It's like a show, how a noise in there car becomes such a major repair they just need a new car. The auto mechanic said.  [everybody said ] dump the car and buy new.   You just need a case of popcorn. To pop some corn abd listen to all the stories.  You give them $100. They go out  and  spend $300.   It never ends 

Great job Trudie on showing up and looking fabulous! I too deal with anxiety with one of the SKIDs and he puts on a BIG show for the family about big bad stepmom....but over the years people are uncovering that he's a liar and I am not. I hold my head up high and I don't go to many events unless its really mandatory- you might get to a place of apathy. i am reaching that stage with my disengagement. I have not appetite for trying to convince anyone that I am good after all I've done for the now adult SKIDs and I don't have to prove anything to anyone. I also don't really put a whole lot of energy into extended family that believed the garbage - I am cordial. Someday you just might get tired and opt out because your time is VALUABLE and shouldn't be wasted on crappy interactions. But for now this is a great step and I understand the anxiety you felt- I get that too and i hope someday it goes aways. It's a little worse than just dreading the visit....it's a very anxious feeling and it feels horrible. Good for you for fighting through it and someday hopefully neither of us will have to continue to fight through it. 

IMHO it does get better but... only when avoidance is taken off of the table and their noses are repeadely rubbed in the stench of the manipulator to the point that they have no choice but to gain clarity and the manipulator is forced back under their rock.

Because it is about family, the fee fees tend to overwhelm the brain and it isn't until the facts are never allowed to fade regarding the toxicity that everyone goes to all ends to ignore.

We had to do this with my BIL1's bovine bride who was hell bent on isolating him from his family.  It went on for years.  Until I had enough of my DW being upset about it and not do anything about it. I told her I understood that she was upset and why but that if she was not upset enough about it to do something, I did not want to hear about it any more.  She immediately picked up her phone, called her brother and asked BIL1 and his bovine bride what their problem was and why they were manipulating the entire family?  After that any thiem the shit started the facts were broadcast to the entire family. That boxed BIL12 and the bovine bride into a corner that they could not manipulate their way out of.  It took several more years for things to stabilize and the family to start recognizing the facts and reality.  We had to do the same thing with my SIL with her thieving bullshit.  Everyone ignored it for years and played The Emperor's New Clothes bury their heads in the sand bullshit.  Just as they all did with BIL1's bovine bride.

Once the whole family was force fed the racts and not allowed to ignore it, they all stopped feeding my SIL and BIL1's bride.  Suddenly, the bullshit slowed, no more guilt money in response to SIL's tears, no more acceptance of SIL1's bovine bride's  overt and covert bullshit.

It all  goes in cycles, but when it arrises and either SIL or BIL1's DW ply their bullshit, the facts are immediatly presented and everyone tends to not dive in to the maniplulations. Though they do get a little whiney about how they are faaaaaaaammmmmmiiiiiiilllllly.  Yep, they are family and they are manipulative toxic assholes and in the case if SIL a rip off artist who has taken $Tens-of-thousands from the family over decades.

DW will not stand for it.  When SIL or BIL1's DW craw out from under their rock and attempt to restart their shit, DW is front and center to call it.  The whole clan would rather ignore it, stand behind the facade of the one big happy family and pretent that the scammer SIL and the toxic bovine bride of SIL1 aren't that bad.

Many years ago when the whole IL clan visited us for DW's grad school graduation we were doing a family thing one day. At the last minute BIL informed eveyrone that the Bovine Bride was having a migrane and they could not go. We all left, before we got out of the neighborhood DW realized she forgot her purse so we flipped a U-turn and ran back to the house.  DW went in to grab her purse and overheard the bovine bride and BIL1 talking about how now that the entire family was gone they would take our extra car and go do what they wanted to do.

DW grabbed her purse, checked the mileage on her car, and we all left for the day.  At the end of the day when we got home she checked the mileage on her car which had been driven nearly 100miles since we left after getting ehr purse.

DW was furious.  Her parents asked her what was bothering her..  She told them that the bovine bride lied about her migranes and they had taken her car and left just after we had gone back to get her purse.

FIL called my DW a couple of weeks later and chewed her ass for telling MIL that the bovine bride lied about her migranes. I called FIL back and backed him into a corner for calling my DW, gave him my patent lecture on the facts and how rather than supporting MIL's fantasy that the whole family needed to recognize and stand on reality.  Bovin bride just got worse until the full meal deal call out on her bullshit that ultimately started the reset for the whole clan and a whole lot fewer corners for the toxic clan elements to hide in.

There are still bovine bride machinations but she is more of a drive by drama driver than her former all in manipulator self.

Dysfunctional people will be dysfunctional you can't change that.  It's called disengagement and disengaging.  You disengage to the degree you want to.   First by  Getting SO to stop the money train.
 

  DH and SD must realize that if SD wants fake eyelashes injectesons ect.  This is now accomplished by that three letter word.  J O B   SD must get a job and pay for all this nonsense.  Like fake eyelashes is going to make a difference.   It must be explained to SD. that she must work pay her expenses and if she has money left over then fake  whatever is ok. 

You must keep a lid on your family money and where it's going. You will open your own bank account in your name only. And what ever SD gets. $ 100 for eyelashes, you put $100 into your account.  $ 300 for injections...$ 300 in your account.. if your family money runs low DH must get a second job to make up the money.  
'You will plan weekend adult only the two of you getaways.  As fall leaves turning weekend. B and B stay a nice dinner.  Doing fall things.  Thanksgiving  weekend get away. 

I'm so sorry you had a health "relapse" prior to the event, but SO GLAD you forged ahead! "They will never be my people." I feel this so much! 

That's great that you held your head up, that you have your dh's support, and that you have a sense of how to navigate the minefield. My dh's and his ex's families are rather small. I feel bad for him and SS because I know they both would like more familial connections, but for me, the silver lining is that I do not have to deal with that extra layer of drama. I know that SS would talk smack about me all of the time if he could, and though he tries to with the limited number of family and the times he sees them, they aren't close enough or care enough to take me to task for the things SS claims (which aren't accurate anyway).

My dh has been better about enforcing boundaries recently (I had read a book on borderline children and started to insist on enforcing boundaries more). It seems to have worked a little in my case. Dh saw that SS didn't just crumble and die just because we said 'no' to him. That in turn has made SS's manipulations less effective. It seems to me that your SD is more seriously affected by mental illness. You can't let that take everyone down. So keep doing what your doing, and give SD the space to learn to navigate her own path to health and well being.

Only in Stepville can something as simple as a party trigger "an attack of a chronic disease requiring medical intervention." These situations are so toxic. They were toxic before we entered and we can't fix them.

I get it. I will always be an outsider with my SO's family. It's not the skids but BM2 who sealed that fate, since she won't give up her spot as an insider, plus i'm not from the right part of the world. Fk them all. I tried my a$$ off for several years. Now i only go to a few things and keep a polite distance from all of them. I smile, bring a dish, help clean up, etc. Talk in a friendly manner to those who will talk to me. That's always been enough in pretty much every situation in my life up to now, but nothing will ever be enough with them. I've finally accepted that. As long as they don't fk with me, i won't fk with them.