Marked with the family illness

Lately I am feeling it is probably true that I cannot help my sister, since I struggle too. Maybe I too am marked with the ‘bi polar’ genes. Some days its such a struggle to get moving and regulate my energy. I am slowly beginning to grow a healthier inner parent who advises me when I do positive things and gives me a message when I do things that may not be as good for my energy, like eating too many sweet things before bed time.

I notice that I look for my comfort at night from foods that don’t really provide me with much nutritional value. I look for the ‘excuses’ I may make not to front up for certain things. I think too that I may avoid my own life by focusing on the problems of my sister when her psychological health is up to her. I notice these days I live most entirely alone and spend the majority of my days alone apart from therapy days or the days Jasper and I have a ‘chance encounter’. My cousin’s son asked me today when he came to walk Jasper what plans I had for the week and I could only tell him its my usual routine of home duties, writing my blog and walking Jasper. With my own version of the family illness “isolationism’ (which I am never sure is not just a creative kind of introversion favoured by someone who identifies as an empath with high sensitivity).

I go over and over these issues in my blog and in my therapy. Kat always reminds me that I am in the process of seeking to ‘come alive’ in a real way that is true to me. I missed her today as its a public holiday here and so we are meeting tomorrow afternoon instead, that and the inception of daylight savings here has thrown my routine out the window a fair bit.

I keep looking for the positive things I can engage my energy in. I keep looking for more ways to become involved. I notice too, yet again my tendency to be a bit too hard on myself. In a busy and increasingly disconnected world its actually a sign of good health to slow down and take things more deliberately. Four generations of conditioning and trauma are also not overcome in an instant, a month, a year, or even a decade perhaps and one of my favourite readings from Al Anon in Courage To Change talks about this ‘quick fix’ mentality which is so much apart of modern life.

It was a gift to allow myself to get into bed and have a rest this afternoon. I was grateful I reached out to a family member when I was foundering over my sister yesterday. It took her a day to get back to me but they had an accident yesterday and I got worried as it happened around the time I called her and when that sort of thing happens it scares me. I realise that I am more connected now that I have been in the past, most especially to myself.

I think that possibly my brother in law left my sister as she was too much to handle with her bi polar and the family legacy of addiction. I think he may have wanted a quieter life. I think maybe I have been left because I was not together emotionally either. I feel shame over this but maybe its a sign of growth to admit that me being left so often had something to do with a painful legacy of trauma I carried. I try to live as balanced as I can and in the end I can only be me, trying the best I can to come to terms with a wounded past while recognising opportunities in the present to reach for a trauma free life that can be based on less isolation, fear and self centred protection.