There is nothing like family to make it so crazy and upset people so much, that they decide to never go home again, at least for the holidays. The holidays can be a stressful time for everyone and families spend a lot of that stressful time together, it's only natural that sometimes it's going to explode into an argument or a fight.
We found some amazing stories of people that have finally hit their boiling point and decided it is no longer worth the stress and the anger of dealing with family during the holidays.
Before, They Were As Close As Sisters
“I used to be an active addict. I’m almost five years clean now, and had built up trust with family I thought I had lost forever.
My sons were thrilled to be able to see our whole family again for Christmas or Thanksgiving. My family is very small, I have a female cousin, but we felt more like sisters our whole lives because we were both only children. For three holiday seasons, after I got clean, everything went great. I was allowed over my grandmother’s house (because I wasn’t stealing anything to pawn or trying to find her pain pills) and I was so proud of myself and my family for being able to get past this drama I heaped on my family, even just for a holiday dinner.
Then, last year, my cousin comes to visit and I noticed that she had gained a lot of weight (100 lbs) and she is barely 5’5. She had just recently had children, but it seemed she gained even more weight after they were born. She complains of postpartum depression, which I totally understand. Then she asked if I can get her pain pills. I had to tell her no. I have no more connects in this town for the SOLE PURPOSE of staying clean! I was surprised as she became agreeable a little later on in the day, and even apologized for getting so upset I couldn’t hook her up, her anxiety is just terrible, blah blah blah.
We had a nice few days and she and her family flew back home. Two days later, I get a phone call – all of my grandma’s pain pills were missing and all of my aunt’s pills were replaced with something else.
As you can probably guess, it was me they thought did it. My children are still allowed to go to Christmas but I am not allowed to attend any family get-togethers. My cousin is there visiting, right now. I wonder who she will blame those missing pills on this time since I can’t be there to be her scapegoat?”
That Beatdown Was Years In The Making
“My father wasn’t around when we were young and our mother just let us do whatever with little to no consequences, so my brother took it upon himself to try and control me by holding me down and beating me with carpet rollers, hard plastic hair brushes, baseball bat, just whatever he could get his hands on.
My mother ‘tried’ to stop this, but he was the perfect child of the family. My grandmother spoiled him, buying him whatever he wanted, and I was just a slave to her. I did all of her housework/yard work when my mom dropped us off over there to ‘spend time’ with her. My brother would just go play games on the big TV she had, while I cleaned the whole house and grabbed everything she needed while she watched TV in the kitchen, smoking most of the day.
At home, when I was younger, I had one of those hotel locks on my door that I bought, borrowing money from a friend, so he couldn’t come in my room in the middle of the night and attack me anymore.
When I was around 15, I started to defend myself, so he started to attack my mother and grandmother instead because they were weaker than him. They still spoiled him and bought him with whatever he wanted. They even took him out of school to be homeschooled so he could play video games 24/7. It took him at least three years more to graduate than if he had stayed in high school.
He is 28 now. He has worked a total of fewer than two years since he was 18. He lives off of my grandmother while manipulating women to live with him at my grandmother’s house so they can go to work and financially support him to buy video games and go out to eat. He is still very verbally/physically abusive to everyone in my family and has physically assaulted every member. Meanwhile, they all refuse to do anything about it. They constantly call me and tell me I need to stop holding grudges and be nice to him and be a good brother. Last year, I went over there and he started a fight with me because I wouldn’t do something he wanted. So I beat him up. While this happened, my family said they were going to call the police on me.”
They Ruined His Christmas Forever
“My mother was a narcissist.
She got remarried when I was 10 or so and her new man was everything. She had always been abusive, but it was always of the emotional, mental variety. After his unwavering acquiescence of the abuse, he came to agree with it wholeheartedly. He would eventually step up to physical abuse, which, in turn, my mother decided to emulate.
When I was eleven, his three boys came to stay with us over Christmas break from school. They were showered with gifts. I received none. Their explanation was that I was not a good child like his three. The eldest of his children, who was around twelve at the time, took pity on me and gave me an RC car that had been gifted to him.
When I was caught playing with it, it was taken from me. When the eldest explained he had given it to me for Christmas, my step-sibling lightly reprimanded him and then took me outside while beating me in the head. I was told to stand still and watch as he ran the RC toy over with his big truck.
I then had to sleep on the cold cement basement floor for ‘taking’ presents from his children.
I’ve never celebrated Christmas since. The whole holiday season makes me very emotionally wrecked with bitter intermittent flashbacks of the way I grew up.”
An Abusive Bunch That Can’t Keep Away From Each Other
“Growing up, my stepfather was physically abusive to me, my siblings and my mom, while my mother was mentally/emotionally abusive, and acted like my step father’s abuse was normal (except for when it happened to her, which was rare compared to the abuse we suffered). As we got older, my step father’s abusiveness turned into more mental, but with outbursts of physical, that would get worse and worse as they happened. The most recent one being back in January, which included him literally beating the snot out of one of my siblings. I, being out of the house for a while now, didn’t see my sibling’s face afterward but from what I heard, it was messed up. The prick did sit in jail for a while, but my mom manipulated my sibling to not file a complaint against him and didn’t file one herself. So the prick is back home.
Now the messed up part. When this happened, my mom said she was done. She wanted to divorce his butt. She started the process but decided to drop it because he was the only one working in the house, and she couldn’t ‘bear to be alone.’
So she’s giving him a second chance, and putting this abusive scum before her kids, which we ALL made it clear that we were NOT happy with that. I haven’t been back home since the prick was let back into the house, and I freaking REFUSE to step foot back in there. I do NOT trust either of them at this point, and honestly, I hope to GOD that once my younger sibling moves out soon.
Unless one of my older siblings host a holiday, I’m spending it with my bio dad or my fiance’s family.”
The Jerry Springer-Types
“I refuse to see, specifically, my grandmother for any holidays. Up until the last couple of years, I went to see her every year and was the only one of five grandkids who did so.
She consistently verbally abuses me in a passive aggressive way while my grandfather just sits back and lets her (but then again, that man has been beaten so far down over the decades I can’t entirely be mad at him). She verbally abuses my husband, which I would no longer tolerate after her first few cracks. She’ll crack on my long-dead father as if I’ll laugh and agree about how horrible he supposedly was.
She favors my sister entirely (giving her credit cards to use as she pleases, paying her bills, buying her a car) regardless of my being the only one to call or visit for a decade but could care less about my brother and I because we actually work for a living rather than try to pretend we’re disabled and refuse to work like my sister.
My family could literally fund Jerry Springer for a few seasons with of shows but that’s why I won’t visit her for Christmas.”
Christmas At The Mobile Home Was Like A Bad Dream
“The last time we did a Christmas dinner at my mom’s showed my then-fiancee-now-wife why we do not do that.
My brother showed up three hours late, walked in, hugged my mom, grabbed a whole pie, and walked right back out.
My sister dropped her kids off and went to her friend’s place for dinner.
My father in law sat on the couch screaming racist comments about Obama and Muslim people while drinking enough brew that I began to wonder if he owned stock in the company.
My aunt and her husband came by and spent the entire night complaining about how poor everything was, like insulting the food for not being how they would make it or insulting my mom’s china for not being the kind they would have, etc…
Grandma came by and filled the mobile home with enough smoke to be seen from the international space station.
And my mom spent the whole time we were there trying to explain to my fiancee how she was the reason I turned out as a good person, due to her care and raising of me. And she kept insulting my dad. The man she called when I was 4 and told could have me since I was impeding her ability to bar hop and party. The man who DID raise me, by himself, without help from her of any kind, financial or otherwise.
8 pm rolls around and I get up to leave. I have work the next morning and need to be up by 4. Mom begins crying hysterically that I don’t love her because I’m leaving so early.
We left, and will not be going back.”
She Was Singled Out For Abuse In Her Family
“My family and I live in the same town. I refuse to attend any family events because:
1) My younger brother, who is 22, still lives with our parents and refuses to get a job. When I was 17, he choked me out because I was in his way while washing the dishes. I was never my parents’ favorite child, I was just there, so they kicked me out.
2) My older sister and her spawn will be there. She is backstabbing and has spread many bad rumors about me. She wasn’t much of a sister growing up. She would intentionally get me in trouble and I would get beat for it. She took way to much pleasure in my abuse and has actually taken what happened to me growing up and twisted them to make them her own story.
3) My mother creates drama between everybody, then plays the victim. She’ll manipulate me and make me feel guilty. When I moved out of state at 19 years old, she reported me kidnapped and tried getting me sent back. She was really abusive growing up, she accused me of being ‘easy,’ told me that I should just die, I was a burden on her. I wasn’t allowed to play with my other siblings because she accused me (a 7-year-old little girl) of inappropriately touching them. I was only allowed to clean the house and wasn’t allowed to sleep on a bed because ‘I was dirty.’
I wasn’t allowed to attend school or receive any kind of education because my parents had a plan for me to stay home and care for them. I was told I could never date or get married and much more. I was beneath everybody and I believed it. I will not go through another hour of that garbage. Nope!
I plan on spending the holidays at my home with my husband and my babies.”
It’s Not Just The Holidays
“My parents are hoarders so while I do still see them, I refuse to be in their house for more than a minute or two.
I’ve tried helping them but my parents have other issues beyond hoarding. My mom is the main hoarder but my dad continues to enable her and live there without complaint. They have been emotionally and financially manipulative in the past which makes me cautious with how much help and financial assistance I’m willing to give. My mom is a mental health professional (so ironic) so she knows how to game the system and other mental health professionals so she comes out looking golden and I look like a bitter child. My dad has his own set of demons he blames all his issues on and has become very childlike in his behavior. It’s hard to talk to him or reason with him. My mom is considered competent. Believe me, I’ve tried to become his sole guardian but he’s now considered competent as well so…. dead end there.
I’m 31 and the hoarding started around 16-17 when my dad was deployed and my brother and then I left for college.
Growing up we had a messy, cluttered home but nothing like the level of the TV show of how it is in their home now. The hoarding has worsened over the years. I realized the extent of the problems when I was 18-19 and I avoided returning home. Around 22-23, I went no contact/very little contact for a few years due to financial disputes. From 26-29, I was desperately trying to help. I got power of attorney, had convinced my mother to give me sole guardianship of my father, and was going to get their finances in order. A couple of weeks before we were going to do all this, which included me leaving my job to care for my father, my mom backed out and went crazy with accusations.
From 29-today, I’ve returned to no/little contact. Nothing I do/say makes an impact. They don’t listen to me. They refuse my help. They want me to ignore their problems and pretend we are a happy family while continuing to live a life I can’t condone. It’s been a long and terrible road realizing I just won’t have a normal relationship with my parents. I’m still willing to help them but I need to see some change on their own before I put everything on the line for them again. I don’t think the relationship will survive any more manipulation on their end.”
The Way They Supported Him Was Sickening
“This is the first year I really have had to deal with this, but my cousin was arrested for owning/trading child smut and attempting to get more. The police report specifically stated that some of the images were of children under the age of 10.
After being arrested, my aunt and grandmother bailed him out of jail. He is now living at my grandmother’s where we have Thanksgiving dinner.
I don’t want to see him in any way shape or form. I am still ticked at my grandmother for bailing him out when he should have been left to rot in jail until his court date. He might be in jail by Christmas, but I am still not sure I will be going over there. I’m still too angry.
My aunt is a whole other story. Her oldest was arrested last year for beating her husband to death. This was a long time coming after enabling him for his entire life, bailing him out of jail multiple times for theft and drinking and driving. My aunt’s husband, though not my cousin’s father, was a lush and verbally abusive. Meanwhile, my grandmother gives them a place to stay and keeps financially bailing them out whenever they get arrested or whatever else happens.”
At That Moment, They Realized They Only Had Each Other
“Last Christmas, I went over alone, leaving the boyfriend at home as he had plans with his own family.
My family has never liked my boyfriend and makes it a point to badmouth him whenever he’s not around. Well, I had been staying at their house for three days and at around 9 pm on Christmas day, my boyfriend texts me to tell me he left his family’s home. I ask why and essentially his ‘totally reformed’ mother is trashed and she’s selling her Oxy’s to a cousin.
He caught her and she said, ‘Well, where do you think your Christmas money came from?’ He gives her the money back and leaves. He’s in tears because his mom’s a piece of trash and now he’s spending Christmas day alone. So I tell my family I’m gonna leave and go spend time with him. They start losing their minds, asking why he doesn’t just come over, there’s a family here he can be with. I tell them, ‘Because he’s not stupid. He knows you don’t like him,’ and that starts a whole family dumping on me for telling him. It all ends with my mom calling him a wimp for not wanting to be alone on Christmas.
I desperately don’t want to go back this year, especially after other things I’ve learned about my parents, but I have a feeling I’ll get guilted into it. My boyfriend won’t be going back to his family for Christmas, though.”
Like Mother, Like Daughter
“My abusive drinker of a mother asked me to come visit for Christmas and said she would cook me and my sister lunch. At the time, she had been sober for a few months and I thought she deserved a chance so I made us a heap of gingerbread and headed over to her house. When I arrived, she was hammered, my sister was high, and there was no food in the house. But the kicker was when she proceeded to start to yell and insult my father, who had passed away two years prior.
He was the only good part of my childhood and is the reason I went to university and pushed myself to make a better life for myself. He wasn’t perfect and we were poor, but I wouldn’t change a thing about him. I left before things escalated and went and saw my best friends, thankfully, who turned the day around (though, sadly, I left the gingerbread behind!)
This day is what I always remember when I am trying to decide if cutting her and my sister out of my life was the right decision. It was.”
He Was The Only One Left Out
“It’s not so much that I don’t go home, but I don’t celebrate it to the full extent.
My family constantly ignored me on Christmas and used it to abuse me. I never received gifts while my other siblings were showered with them. When I started working, my sister would go out and buy loads of gifts for me, then say I owed her $2,000. I ended up canceling Christmas on my end because I kept getting worked over. I loved buying gifts, don’t get me wrong, but come on man, it would be nice to get ONE good gift.
This sounds like first world problems here, but I really wanted an iPad 2. I never received anything for Christmas so I just threw it out there. EVERYONE in my family except me received an iPad 2 that year. I was blown the heck away. I couldn’t believe the extent they went to do this to me. Literally thousands of dollars worth of iPads.
When I was younger I wanted an RC car. I was promised this car for almost the entire year. I was so psyched to get the car. When I opened the gift, it was a t-shirt. This went on for like 3 years and I was a sucker every year.
Meanwhile, my bro and sis are getting CRAZY nice gifts and I’m getting t-shirts. That stuff hurts when you’re a child.”
A Crazy Mother
“I don’t spend Christmas with my mother anymore because when I was between the ages of 15-17, my parents were in the process of a nasty divorce and so I spent Christmas Eve and morning with my father and then went to my mom’s side of the family for Christmas dinner. She was so upset that I had spent half my time on Christmas with my dad that during dinner, she didn’t sit near me or speak to me. Later that night as were getting ready for bed in a room we shared, she was typing on her computer, still not having said a word to me up to this point. I asked her to be a little quieter because I was trying to sleep, and then she blew up at me with no warning. It ended with her telling me I ruined Christmas, and my grandpa driving me out to meet my dad at 1 am that night. I am forever grateful to my grandfather for taking me out of that horrible situation.
Me and my mom have had a rocky relationship since I was small, and I’ve always had a better relationship with my father growing up. Currently, I am 22, I’ve been living on my own since the ripe age of 18 because of another blow out my mother had for the same reasons.
My parents are still in the process of trying to get a divorce to this day. My mother is an extremely narcissistic person and it took me a long time to realize that just because she’s my mom this doesn’t mean she’s not a toxic person to my being.”
