Reconciliation

Well I went to my therapy appointment despite the fact I felt disappointed and angry with my therapist and she was very, very pleased to see me, was actually waiting with the door open as I climbed the staircase. I was able to say how I was very hurt and disappointed at what had happened in our last session without lashing out in anger and she apologised for her part saying she didn’t deal with things very well. She then said to me that we had achieved so much working through this and not letting it tear us apart but all I could do was cry. Why was I feeling just so goddam sad??? My sense is the sadness was all around other unfair things in the past I never found my voice to speak up for or was blamed for.

Maybe I was sad too because I am realising lately that therapy is the only contact I have most weeks with anyone. I have held off visiting my sister in hospital for over a week now and haven’t called her either. I was hoping that JUST ONCE she may be able to pick the phone to me and see how I am. I think hell will freeze over first and it is with great anxiety that I resist my impulse to do anything to be connected at the moment. It was so very hot last week that all I could manage to do was walk Jasper and rest and with the heat its a huge drive to go over to see her and I am just so very very tired of it all. I told Kat in therapy today I am just letting go despite the sadness of never hearing from my one left living sister after losing both my older sister and mother in recent years.

Anyway I am thinking of what I can do to be a bit more connected. I am going to attend a registration day on volunteering in my home town in 9 days time and I am also going to look into possibly doing one day a week’s home help for others. I can’t afford just to sit around a complain about how isolation hurts without doing something constructive to address it.

Also discussing things with Kat I see how I blame myself for ‘isolating’ when really all this time I have been working to find ways to connect inwardly with my True Self and feelings and needs so when I DO go back out into the world it is in a more authentic way. I see that over time I did sacrifice myself in order to be loved. I was not really given the support I needed and in my marriage when the support was offered I found it hard to accept it at times, due to my tendency to go it alone but it was hard to be seen as my true self too. I know with my sister we can be close at times but at times it is hard to relate from a deeper level as well and there is past pain there because I didn’t felt seen a lot of the time and when I did try to reach out we didn’t connect very well. Moving into sobriety and acknowledging the multigenerational wounds of addiction in our family has not been something my sister wanted to address.

I was listening to a programme on alcoholics and recovery today and it occurred to me (as it has in the past) that my sister is really a drug addict but to legal drugs rather an illegal ones. She is always looking to something to change her mood with comes from the outside instead of looking at how connecting to her insides and understanding herself could help her. They are seeking to bring her shakes under control now but stored up emotional charge manifests in these shakes and my sister was repressed in her childhood and in her later adult life, when she tried to burst out of the box she was pathologized and slapped with a diagnosis which then required medical intervention which in some ways was a giving away of authentic power. When we lose our power and give it away to outside sources we don’t really become re empowered until we learn ways to take it back.

Anyway with regards to the recent conflict with my therapist I feel I handled it well. I didn’t need to cut off totally and I am also happy I could hold myself through the painful feelings evoked over the three days, my therapist believes it shows great signs of progress for me. Learning to trust myself and my responses and feel comfortable in my own skin is a work in progress.