How to Survive a Family Visit

by Judith Fein

If you are one of those lucky people whose family gets along superbly, who looks forward to flying or driving to visit family on holidays or special occasions, who can’t wait until the family gets together again, who slid out of the birth canal into a functional family, then stop reading--this article is definitely not for you.

If, on the other hand, you start popping Valium, drinking vodka or meditating obsessively two weeks before you have to go home (or wherever your family convenes), then, by all means, read on. 

Let’s face it, there are only two ways to think about family. Either you are born into one as an accident of fate (God’s divine sense of humor), or you mystically “chose” the family you were to plop into so that you could learn spiritual lessons. There may actually be a third possibility—that you are paying back some awful karma for unspeakable acts committed in a prior lifetime.

Whatever the case, you have been exposed to some or all of the events below when you grew up with or visited your family as an adult.

1) Screaming that could revive the dead and make them long for the peace of the grave

2) Heart-rending sobbing that would cause Caligula to weep

3) Spouses or significant others who stare into their dinner plates to avoid getting sucked into the black hole of rehashed drama

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