Christmas with family

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I'm 34. I live alone 1200km away from my parents and sister and her family, only 100km from my brother. I am on disability (government money) that is just enough to live on. I've been in and out of the hospital for suicidal ideation multiple times the past year. One of those times my parents came down to visit me in the ward I was locked in after my ex called them up because no one else would visit me. I argued with them even the couple days they were there.

I don't know whether to go visit them for christmas. I...don't want to. I've bought a plane ticket that I would be reimbursed for, but I don't want to go. I've ducked calls from my parents for years, I rarely will speak to them or other family of my own choosing. There will be arguing and fighting and blaming if I visit, because that's just how my parents act. The day I divorced and went to see them without my husband, it was almost like a breath of fresh, putrid air because they'd been on their 'good' behavior nearly all the time I'd been with them, because they know that their home behavior is completely unacceptable publicly, and my husband who at the time encouraged me to visit with them, was nearly always around.

I feel like a failure in their eyes. I feel like my mom guilts me and pulls strings to get me to do what she wants. Of course nothing she wants is unreasonable. My likely autistic dad says few things in regards to my life, but most of the time when he does, it's negative. ("You're wasting yourself with being a research assistant in the field of your choice, focus instead on the other thing you're also doing") There are only sticks in my family, no carrots, and now when they try to give carrots, unless I am so depressed that I'm not even getting out of bed for them, the carrot has a stick with it.

I know that my upbringing has played a large part in my mental health issues, I realize now, even though when I'd immediately left home I was clueless about it. I thought it was all just me.

I've been reading up a lot about abuse. I've come to the conclusion I grew up in an emotionally abusive house (there was some physical abuse too, more when I was younger). I recognize that how I interact with other people is a direct result of growing up as safe as I could in that environment. I got this from reading an article about being a spouse and staying in an abusive relationship even though you know it's abusive. I pretty much learned all the things that that article said to do. Don't show who you really are so as to protect yourself so they can't use it against you, recognition that my actions stop the abuse only sometimes, the other times I had to let them control me, don't become emotionally attached to them, downplay all the negative things because that's the only thing to do. I've become aggressive myself, too. My sister's kids don't like their grandparents. My cat has only ever attacked 1 person, my mom, because she needs to dominate everyone else including the pets.

I just don't want to have to deal with them in my life. I only seem to have hesitation about going to visit them for christmas. I know there will be good times, but I feel like whenever I go there, my personality and actions need to adjust to what it was like when I was growing up there, and I can't do that anymore, but I also can't not do that around them. I have no excuse to give them. I couldn't care less about the money on the plane ticket I've already spent.

I guess I'm looking for permission from someone, someone to tell me that I don't have to spend christmas with them. But I know that that's not going to happen. Because not only do I know that I am seen by my parents as an ungrateful child, I am seen that way by society too. They raised me, gave me opportunities that poorer people would never have had, (pushed me towards them more like it), and as a dysfunctional adult have made sure I have enough money. I am scared to connect with extended family that have reached out to me once my mental health issues were -finally- not hush-hush (not my choosing, I'm still embarassed by them, although that's changing I think), because I think they will just try to get me to reconcile with people I don't want to spend time with anymore. They will think that I have mental health problems and that me not allowing other people to help me is making them worse, and they will not see that those problems as a result of the family and the way society decides what it right. Maybe they won't, I don't know. I don't care to find out, because I don't want to deal with it if I'm right.

I know I wouldn't be -happy- to choose to spend christmas alone, but at least I would be not stressed. I'm so sick of the guilt that I feel when I'm around them, and the sheer mental effort of being around them. I don't want to get caught in that web again.

I just want to make the decision 'No, I'm not going' and not feel guilty about it, not have everyone in my life think of me as some horrible person for it, not have people telling me that I'm making mistake after mistake, 'not reaching out for help is why you're not getting over your mental health problems' when now all I understand in my mind is that I'm listening to everyone else besides myself, so no wonder I'm failing. Right now it feels like the never-ending cognitive dissonance is what is making me crazy.

Maybe go visit your brother instead, just for the day and go home again?
Could you volunteer on Christmas day at homeless shelter/charity event and spend your time doing something meaningful?