Fear of mania?

At this time of year I am within the cellular imprint of my older sisters’ aneurysm. I don’t know the specific date I only know that the trauma of it induced the birth of my second sister’s eldest son, Ryan on 23rd February, 1980. I had my accident around the 13th of September, 1979 around my Dad’s 59th birthday. I was in hospital until 24th December of that year and about two months later my sister fell to the floor one afternoon with a bleed and was found by her oldest son. She had been having headaches for some time and the doctors could not find a cause. She over drank and smoked and was on birth control.

I actually awoke at 4 am on Tuesday morning feeling like my head was coming off. I have these intense energy weather events but its extreme at this time of year. There are trauma trigger points throughout every year but especially January, February, June, September and December. We had my sister’s birthday on that day and I was a bit anxious. I worry with having had breast cancer about what I eat at restaurants. As it was on that day I was very very emotional. I cried when the table I requested was not made available. I cried at seeing photos of my sister with her three kids and at the lunch and I cried a lot later on when I got home. My emotions calmed down yesterday, luckily. I had an early morning haircut which is hard because with my head trauma I am scared of head massages but the one Shaun gave me yesterday was lovely. But today I notice that the imprint with fear of high energy or mania was around a lot today.

My older sister Judith was in a coma for about 6 weeks after the bleed. I don’t remember a lot but I do remember fear and that when Mum and Dad went to the hospital every night I sat home secretly drinking from the wine cask that lived on the top of the fridge. I was in my first year of studying sociology and teaching at college and I did well. I got an HD for my first sociology paper on the self fulfilling prophecy. My lecturer asked me on the paper to come and see him, as he believed I had a gift and possible career in that field. Suffice to say I was too scared to go. I only lasted one year in teaching, the next year I felt I wanted to get away from my family and so I went to study social work at Brisbane University where I majored in honours in political science. I was very interested in the Northern Ireland conflict and that formed the focus of my first tutorial presentation in 1981. But my alcoholism was also well under way at that point and I met a guy who was a a big dope smoker and had childhood trauma. He worked on oil rigs and would come to Brisbane with a lot of money and dope and at this stage I was checking out. So much so that at the end of that years I decided to not go back to Brisbane. I asked my Dad if I could go back to finish my teaching degree and be safer with my friends (less uncontained) at the old college. Dad came down on me like a ton of bricks and said no I was to go to business college and study typing and shorthand and get a part time job waitressing (at a place with a sexually abusive boss). My addiction got worse from then on in.

I did complete that study. I got a job and into another relationship with an addict and in the interim my sister went through the hell of abandonment by her husband and psychosis. She tried to take her life in the year I was at business college.

I then went overseas and my father died shortly before I left. It was a lot like falling through space. I remember on the plane buying bottle of Scotch and I met up with a friend when I got to the UK and at a party I must have drunk most of the bottle of Scotch as I awoke after (one of numerous blackouts) to see it only had a third left in the bottle.

I know mania or bi polar and addiction are closely related to trauma. Our multigenerational trauma has abandonment, loss and addiction in it on my Mum’s side all associated to my Great Great Grandfather who immigrated to New Zealand in 1875. My sister ended up marrying a New Zealander and being dumped in an asylum there at her worst point before being returned to us with a one way ticket and trying to take her life. Leaving her four boys there with their father who lied about what he did. I witnessed that cruel aftermath and her slapped on diagnosis and struggle over the next 30 years. She died in 2014 in a home for people with acquired brain imagery.

I saw my second sister labelled bi polar about 13 years ago, another victim of trauma trying to hard to pick up the pieces. I witnessed the accusations from Mum and family that she was off the wall after her husband walked out. I saw the forced sectionings the drugging, the shock treatment, my sister reduced to a catatonic state by it all. On the day of my older sister’s funeral I got there only to be told my other sister had been admitted to the psyche ward that day about one year after she tried to take her life in early April 2013.

I am crying now. Sometimes I fear I am bi polar. When my heart pounds and races, as I try to contain the flood of memories, when I struggle to digest lunch after meeting a friend for coffee doing all my washing trying to clean up the cobwebs so I can have a perfect house. I have this fear you see and its emerging now but I know I am not bi polar I just know I struggled with SO MUCH trauma. I am sober today by the grace of love and a higher power and my own inner strength of spirit. I am sharing this today as it needs to come out. I need to remember this fear is only fear. Its natural after seeing what happened to two sisters.

My second sister does well. She is still on her meds and fighting every day. I think maybe the medication pathway has been necessary for her. For me I chose another way. I love my sister so much but I have not always known if my love was returned. As a youngster she had to look after me when Mum left us both alone and at times she could be hard and cruel. In her manic phases she has said some horrible things to me like she pities me and I have had a shit of a life.. yes, its been no rose garden or at least one with a thousand thorns. But was that unfair or just the truth coming out sideways??

Do I need to fear my own mania or is it all just life energy and lots of intense life energy/emotions trying to find its way towards a balanced expression? I will let you be the judge. I have my own answers.