for some people, dealing with a family member's guilt tripping/shaming or the fights that come from a 'no,' is literally worse than death. they wld rather die of covid than say no.

i know this bcz i was that person for the longest time, and i read lots and lots of books on it, so i know i'm by far, not the only one.

there's an entire field (not sure if that's the right word) that connects autoimmune illnesses and chronic illnesses to 'family.'

i think that people who are posting well meaning 'show ur family u love them by staying home' are well meaning, but perhaps assuming a lot about the state of 'family' in the US.

when the body says no gabor mate is an esp good book that i highly recommend. if ur interested in exploring stuff like that.

bessel van der kolk's book, The Body Keeps the Score
Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, takes it from a slightly different perspective than mate's book, but it is also another excellent book that i highly recommend.

it's a hard thing to explain to people that have loving families. but imagine if you have a dad (or parents) like ted cruz, connecting guns/violence to family obedience and loyalty to 'do it my way or the highway.'

do you think that thanksgiving is the only time that people like ted cruz would act like that? nope. they do that shit all day every day for lifetimes. so kids (for example) who are raised in that mess-

may not want to go to the required thanksgiving misery, and they get sick every single thanksgiving from stress of it all. but they will never ever say 'no.'

bcz to say no, kicks you out of the 'group.' it denies you love u so desperately want, and that biology has told you (rightfully so) since u were a small child that you need to survive. how will u survive w/o that love? w/o that group?

it takes a ton of work to rearrange ur brain and life and mouth so you can finally say 'no.' and as both of those books i pointed to show repeatedly--there are some people, that literally die before they feel able to say no.

so maybe the better message might be 'release your family from the obligation of the holidays' rather than 'show ur family u love them by not going.'

either way, i feel like the entire 'don't travel you stupid fucks' conversation around thanksgiving is unbelievably weird--pre-covid, everybody during this time would be talking abt and acknowledging the misery of families/holidays.

this year **nobody** is talking about it (excepting people like @CAwkward, who are always sure to acknowledge the truth of people's lives).

saying 'no' to families is always hard, but this year w/trump inflammation riling up the 'family' base and 'family' being the new way to 'prove' sides-- 'no' got ten thousand times harder, esp for people still struggling w/boundaries and trauma.

i mean, we've had to confront unhealthy bullshit in every other aspect of our lives in this post-covid world. i guess we might as well get real about how unhealthy nuclear families are incapable of handling pandemics in a healthy way.

just like our health system is not set up to deal with a pandemic, our family units are similarly set up for failure. healthy family units are good public health policy. how can we confront/heal our family units?