When people shut down

I have experienced that when people shut down with me, I feel my heart contract.  It gets harder to breathe and to maintain my equilibrium.  I can tell myself all the soothing things in the world, tell myself not to take it personally, appreciate they may need to withdraw but still my body feels it and my heart is contracted.  Its happening to me today.  I tried to start the day well with stretching and then checking my blog and taking Japser out for a walk.  I went to our local cafe, had a drink, and got groceries, came home and made a healthy lunch and immediately after eating it all my PTSD symptoms started up.  Feeling my chest being tight, experiencing fear, confusion and uncertainty and the trigger for me is that today I tried to call my sister and it went to the message it goes to when she is not taking calls.   I worry when this happens as my brother phoned from the United States last night to say the same thing had happened to him.  When my sister was in one of her depressive episodes she doesn’t answer the phone.  That is fine, she is within her rights but its causing me worry.

I am trying to remind myself that I am powerless over what my sister does.  I had hoped we may have gone to a movie this afternoon.  That’s fine, I can either go alone or not go.  Its just the worrying, wondering and not knowing that causes me pain and body symptoms.  I used to go through this when my narcissistic ex would shut down on me, stop taking calls in response to me being sad or doing something else that wasnt acceptable to him.  His doing this would trigger my abandonment wound and then I would make frantic attempts to reconnect with him, which he would avoid.  In the end it only ended up hurting me as he was responding out of his own wounds, wounds I never caused and most certainly could not control or help.   I used to have to swallow down myself in order to be accepted into his life, he never fully acknowledged the impact of what he did on me in any caring way.

This situation with my sister is not the same, but she is one of the few family members I have here now.  Most of my friends are either away at the moment and the one who is in South Africa sent an email today and I opened it and pressed reply and the entire email just disappeared, its not in deleted items, nor in junk….. it has just disappeared.  I dont have her email as she left a day after my mother died and I had only sent her my email not got hers.

Maybe I should take this as a sign from the universe I am meant just to be alone right now.  My grief is coming in waves when I least expect it.  Yesterday was a better day when I didnt feel as much anxiety.  I was able to sit quietly in the afternoon with no symptoms pulling on me and read a book and draw close to my Mum in the silence. Today I have a lot of body pain.  I am writing about it just to externalise what I am feeling, its important to me to get it out.  My Mum’s death has shown me how little attempt I made to be separate with a separate life over many years.   Now I must be separate but I also need to be connected.  I feel most connected on line on my WordPress blog to be honest but much as I love my fellow bloggers and followers we can not meet face to face.  Never the less I am glad for this forum.  It has saved me more times emotionally than I can really count, I’m on a break from therapy until next Monday but therapy cannot be my life either.   I wish I had more living close connections at this time, but maybe I just need to accept for now that at the moment I am feeling  all alone. (while realising there are people out there who do care but are just other wise engaged.)