Being ‘nice’, empathic and helpful and taking on other’s problems does not seem to be working for me any more.. I am not entirely sure whether or not it comes from a caring nature or a childhood in which what I needed or felt never got a look in or was actively shamed but lately I am just over helping others. This does not apply to those who are actually helping themselves and reaching out but to those stuck in ‘victim’ who seem to be unable move out of that toxic mind set!
Yet more demands are being made on me by you know who.. this guy has all of my money he still wants 12,000 more Australian dollars to get him off deployment (yeah, I know sounds like a scam but honestly I do not know) what I do know is that I am over helping and every time I try set a boundary he rides over it..
The recent contact with my sister has also pulled me in again, she needs clothes, is not allowed to go out to get them and I cannot take them to her personally, yesterday I bought two pairs of pants as she told me when they moved her back into aged care she had one pair of jeans that no longer fit. This breaks my heart, she owns three properties and has God knows how much money in the bank and she cannot even buy herself clothing, the constant drugs, the ECT, her own fractured sense of self and belief system has convinced her she is a waste of space and I was literally crying on Saturday when we spoke on the phone and she was putting herself down. She has the makings of a strong good beautiful person (God knows she tries but she just seems to consistently place her power with those who steal it or reaches out to the wrong people, I just do not know). Perhaps she has been a little bit of a bully to me at times but its only that older/younger sister dynamic and this mixed up idea that at one time convinced her I was jealous of her, over what I am not entirely sure. These days I would rather laugh about it while not forgetting how her repressive judgements of me and my struggles during active addiction (an even in sobriety) hurt and made me doubt her love. Honestly, at the moment, my ego doesn’t want to hold onto, magnify or make more intense any past wound, why not instead be grateful, help when I can but only to my limits? What is clear though is things are badly out of balance in both relationships.
Being the youngest was so tough in my family and its taking a lot of therapy and emotional recovery to come to terms with it. The age gaps between siblings were huge and I got left behind a lot, in fact during the grieving of this latest Venus retrograde period I have been listening over and over to the ballad version of John Mayer’s song The Last Train Home and these are the lyrics that most resonate and make me cry at times :
I’m not a fallen angel, I just fell behind, I’m out of luck and out of time
(not true the second bit but its how a lot of my life felt living with the PTSD trauma of nearly dying twice)
And
No matter how you work it, things go wrong, I put my heart where it don’t belong.
The last one applies especially to my last failed relationship that ended around this time of year 11 years ago (which curiously is also the amount of time I was married to my ex husband Jonathan for.) And the time that it took me in sobriety to have some of my deeper feelings made accessible to me. I now see that the way this guy put me down and consistent way he gave me messages that his needs over rode everything were just plain wrong for me at that time, but I was not strong enough to stand up to him and then finally the relationship broke when he judged me ‘unacceptable’ as both a partner and a person which in a way was a good thing but utterly painful at the time. I fought with Mum over the issue of my unresolved grief then and took myself off and got into more trouble dating until I decided to come home and try to make a new start in my home town. The truth is that for most of the time up to when Mum died in 2018 and a few years after I was actually consistently being pulled into the traumas, illnesses and mental health issues of my Mum, one of my two sisters.. It is taking me a lot of time to realize that care-taking them is not my job but still I do. I help where I can, its just feels too wrong not to help when it is possible.
Maybe this station of Venus is all about coming into a better balance. When people show they do not care about me or my boundaries its not worth trying to help in compensation. When it comes to the point where my health and energy consistently is down graded its time to pull back which is what I did in September with my sis and failed to do with Scott from last April onwards.
I am clear on the boundary setting at the moment.. I heard a good thing on the radio this morning that said clear boundaries take the emotion out of things, when I am lashing out at Scott in anger and calling him names its down to me not sticking to a boundary and being clear and then my wobbliness sends mixed messages.
Anyway with Saturn and Uranus now both moving forward and hitting my Sun Mercury Venus Jupiter South Node conjunction in Aquarius square to Neptune in the third house of siblings right now the fight is on. I did cry a lot in therapy yesterday with Kat reading my poem about laying down my sword. But a boundary, even if it is a closed door at times can open back up again, its not a wall, it just seems like it has to be at times with those violators who will not take No for an answer.. And as far as feeling sorry or compassion for the ‘victimized’ I honestly do, God knows at times how we comply with our victimization at the hands of others but in the end we have to be clear that there are ways to take back our power and we will not necessarily be handed them, we will have to actively take power back where we can.
Right now I am having to use the Serenity Prayer over and over and over again.. Especially the parts about wisdom to know the difference between what and what does and does not lie within my personal power to change, affect or control. In the end overgiving has cost me too much, and I broke down about it on my late afternoon walk with Jasper, but those tears are telling me something.. I do not want to be crying all of the time or drowning in self pity all due to the fact I am not taking my own life into my own hands.
Emerging From The Dark Night 