Over going to the old dead places

There was a kind of parable I read about when I was in early recovery for addiction that spoke of growing up in addiction or dysfunction as swimming in a poisoned pond.. All of the ducks in the pond are used to the pond where they live, they do not sense the poison in the water but if they do just deny it and suffer in silence.. But one day one of the ducks realising it has wings to fly away and explore, and sensing the energy of the pond is toxic or ‘off’ flies to another place where he finds a beautiful fresh pond with water lillies growing and lots of food.. After spending some times there goes back to his ‘family’ in the old pond with great enthusiasm and excitement telling them there is another pond not that far away that is far better, but the other ducks look at him as if he is a bit crazy, “we don’t know what you are talking about, they say…everything is fine here and we are used to it.” The duck feels dejected and sad, he wants to make things better for them and then he realises if he really wants to be happy he has to make his own way back to the new pond alone..

I am really thinking about this parable today, as I told my sister I would visit her in hospital today and whole idea of it is making me anxious. I have been to visit her in that place so, so many times now.. I think her first admission there was in 2012, there were admissions to two other pyschiatric facilities as well, one in Melbourne, that she was tricked into and other at a far more dangerous one that she was admitted to after leaving intensive care following her suicide attempt in April 2013. But this one she is in now she must have been in and out of twice a year for over 6 years now..

I am beginning to believe that the best way to love my sister is from a distance, but I still feel so so torn. I was thinking earlier of how much she was the one in the family that tried to preserve connection in the family. After Dad died I was sent overseas, my sister in law, who hated Mum, wanted her husband, my brother, to have as little to do with her as possible. It was my sister who was there for my Mum just as she was there for her husband’s mother and father, especially my brother in law’s father who outlived his mother, Thelma who got sober in 1976 and later died of throat cancer.. It was also my sister who was there for her brother in law’s wife (the brother in law died in a bike accident while drunk), she was also there for the other brother in law when he was terminally ill around 2008 or so.

Why is it that my sister is the one who is seen as ‘sick?’ It just does not make sense to me, as I see it its all about her feeling there is something wrong with her, as well as about feelings that had to be denied as well as the wounded feminine. Basically, as I see it modern culture if you cannot cut it in the hard core masculine heroic ethos of just push on and bury everything traumatic and emotional while putting on a painted smile, then there is seen to be something wrong with you. In my sister’s case I see a good person who got tired out by living in such a poisoned pond of trauma but also was victim to too much perfectionism and burying of emotions, which seems to be behind her attempts to seek a cure in medication. She must have been through at least 20 or 30 different medications at this point in her life, the whole thing just breaks me.

I will go today and be there but I am getting tired of the old dead order.. I really want to be alive and living my life now.. I do have sadness and I do have to push myself many days to get up and get some of the good stuff, like fresh air, exercise, good food, time with my dog, a sense of connection with others and being part of a community as well as just looking for the things that bring me joy.. But for my sister in that place all she does all day is sit around and then eat and then sit around some more.. I am so sorry if this seems a critical post I know I cannot change it and it is her life, it probably even wrong of me to write this but I do because I try to honest here… but I am just so tired of the old, tired and dead places.. I really want something different for my life..

Who knows maybe that duck after getting settled in his new pond home still made the occasional trip back to the old poisoned neighborhood from time to time, and felt okay (and even immensely grateful) about it, knowing that at least he had the wings to fly and could leave due to his own volition. I could not help but think of the movie the Wizard of Oz also this morning in connection with finding the personal power and inner spirit to leave the old dysfunctional or out of date places behind, or simply knowing we have the power to return to the home we long for deep inside our heart, but it seems that in order to do so we have to know we do have the power..

Sadly Judy Garland was treated so very badly when she was employed to play the role of Dorothy in that movie, the producer and her mother kept her doped up on pills and she was not allowed to rest or even eat things she liked to, because they did not want her to put on weight.. It the director of the movie is portrayed correctly in the recent movie about Judy Garland’s life, Judy, then he abused her throughout.. This is what happens when power is stolen and when we try to fit into the idealised ‘roles’ others want us to play, instead of staying true to who we are.. then part of us dies as we twist ourself out of shape and exhaust ourselves in trying to keep up with something unreal and empty. We won’t come fully alive again until we find the way back to our true self/home and/or a way to leave the poisoned or poisoning people, situations and roles behind us.

Post script.. After posting this I prayed a lot.. I thought about the fact I need to be grateful my sister is still alive and grateful I have a car and arms and legs to drive to see her…. I don’t get the opportunity lately to see a lot of our fractured family. I do actually enjoy just being with my sis when I go, I will go soon with an open heart, grateful I have a sister who is alive and I can visit with on Sunday. ❤