On Sun 17 Sep 2006 06:49:16p,  wrote in rec.pets.cats.anecdotes
(news:1158533356.435773.180120@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com):

For years and years I tell myself I can't change her. That doesn't
help the innocent lives she endangers. She's already had one hit by
a car in front of her house and her two current boys have
disappeared for weeks at a time. The last one in the dead of
winter, and he's old. She blowed it off saying he ran off to die.
Well, he's still alive and kicking after he came home skinny. Will
not go anywhere near the door now, so something scared him. Amber
got pregnant from an escape so there's apparently free-roaming
toms.

You know what bugs me Sherry? That she knows how I feel about
animals and she calls me out of the blue to tell me these things.
She's sadistic. I fear for her young twins to grow up with that
attitude as a role model.

snip

No you're not.  You can pick and choose how much or how little you will
have to do with your relatives just as well as you can with friends, as
long as you are willing to put up with the consequences.
The main problem is that we feel constrained to maintain a blood
relationship because society kind of looks down on us if we don't.  But
the plain fact of the matter is that our kin can cause more tears and
bloodshed than any strangers we might meet in a dark alley, and if they
are worse than usual, there is no reason not to remove yourself and
your family from harm (be it physical, mental or emotional), even if
only by refusing to pick up the phone.  Now the ideal is if you can
live three thousand miles away from them, or put an ocean between you,
and it isn't the absurd suggestion that it sounds.  I know of whole
families through three generations that do that to keep sane.  Mine
included.  If it works, I don't knock it.  When you are that far away,
the occasional phone call is harmless, and not much more is really
expected of you, or at least long times between visits are somewhat
understood.

Not phoning works for me.  Only answering e-mails and letters (which
are few enough to begin with) rather than initiating contact also
helps.  So does the three thousand miles.  I won't have my blood and
kin destroy, by influence, the hard work we are doing to raise a
strong, value-respecting, emotionally secure family.  Sound
cold-blooded, perhaps?  Try living through what I have lived through.
I won't go into it, this is a pet group, not a trauma support group,
but you can tell I have strong feelings on the topic.  I sympathise
with Cheryl 100% because I know just how difficult it is to describe
the pathologic way in which our family members can and do push our
buttons, sometimes on account of grudges and resentments built up over
years from things which, in hindsight, were extremely juvenile.

Cheryl, try haunting the house and grab the kitten next time she
wanders!  Maybe it's time you pushed *her* buttons.  On the other hand,
if the cold war is on, then she will never even find out where the
kitten disappeared to, and start telling every one she ran off to die.

--tension