It Starts to Break

It's been getting hard to sleep again.  It's not just the no contact thing, it's a combination of being busy and ignoring those issues inside.  When I don't deal with my feelings about my estrangement from my family, they begin to grow ugly roots around my heart and I need to spend some time untangling it all.

This morning I listened to the song I listened to after leaving my mom's psychiatrist's office.  I let myself sit with my morning coffee and climb back into that grief so that I could let it out and accept it.  I don't know why it's so hard to just feel it the way it is, without all of the rumination and internal fight.  Without still battling her.  Or them.  Or me..

Today I had the space to just feel it.  The sadness.  The loss.  The grief.  It's all dancing inside of me like a hauntingly sad, silent ballet.  I feel relieved to finally feel it again.  The raw emotion.  Not the anger and the frustration and the guilt that seems to attach themselves so easily.  The pain that is where acceptance comes from.

I need now to accept that I have lost my aunt.  I have accepted that my brother and I will likely never have a relationship again.  I think I have grieved my dad.  I never expected him to protect me or to look out for me in any real way.  Plus his health has been declining for so long that I had already been preparing myself for loss.  My mom told me 15 years ago that he was showing signs of early Alzheimer's and I think I cried for two days solid (I don't know why she said it, she has also told me that she thinks she has Alzheimers).  When I found out his body was starting to shut down on him,  diabetes, arteries almost closed, little heart attacks and he kept on smoking and drinking, I grieved.  Ambulance calls, hospital stays and still he couldn't let go of his vices.  I cried and cried and cried.  I let go and let go.  Little did I know that all of that grieving would help me now.  My mom is like the rest of his vices.  He won't see how unhealthy it all is.  Even when faced with what seems like the worst.  He let go of his beer finally, but I can see now that it was only because he couldn't drink anymore without falling over.  He never did it for the better of our family.  He couldn't made choices like that and I can walk away from him easier because of that.  My mom always made me believe that everything she did was for our family and I couldn't see how selfish her choices really were, how mentally ill she really was because I was raised to see her the way she wanted to be seen.

So that's where I am at.  Still struggling to accept the loss of my aunt.  Beginning to accept the loss of my mom.  Accepting the loss of my dad and brother.  It's a long way from where I started.

One day in the not so distant future, I think we will drive away from this place and make our home somewhere new.  And I want to find peace before we go.

"Sometimes the tears we cry, are more than any heart can take.  We hurt, just keep it inside, it's no wonder that it starts to break."  - Birdy

Update:  5 hours after writing this post, my dad showed up.  He asked why I can't be stronger than this.  He told me that my mom just lies in bed all day.  He said that he and my aunt aren't in our lives because we 'snubbed them'.  He told me to quit bringing up the past.  Any peace I had found, turned to anger, tears and renewed guilt.  I told him to never come over and do this to me again.  I told him that he was as responsible as she was for all that abuse because he stood by and did nothing.  He allowed it.  I asked him if all those days she spent in bed when I was a kid were my fault too.  I told him if he wanted things to improve to quit enabling her by re-enforcing that I am the problem.  I reminded him that I will not open the door without hearing from her psychiatrist that she is showing enough improvement to have a healthy relationship.  I reminded him it doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be healthy.  I told him that what I am doing is requiring an unbelievable amount of strength and that I am doing for my daughter what nobody did for me.

And I shouldn't have bothered saying any of it.