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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Norman Rockwell or Norman Bates? Holidays are dysfunctional for some

By David McElroy · November 28, 2013

Normal Rockwell-ThanksgivingFor some people, holidays evoke images of close, loving families straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. They love their families and cherish the memories of the past and love everything about seeing their families for Thanksgiving.

For others of us, spending time with families sounds like a terrible idea, because it makes us feel lousy and it brings up bad memories of the past. What’s more, family-oriented holidays can be times when there’s an unspoken conspiracy of silence to pretend that the rest of your family’s history never happened.

For those of us who see extended families that way, it’s more Norman Bates than Norman Rockwell.

Another family holiday coming around reminds me again of the fundamental split between these groups. For some people, it’s a wonderful time. For others — including me — it’s just a reminder of families who were more painful than loving.

What’s worse is that most of those who attach pain to family still go through the motions of pretending to be part of something loving and special. But the maudlin things that families say to each other on family-oriented holidays are rarely consistent with how they relate to one another for the rest of the year.

I can never decide whether this inconsistency is sad or funny. I guess it’s both. This is why so much of life is self-satirizing to me. If you had a Norman Rockwell family, that’s great. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the way others of us feel — because it seems to be considered impolite to admit that the other side of the coin exists.

When I was a child, holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas were times when I knew my father was going to be angry and there was going to be tension in the house. When I was very young and my mother still lived with us, they would end up arguing and things would be dangerously tense. (She left for the first when when I was 5, and she left for good when I was 9.)

At times, my father was kind and loving, but he could become a raving angry man without warning. When my mother didn’t do things his way, he was angry and belittling. When his three children did something he didn’t like, the kind Dr. Jekyll could easily turn into the screaming Mr. Hyde. I associate holidays with fear and anger at worst and resentment of other things at best. We never knew what to expect.

Other people have very different stories. Maybe their families weren’t filled with anger and yelling. Maybe their formative years were filled with the silence of indifference. Or maybe their lives were filled with physical abuse. Or sexual abuse. There are many, many different forms that dysfunction can take, but they usually share one common theme. We don’t talk about what happened. In fact, many people pretend it never did happen. Sometimes, those who caused the problems swear that you’re making everything up.

Some of us react by staying away from families. I quit going to any family-related holiday gatherings as soon as I got out of college. Others grudgingly attend such functions, but feel angry about being there. Many use alcohol or other drugs to get through the holidays. And many burn with anger at having to pretend to be nice to people who they harbor grudges against.

On holidays, I’m frequently invited to other people’s family gatherings, because some people know that I don’t have family of my own now. I appreciate the offers, but I decline. Here’s why. I want my own. I want it very much. But until I have my own family to build loving traditions around, other people’s gatherings seem to be like grotesque parodies of something I’d like to exist in my own life.

So even loving families come across as living, breathing satire to me.

Satire is for idealists who have been bitterly disappointed by reality. When I made my first short film, it was a satire of politics, a field where I once thought I could make a difference and change the world. When I think about other satire that I’d like to do in one medium or another, it’s all about things that mean something to me. I don’t do satire because I hate family or hate the maudlin love of homeland or anything like that.

I do satire because I want to believe. I want to believe that people can live together in peace and care about each other and respect each other’s rights. I want to believe that families can love each other and trust each other. I really want to believe. But I don’t see those things in real life.

So when I make fun of dysfunctional families, it’s not because I don’t think loving and functional families can exist. It’s certainly not that I don’t care. It’s because I care so much that it hurts. And because it hurts, I have to make fun of the absurdities I see.

Despite everything I’ve experienced, I’m an optimist. I still believe I’m going to be able to create a happy and loving family — the kind I never had growing up. Until then, I’m going to keep feeling pain about what I experienced and I’m going to keep looking for ways to express that need and hope in creative ways.

I might make fun of everything that seems sacred to you at times, but it doesn’t mean I don’t care. It just means I want to believe — and I’m still desperately searching for a way to save my bruised faith in family and build something worthy of believing in.

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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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