We all need to feel supported in order to grow, in order to live, in order to WANT to live, but this support or lack of support issues is one I am thinking over a lot lately as the support needs to be of the right kind and quality and then there is the issue of attention and focus.. This came to be after my therapist making the comment about my family perhaps not loving me.. It was not something I felt after the accident, Mum and Dad came up to the hospital every night and bought me a home cooked meal. They even bought a little Schweppes bottle filled with white wine, which considering how my alcoholism would progress may not have been the best.. They also sat by my older sister’s bedside when she was in that coma only a few short months later. In later years Dad forced me down avenues I did not wish to travel and that damaged me and only contributed to my sense of isolation from others and myself.. And then a dark road took me.. Maybe he loved me but could not see me.. just did not know how to support me in the right and helpful ways.
In AA we talk about self centered fear, but it may also relate to self centered shame or lack of a good kind of supportive inner structure of love that will encourage more positive things inside of us to grow, not glossing over the pain, hurt or negativity we are steeped in or may feel, often legitimately but ultimately trying to work through all of the associated feelings and thus put it to some form of good use.. This is what I want to make of that comment today as it seemed to take me into a very dark place yesterday. I could be in denial though, who knows?
And it also makes me consider how sometimes people can say they love us and act in unloving or selfish ways, and I went through this in past years with Scott. The impulse to be together may have come out of fear for him of being alone and not knowing what direction his life may take coming out of the military. I do not know but what I am feeling lately is that claims of love over time lead to him asking a lot of me that hurt me and bound my resources up even more..
Today I have to own all of my ‘mistakes’ and blind spots out of the fact I am just another imperfect human struggling to live in at times difficult and challenging circumstances. At times I may have to make a choice that seems unloving, like not continuing to visit my sister in the psyche ward but that may be loving for me and even ultimately loving for her..
When it comes to love who knows what particular form it may take? Attachment is not always love if it asks something of someone that will limit or hurt them or prevent their spiritual growth. . So it is, at times we have to make cuts that bleed and then go on from there as we put a dressing over the wound allowing it the necessary time to heal. If the wound we feel comes from a feeling of lack of love, in what way can we lovingly support ourselves through the painful and at times even suicidal feelings and impulses that might arise in the wake of such painful recognitions? How do we then find other avenues of support that encourage us to go on living, loving and reaching out to grow?
Emerging From The Dark Night 