This time it turned out AITA stood for “Am I The Abuse victim?”
A girl took to the Reddit web page on Monday after a really terrible Christmas, searching for goal opinions about who was within the fallacious — and received fairly the shock from commenters!
She started by explaining how her household “likes to play pranks with Christmas and birthday gifts”:
“I (f21) as well as my 5 siblings (from 29 to 37 years old) have all been pranked on our birthdays and on Christmas and usually it’s one or two gifts.”
OK, that may very well be a cute custom — you recognize, after they all know the actual presents are coming afterward. But this Christmas, the 21-12 months-outdated introduced her boyfriend dwelling — and so they walked into an absolute ambush! She wrote:
“This Christmas though, I was the only person to get all joke gifts. For example, I unwrapped a MacBook from my brother, but when I opened it, it was just some chocolate (which I don’t eat so I gave it away) and the MacBook was actually given to my sister inside a bag she wanted. Another ‘gift’ was what I thought was a book I put on my Christmas list was actually just the book cover put on a dictionary. When I asked my mom about the book she told me she gave it to my Sil [sister-in-law].”
Sorry, wait. These “joke gifts” have been pretending to present the younger lady what she wished — solely to grab it away and provides it to a completely different member of the family? OK, what concerning the actual presents? Yeah… not a lot.
“This went on with each present my siblings or parents had given me. AirPods was just a charger block? Adapter? gift cards were used and had $0 balance, a card with Monopoly money, and so on totaling to about 12 joke gifts.”
Well, we’re already seeing the issues with this little custom. Kind of like when you may have a potluck however don’t inform anybody what to convey, and you find yourself with 18 luggage of cookies and no precise meals. At least, that’s what we’d assume in the event that they have been in any respect sorry that nobody had managed to get the lady a good current! They apparently weren’t!
Related: Kroy Biermann ‘Did Not Buy Gifts’ For Kids On Christmas This Year — It Was All Kim Zolciak!
The poster says she “realized I went out of my way to get everyone something they wanted or they’d like” and but she “didn’t get anything.” Not a single precise reward. Naturally, she was upset:
“At this point I was bummed so I went to the living room to watch TV with my boyfriend. At dinner they were all talking about how much they loved their gifts and when my dad asked why I hadn’t said anything about mine, I said there wasn’t much to say. Everyone but my boyfriend laughed and my mom said it was no big deal as everyone else also got some joke gifts. I told her every gift I got was a joke gifts and that the ones they got was also followed by the real one. My dad told me I needed to relax as I’m making a big deal about it and I’d have next Christmas to get the stuff on my list.”
She says her household “got mad” when she and her boyfriend left, telling her “it wasn’t serious.” But she spent the remainder of Christmas together with his household, along with her telephone off. Seems like a very good name to us. However, her household had NOT given her area! When she checked it once more, she “had several missed calls and texts from them calling me names like ungrateful, sensitive, and childish” — her household advised her she “ruined Christmas and made my parents upset cause I left.” Oof. Christmas along with her boyfriend’s fam was a distinct story. But her household managed to break that, too!
“The next day, I exchanged and opened gifts with my boyfriend and his family and one of the gifts I had gotten was the book I wanted (the book my mom pretended to gift me). I posted it on my instagram story and not even 0 minutes after posting it, my sister sent a screenshot of my story to the family group chat and they basically got mad at me for leaving and telling me I ruined Christmas over some presents. They told me I owe everyone, especially my parents, an apology because my mom spent new years sad because of my actions.”
All this younger lady wished to know was whether or not her household was proper, whether or not she actually was the one being a spoilsport right here. She wrote:
“Am I in the wrong for being upset about the gifts and for leaving? After reading their messages and sitting on this for a few days I’m now feeling like maybe I was upset over nothing and need to apologize to them.”
What she received as an alternative was a wakeup name!
Commenters got here out of the woodwork to inform her not solely that her household was within the fallacious — but it surely was worse than she realized! Here are a number of responses:
“NTA. You were the butt of the jokes by your entire family and got 0 real gifts. How could you possibly feel okay with that? Then they expect you to apologize for their collective insensitivity? Stay away from these people.”
“The biggest irony is calling her ungrateful, when they literally gave her nothing to be grateful for.”
“Your dad told you to wait a whole year to get any gifts that were actually thoughtful or useful to you. He wanted you to be okay with getting what is essentially garbage for Christmas because the rest of the family thinks hurting you is funny. These weren’t joke gifts. They were a taunt. Your family was showing you how little you mean to them.”
“Your present this year was finding out your parents/family are trash, abusive and will never change. My family use to make me cry and say stuff like. What’s wrong with you? Can’t you take a joke. You’re too sensitive and would use me to make others laugh. It hurts and doesn’t go away. Don’t give them anymore chances to do it again. They are too old for this s**t.”
“NTA. What they did was incredibly cruel. It’s not funny to give you something you said you wanted, only to realize it’s only the cover or casing to that thing you wanted, and that they actually they the thing inside the packaging to someone else. Someone who was quite likely in the same room. WTF. And then act like they are wronged because you’re upset that no one gave you something you’d actually wanted? What kind of mind game f**kery is that?! You had every right to leave and they are the ones that owe you the apology.”
“They treated you as a joke for Christmas, A joke is not a joke if the person it is aimed at does not find it funny. Honestly it comes across as bullying. You are the only one to only get ‘joke’ presents, your actual presents were given away to family members. You family sound cruel. And if mommy is oh so sad then maybe she should think about her actions and the actions of the rest of your family, they suck ”
“I think you’re the family scapegoat. Don’t stick around for it. As soon as it starts up, leave. I think you’ll eventually end up leaving permanently. Because they will never admit what they are really doing. Which is abuse.”
Yeah. More than one known as the conduct abuse. Another identified that the household have been bullying her incessantly, then saying she wanted to apologize for reacting — Something they identified was a bit too near the abuser tactic often known as DARVO:
“This looks like DARVO – Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. It’s a classic manipulation and emotional abuse tactic.”
The younger lady responded by saying she’d by no means thought of this was a type of abuse, regardless that it does make her really feel horrible, and at all times has:
“I will be honest I never looked at it as abuse just pranks that tend to get annoying. But my family isn’t big on apologies and I don’t think I’ve ever been told sorry by any of them. I don’t care for an apology either I just want them to see where I’m coming from.”
She additionally advised commenters she had found out to deal with it by reacting as little as potential:
“I’ve learned over the last few years is no reaction is the best reaction because if I got angry, cried, or spoke up about how I felt, I would be labeled as I was when I left. I’ve almost mastered masking my feelings until I’m alone or away from them to avoid worsening the situation.”
One commenter identified how telling it’s that the poor lady wanted a coping mechanism:
“I think it tells something about your family that you have NEEDED to learn to mask your feelings around them. Sorry to tell you this but they are bullies and they have long ago made you their target. This is not going to change or get better, you need to start putting distance from them.”
Wow. What do YOU assume, Perezcious readers? Do you agree with the commenters? Does this sink to the extent of emotional abuse??
[Image via SNL/YouTube.]
Discussion about this post