Back in a dark place

I have found myself back in quiet a dark place over the past few days.  I was grateful to have a therapy session yesterday where I could let some of the feelings out yesterday.  I actually had an okay day after feeling quiet deeply sad, depressed and a bit suicidal again yesterday morning.   Last night I spoke to a friend in recovery I hadn’t heard from for over 14 years and perhaps that conversation reminded me that I had lost my way in recovery over quite a few years.  As I look back how I got lost was in getting involved in things, with people and in situations which I instinctively ‘knew’ were not good for me but I went along with them anyway.  In short my boundaries have not been the best.  At times I have not put care of myself before that of others.  I have also hidden away at times when I would have been better to get out, be more of an adult and take a proactive role in pursuing things that were dear to my heart.  So today faced with a lot of the realisations about this I am feeling quiet low and down, tired too.

I see how important it is that we be adults when we are trying to deal with life.  It seems in my case I can often revert to a child like role, I am driven by the lost kid inside me looking for love and feeling sad that is not coming from outside.  After feeling sad I actually start to feel really, really angry with other people for not caring enough.  I think of the ways I try to be there for them and then I realise that maybe I take on a rescuer role with others as part of my unconscious trauma.  Is the hope when I do this that when the roles are reversed the other person will do the same for me?  I don’t feel I have a lot of expectations, often I give them an easy ‘out’ because I feel I need to be strong when part of me is longing to say ‘could you please help me?’  Also I want to be clear that the help I need is warranted.

Anyway today I am feeling tired and bruised.  My mum was put into hospital yesterday.  I had hoped I would see how she was but she isn’t answering her phone.  I also have not heard from my sister who returned yesterday.  I spent days and days doing all I could for my mother while she wasn’t feeling well.  I got her food, made her some meals, got her scripts filled at the pharmacy and got her DVD’s to watch.  She was really grateful and while together we got close and shared a lot.  But now all contact has fallen away and I am looking today at my life and feeling very empty.  I think I am just tired.  I think after days of running around I need to rest and take care of me.

I know I need to look for the good. I know going to a dark place in my mind and in my thinking won’t help, seeing all the ways I have fallen short when really all through the past painful 5 years I have stood by family.  But I am tired now, really tired.  I truly don’t feel I can give any more.  For now the adult thing to do it seems to me is care for me.

The inner child driven thing is to try to compensate for all the loss and others not being there for me consistently by trying too hard to be there for others in order to run from the emptiness I feel when I sit with me, either that or its just a tired old, old pattern I had to adopt in response to needs not getting met.  I had to turn to my parents and other needy others and become their satellite.

Could it be that as I feel all the painful feelings of frustration round this from the past years I  am now being made aware its time to let go?  Today I am feeling that if I don’t change things soon I will try to take my life.  I don’t want to go on like this, caring and caring with nothing much coming back.   Sorry to write that its just a thought.  I know I won’t end my life but maybe one phase of my life expression needs to die or end so a new one can emerge.  I feel deeply that something needs to change for me to find any kind of happiness.  It really does.