I had some experiences today which made me think a while on terror. I guess at heart terror is like an extreme fear, when I think about it I think of that mythological beast or image of the Gorgon’s Head, in myth just to look at this head writing with snakes would turn a human being to stone, they would quite literally be ‘petrified’, turned into a bit of petrified wood with no feelings accessible at all just a feeling of being frozen or stuck, fixed in place.
Since my mother died the relationship with my sister (or rather lack of it) is becoming more and more apparent. Towards the end and in the first few weeks I tried to call her nearly every day. I had learned over the past year I was going to hear from her rarely and if I wanted any contact it would be up to me to pursue it. I wrote a poem about the last time I spoke to her the other day and titled it A Vacancy. When I post anything no matter how obliquely related to family member I do tend to suffer from guilt or an inner backlash, but when I read the poem which I wrote on Friday to my therapist, Kat yesterday in session so many tears fell and my body was almost shaking. In the poem I speak of how it felt as a younger sister to long for my older sister’s benevolent attention or love, what Kat often called ‘the loving gaze’.
My older sister who died in 2014 used to look at me this way all the time but what I have often experienced from this living sister has often been more akin to an angry, judgemental or upsetting stare. I listened to a You tube video a while back on the narcissist’s stare and it resonated with me. In a post last week I shared which contained information from Andrea Mathews book on being raised by invalating parents she spoke of one scenario in which a parental look is used to control the child, no words need to be spoken but the child feels the full brunt of all that is unspoken and often engages in frenzied attempts to win the parent’s love.
In session Kat was drawing attention to my own hypervigilance whereby I constantly scan the environment and body language for cues to the fact I am ‘getting right’ and not in danger of losing love. When this does happen I can literally walk away crying. It may sound very immature to some readers but in that situation I AM YOUNG I age regressed or in a flashback.
Anyway today I felt again sad for my sister. I felt the dearth of contact over the weekend after our last conversation on Friday, so I called but all I could feel during the conversation at the base of everything was terror. I am scared for my sister as she is very very withdrawn. I find it hard to ask her to meet up because often she rejects my advances and then I find there is little conversation and I feel as if I am literally being pinned into place while a strong tide or rip is pulling me out to sea. Oh the phone today there were about three silences spanning up to several minute. This used also to happen when my older sister was alive and in the care home. She would just go silent. Today in one of these silent spaces with my living sister I just found tears falling down my face. I felt so damned helpless and yes, terrified when I really considered what was going on.
I ended the call after about 30 minutes. I had delayed my walk with Jasper to make it but on the walk I found myself experiencing terrible anxiety. I was aware as an empath that as soon as I got on the phone I was sensing or receiving my sister’s anxiety and when I asked her (she always says she is fine) she admitted feeling very anxious.
I am finding it so difficult to cope with this situation. I have so few people here in my home town I feel I can talk to about it. Part of me wants to be there for my sister part of me wishes (and this is horrible but I am going to be brutally honest here) that she would take her life is she doesnt really want to at least try to live it. Then when I write that I think “what a terrible thing to say”. I just know my anxiety is much worse if I don’t take some kind of action and take some steps to bring joy into my day. At times I am really sad too but at those times my feelings are actually moving inside me, they are ex-presssing not being deep pressed inside, its this frozenness that frustrates me and on some level makes me feel like screaming.
That said it could just be that really its I who am feeling uncomfortable about where my sister is at and so it’s really my control issue. That said the entire situations is still so deeply, deeply sad. I know she is missing my Mum and that so much more is going on for her inwardly. She has no therapist only a fucking psychiatrist who goes away for 3 months and give her fucking zilch in the way of honest talk therapy, just adjusts her meds. It makes me so angry. She was the one who recommended shock treatment after my sister had suffered even more abandonment and abuse. Those tears I shed today for my sister are genuine. I know how powerless I feel. It like a repeat of watching how shut down and frozen my other sister so often was, increasingly medicated to death at the end of her life. I need to share about it somewhere. I know I have no power over my sister to change this, I can only care and love but to be honest sometimes that dries up or seems to. Maybe some of my followers have something to offer me here in terms of insight or advice. If you comments are open and would be deeply appreciated. I also realise my sister’s journey is not mine. She deals or doesnt deal with things in the same way. I need to detach for when I don’t I feel like I am the one who is drowning.
I have worked so hard in my own life and recovery to no longer be paralysed and turned to stone by the gorgon in my psyche. I know its associated in many ways with the inner critic and the emotional emptiness and neglect of childhood. Its a place I most categorically do not want to live in any more. I want to turn my head away from the Gorgon because I am not a piece of stone but a living breathing human and I want so badly to live that aliveness.
Emerging From The Dark Night 