debate.

I told them about how I started to become an atheist.  I told them it was because they lied to me about Santa, and that led to me thinking that they lied about god as well.  I told them how this hurt me to find out that my parents lied to me, and yet told me it was bad to lie.  I told them this was one of the roots of my constant mistrust in their morality as they forced it upon me.  My mother became very upset and began to cry and yell.  She yelled through her tears, “Why do you have to do this to us on Christmas eve!?”  I told her that I was feeling sad because I felt like she was trying to make me feel guilty for opening up my feelings.  Then my sister came out of her room, in tears, and said, “Why did you have to tell mom and dad that horrible story on Christmas eve?!  That’s so mean!”  It broke my heart to see my sister fall trap to the same manipulation my mother used against me my whole life: guilt.

I didn’t become an atheist until I was in college, but the thought of them lying to me about Santa stuck with me for my entire life.  I remember that I even used to pray to Santa when I was young and try to get him to see that I wasn’t a bad boy and deserved gifts.

My mom calmed down and my sister joined us at the dining room table.  I asked my mom why she was so concerned about me talking about these things on Christmas Eve.  She told me that so many horrible things happened in her childhood on Christmas Eve that she did not want another one ruined.  I told her this hurt me, because I was really trying to open up and figure out my childhood, and probably got it off to a rough start.  I wanted to try again if she was ready.  She said that she was very hurt and said that tonight’s conversation was going to hurt her for weeks.  I cried and told her that it hurt me that she was trying to guilt me into stopping this conversation.  I said it was important to me and figuring out my life.  She said she couldn’t help the way she felt and was just practicing the same honesty of emotions that I was.  I told her that the difference is that she is the mother and I am the kid and I need to do this to figure myself out.  She said she would selflessly do it for me.  This made me very angry because I could tell that she was just using guilt again to try to get me to sympathize with her.

I remember that my mom “calmed down” because my dad said something to her that seemed to scare her.  All I can remember is that it seemed like some sort of warning that I would leave the family if she didn’t sit down and discuss this. It gives me chills to realize that he knew exactly what the end result of this conversation was destined to be.

I started to explain to her that I had been really soul searching for the past 3-4 months and had done a lot of reading and that this was my next step to figuring out why I do what I do.  I asked her why she was not curious to what I am going through, and she said it was painful to try to think of the past.  She felt like I was attacking her parenting skills.  I told her that I was questioning them, and telling her what I felt and I wanted to know what she felt and what her experience of each situation was.  I told her it would be painful to do this, but I really needed her to do this to help me understand my childhood better.  During this time my dad was fairly distant.  He spoke up a few times, mainly to try to calm my mom down.  My mom wondered why I focused on her and not my dad.  I told her that it was because she was the one that was in charge most of the time.  My dad was just on the sidelines supporting her moves.  She said I was right and we moved on.  I told her that I wanted to talk about things that happened when I was really young.  I told her how horrible school was and how I remembered certain abusive teachers.  She went on the defensive and gave a long speech about how she did everything possible to make sure that I was raised right.  She cited parenting books, classes, and many different experiences she had that were hard for her.  She told me that she devoted her entire life to raising me and that all of her energy went into it.  She admitted to being overprotective and overbearing and wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing.  She remembered getting frustrated with me when I would come home faking sick.  I was shocked to hear her admit this and I asked her if she remembered getting frustrated directly to me when this happened.  She admitted it and said she regretted that she ever got frustrated with me. She went on to tell me how she constantly asked me what was happening at school, trying so hard to figure out why I had hypochondriac tendencies.  She recalled the problems I had with a lunch lady, but could not get it out of me why I was so afraid of her.  She knew I was afraid of her and arranged for me to have lunch in the teacher’s lounge.  She also had me go to the school councilor daily.  I told her that I was scared to death of the lunch lady.  I told her how she would literally starve the lunch room when the other kids would become too loud.  My mom was shocked to hear this and asked me why I didn’t tell her this when I was young.  I told her it was because I was just a kid, and I was scared, and had no way of expressing how horrible it was.  I then recalled the stomach pains that were caused by this hunger that probably led to me thinking that I was sick.  She recalled that I continued to come home sick even after I no longer had to eat lunch near the lunch lady.  I wondered why I continued to be sick after that and just now remembered that I even had a hard time eating in the teachers lounge because of that insistent fear.

I also remember my mom threatening military school if I didn’t stop coming home sick.  It’s still sort of a vague memory but I remember it scaring the hell out of me.

We talked more, I cried and my mom cried.  My sister and dad got teary eyed.  We talked about more experiences and my mom seemed more open to talking.  She kept bringing up that she did the best she could as a mom, and was sorry that I felt so bad about these different school experiences.  We touched upon at least 3 different major traumas that I can remember in my childhood, all of them had to do with school.  We got back on the subject of Santa Claus and I asked her, “Knowing what you know about how scared Santa made me, and how mad I was that you lied to me, would you do anything different if you could go back in time?”  She said, “Yes.  I would not do that to you gain.”  We talked about this more and I told her that she probably should have just told me the truth, and told me it was a fun game if she wanted it to be fun (because she kept insisting that she just wanted it to be a fun thing for me).  I still felt angry about it because I do not believe it was all in fun (and she obviously wasn’t getting it if she kept repeating how “fun” it was).  There were still threats about not getting presents if I was “bad”.

She would say she wouldn’t do it again and then deny that it was wrong.  Complete, infuriating, contradiction.

I then talked about wanting to go into therapy.  Her instant angry and somewhat sarcastic response was, “They’ll just make you hate us!”  I told her that made me sad that she did not trust me to make my own decisions about her parenting.  She told me that she had fears about therapists since her “crazy sister” is a therapist.  I told her that the reason I was bringing up all of these issues with her first is because I wanted her perspective before I even set foot in a therapists office.  I wanted the full story about these different incidents, from her perspective.   I also told her that I wanted to be honest with my sisters as well.  I then turned my attention to my sister who had joined the convo.

Very telling reaction.

I asked her how it felt when my other sister and I would tease her.  She started to say that she thought it was all just fun but then she said it was annoying sometimes.  I insisted that she talked more about it but she insisted that it all just seemed like some sort of natural brother/sister game.  I told her that I teased her out of malice and that I felt bad about it.  I told her that I did not like that my mom favored her over us.  She said not to feel guilty about it, because she didn’t see it that way.  I told her that it was not right to feel ok about us mentally abusing her.  I told her that she should feel something more than just brotherly love over that.  In hindsight I wish I had have just been curious towards her rather than tell her how she should have felt.  She told me that it was OK and said not to feel guilty.  I told her that I was glad that I didn’t hurt her (but looking back I really don’t think she was truly accessing her emotions).  I then told my mom that I didn’t like the way she treated us differently but then insisted that we were treated equally.  She denied that she ever said this, but then my sister confirmed that she used to say that she treated us equally.  My mom then said, “Well what should I have done?”  I said, “Been honest about how you treated us.  Not lied to us.”  My mom defensively said that she didn’t lie.  We then talked more about Santa and how that was or wasn’t a lie.  She still doesn’t see it as a lie, but sees it as something that she would change.  I felt frustrated with this but could see I was getting no where with the definition of “lie”.

I regret not talking to my sister more about her experience and wish I had not have told her what she should feel.

We talked about morality which quickly shifted into a discussion of love.  I asked my sister and mom how they defined love.  Both denied that you could define it.  I said you could and gave them a quick definition:  shared values.  I asked her, “Why do you love me?”  She said, “Well, I love you because you are my son.  Nothing can change that.  I respect your independence and drive.”  I said, “Isn’t that respect and objective form of love?”  She said, “I dunno if you can define it like that”.  I asked, “Would you love me if I was a crazy murderer?”  She said, “Well you wouldn’t do that, that wouldn’t be you, so I wouldn’t love you for that”.  I said, “Exactly, that’s why you can define love, because you are putting those values of independence and drive above murder.”  She then talked about unconditional love and I was very frustrated that she was just plowing over what I was saying without even a moment of consideration.

This interaction demonstrated how intelligent my mother really is.  She picked up on ethics right away, which showed me that she could have done it at any time during my childhood.  Please Login to read this section of the post.

She then talked about how I am so intense about defining my life and how she could never do that. She said she needs to be able to live in happy little world where god exists and where she has a happy family, a nice home and a kind husband.  She said it was because she had a hard childhood and there were a lot of things that she didn’t want to face or think about.  She said that she is happy and this is enough for her.  I felt sad, because she was probably implying that I was messing with this happy bubble of hers and sad too because I realized she was probably at the point of no return as far as true logic was concerned.

My dad and I got into a discussion about why he did not express his emotions.  He said he just learned how to get over stuff at any early age.  Then my mom told me a story about when  I left home and my sister got married, my dad was really grouchy for weeks.  My mom confronted him about it and he lashed out at her.  He even went so far as to punch a hole in a wall and throw a chair against a wall.  I said, “Dad.  That’s why you need to express your emotions more.”  They all laughed, but I was dead serious.

I experienced the rage of my father’s bottled up emotions a few times.  I think I didn’t  bring those experiences up in this conversation out of fear.

The discussion petered out and I expressed again how important it was to me to figure out my life.  I told them that it was important, because if I ever have kids, I want to give them the best chance at the best life possible.  We talked at length about raising kids and the challenges.  My parents seemed to express that it was more will than smarts that would raise a good kid.  I expressed that an actively curious approach was better and I am determined to prove it.

I am glad I realized then that my drive to better myself was not just for me, but my future children.  This has been an important motivator for me throughout my therapeutic process.

We talked about other issues, such as my ex-girlfriend and repeating nightmares about me moving from California to Ohio.  We also talked about my anxiety attacks and my mom kept insisting that they are genetic and not caused by my childhood experiences.  I found this disconcerting and tried to express that my anxiety was caused by more than that.  She just kept saying that I should look into it.  She said something very disconcerting too.  She told me that she didn’t trust my current girlfriend because she didn’t seem to be very family oriented.  That sent chills through my spine and I felt the manipulation and mistrust of me to start all over again.

My parents saw that my girlfriend had opened my eyes and tried to frame it as manipulation.

Finally I got to the root.  I told her that I was depressed before I came to visit and found that the depression was due to me not wanting to visit.  I told her how my visits were always filled with anxiety.  Last year she guilted me by telling me how I hurt my dad and my sister and herself by hanging out with my friends too much during the holiday vacation.  I told her how bad I felt last year when she guilted me into hanging out with the family.  She said she was sorry for doing that and told me she will try hard to express only her emotions from now on and leave it to my dad and sister to express their own emotions.

She then asked me why I carried around so much emotional baggage and why I let my family effect me with anxiety.  I repeated the examples from my childhood and a few from my teenage years.  My dad repeated how I just have to deal with some issues and certain things just won’t be resolved in my life.  I was very frustrated with this but continued to tell them that this still gave me anxiety and would not fix itself.  They said they would work on being more honest with me on a real time basis, if it would help me.  I also told them that I wanted to talk to my other sister about this and they encouraged it.

The night I wrote this journal entry I felt proud of myself for being honest, but then I felt exhausted and hollowed out.

I spent the rest of the week in California with them avoiding being honest with them any further.  I just lost all will to do so.  They didn’t seem too interested either.  I just feigned happiness and drank away my feelings when I started to get sad.  I couldn’t wait to get back home and be with my girlfriend.

I didn’t speak about this experience to anyone until about a week after I came back from the vacation.  I knew what had happened and wanted to try to frame it as a positive experience.  After reading it again with my girlfriend I realized how much I had learned about my family by having this conversation.  They didn’t want me to be me around them.  Nothing had changed since my childhood.

My parents didn’t call me for three weeks after I got home from this vacation, and I had no desire to call them.  Finally my dad called me asked me why I didn’t call anymore.  I asked him the same question and all he said was, “oh.”  I told him I needed time away from the family to sort my life out.  He said, “Call me when you do, because you know how emotional your mother can be.”

After that day I no longer felt a desire to contact my family.  They tried to contact me once since then with a manipulative letter that helped me feel more closure over the deFOO.  Since then I have gotten into therapy to help me process my past and the rest is history.  I am now much happier and feel more free than I ever have.  I just had the best Thanksgiving of my life because I spent it with people who are honest with me, love and respect me for who I am and what I value, and do not try to manipulate me.  It’s the best freedom in the world and I highly recommend being brave, open and honest with your relationships and let the chips fall where they may.  :)

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