A day out : evening journal entry

What a day. I am very wrung out and tired. I took my sister out because at the moment she is desperate to leave the psyche facility but her doctor is on leave. She had to sign out and be back at a certain time. Its like FUCKING JAIL. Sorry brief spin out there. We went for lunch to a small French Café and then to walk around the Floriade exhibition of spring flowers which was teeming with SO MANY PEOPLE most of them seeming to be of Indian or Sri Lankan descent, with clusters of families everywhere.

I noticed as my sister and I sat and talked how my past trauma and key incidents from my childhood trauma arked up. I had that feeling of being confined or trapped and I called to mind how a few years before she died after a time of conflict and clash my mother asked me “do you even want to be part of this family?” The truth is I have always felt that I was from somewhere else and reading the book on Earth Angels a while back made sense of this. I also discussed and called to mind the time Mum had all my golden hair cut short to make it easier to control as this morning I was reading in Tara Brach’s book True Refuge the story of her client Jane who had a similar thing done to her against her will by her mother and of how the hairdressers was deaf to her protest and distress. Jane lived with terrible body pain for most of her life until her therapy with Tara taught her to befriend buried feelings stored as crippling sensations in her body in the ongoing course of their body centred work together.

In the end Jane comes to forgiveness for her mother who had to push on alone at all cost and could never respond to her daughters true feelings… wow how did that echo and I was trying to explain it to my sister at lunch. I also recalled being left in the car at the Golf Club at the coast for hours while family went in to have a few drinks. My sister had no memory of this and seemed not to believe me. But I know its a real memory. Its one reason waiting triggers me so much now.

I also broke down about the coast house. Her son is down there right now and I told her I don’t feel that comfortable going. Her son is a very full on busy guy who gets the kids doing projects, today he had them sanding and painting the French doors, its probably a good thing but the call to industry theme reminds me of how super hard it was to relax as a youngster and how no fun was to be had until chores were done. Truth is I feel a bit squeezed out down there. Its my issue but it bugs me a bit.

It was a bit of a relief to get home tonight. It was long day out for me and Jasper hadn’t been walked, we did a quick pootle around the neighbourhood and he did a big pooh and I got him back home to serve dinner. I am doing a catch up post as I posted a poem earlier before I left on my phone but it had typos in it. I am so grateful for patient blogger buddies who never correct my mistakes and still manage to find it in their hearts to push the ‘like’ button. Truth is I am to fucking hard on myself all together and my sister told me today I need to be kinder to myself.

It made me so sad too to ask her if she had heard from any of her breast cancer buddies. “No,” she told me “I just didn’t know what to say about being in a mental hospital.” I told her that I heard a programme on men’s mental health and emotional violence earlier in the week and one of the contributors shared how all stigma is internal, the truth is that when we take the risk to open up and be vulnerable we may often get a more loving compassionate reception than we fear. Her ‘mental health’ issues are all due to carried multi-generational stress of a woman who was not supported emotionally by an emotionally neglected husband who came out of active addiction as well. I just hate seeing my sister judging herself for this, while at the same time I told her that I understand how she feels scared.

A lot goes on when I am with my sister and it was late when I dropped her back. I need to go make dinner now but I just wanted to post this update. The day started with me criticising myself for putting myself to death over years of isolation and yet what else could I do coming from the family and conditioning I did. Its surely time to be less down on myself and more admiring of who I am as a person, someone honest, raw and real who is trying her best to come to terms with things while keeping love and understanding in her heart. Its a huge call and I seem to be doing well most of the time, much as I give myself a hard time so often.