When I come home again I find the way back to my heart. Today my chest is burning though. I had to be at therapy at 11 am and I managed it after getting Jasper out while riding my bike and cleaning through the house by 10 am. It is my sister’s birthday tomorrow and I am such a bad present giver. Really I should have been organised with a present for her before now but I had hoped to buy her a lovely pair of earrings but the only ones I could find that I thought she may like were 1,200 dollars. I was shocked when the assistant told me the price. I really would love to get something for my sister which she loves but I just came home empty handed feeling defeated, disappointed I had left it so late and crying.
It is horrendously hot here, when ever I go out into the world I get intimations of disaster re climate change lately. I wonder how much longer the planet can go on sustaining these temperatures. All I want lately is to be in a quiet still space without too much pressure to go anywhere, do anything or be anyone at the moment because when I go out into the world it seems we are on the brink of destruction. Maybe I am projecting this at present. I am just not too sure but I know driving around in my car is adding to the pressure on the earth, global consumption is also adding to the pressure on the earth and I am well over blown with ‘stuff’ in my house at the moment. I look around and wonder where it all came from because when I first moved in here in late 2011 I didn’t have much at all. All I did was shop little my little acquiring things.
The focus today in therapy was upon my fear of being truly alive, truly free, truly myself. I read my therapist the post on the price of not belonging is belonging to myself today which I wrote back in 2014 because today someone left a comment saying they had been scapegoated by the entire family when they tried to address the issue of their sexual abuse. I just felt so so sad that a person could be treated this harshly because much as my parents neglected me, it was a kind of benign neglect. It left me with a hunger for attention which I now know must truly come from inside of me. But the post also spoke of how I associate the feeling of being alive with the fear of destruction. If I am too happy I fear I am manic, I feel if I get ‘too big for my boots’ or try to burst out of the box in some way I will bring down destruction on my head and this literally happened when I crashed my bike in 2005 after trying to take off to the UK and start a new life, far from family. After the crash I lost my confidence and came back because the head injury I sustained had destabilised me so badly and I carry that head trauma imprint on each waking and sleeping as well as in panic attacks up to two or three more times a day on the bad days.
I went out to see the Bald Archies painting exhibition with my sister yesterday. Mainly it consisted of caricatures of politicians and sports men and comedians, one of the musician Richard Gill who died recently and the focus of most was fun or criticism. That made me sad. It showed how confused and lost a lot of people are in our world and how much dishonestly and lack of compassion there can be for the mess we find ourselves in. There was a lot of truth in the criticism but it still struck me as harsh, I sometimes wish I was not such a softy. I may not have put up with as much crap in my past if I was not so soft and hollowed out and longing for affection and attention as I was.
On the way out my sister informed me her son was putting on a birthday dinner for her, of course I was not invited. It doesn’t seem to occur to her that I might be hurt by it. I said in therapy today I am not going to take it personally for frankly I don’t want to feel bad any more. I just want to accept what comes. What point will arguing do? I am on my own with Jasper I don’t have children. Things are okay. I am sure if I got into trouble and reached out and asked for help it would be there. Maybe the don’t mean to exclude me and maybe it was all okay anyway as I was happy to stay home, or maybe part of me is denying it hurts. But as far as I can see it falls into one of the things I require the serenity to accept right now. Why raise a ruckass? Everything is okay. I just don’t seem to exist for my sister’s family although I know my other’s sister’s son did ask this other nephew to be there for me, he has a very very very busy life and a high profile job so its really too much to ask, I do appreciate that. And I am not a powerless victim in this. I am an adult who can reach out. I WOULD RATHER COUNT MY BLESSINGS AT THIS POINT.
I am just not entirely sure why being able not to find a gift for my sister is upsetting me so much, I fear that my childhood set me up to be too self involved and blinkered too. But I also know I have a compassionate heart I just leave things too late at times. I really should have started looking for a gift weeks ago. Anyway I am far from perfect. I am taking my sis out to lunch tomorrow so I will try to find a nice orchid or failing that give her a lovely bunch of flowers. Our tastes vary a lot so its not easy to buy for her.
I feel a little less lost when I get back home and write my blog. Its cooler inside and I can hear the wind. I don’t want to make mountains out of molehills. Everything is okay today, I just miss loving family and at times the degree of my aloneness frightens me. But I am in good company in this for sure and I can always share about it here and find at least for a little while some relief from the sadness that seems to be rising up from deep inside my heart right now.
Emerging From The Dark Night 
That feeling of aloneness is horrible Deborah. I can relate so well. My family is the same. I have no one. Although I am married my husband is not there and gas an abusive nature. But what you say about your sister I could say about my brother, who won’t have anything to do with me at all. You are strong though Deborah. But oh don’t we sometimes get so sick of being strong?!
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Yes I REALLY DO Lorraine. The thing is my sister isn’t mean to me but she can say these things to me and I sit next to her in the car crying and she doesn’t seem to notice? Anyway I will not be resentful.. what is for you doesn’t go past you..I just think it doesn’t occur to them to ask or include me. Is it selfish to think or expect they would?
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No it isn’t selfish at all. I have longed for my brother to include me and invite me out with them. But he has told me that I am not his sister,so that is that. It hurts a lot. So that is why I can really relate Deborah
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NOT HIS SISTER????? Oh No that is horrible. My sister invited me to things. I think I was just too much of a hermit in the past!! I am so so sorry that comment makes me feel so angry for you.. I am so sorry Lorraine ((–))
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It’s ok Deborah. He said it in 2017 just after we had had a head on collision with a car. Not my husbands fault. The woman was driving almost blind. But my brother was asked to come pick me up from the car and I was in shock and he said he didn’t like how Iwas. And then he said I wasn’t his sister. So be it! Can’t families be just horrid! I am best off without him!
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I think it is fear personally….. or maybe overwhelm. Some people just shut down.. they aren’t capable of more. Yes, far better off Lorraine…….that’s not real love, sadly.
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Who knows what it is. He is moving hoyse at the moment so very sekf interested right now. He was and still is the Golden Boy. He can’t bear suffering of any kind though, however minor. He promused me, sitting at my bedside when I had cancer, that I woukd never be without a family again as he and his wife would be my family. It was what had been my biggest pain in life so this was amazing. I fought the cancer feeling that I would at last have a family. But then he never meant it but I did not know that. Mi just shake the dustnoff my feet now. I am dreading my mother’s funeral – she is 93. I don’t want to even sit at the front with him and my sister. I want to sit right at the back in my wheekchair!
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Yes I snuck into my mother’s funeral by the side door. No one drove me.
That’s text book narcissism. They don’t do illness, suffering or pain. Too raw… too real… too close to the bone. When I had my cancer family were strangely more absent than ever. Thank God some friends supported me a little bit. It was grim but not as grim as what you have had to endure, Lorraine. xoox
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You mean my brother is narcisdist or my mother? I never thought of my brother being nsrciddist but you could bevright. My mother is a malignant narcissist. Yes, my family also became much worse during my cancer. I can get so bad over it but am trying now to forget it and not let it hurt me xoxo
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Well I just think our parents are models for us and if they don’t ‘do’ feelings its hard for the children to feel they can have theirs and support others in feeling too. If he was the Golden Child his empathy would be stunted by that.
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Absolutely. He has no empathy whatsoever. But he has a terrible fear of cancer and at this moment believes he has it even though tests have proved he hasn’t. What causes that Deborah? You are a brilliant psychologist
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Those who fear vulnerability can project it in all kinds of ways. They can imagine cancer is eating them up but its all about denied or wrestled with vulnerabilities… LOl Its funny I wanted to study psychology as a youngster and teenager due to my mixed up family but I have probably earned my degree via the book of life and the school of hard knocks. 🙂
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Me too lol
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We all have some degree of narcissism its just what scale its on, I guess…..and if its healthy or unhealthy. Also I don’t know if our siblings can make up for wounds our parents caused. Our healing is up to us in the end.. and some of us get less of everything due to birth position.
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Ther is 11 years between me and my brother. He is younger than me. And my mother adored and adores him but then also turns and hates him when he ignores her needs. Then she tries to turn to me but I cannot help because of my phtsical condition. Barrie I think is a full blown narcissist now I come to think of it. I am glad you me tioned that because it makes sense now. Thankyou Deborah. My mother fed him overly whilst I literally starved. I would have nothing at all to eat whilst he had reams. I then got sick. But she didn’t care and he didn’t even know. But he resents every little tiny slight by my mother. Yet I was shoved into acwashing machine by my mother – head first and told I was dirty. All because I. Enstruated. But I am over that now. Lots of years ago. But that is the difference between the two of us. Barrie was a bully. Determined to become big and have lots of money. He made it. He runs his own business. His wife is Lady Muck lol. Lady of the Manor. Ha ha. Oh well…..
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Sadly your Mum’s upbringing taught her to believe in lies. There but for the grace of God… its very very very painful and sad….
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And I couldn’t push ‘like’ on that. My heart hurts for you. 😦
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Thankyou Deborah. I guess I am used to it now but still struggle with it at times xoxo
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Do you often think of the Sermon on the Mount, Lorraine? Where Jesus said sacred are those who are ignored or exile or rejected. It comes to me a fair bit and I heard a gay guy sharing about it on the radio today. He set the sermon to music to support gay people who are exiled. We are not alone in this.. we need to remember that. It takes strength to suck it up thought. Lots!!!
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Strangely, that was the Lectionary Feading this weekend. Though I do not go to church any more. But I do readbthe set Readings each day. And that is one passage that goes deep into my heart and comforts me. I would love to have heard that gay guy
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If I can find the link and its available as pod cast Ill post it later. I have to go out soon, but I will search for it later. ((–))
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Oh gos, THANKS Deborah. I really would like to hear that. Thankyou
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