I have struggled immensely in the aftermath of visiting my sister yesterday. Seeing her look at the male nurse with big beseeching eyes when he was querying her about the new drug she is on (which is apparently an old drug I didn’t catch the name of and have no interest in as I abhor psychiatric meds) made me feel so sad for her. In fact I chose that moment to go to the toilet. It has troubled me since coming home and my body has borne the brunt of it. I just struggled to scroll down my phone to see who I could reach out to today to talk to about the way I am feeling and my concerns and who wont blow me off. I ended up calling Lifeline, which if you don’t live in Australia is our 24 hours phone support and counselling service.
The man was helpful and asked me a lot of questions. He said to me “is there anyone at all you can call to talk to about this?” I shared my concerns over calling my sister’s son who never once has contacted me after moving back here just under a year ago. I shared with the man how his father and he used biting sarcasm a lot to diminish other people and how I am scared to call him but I also shared my quandry over whether I am right to feel scared of him and somewhat uncomfortable. Just when is it good to move outside of your comfort zone, I asked him. He threw the question back out at me to get me to struggle with an answer. My answer is I don’t want to move out of it with those who are emotionally abusive, but I am happy to move out of it to take some kind of risk to reach for connections or new experiences that will bring happiness. That said I know we cannot by pass sadness in this life and cannot always feel ‘safe.’
I was touched by a comment I just read left on my last blog in which I had written the words “I was always seeking a safe haven in another.” The pain in the absence of that in my past life was immense as is my fear I don’t deserve it and cannot really expect it, so that even now when I have someone offering me so much love, all I want to do is run a mile due to fear. And this is coming up particularly now that it looks like Scott and I could finally be meeting. I am absolutely terrified. And when I examine these feelings I see that what I most long for I fear also and if my reader’s comment is anything to go by so many of us seek safe haven in others whilst coming to learn over time that in the end we are often betrayed, left or abandoned, but not always (although I do remind Scott so often that even if he honours his promise to never leave me, both of us will have to one day leave each other, when we die.)
I remember at a critical time in sobriety, a recovery friend with huge abandonment issues telling me the only one we can truly rely on in life is God. This person had a strong avoidant attachment pattern and I fell foul of it a few times. It was certainly true when it comes to my family and two parents though, Mum struggled on and tried her best but with her own emotional neglect was often undependable and wouldn’t always show up when she promised or if she did, often she was late, so I guess you could say that over time the only person I have come to feel I could solidly rely on is myself. But the truth is ‘No Man Is An Island” and yet a book I bought on attachment patterns last year speaks of those who are Islands and we tend to attract those who are ‘Waves” who need a lot of attention and connection. Surprising how the two types just seem to find each other all the time. And in the end as adults we do have to rely on ourselves and our infinite connection with other transpersonal resources which nourish us and yet we also need to live on earth and with each other. Loving support means we struggle far less with mental illness.
Maybe the truth is that we can find others who are safe haven for us when it suits them to be available. I don’t honestly know the answer to the question but we do, as adults have to rely upon ourselves. In relation to my sister I see this her inner child longing for someone to pick her up and give her the magic formula of drugs to make her feel better, while she sits in an almost comatose state and does nothing to actually generate her own ‘feel good chemicals’. That said I also felt yesterday the Saturn in Scorpio damned up cesspool of emotions and affects that lay all congealed and stuck together within her. I felt in in the room. And I have seen the killing forces that put that more ‘lively’ side of her to death over many years, that said I know with the prohibitions inside me that want to block of happiness, a sense of unbridled expression, joy and freedom. Today I have felt so stagnant and found it hard to get moving in the same way and I do wonder if as an empath even just visiting for a while yesterday I didn’t absorb some of the stuckness. I really struggled to move and only managed breakfast at 10.30 am.
Sometimes with PTSD it can even be hard to find a safe harbour in our own bodies which can ache with the stress and backlog of difficult emotions we have repressed and struggled to express but could not. Breathing in is one solution but its hard to touch those unsafe and sore places inside at times. Today as soon as I got on the phone to Lifeline the tears began to fall again and I was not as stuck. I was also so appreciative of such loving supportive comments on my last blog about my sister. I felt that terrible aloneness today but I did things to reach out and the Lifeline counsellor commended me on that. I am also struggling as Kat my therapist is on a four week break (which she lied about saying it was only 3 weeks. bit pissed off about that to be honest!!!) Anyway I am seeing my replacement therapist on Tuesday so I am not totally alone, and without WordPress I am sure I would have been far more ‘stuck’. For me most of the time Word Press is a pretty safe haven (apart from one or two skirmishes over 5 years of blogging). I will take refuge in every single safe haven I can get. And it occurs to me after pressing Publish on this a while ago how the Buddhists speak of refuges and one of the strongest refuges are teachings on love and peace in the midst of the storm and that Tara Brach speaks often of the refuge of ‘self compassion’. Treating ourselves with tenderness and understanding on the rough days may be one of the safest of havens we have available when no one else much is around.
Emerging From The Dark Night 