not knowing which way to turn

there is so much going on in my world right now that is good and I feel as though I am getting to live so much more from my true self although the anxiety that attends the expression of it is at times enormous. But lately its like I see the old conditioned self in me or feel it rumbling away and I feel the pulls from there.  There are also the pulls from my deeper wound that had such a love for family and longed to connect but experienced the only one in my family who saw me … my older sister ….as caught up, taken away and then destroyed by her own life path, so that at the end all I could do was sit by her bedside and weep holding her hand in those final hours as my family had made the decision to take her off life support.

My brother who rarely saw her stepped in on Good Friday 2014 and called me to tell me this,  I was angry and shocked but my sister’s life had been so hard for so many years drugged and confined to a bed in the home for acquired brain injury… that said I don’t want to misrepresent the institution who ran the place, they did care for my sister the best they could,  however I know at times they did not know how to truly respond to her crying and suffering but with pills.  I don’t blame them as much any more as I know the part my sister played in her own downfall, at least unconsciously and the tangled history of multigenerational loss and addiction that remained hidden until a relative of ours found out stuff when I was about 10 years sober.  To that point I had been held up as ‘the only one in the family’ who had a problem by my Mum who never owned her part, at least consciously and how conscious was she really???

Anyway my sister helped to teach me to drink.  It was out of control when I used to stay with her and her eventual breakdown had a profound affect on me happening just a few months after I came out of hospital in 1979 after nearly losing my life.  It was only 6 years later that my father was dead, I had two terminations of pregnancy behind me after a relationship with another addict who never really loved me and there was a third to follow on the first anniversary of my father’s death in January 1986.

Today I got out early with Jasper after being pulled around so much by the funeral I attended on Wednesday which brought up all the trauma of that time (1984-87).  According to my therapist I was back in what she called ‘the trauma zone’ my body felt split apart, and on Wednesday I was torn over whether or not I should I go to the wake where there would be drinking? or stay home?  I chose to go but I ran into the wife of my friend who died yesterday and was told the wake and drinking went on til 4 am in the morning.  I left at 9 pm.  The whole time there I was battling my outsider feelings and questioning why I don’t hang out with more people in recovery having turned my back on AA several years ago?

I was torn too just an hour ago as my other sis is now in hospital.  I went to the markets to get my fruit and veg and was about to do the long drive to the hospital but I ended up going down a one way street and turning back for home, so I could have lunch but when I got here I looked around at all the ‘mess’ and my critic was on my case again.   And then I got another cascade of earlier childhood stuff which I tried to articulate yesterday in a poem about trying as hard as I could to gravitate around my Mum so I could get her attention.  Best thing I thought to do was just sit down and write…..just let it all pour out with as little censoring as possible. even if it sounds like a jangled jumbled ramble…!!

Add to this my nephew called last night.  He was the only person to reach out to me on the day after Mums’ birthday but only because his wife put pressure on him.  It was hard as some of you know Mum left a lot to my sister and I and precious little to my older sister’s sons and during the conversation he just was saying how expensive everything is and I started to feel so guilty for if I hadn’t been helping Scott I could have helped he has his wife but now I do a double take and wonder how much of it is really my responsibility.  I had a night of bad spins last night.  I just working as hard as I can right now to regain my equilibrium.

Well I am lucky to pour this all out in a blog.  I got asked by Scott yesterday to please try and keep our relationship ‘safe’ from people who may be out to destroy it by not sharing, not even love poems to him on here!!!  W.T.F.???.  We have a bit of a tussle over it as I told him I am not up for being told what to do, what I can or cannot share and in the end he just said ‘do whatever you want’ but I kinda felt I had been slapped on the wrist and now I am questioning if I do over share here.   I told him how little other people I have to really talk to honestly that know the ins and outs of things apart from my therapist and two hours a week is not a lot of support.  I forget too that when I am supporting others, I too need support.  I get it on WordPress and I try as hard as I can to give it too, for without this medium I would struggle even harder to know which way to turn.