Xmas mornings

I want to say I hate the ever creeping approach of Christmas but I don't. I love Christmas and the trimmings and tidings and the grandiose, over the top expense of it all. I love shopping for my kids. I love wrapping presents. I love planning dinner and tripping all over town from party to party. I love it.

I love it because I used to hate it.

That's right, I used to despise it and a know used to form in a my stomach as soon as the first Christmas decorations showed up in the mall. I would worry and wonder what could happen with my family this year? In fact, I banned them all from Christmas morning so my kids could open presents in peace. SO I could enjoy just a half a day of the holidays. It was one of the first times I put boundaries in with my family and I did it for my kids. And Christmas mornings were magical. It still never gets old for me and even when my first husband and I separated, he still came over every Christmas morning and opened presents with our kids. We still have brunch on Christmas morning, all of us. Those boundaries are the best thing I ever did. It paved the way for me to love Christmas again. LOVE it.

Boundaries are a funny thing though because as necessary as they are, they are a painful process to put in place. The first time you put it out there, everyone revolts. People absolutely refuse to believe you would be so unkind or so selfish. The backlash is momentous. So you falter. And you waver. And you second guess what you are doing. But if you stay the course, things even out, people start to accept the boundaries and either they fall away from your life altogether or you fall into some comfortable rhythm. Christmas became my love song. People got over it and indeed even admired it.

But boundaries get skewed with mental illness. Two years ago, my sister got kicked out of where she was living on Christmas Eve and she had planned to have both of her kids. So we took her in. I mean - what choice did I have right? We started a new tradition of Christmas Eve Fondue and it was fun. I ran out and filled three extra stockings and we just muddled through. Christmas morning, my sister was there. It was the first time in 14 years I had anyone else at our Christmas morning. But extraordinary circumstances right?

Last year, my sister did not have anywhere to go for Christmas again. We supervise her time with her daughter so if she wanted to see her, we would have to take them all. So we did. And she slept over and was here for Christmas morning. My husband bought me an anniversary band. It was very special because really we had only been married one year and anniversary bands are for year 10 but he said it felt like we had lived through 10 years already. It was very awkward to get that gift in front of my sister and she kept making jokes about how she would probably never get that kind of gift and how she could be my husband's other "wife". It was the reason we banned everyone from Christmas morning because it was private and intimate and just something we shared that didn't get polluted by family politics. It felt awful because it was not a joke really, because my sister's life has been irrevocably changed and here I am living this very normal and lovely life. The guilt bleeds off of me. It is hard to feel joyful in front of her because it highlights what she does not have. And she is quick to point it out and make loud jokes and bring it up over and over. She would say she doesn't want us to act differently or be someone we are not but in reality it is a showing off of a life she covets in many ways and it cannot be hidden but we do our best to downplay it.

And so we have - downplayed out joy for over 2 years. And now none of us can seem to re-claim it. Christmas is coming. My sister is broke and has already moved out of her housing into somewhere else. Problems occurred right away. We will be responsible to supervise her daughter. She will stay for Christmas but an incident a few weeks ago means she cannot stay here by herself and she is not welcome at other places we might go and so Christmas will be all about my sister and getting her at least the bare minimum of what we can offer her as "normal". And I wonder when will I stop being so resentful and angry? When will I feel blessed to have this time left with her when we thought she would die so many times over the last 2 years? When will it stop being so watered down and dismal?

I want to give her all the joy I can in the time she has left. I want her kids to have memories of her that they will cherish forever. I would have wanted someone to orchestrate that for me and my siblings years ago when my parents were at odds - I wanted them to suck it up and just pretend that Christmas could be lovely again. They didn't and we are all haunted by the ghost of Christmas Past every damn year. Why can't I just make it beautiful and joyful - a single day where we forget what has happened and be present. I just can't do it. And I weep daily wondering how I will feel about Christmas when she is gone, when there is no chance to redeem the situation. I lived such huge regrets after my dad died - I should have called, I should have tried, I should have made the first step. How can I re-live this over and over?

Simply because it is not as easy a lovely Christmas day. Do you know how many times I answered my phone when my sister first got sick? How many days of work I missed and then missed some more of without reporting it? Do you know how many pep talks and words of encouragement I dispensed on a daily basis. Sometimes for hours - then to have her attempt suicide the next day after all that time and energy and sacrifice.And then to have her joke about that too. She took advantage of me and I let her. She did not think of my children and the weeks that would go by without seeing them because I was with her. The hours we drove to pick up her daughter and the embarrassment and the humiliation at the hands of her ex's family. Though she knows how hard I have struggled to maintain my Christmas mornings with my kids - she would never suggest she come over after or even ask. She will say, "I'm sorry I don't have anywhere else to go". It will guilt laden and resistant. And I am her sister and why can't I make this lovely for her? Why can't I just give it up and be there for her and lose the regrets and bitterness? Because the more I give, the more she takes. If I fall back at all, if I lose my boundaries anymore, she will pounce. If I believe her, she will lie. If I stop looking, she will fall. It is not a guess. It never ceases to amaze me how accurate my gut is in telling me something is wrong even when she denies it and chastises me for my lack of faith. It is almost never wrong and I can tell by the sound of her voice most days that she has done something that is going to get her into trouble. I miss the naivety we had before we figured it all out. I miss my Christmas mornings with my family before we had to let the rest of the world in.

RIP

I am praying for my Dad, for all the Dads lost - Rest in Peace.

2 steps forward...10 steps back

I have been waking up every morning again with my crazy anxiety. The kind that keeps you up at night and won't let you sleep in. I realize more and more that I am a changed person and I see it more clearly, how much I am struggling to keep up with regular people. I just cannot get back to me, not since my sister became lost. I truly don't trust anyone anymore - not even my best friends. My life used to be so different. I remember when people used to line up at the door for my birthday parties and I went out every weekend. It seemed like there was no lack of places to be and people to be with. When I look at myself in the mirror, my face has changed, literally changed. I have aged in two years beyond what I thought possible. I feel so excited to go out and have fun and then just before I go out I think, "I don't want to do this". My stomach starts to hurt and I feel suddenly very aware of how different I look and how different I feel and I think people will notice and they won't like it. In truth I know that it is me who is turning people away. I don't want to explain my life anymore, I don't want people to judge me or talk about me like I am the winner of the Most Dysfunctional Family Award. I get it - we're a fucked up bunch. I think the difference is I never used to care what people thought. I was confident and I used to be able to say, "so what?" if someone didn't like me then. It changed how people saw me, even if they didn't like me, they were drawn in by my confidence and my fun - I never seemed to be anywhere I wasn't having fun. Now I am fucking paranoid and sketchy, everywhere I go. I feel like I can't go anywhere without someone else I know, who will rescue me if God forbid anyone tries to talk to me. I say weird things because I feel so nervous all the time. I wish I had the same confidence I do at work - for some reason, being around other people who are just as messed up makes me stand straighter and talk prouder.

I used to have a charmed life - despite the circumstances of my family. My best friend used to live here and she would drag me out no matter what was going on. She lives in another country now and on her last trip here it was clear we were not on each other's level anymore. I was older, less willing to take risks, more wrapped up in my pain and suffering. She told me she doesn't email me as much or check in because I bring her down. I was of course offended and then devastated. I never thought I would be that person for her. I never thought I would be this person for me.

It started with my sister's boyfriend and his family. I loved him and he was definitely a part of our family. They came over and played games and drank with my husband and I while we were just dating. He came to me when he was worried about my sister or they were fighting. We were close. It was clear that his family didn't really like me - they thought I was showy and loud and probably over the top. It is hard to imagine me like that anymore but they were probably right. The thing is, his family didn't seem to like him that much either. He was kind of the outcast so we just took him under our wing and made him our own. I never gave it much thought - this family that didn't seem to like me. I felt beautiful and outgoing and fun and they were probably just jealous. This is how I used to feel - infallible. When things went wrong with my sister, I could not believe how quickly that family turned on me. They blamed me - outright. Said I was the one who put all the ideas in her head. They told people they SAW me in the bathroom doing drugs. They called the police and said I had my sister on my caseload at work and the police came to my work, talked to my boss. I had to go under oath time after time in court and prove my worth. They laughed and waved mockingly when I dropped my niece off after visitations. They wrote "anonymous" emails saying how I was responsible for what my sister had done and I should be ashamed and that my children would probably grow up to be losers just like me. They called Child Welfare and make accusations about neglect. It went on and on and on. I had never in my life been so disliked - hated even.

When my husband and I started dating, this was not happening yet. It would happen very soon after we met but at first I was definitely the party girl. I didn't get to go out often so I always made sure to make the most of it. Before my husband and I started dating I met all of his friends at BBQs and parties and they seemed to love me. Or maybe I just didn't see it or care if they didn't back then. I knew who I was, I was confident. I never felt worried then that people didn't like me and for all intense purposes, they seemed to love when I showed up. After we started dating, things got weird. A girl I knew for a long time and who was a friend of a friend but someone I thought I knew fairly well "cautioned" my husband about dating me. She said I was a party girl, and she was worried I would hurt him. She was worried I would embarrass her actually. When I confronted her, she totally denied it but things started to get worse after all the stuff with my sister started to happen. I was distraught. I can't honestly imagine what I must have looked like or sounded like. I know I told stories everywhere I went - I was not embarrassed, I was devastated. It consumed me and I could see people were starting to pull away from me. It felt like all of my husband's friends were suddenly very worried about him, about him being with me. His family was equally worried. They questioned if he wanted to be in the middle of this. They questioned if he wanted to be with me. The more he stuck to his guns and stood by me, the more people seemed to dislike me. I have never fit into his family and the gap just got wider and wider. I feel like they tolerate me now and they definitely barely tolerate my family. They do not have open arms for them at all. We will never share Christmas together, they will never ask. I get it. We're a fucked up bunch.

So in a year, I was completely ousted by three different groups of people. I started to change. I started to notice people standing further from me. I heard whispers and saw stares. I realized that I was now the freak. Maybe I always was - I just honestly never noticed. Or maybe I never cared. But I see it now, the uncomfortable feeling people have around me - even new people I have never met because I am different. I am nervous and always looking for clues that people know I am not the same as them. I can't tell stories anymore. I am envious of other people's lives. For some reason, this had never happened to me before. I was always so glad for people's lives and successes. I was always the first person people would call to tell me their good news because I was genuinely happy for them. I am struck by so much envy and pain now it is hard to function. It is hard to be around people in love, people with new babies, new jobs, family functions. I went through a whole summer of weddings and spent most of them in the bathroom crying after the Father/Daughter dance or the speeches of how wonderful the couple was, all they had done. My life would never be that way again. And I was envious. I was sick with jealousy. It has made me bitter and unapproachable. I am changed by my family's shortcomings in a way I never was before. I used to be the rock. I used to be the forgiveness in my family. I used to make the lemonade out of those lemons and now I just let them rot.

13 years ago tomorrow, my Dad hung himself. I guess looking back at his funeral, I did have experiences where people left me out, where people started to stay very far from me for a time. No one knows what to say when your Dad hangs himself. My Dad's whole family shunned us kids. We were to blame and in truth, I stood out as the biggest target of blame. I shouldered that for years to protect them and to protect my Dad. I couldn't blame him for his own actions and I couldn't allow others to either. Blame the golden girl gone wrong - the one who broke his heart with a child out of wedlock at 19. Blame me. I blamed me for so many years and I am sure I could still dig up a morsel of blame today if you try hard enough. Tomorrow it will be 13 years. 13 years from that first degradation. My first public humiliation. The first tear in my heart that could not be repaired. But I did move on. I got stronger, I got rid of people in my life who did not understand or who did not support me. I found strength in the people who stood by me. I blossomed in many respects. I stood up for myself and for my children. I stopped caring what people said and I only privately lamented every year on Remembrance Day - when I took a whole week to cry and carry on and be ridiculous. But people in my life allowed it and I wiped my tears and I carried on every year. And in truth, I was so genuinely loved and cared for in that time that it started to melt away - the regret and the pain. I looked and seemed normal again. I laughed and partied and loved recklessly. My boyfriend for 8 years - not the most stable guy - but his family embraced me, his friends adored me, he worshiped me even though he could not get up on his own two feet. There was comfort with him and everyone in his life. I can tell you, birthdays and Christmas were amazing. Life was not easy and he was not easy - but people admired me then. I miss that. It's like never seeing the sun again.

I have become a tired, paranoid, cynical and ever on guard girl. If you knew me two years ago, you wouldn't recognize me today. I feel beaten. I went to a party the other day and I left by 10:30 because my anxiety was so bad. I knew there were people who didn't like me or maybe just didn't get me. I could not figure out a way to explain it - I could not see a way to fit in. Two years ago I was the last girl at the party. I loved going out and meeting new people and hanging with whoever. My friend said I was the girl you could take anywhere - you could dress me up or dress me down and I could talk to anyone. She said I was an excellent wing man. I cannot even imagine that now. My nerves are shot. I don't feel pretty anymore. No matter how hard I try it is etched on my face, I am lost. I am hardened and angry. I don't have patience anymore for small talk and gossip. I am guarded. I wonder why people are asking me questions - as if that isn't what people who don't know you have always done. I feel compelled to tell them nothing and then vomit up my life all in the same moment. I simply don't know what to say anymore. I don't know what's appropriate. I used to be an open book but now the story is so sad. It haunts me and you can see it. I just don't know where to start and I don't know where to end when I get started so I simply don't go out anymore. I am withdrawing more and more every day. I am tired of being judged. I am tired of being the outcast. I am just tired.

I am claimed by my family.

And it feels like not one soul could ever love me again for what I am now. She will never know, my sister, she will never know how this has ruined me. My carefree butterfly sister, we used to be so glamorous and so adored. What happened to us? I am simply not sure how to turn this story around. When we were young we just drank the woes away, we partied and laughed and we dressed up the hurts and we drew people to us with our charm and good looks. We never seemed empty like we do now. People were more forgiving, more accepting then. I guess after years people stop caring. Indeed, people can actually stop loving you. I had no idea that was possible. I know it now.

The Finish Line

So I finished my first 10km race and it was such a metaphor for my life with my sister that it was almost ironic and ridiculous. My race was very difficult because it had hills - BIG fucking hills. I have tried to train for hills but the concept still entirely eludes me. My heart started racing 10 steps up the first hill, it loomed over me and it seemed so far up. I wanted to run it but I couldn't. I walked then ran, walked some more, ran a little bit, walked a lot more and finally got to the top of that monster hill. I thought it would be 1km but it was 3km. I wasn't prepared and I knew my time would be terrible and despite knowing I was at least going to finish this race, I felt devastated. I thought about my sister the whole time and I realized that this is how she must feel - trying so hard and knowing it's just not going to be exactly what you hoped for at the end. I totally felt like giving up sometimes. I said "Fuck" a lot when I had to slow down. I was so frustrated and angry but I could not make my body do what I wanted my body to do. It just wasn't ready, it did not have enough familiarity with the pain to push through it with any kind of force. I truly truly just wanted to be proud that I finished but I kept having these odd twinges of regret and embarrassment when people asked me my time. I was not on par with these runners and I realized that despite their very best efforts not to, they were judging me. Not judging me to be unkind or cruel, but they had their own perceptions of the race, the pace and the way they handled the hills - they could not begin to understand mine and the great effort it took for me. They could not understand why it was so difficult because they had the ability to do it and many of them had done it before. This is the world my sister lives in - never quite measuring up and always having people measure her by their own measuring stick. It's not always meant to be unkind or cruel but I can see that it sure must feel that way. It doesn't matter how many times you tell me I tried my best or what a great job I did, I will feel the sting of failure. I will rebuke myself for not pushing harder, for not training more for not just being better despite how unrealistic it is having just put in some real training for a month. I just want to be really good and it's that simple. I know I have to work twice as hard now because of my age and my serious lack of exercise for 2 years - I know I have built in handi-caps. But it doesn't matter at the finish line, I am still undone because me and them - we are just not the same and I know it. My sister and I know this, my sister knows this everyday. It makes me want to train harder and it makes me want to lie down and cry until I can't possibly cry any more. Because my sister doesn't fit in, neither do I anymore.

I realized this weekend that my walls are WAY up. I had thought I was mellowing and settling but I saw how much work I have to do. It was a girl's weekend, all piled into a condo laughing and sharing our lives. I did not want to share my life. I felt compelled to stay upstairs in my bed and pull the blankets over my head. Obviously I have stories to share that are appropriate and lovely but they are so deeply intertwined with my stories of discord and heartbreak it is hard to separate them out and tell them in a charming manner that screams "Look at me, I'm normal just like you". I can't tell the story of my children without telling about my nephew which means I have to explain why I have him. And even as vague as I have learned to be, I hate the unsure glances and the sickening smell of curiosity and judgement milling around the room. People want to feel bad for me but they must at the exact same time wonder who my sister is and what mother would leave her child behind. They get a little more protective of their stories and their lives, they get a little self righteous. The line gets thicker between us. I'm not welcome on the other side of the line anymore even if I have done nothing wrong. I want to be separate from my sister as much as I want to be completely entombed with her to protect her and give her some credibility. Having a sister who still loves you after everything you've done gives her some credibility, it makes people give her a second chance because it means there must be something worthwhile about her even if they can't see it. So it is still my responsibility to keep her in this race and shuffle her through to the finish line and bear the judgments that rain down on her. It is still my cross even though I have tried to shed it and allow her the responsibility of her own life. We are both irrevocably changed by this disease, we are colored by it even when you don't know it. You just know there is something different about us. My social skills are lacking, my ability to be just me is nearly impossible. I don't trust people with my story anymore. I don't want to get close to anyone new because I do not want to explain it and risk you walking away because of the complication. I am closed for business. My self confidence is shallow and easy to see through these days. I am so good at tricking you from far away but close up you can see it - the nervousness and the anxiety of trying to be normal just like you. I think of my sister's nervous laughter that drives me crazy, how she smokes and makes fun of everything in her attempts to find your normal. But you are not fooled. She is ousted immediately. I felt that this weekend in a tiny fraction of what she must feel everyday. And I cried for myself when I got home and then I cried for her and I realized that running is not the only thing I need to train for. I'm training for normal.

I ran 10km the other day. I sat down on the bumper of my car and cried. It was suppossed to be this big moment when I got back to being able to run 10km - I have worked really hard for it and I felt proud. But as always, there was something missing. I am still amazed at how easy it is for me to set a goal, put the work in and achieve it. It is where my sister and I part ways. She sets goals and she works very hard but it always seems like the end result always eludes her. It's like running 10km and never reaching the end. I can't imagine it. I simply can't imagine not getting the brass ring at the end of all the hard work. It is the reason I get so short with her sometimes because I just want to say, "stop fucking around and do it - you can do this". It's just that I have seen her so many times before finish the race. I still can't believe that she can't do it again. I know her perceptions of success and greatness are different than mine now. I realize I need to wear special rose colored glasses when I observe her world and see the tiny steps as the great big leaps that they are for her. I wish she was coming to my race my next weekend - she would stand at the end of the line and scream. She wouldn't have cared who was there or who was looking at her, she would come running at me and grab me up and swing me around and she would have said stuff like, "Don't be jealous - that's my sister". I can see her in my head as the girl I used to know. She would have been so proud. We probably would have gone to the pub afterwards and had beer and chatted up all the locals. I don't think this will ever happen again. I know I will never drink with my sister again. She leaves tonight for rehab again. A few beers to my sister is a doorway to a month of rehab. She seems less like the addict she was last year - she was sketchy and outward in her addictions. She looked addicted. Now she has dyed her hair back to the California blonde we know and love on her, she put on some more weight and she seems interested in her clothes again. Sometimes I want to squeeze her she looks so cute. And I forget, I simply forget she is not the same girl. Sweet, sweet, ignorant bliss.

I want you to know that I am running for her. She doesn't understand this so I'm telling you. There is no greater joy for me than to carry her burdens with me on my runs and throw them out to the early morning air and let them be for just awhile. I always hope when I get home, when my sneaker hit the door, she'll be there smiling and laughing. Hope carries me no matter how stupid it feels when I really see her and she is still broken into a million pieces. I think if I can run 10km, then she can be well. And then I think maybe I need to run further. Just a little further....

It's been two years. Aug 18 just passed and my sister would have been married 2 years. Aug 25 - her daughter's 3rd birthday. I am trying hard to imagine what it could have looked like if none of this had happened. Instead we will have a small party on Sunday. It will be nice - it will be as little of her life as my sister is going to get. I never know how my neice will react to me now. She should have been "my girl". I was so in love with her when she wa born. I couldn't hold her enough or buy her enough pink stuff. I couldn't get over that we finally had a girl in the family. Now we are virtual strangers. Will she ever know how cherished and loved she was? Will the strife between our families keep her from us? She will wander my house calling out for her mom when she is here without her. She knows my house shelters her Mother, the moment she walks in she begins looking. She loves her mom so much - even with all this distance between them. I wonder how that can be? But I am grateful for it. It keeps my sister alive and she doesn't get nearly enough of her daughter. I know she needs more, I am still responsible to make sure she gets her time with her daughter and my guilt is crushing that I don't upkeep that responsibility. But it was a responsibility given to me from her Father - the man I hate. He is using me to supevise her because deep down he knows I will never let anything happen to her but he knows it holds me captive to be the only one he will allow to have his daughter and my sister together. He knows it takes time from my family and my life and he doesn't care. I fucking hate seeing him when I pick her up and I fucking hate being nice because he can take her from us whenever he wants. I used to love him as my brother, my family. I adored him. The conflict of these feelings is something I just can't give a lot of thought to or it will break me. I want my fucking life back - my neice and my brother in law and my sister. We should have had a party together - on my deck with Princess hats. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I can't get away from this grief. Everytime I think I have moved on a special date comes up and kicks me in the face. I can't fight this every day so I don't. I live my life mechanically and do what I need to do. I just can't love like I used to love. How can I live this way anymore? How can my sister live this way? She told my husband the other day she didn't know what she was fighting for because no matter how far she comes she isn't getting her life back - she isn't getting me back or her kids. She says she doesn't see the use. I can't pray anymore, I can't wish or dream, I can't fucking do anything anymore. I have screamed this to the Universe a million times but just for good measure I need to say I WANT MY SISTER BACK. Not this person who talks too loud on the phone and makes nervous laughing sounds when she asks to see her son. I hate that my brain buzzes when she asks for sleepover with her son and I can't stop thinking of everything that could go wrong. I protect that child like he is my sister and I won't even let her hurt him though I know I cannot stop it. Though I know my grief is nothing compared to his. I want him to be well and I am sometimes so blinded by this that I keep him seperate from his mom. I can't protect either one of them - I am getting so cold inside. My love is falling by the side for so many people. I don't want to lose anymore. I don't want to love anyone anymore. But I yearn for it so much that I drive myself insane trying to get it. Addicted. Like my sister. Sigh.

Small things

Well I survived my suicide intervention training. And I am teaching my first workshop on June 8. I purged myself on tears for two days after that training. I couldn't stop crying. I needed to sit in the filth of suicide for a few days. I'm glad I did that workshop. I'm glad I finally said out loud to other professionals that I am a suicide survivor and that the work we do matters. One of the people in my group was the woman who ran my suicide bereavement group 13 years ago after my Dad died. It was so weird to see her, she knows all my demons, she has watched me cry for 2 two straight hours and barely come up for a breath. I attended that group 2 months after my Dad died and she gave me the right to grieve. She was the first person who told me straight that it was not my fault that my Dad died and that no one had the right to blame me, especially myself. And there she was - sitting in a room as my colleague and learning right along side me. It tripped me out for the first two days and I felt mute in the groups. I thought I could not do it. And yet, it is done and I feel different, bathed in some kind of redemption. I feel like something someone did mattered - and I had forgotten about it and certainly she could not understand her impact. I remembered the small things do matter A LOT.

I'm learning to apply this to my sister. I am not a capable messenger of this yet. I wanted her to see her kids on Mother's Day and we got her presents and got her daughter and it was a bit of a dis-jointed day but it worked. It was small. It mattered to her. But here's the catch. You would think it would provide me with so much joy and love to see this small thing happen. I feel so cold and stale. I feel incapable of joy with my sister despite my yearning to be there - to make it matter. What keeps me up at night is the thought of anyone in my family dying and me standing at the back of the church peeking in - like at my Dad's funeral - not mattering. No one realizing the impact of their life on mine. Just like that - everything that passed between us would be gone. And I would have no way to prove it. My brother and I used to be best friends. Indeed people used to say I was probably the only one that knew anything about him and I knew a fragment at best. I knew he was ill. He has been diagnosed with everything from Schizophrenia to Asbergers. I have no idea what indeed he has but every year he gets worse. I have not spoken to him in a year because he made a speech at my wedding that pissed me off. He made a speech about himself and sprinkled me in there. He mentioned my dead father. He started his speech with "Sorry I missed the wedding, I was drunk". I know my brother - I know he meant it different than it came out. I know he meant it to sting just a little, that he meant for it to be profound and different, something no one had ever heard before and indeed the speech was referred to as "epic" by one person. But I know my brother - the arrogant chameleon that he is, who can blend into the wealthiest and most knowledgeable crowd seamlessly - who has given toasts at wedding that made every woman in the room cry. And this time, he just made me cry. For regret and pain. For the sheer amazement that he made it mingled with his undeterred desire to take the spotlight even when it pains him. He wants to be normal - no scratch that, he wants to be better than normal, he wants to be amazing. If you knew him, you would agree, the man is amazing. There is nothing he can't so - he can paint, draw, sing, dress, design, build, sculpt, write, flatter and delight. He is a Jack of all trades. Trapped in a mind that has no idea how fabulous he really is. Welcome to the mental illness that has plagued my family. Prodigies in straight jackets. 

And so I have been the interpretor for my family - of a language that no one understands, that frankly annoys people after awhile. I have interpreted their fears and pains, their joys and talents so that other people could appreciate them, accept them and love them. Much to their detriment and mine, it has been a labour of sorrow that never seems to fully grow into its purpose. I have abandoned lovers because they could not see. My rose colored glasses destined to be mine alone. And now, I will do anything not to put them back on. They seem so heavy, so weighted. I don't want to see the beauty because it means I have to see the ugly truth at some point. You keep pulling and pushing and begging the powers that be to give them something, to make them ok. For small periods of time, they hold something precious, they become someone different and more competant. But it is always lost. It is always temporary and it has completely stolen my faith. And even I have trouble seeing it - squinting in the light of their successes. The small things that matter make me angry and bitter. But frankly, it would be hard to get out of bed otherwise. 

I'm letting it go for now. 

I pray everday that they don't die until I get stronger.

That almost sounds like faith doesn't it?

Stumbling blocks

There is quiet.

My sister has been pretty stable at her new place and it has been very quiet. There have been a few hiccups but I have backed off and let her handle them on her own. I have tried not to worry. It is a strange feeling to supress worry and despair and just live in stagnation and status quo. I concentrate so hard on getting up, getting dressed and getting on with it that it has seriously taking every ounce of energy I have. I have been busy - perhaps contrived by my unconscious to keep me from fretting every minute away. I decided to accept a position to teach suicide intervention. The training started today - it is long and exhaustive and I cried during my introduction today. I tried really hard not to and the tears barely leaked out. They asked us how we had been affected by suicde both personally and professionally. I tried to make a joke and be strong but saying it out loud was just too much. My voice wavered and I felt the sorrow overtake me. So many times I have been in the hospital waiting room wondering if my sister was alive. So relieved when she was and so goddam mad when she was. How can you be relieved and volcanic in your anger at the same time? I wondered if I would ever be able to stand in front of a class and teach this? I think my group did today too. I hate being weak when I talk about suicide because mostly I have become so cold about it. I have faced it's reality with my family so many times. My dad completed, my brothers and sisters through multiple attempts and my mom living her life like she was already dead. Suicide is in my family like Sunday dinner is to others. It always sits at the table. You never know when it will stop by for a visit. I wish I could be flippant about it, talk about it like it doesn't hurt but once again in my effort to be bigger than mental illness, I have been toppled. You would think I would learn.

On the bright side, I have started to run again. I want it to be positive this time. I want to run like I'm running for my life. Sometimes I think I am. I want to outrun mental illness and what it has done to my family. I want to sneer at it and say you haven't won. I wish it didn't feel like my feet were molded in cement. I wish I was running towards something in stead of running away. But hey, at least I'm running again. And it's quiet. 

I'll take the quiet.

Faith for sale or rent

I shouldn't be surprised that my sister is on her feet. She did find a place to live. She is going to NA meetings. She looked rather nice when she was here the other day. Why does this not make me happy?

Because it makes me see what I have to lose - again. And again. And again. 

I cannot imagine what our relationship will look like anymore. If I treat her like she's sick, then we won't have the same relationship. If I treat her normal, then we won't have the same relationship. Because if anyone ever did to me what my sister has done, I would never speak to them again. Your tolerance just keeps getting higher and higher. You accept the unacceptable. You forgive the unforgivable. But then you begin to expect the worst. How do I make my brain stop doing this? I was so rude to my mom on the phone the other day. She called and sounded too happy and laughed a bit too often - it made me MAD. It seemed so fake and I did not want her to laugh her Southern Belle laugh and declare how "silly" the last two weeks have been and tell me amusing stories about the psych nurses on her floor. I should just shut up. I should just listen and laugh in all the right spots and comment on how dapper she seems - I know this. She wants this. But I can barely stop myself from screaming as she talks. When my sister was here, I couldn't be around her. I couldn't pretend that we were all a happy family hanging out with her kids. Like we used to when I would rock her baby to sleep while we all played cards. It was not like that. It was awkward and uncomfortable because I am her son's Guardian now. When she laments him for going to a Super hero movie without her or promises to pay him for all his extra chores around the house, I want to scream at her too. Because I know she will not follow through. Because I know this is not real, her parenting. It is temporary and she will go and leave me here. She wants nothing more than to be normal. We are at least alike in this.

I have been weeping again all week. I cry at every sad song and force myself to watch sad movies. I am sad. I am so devestated that I cannot even find joy in the good these days. I simply don't want to. I remember when my husband and I would say, "In June, She will be better and her son will go home". We planned to finish his school year and we stocked up on supplies so she wouldn't have to worry about clothes for her boy or socks or backpacks or school supplies. I bought grocery gift cards and started to buy her cute little tops like we used to buy for each other - we're both so tall that it was a MAJOR event to find a shirt long enough and we would buy each other two. We thought if we just held her together until June. The magic month when Child Welfare said it was Do or Die. There was no more time left in care for him. We believed she would make it. We all talked about June as the moment we would all step out of this nightmare and back into our lives. 

That was almost a year ago. 

I feel like I haven't had faith since then. 

I feel like a terrible person. I feel empty inside as if I will never love anyone again. All my love feels fake now - impotent. I could cry one moment and rage the next. I am so undone. And my life and my sister's and my mother's - wasting seconds we should be loving. But not one of us can anymore. My brother still lives in the same city as me and I have not spoken to him in over a year. Indeed I am terrified that if I call him, he will show up and suck what is left out of me. He never just comes for tea. I dream that he will email me and tell me he understands, that he doesn't blame me and still loves me and wants the best for me. But in truth, the grapevine tells me he is simply hanging out with my ex-boyfriend, an old ploy to let me know I can kiss his ass. 

If I stop feeling angry, I am afraid the grief will kill me.

Hell will never freeze over

I remember thinking that my sister will be well when Hell freezes over. And indeed, there were icicles in Hell for just a little while. Small fragments of hope that looked like snow flakes and covered everything for just enough time to make me feel a little less sweltering in my hell.

My sister is in lockdown. Another suicide attempt. Kicked out of rehab. 

My mother is in hosptial. She weighs 94 pounds. 

Hell is hot and furious again.

I wanted to destroy something last night - my anger is complely void of any other feelings right now. It is unabashed and all consuming. When my hope gets ripped from me I feel helpless. When I feel helpless, I feel nothing so anger fills in all the spaces in between.

I have lived this story so many times with my sister and my mom. Watching them flail violently like fish dumped out of their fishbowl - gasping for breath. It is unbearable to watch and my compassion is lost and wandering somewhere far away from me today. I watch them with their mouths gaping open, struggling for breath. I feel nothing. In truth if I start to feel anything, I know I won't be able to stop the flow of feelings - the guilt, the pain, the flashes of my childhood consumed by these bizarre and unnessasary behaviours. Every joy I have is overshadowed by these events. I call them events because they are never just small "incidents" - they are always worthy of a big striped tent with elephants and clowns parading through them. It's a fucking circus.

I don't know what will happen to my sister now. She is still homeless. The rehab clinic was her only hope to find a place to live that she could get support that wouldn't tear my mom apart. She needs 24 hour supported care but she is not sick enough for that? She can be so rational and say just what you need to hear. In fact I spoke to her 2 days ago. She said she loved me. She couldn't wait to visit on Sunday and see her kids. She said, "Bran, I'm going to be ok". I cannot fathom how all of that changes in 2 days. I have seen it a million times and I still cannot wrap my head around it. I cannot make this make sense. When the sense is gone, all that's left is anger.

I know this sounds selfish to be more concerned about my feelings than theirs. In truth, I will never be more concerned about my feelings than theirs - which is the part that pisses me off. I will never walk away. They will continue to call me. I will continue to take anti-anxiety medicine that keeps me from falling over everytime the phone rings. I hate the phone. Everytime I see a message flashing my heart hurts. Even on the days it is not them, I am never lulled into a false sense of security. My head tells me, maybe tomorrow. We'll see. And I am telling you - it is always the next day that the phone call comes. It ALWAYS comes. There is no repreive. For me, it is like expecting the sun to come up. 

I am avoiding my therapist right now. He is clear that I am in a crisis because otherwise we would be meeting. But I hate the sound of his voice when he says, "You must now think of yourself and take care of yourself". Thanks Doc. Sage words. I wish I had thought of that my self. I hate how therapists chalk everything up to some tiny truth or easy application. Even when I ask him EXACTLY how shall I do that? Between my 2 jobs, 3 kids, 2 dogs, a marriage and a consistent lack of people I like around me - when shall I do that? Add a splash od suicide and a skeletal mom - AH YES, a recipe for relaxation. Look Doc, I booked a hair appoitment for myself today and I plan to get highlights. Is that good enough? I'll sit in a chair and make small talk with some very overpriced hair stylist who will lament at how much her feet hurt and I will pretend to care. I may close my eyes while I get my hair washed and pretend to enjoy the scalp massage. I may even get the stimulating pepperment conditioner. Oh yes, I'm a pro at self care. I get my nails done, I get pedicures whenever I can. I love the tanning beds and the new running shoes I just got. I spent a fortune on a new outfit for a wedding I just went to. I take baths with scented mineral salts and exfoliate my feet with mulberry and mint. I GOT the self care thing down pat Doc. When exactly do I start feeling better? I'm sure the steak I scarf down while my mom is hooked up to an IV is really going to make me surge with goodness and relaxation. My friend says I shouldn't sit home tonight, she will pick me up and we will go out for drinks. The same poison that makes me feel all ship shape is what is killing my sister as we speak. Is that possible? Can one glass of wine make me feel worlds better and make her a suicidal mess? Apparently she swallowed a whole bottle of the same meds I use for anxiety. Fucking ironic and brilliant all at the same time. Seriously - fuck my therapist. 

So yes, I am just a bit angry today. I want something - ANYTHING to work out. I had one week of my sister kind of back - laughing a bit too hysterically on the phone but saying warm fuzzy things instead of screaming how much she is offended by my guts that she hates. I would rather it all just be shit instead of these small opening to a frozen hell. Hell is not going to freeze over and I live here quite permanently thank you. 

The Thaw

It is a little like flipping TV channels to determine my mood most days. I'm not very happy most days but I am also functional and able to fake happy a lot. I'm grateful for the ability to do this. I look forward to the day when I can turn the channel to "Happy Days" and really be there.

I look forward to the day when my sister can do that as well.

I go in and out - a little like my moods - in deciding if my sister will make it through this. SOme days I feel so hopeful and patient. Some days I feel aggravated and evil. I don't manage my anger around her very well - despite the fact that it is not all related to her. But she is a very convinient vessel to drop my anger on. I want to blame her for my current state of unhappiness but mostly in speaking with other people who have had other traumas and who seem to feel the same way I do - I realize she is not to blame for what ultimately undoes me.

I want things back the way they were. When my parents were both a little crazy and my brother was eccentric and my sister was wild but they were all in my life. There was always this HOPE that things would just come around back then. Before my Dad died, I believed we wouldbe re-united at some point. I believed that inherantly he loved me even if he didn't like me that much (I wa a teenager after all). When he didn't write me in his suicide note, it was the first time I realized I could not talk my way out of something. I could not change or un-do what I always felt was mutable. It was the first time hope was ripped out of my fingers and I have longed and ached for it ever since. 

They say that the worst thing you can do to another person is take away their hope. And though I stand here a mortally wounded victim of this, I have also slung the arrows that have killed hope dead, on the spot. What a terrible circumstance of the human condition that we need to destroy other people's hopes in order to find our own? It's not just me, it's whole communities and cities and countries - wrestling hope from one to give it to themselves. It is literally on the news every day. And who is the most affected by this constant exchange of hope for sale or rent? The vulnerable, the expendable. My sister.

By proxy - I am also slated to be the victim of this tragic exchange. I take it from her and someone else takes it from me and so on and so on.

 I met a little boy yesterday who was 12 with no parents who contacted him or had even seen him for 7 years. And you know what he wanted the most? He wanted to meet his little brother who had been born some time after him. He wanted a connection. ANY connection. It is his hope. Hope that he still has a family somewhere, even if he has to cultivate it in a little boy who doesn't even know he exists yet. 

No matter what, I see my sister still reaches for hope. It is small. It is sometimes not recognizable as hope but it is there. After all this play business, she figured it out. SHe moved towards problem solving it on her own. I want to shout to the roof tops. I wrote her to tell her I am proud of her - she will hate it and probably delete it because she is still bitter she had to do it herself. It will probably make her even angrier at me. But I don't even care if it makes her see that she can do things without those of us around her considered "able". Like that little boy who found hope in something that may not even happen - I saw it today too. A spark. I'll take it.

The damn play.....

God, I miss my sister today. 

I miss her, I miss her, I miss her.

And I am going to break her heart again. I simply don't know a way around it. Frankly, I want to get under the covers and never come out. 

Her son is in his first play at his new Fine Arts School. It is a big event there, the whole school participates in the play - The Wizard of Oz this year. He is a poppy who puts Dorothy and her friends to sleep. My sister goes into Rehab on March 6 and his play is March 5 - we have tried our best to make it happen that she will be there. We have a ticket for her. She could go and watch him and head into rehab the next day. In my head I envisioned her filling up with joy and pride and floating to rehab ready to fight her addictions with a renewed sense of hope and motivation.

That's my agenda.

My sister refuses to speak to me. She had called one night soon after we had to ask her to leave our house for drinking. She was extremely angry with my husband and she had been ranting to my mom about how much she hated us. She wanted to talk to her son and my husband said he didn't think it was a good idea right now. Hear the sound of our covenant to never keep her from her son cracking.

My husband is a very smart and kind man. He is not evil or vindictive but he made a mistake. He came to me and told me what happened, we discussed it and he decided to call her back and apologize and let her speak to her son. She has not gotten over this. My mother says she talks about this every day - that we broke our promise, that she cannot believe how awful we are (I am saying this in a much nicer way than she does) and that she will never forgive us.

Back to the play. My mom and sister do not live in the same city as we do. They need a place to stay overnight to go to the play. My husband and I told my sister that we would no longer have her here overnight because the last three times she drank. It is not just the drinking - it is the over exposure to her son. He loves her so much and he is devastated to see her in so much pain. He feels he is the reason she is in pain. I promised her I would protect him no matter how hard it got - when she was well enough to understand what that might mean. Now that she is so fiercely ill and cannot remember our deal, she viciously tries to rip me apart when I gently remind her how fragile he is. 

Of course, she will not speak to me. We cannot discuss this, I cannot quell her pain and her feelings of abandonment. I cannot tell her that I would lie under a train if I could get her here to watch her son and sit together as a family and smile and laugh at him as he dances around on stage. In my mind, I can see her smiling at me slyly and covering her mouth as she stifles back tears because she is so proud. I can see her scooping him up and squeezing him until he squeals. In my mind I see how amazing this night should be. 

But she will not talk to me. I have asked my mother to have her call me so we can make a plan in case she gets overwhelmed. I suspect she is plotting revenge on me and my husband as she has before. She wants to lash out and she wants to hurt us. She says she will stay here and stay in her son's room and she won't speak to any of us. She has forgotten the logistics of getting her son to bed at the right time and brushing his teeth. Of reading him a story and gently reminding him to put his bad thoughts away and think of something happy. He is unable to do that while she is here. She wants to lock him in a room with her and forge a revenge on us. She does not see the impact this will have on him. 

She has forgotten the logistics of the tickets and the seats so close together and driving there because my mom is too scared to drive in the city. She will be overcome with guilt and remorse as she watches him dance on the stage wondering where she was while this was all being planned, wondering how come she didn't know until right at that moment he was to be a poppy.  She has forgotten how embarrassed he is at school functions of explaining who I am and who she is and how it all works. I think he has told people she is in the hospital so they will wonder how she got there. Her demeanor is so reckless and unforgiving. She is loud and rude and aggressive. I want to believe that she could attend his play and be grateful for the moment, that she could store the memory in her mind to recall when she was falling, that it would motivate her and keep her strong in rehab. 

But I fear that the opposite will happen. 

I just fear.

Every day.

And so I spoke with my mother yesterday and we decided it was best to stay with the original plan and not have her come here and set her up for failure. My mother will try to discuss with her what she is feeling and how we can make this play happen without overwhelming her and hurting her. My husband and I have agreed not to go so that she can be there if that works better. I will do that for her even though it kills me to not be there for my nephew. I want him to have her anyway he can. I want her to see his little face poking out of his poppy costume. I want it to heal her some, just a little. Please, oh pretty please?

But perhaps, she will just drive into town the next day and go straight to rehab, do not pass go, do not kiss the little boy in the Poppy costume. 

God, I miss her today.

Sins of the Sister

The picture I have on this blog is a picture of my wedding day - a year and a half ago. I love this picture of me and my sister almost as much as I hate it. Her wedding was to be a month before mine. At first she was mad at me for planning my wedding so close to hers. I had stolen her thunder. I was surprised at her reaction but when I thought about it I realized it could be taken that way. When I first decided to get married so close to her date it was because I wanted to share the experience with her - I wanted to go to bridal fairs and try on dresses together. I wanted to introduce her and her new husband at my wedding and have them walk down the aisle with us in their new glowing commitment of one another. That was what I was thinking, and when she finally told me her complaints about it, I realized I had never thought about it from that perspective. I did not think of how she would feel because I had already decided how awesome it would be in MY Head. 

We got through that and indeed it became a constant calling on each other to make decisions and wrap ribbon around candles and fill the gift bags. We were having two entirely different weddings. It was so cool to see it - our unique personalities coming out but influenced by each other. She let me buy her dress and it needed some tweaking so I did the alteration as well. I was so proud to be such a huge part of it. Her In-Laws were difficult and so were mine so we held each others hands and counted to 10 whenever we needed to. I have never seen my mother so happy as when she was planning her daughters' weddings. It is my second marriage and I told her once that I would never do it again because my heart had been so broken and here I was completely head over heels planning a life with a man my mother ADORED. But she also ADORED my sister's fiance - we all did. They were our best friends. Here's where I start to lose my composure. Here's where my heart breaks and I feel like I need to confess my own sins, my own contribution to her demise.

A week before her wedding, my sister's BPD took over her world. There would be no wedding. The bitterness from her In-Laws was corrosive and unyielding. They did not understand mental illness - they would not understand mental illness. They did not just hate my sister, they hated my whole family. They contrived a reign of terror over all of us - but especially my sister. Her daughter was taken from her in a way I could not even discuss today without having a break down. I want you to know that ultimately it was clear and still is that she cannot care for her infant daughter. But the way it was done will rip me to shreds for all the rest of my life. She has never recovered. Her son was tossed aside by this surrogate family. He will never recover.

I am still in shock today at how people have reacted to my sister's illness. Even professionals have said - she is beyond recovery.  Our friends have moved far away from us as if they will be somehow be tainted, as if it is contagious. Some days, I wonder that my self.

But here is my confession. The one I play over and over and cannot ease the regret of. When my sister's fiance left her we were one short in the wedding party. Her son no longer wanted to be the ring bearer. He said he could not do it. He was 7 years old and he wanted nothing to do with a wedding ever again. He was devastated by the loss of his "Dad". My sister had started drinking excessively, she had lost her job and wrecked her first vehicle in a string of three. She was emotional and explosive. She was hopeful one day and completely suicidal the next. We had been through 2 suicide attempts at this point. My bridesmaid and I discussed having a stagette. I was hesitant. I did not want to take my sister to a bar or even have her around alcohol. I decided to go ahead without her. I wrote her an email but she did not get it. She did however get wind of the stagette. She texted me the most vicious texts on my cell phone for the better part of 6 hours. I finally turned off my phone. She finally wrote me one last text and that said, "I got your email. I understand now. Sorry. I love you". I wanted to leave my party but I didn't. It was a terrible evening. Most of my friends I expected to come didn't come anyways - they had long ago abandoned me and my family. It was a disappointment and a curse.

I asked my sister to think about walking with my nephew down the aisle but he refused. He sad he couldn't and wouldn't do it. He cried and begged us not to make him. I told my sister I understood if she wanted to drop out of the wedding party and sit with her son. I told her I wanted her to make the best decision for herself and her son because I knew this day would be hard for her.

TRANSLATION: Please don't make me have to kick you out of my wedding party because I believe you will ruin my entire wedding and I don't want to be responsible for you on this ONE day.

She didn't get the translation. And she merrily planned to be a bridesmaid anyways. I kicked her out a couple of days before the wedding. 

At the time, I thought I was making the best decision for everyone. At least that got me to sleep for a couple of days. I was bitter. I had to cancel my first wedding and get married in Vegas because at the time my parents couldn't stop fighting. My first wedding was a disaster and I got married with none of my friends or family there. I have spent the better part of my life caring for my mother, then my brother, then my sister. I have always been the "go to girl" for my family and I have always "Gone to". All of my past relationships ended because of my family. It was too much for anyone to handle the brunt of that much mental illness and my always williness to drop whatever I was doing and go fix it. It was all encompassing. 

I decided that I was going to get ONE day for me. I was not going to be held hostage by my family's circumstances, I would not bow to pressure from my In-Laws to have a more traditional wedding, I would not invite family memebers just because they were family members. I had planned this wedding essentially to have something in my life done MY way. I had a poker game for my reception. I wore a much too revealing dress. I simply did not care what anyone thought and this time I was going to get my day.

Well I got my day. My sister was devastated and got drunk at the wedding. She was removed by my cousins. My In-laws left by 10pm before the poker game started and I may not have met most of them and we surely did not kiss and say good bye. It was a disaster. Exactly what I thought would NOT happen if I didn't have my sister in my bridal party.  Karma is a bitch.

I have been protecting myself and my family from my sister ever since. Sometimes her anger at me is so intense I am afraid she will kill me. I am afraid she wil kill herself somewhere that only I will find her. I am just afraid of my sister. I limit her visits here with her son for this reason. I am terrified to be around her. I push her very far away and I act like I don't care about her. She translates this very well. When I am not scared of her I am repulsed by her - the things she says and does. Her desperate attempts at conversation that include the details of her assault or arrests. I know these things are happening. I know she needs to talk to someone. I know she is confused about why we cannot just sit down and converse. I am confused about why we cannot talk either. I simply cannot hear anymore what happens to her. I can't sleep at night. I am tortured that I don't help her and I am tortured when I do. I am always still shocked when she lies or steals from me. I do not want to see or talk to her because I simply can't handle the fact that she is not getting better. I have abandoned her - like all the others I rebuke for their cowardice. 

I do not take my pennance lightly. I am not going to stand here and say that I have done nothing for her. I have given my all - my time, my tears, my money, my children. I was a machine for my sister. I never stopped. I never gave up. I thought if she KNEW how much I loved her, she would get better again. That actually happened once. She got better for TWO years. I recited that to myself every day. I BELIEVED it would happen. 

Now my sister is homeless, addicted, in and out of hospitals for her health, violent, disconnected from her children, suicidal, and penniless. I want to believe she will get better but I don't.

I know I have contributed to her despair. I will carry these sins for all the rest of my life. Her words don't make me angry at her - they make me angry at myself. No one blames me. I don't even blame me - it has been hell. I know that if I don't care for myself, for my children and hers, that no one will. In a year my health has so declined, my weight gain, my skin, my rolling depression. I do not recognize myself anymore. I do not want to go out. I have trouble feeling joy. My soul is dying. But I have choosen to live. It does not mean I will live without giant and unforgiving regrets. 

I write the terrible things here not because my life is all terrible but because it needs somewhere to live. My heart cannot possibly hold all this pain. I cannot choose to live but continue to kill my spirit. So I bring it here like an altar, like some respite from the sorrow. I don't harm myself or cut or fuel addictions in my pain. I just hold them as if they are revered and holy. I am not the one to pity here. I have married a man who loves this vessel of sorrow and my sister and her and my children despite its so very obvious deficits. I have a good job that fills a void in me. I have healthy and beautiful children. I even have a good relationship with my ex-husband and a lovely home and vehicle. I have friends who are connected at my soul. I can outrun the sorrows in my Asics some days. I am blessed. My sister carries the curse. 

My sister went back to the hospital today with a blood clot. My mom called to tell me and was really concerned because my sister said she didn't need to do treatment right away and would do it "later". I'm not a doctor but I think blood clots are fairly serious? So I talked with my mom who was fairly panicked and thought we could come up with a plan together - that's what we do on a weekly basis. My sister heard my mom on the phone and she said nice and loud "Tell her she doesn't have to pretend to care about me". 

Now I know my sister is bitter and angry about us asking her to leave, I don't even blame her. I just wish she didn't blame me either. It makes me want to say "Forget it - I don't love you anymore." I wanted to throw the phone across the room and rip up every picture of her. Sometimes I feel like I hate her. My life has been ripped apart by this disease. Not just hers - all of us, totally living in the devastation of what is left of her. I'm not even allowed to feel bad for her when she in the hospital. I'm not allowed to worry or call and check in. I'm nothing to her today. For a year and a half I have fought for her - lied for her - begged for her - manipulated for her. I have done things I am not proud of to get her stabalized. I don't want a medal - I want my sister back!

It just hurts - it shouldn't hurt anymore. I know better. I wish it didn't matter when she makes snide comments or writes me hateful email. I have a pretty tough skin when it comes to her and I can be cold - she is not imagining this. It's too hard to love her completely anymore. I am waiting for her to die. It's not just BPD, she has many health issues that should have killed her a long time ago and she continues to smoke, drink and abuse drugs with a body that is already living on borrowed time and I am afraid she will die with her last words to me being, "Tell her she doesn't have to pretend to care about me". 

And I want to make a list of all the things we have sacrificed and given to make her better and I want to shove it in her face and tell her to shut up. But that's my anger talking and it is not what I want to do at all. I want to have BBQs with her again and watch her chase her kids around the yard. I want to play card games and laugh at our partners and laugh at ourselves. I want her back. At the very least I want her to know I love her before she dies. I want her to love me again. My mom says that somewhere inside her she is who we knew and loved and that her reality has caught up to her and she is scared and worried and tired. But I know what she knows - that parts of me have given up on her. There has just been no hope in over a year now, no sparkle, no possibilities. My mom keeps going, keeps pushing her through to the next day and I am sitting here doing nothing anymore because if I do anything else for her and it doesn't work, I just don't think I could go on. I cried at work again - there is so much mental illness and so much pain out there. I think about her everyday. She will never know how consumed I am by her. 

New beginnings

I started my new job today. I did not take this job before because I was afraid it would be too much to handle my sister and a REAL job. I say real job because I have been working part time for over a year just in case something happened with my sister  - I could just go. I had a very sympathetic team at work who helped me re-arrange my schedule time and time again to answer the phone calls, to show up in court, to walk the halls of the hospital.

I turned down 4 jobs before this one. I just couldn't move forward without her.

But I started a new job and the sky didn't fall down. I am having such a hard time living a normal life without my sister. I read a new case file today and it was almost nearly the story of my sister. My experienced social worker persona completely folded. I am pretty sure all my colleagues think I have Bulima or Colitis because I spent a great part of my day in the bathroom today. I just couldn't stop crying when I read that file. I was so embarrassed but I honestly didn't care. I couldn't stop the tears. I didn't want to. 

I cried because the new program I am in is designed to help families and supports gather together and rally around families with crisis - mostly families with mental illness. It is designed to get the system to help those affected, especially the children, instead of alienating them. It is a new program, it is a beautiful program. And I think this program would have changed my sister's life. Why didn't I know about it then? Why didn't anyone refer us? I am a social worker and I did not know about it. I wish our friends and family had been in this program to understand what was happening to all of us, to support us, instead of running scared from something they did not understand. I shed a million tears today thinking I am so grateful that someone is going to get this help. But I am so devestated that it did not come in time for my sister, for my family. I had this vision of all of us in a room together talking about how we could support her, showing her our love and committing to action something on her behalf. It has been instead anger and pain so often bestowed upon her - often on my behalf. Our meetings are confrontational and leaving her without power or dignity. They always seem to leave her smaller and with less and less to leave with. It is no coicendence that her material possessions are so minal - it mirrors what she feels about herself. And of everyone she loves, I leave her the most wounded. When I am kind, she says she doesn't deserve it. When I am angry or mean, she wonders aloud who the hell I have become? How can I tell her that I am getting paid now to do for other people exactly what I could not do for her? Oh the irony...

She is well this week. My mom keeps me updated. She is attending mental health classes and waiting for her spot in a rehab clinic to come up. That is 3 weeks away. She has not called me. She will not call me. She is angry and defeated by me. She told my husband that she understands but that her heart is breaking - breaking because of me. I can have no contact with her right now because living in limbo is better than living in sorrow. I can't function with so much sorrow. Neither can she. And when we speak, it drips out of our mouths and reduces us to nothing. And today I won't do that to her or to me. But I want her to know that I am going to work hard at my job and do the best I can. I want her to know that I will take every moment of these experiences between us and apply them to every moment of my work - I will respect people I may have otherwise found useless. I will teach other families how to be patient and kind. I will listen. It is so much easier to do when you can close a file and go home every day. 

I ran today

I ran today.

I ran today for the first time in months. It was a bittersweet reunion with my body. I could feel my skin sweeping the top of my running pants, my belly heavy with the side effects of grief's indulgences. I am so well padded from the pain now. My own self destruction parralleling my sister's. I don't know when I start eating for comfort but clearly it's not working. I am not comforted. And now I've gotten fat to boot. Perfect.

I started to cry two feet out of my door. It felt like I was leaving my sister behind to start running again. It was as if to say "If you're not coming, I'm leaving you".  All those months of getting up at 6am and pushing aside the temptation to push the snooze button - praying for my sister to be able to quell her temptations with mine. I could run 7km every morning and barely break a sweat. I ran 3 km today - scratch that - I walked most of it - with my tears falling and my nose stuffy and painful. The wind kept throwing itself down my throat trying to block my even rhythm. It made me feel so pathetic. I desperately searched through my ipod to find Cold Play - Fix You. And I just dragged my body along to the words:

When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse

And there it was.

All those wasted months of running - hoping she would get better. I felt so pissed off to be starting over again, barely able to get around my block, grateful for the icy patches so I could slow down and step over them. So I could stop running because it hurt so bad to be running for nothing now. 

And I cried for 2 km.

Maybe it was the ipod selection right? Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to be running to sad, "rip your heart out" songs. So I changed it. I put on my work-out folder and I started running. It was slow, like it should be when you're training. Not clumsy and aching for breath like when I started. I could feel my ass sliding into my thights for the first 2km. I took slower, surer steps and I got my rhythm. I know this isn't rocket science but it felt like a miracle. I ran my last km all the way to my door. I knew I could have kept running but I slowed down and stretched out my calves and I sat on my door step and cried some more. 

Something about running makes me strong and hopeful, even when I don't want it to. I have evaded my most direct path to mental health for 4 months because I simply have not wanted to feel good. It seems ridiculous for your body to be strong and healthy when your heart is breaking. It actually seems impossible. But I'm falling. I miss my sister so much. I miss me. I miss who I used to be and what I used to believe. I miss how clear my thoughts were after a run, how proud and full of grace that sweat on my forehead could make me. 

I want it to be that easy - I would sacrifice my comfort for her. I will take the cracked heels and the black toe nails I get from running. I will wear a brace to hold my knee together when I have pushed it to far. I will sweat and wheeze and push through the pain every day if she will just get better. That's fair right? That seems so fair to me but it just doesn't work that way. I will run and sweat and suffer for me. I will get stronger, my mind will get sharper, my body will look sleeker and slimmer. People will applaud me and say "good for you" and lament on their own exercise will power. People will notice how good I look. I will sleep better. I will have more energy. I can get better. And I will leave my sister behind. And she will get further and further behind as I run faster and farther. Because I can. Because there is nothing in my brain that stops me from being well.

What a double edged sword these running shoes present. 

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." 

(The above speech by Nelson Mandela was orignally written by Marianne Williamson)

So I will run again tomorrow. Liberation sounds pretty good to me. 

I am so thankful to have my husband to help me deal with this. We decided that we could not let her come back to the house because she wouldn't admit to the drinking. I made so many phonecalls asking for help and it was unanimous that if we said she couldn't stay if she drank then we had to stick to it. I would not have been able to. My husband calmly spoke to her and tried to explain. He offered to drive her where ever she needed to go and bring her stuff to her. Her reaction was explosive. It tears away at my soul to be a part of this explosion. Why can't I just love her and keep her safe? Why can't it be enough?

The ripples from the stone we have cast will impact so many, especially my mom. I feel scared for my mom. She does not have a husband to help her make and follow through on these decisions. Her guilt is so wrapped in my sister's recovery. She is so vulnerable to attack and my sister knows this. Sometimes she brags about making my mom cry. She always calls her and always relies on her but it is as if she feels she must synonamously torture her for every kind thing my mother does for her. I know my sister feels my mom is to blame for her illness because she was ill for all those years, completely entombed by depression. My sister simply cannot see the irony in what she is doing to my mother. She feels so justified. Even before she got sick, she was so good at emotionally terrorizing my mother. And indeed my mom must shoulder the credit for emotionally terrorizing us as children - her hopelessness so interwoven with her parenting. And now my mom wears this guilt like a winter coat - scratchy and heavy - and it must be worn on even the warmest of days. I worry what vengance my sister will take out on my mother. I worry that if my sister never recovers, neither will my mom. And I worry that I will never get over this worry - it sits on my chest when I wake up, it pulls me back from enjoying my life and creating new roads on which to wander. I am not the same person I was. And even though I do not have any mental illness, I mind feels sick and slow. 

I want to save her. I won't lie - it is for selfish reasons. I could not save my Father. I always thought "if only..." when I think of my Dad's suicide. If only I had spoken to him in 4 years. If only he had seen his Grandchildren and been connected to them. If only I had known I could have said just the right thing....

I am no fool about about my "If only"s. I know that the sound of my voice or the promise of something better would not have brought my Father back from the brink, however painful that is to admit. But when you never get the chance you always wonder. You wonder what would I have done if I had a crystal ball. What would I have done differently the day before, the week before, the years before? Would I have been so mad at him? Would I have just swallowed my pride knowing what I now know? Would I have been kinder and gentler? 

And so you see where this is going. I KNOW where my sister is headed. I know her choice is to die. She is not so bold as to throw a rope over the rafter like my Father but she is walking each step in death, making decisions that bring her closer. She will not choose to live even as she cannot bring herself to make her die. She is in limbo and I know it. What can I do differently? What words will penetrate her winter coat wrapped around her like a tomb? When I won't let her stay here even as she begs, do I walk her closer to death? How can I have been through this with my Father with no choice only to be in the exact same position now but with more time and foreshadowing than my Father's sudden and suprising death. This is like watching him die but in slow motion. Re-living every experience, worried of the impact of every word, every experience. Worried if I am too nice she will take advantage of me and manipulate me. Worried if I am too mean, she will wander straight to death's arms. Worried, worried, worried. It never stops.

People tell me that nothing I do can change how she lives. But she tells me all the time that I am responsible. She tells me that by being healthy and successful that I am contributing to her demise. She says that my reluctance to just give to her makes her less motivated to stay. I think sometimes she doesn't mean it. I think when she is well she will say she is sorry and that she loves me and admires my courage to stay strong - like the last time she got well. When we forged such a  deep and loving friendship based on my stance to resist her impulses. She hugged me and said she was grateful for that. We had two years in which we cast all that worry aside. And now she goes back to even then and tears it apart telling me all the things she hated about me even then in our joy. She goes back to her first signs of illness and tells me how I contributed, how I was responsible. The things she tells people about me now make me want to cry until I can't see anymore. I am a bitch, a heartless fucking asshole. I think I am being nicer here than she is in her descriptions. 

I beg my dead father to bring his spirit to her and soothe her. I don't know if I believe in such things but I am desperate. There seems to be nothing on earth that will soothe her. But he doesn't come. And I am left rotting in their wake. 

Salvation please

My sister showed up again yesterday. She called at 3pm and said she was on her way. She got here at 10pm. 7 hours in for an addict and Border Line Personality can yield disasterous consequences. But she's still alive. She looks half dead. She acts like someone I don't know. 

Everytime we try to talk - I try to say "Please stop this self destruction - please choose to live" - it comes out as a fight. She asked me today "Are you saying you want me to kill myself?" when in fact I was asking her to do the exact opposite. I wonder what it must sound like to her when I talk. I wonder how it gets deciphered in her language. 

I imagine it sounds like:

You hate me.

I'm worthless.

I would be better off dead.

There is not an ounce left of joy in my sister. No light. Not a speck of the person I confided in, laughed with, adored. I can't look at her and my mouth curls up in anger when she gets to close to me. It feels like hate but I know it is a broken heart that does not want to get broken anymore. 

She gets her check today. My mom has her bank card so she won't binge it away. She is already finding other ways to get to her money. She cannot find a place to live or follow through with her treatments but she can get drugs in the most dire of situations. It is the thing that confuses me when we try to understand why she can't follow through with anything - we can rationalize it and blame her illness. We can handle her with care and gentleness and all the while think, "it's not her fault" but her cunning and manipulation are so sharp when she needs to drink or get high. There are a million reasons I'm sure. Not one of them will ever help me sleep at night peacefully again.

After our fight she downed half a bottle of wine and left a little in the bottom so I wouldn't notice. We told her if she drinks here we will kick her out - because that's what they tell you to do at the support groups - don't enable her. Make your boundaries and stick to them. But in the support groups for Borderline Personality they say be gentle, don't reject her or she might lose it. Use positives and tell her what she is doing right and encourage even the smallest of steps. So which one should I do? Should I kick her out or praise her for only drinking half of the bottle?

Why couldn't she have cancer?

If my sister had cancer, we would have well wishers at our door and casseroles made. If my sister had Diabetes, people would whisper, "It's just all so unfair". If my sister had an immune disease, people would crowd lovingly around her children and do their best to fill the gaps. But my sister has a mental illness. No one makes you a casserole for Mental Illness and brings it over with a card and a hug. Even worse if you are a related to a person with mental illness - people do their best to ignore you and when they ask, "How is your sister?" - they expect a very simple response. 

"Oh she's fine."

"Things are really coming along."

These are the standard protocol for how to answer if someone asks about my sister. Some examples of what not to say:

"Actually she's been hospitalized again for a suicide attempt after she was found with frostbite living on the streets."

or

"We have no idea where she is again. She's been missing for 5 days."

No, people do not want to hear these things. You can see them get itchy as if they have a terrible rash all of a sudden. Mostly they look down at their shoes. If they are particularily perverse, they will ask for more details and listen ravenously to the grotesque plot.  On these days when I feel overwhelmed and unload about the latest antics and wrong doings, I realize that even these people only want the highlights and they are not extending a hand or a empathy. It is like slowing down to see an accident on the road - it is human nature to want to know. But it is not human nature to be kind to our defected people. Perhaps if they are medicated and doing their best to act "normal". If they have some kind of amazing skill like playing a musical instrument really well or adding up numbers in their head really fast - they can be accepted to some degree. We will even make movies about them - the mentally ill with talents. And people will cry and give $5 to a bum on the street next time and feel all warm and fuzzy. But if you are the mentally ill with no outrageous skill or marketable talent, if you are part of the mentally ill who use drugs and alcohol to cope with your uncontrollable mind or who lives on the street unable to work and contribute to society, if you are the mentally ill with no purpose - then you are literally nothing, less than a human being. There are websites and books dedicated to your eradication. There are indeed educated and lovely people I personally know who would do anything to have my sister scooped up and re-located to an island of defects. Far, far away from the rest of us. 

If my sister had cancer...this would be a very different blog wouldn't it? 

If my sister had cancer...I wouldn't worry about changing the code on the door every week in case she randomly shows up and tries to get in. I wouldn't cry myself to sleep because I cannot offer her a place to stay when she is released from the hospital with no where to go. I could love my sister without fear she will manipluate me or steal from me to get the drugs that keep her from killing herself, that trick her mind she is normal. I could trust her and wrap her in a quilt and know that she will not hide alcohol under the covers when I tuck her in. I could bring her to a friend's house and not worry she will start to cry for no reason or yell at someone or laugh too loud and drink too much.

I wish my sister had cancer.

Crossroads

November 16, 2008

                I’m tired of waking up anxious. I keep thinking “Today, I will wake up first and remember after” but it never works that way. I remember in my sleep. I dream about my sister and my family and as I wake up (far too early every day) It is just simply there – the anxiety and the fears. It feels like someone is sitting on my chest and though I read in the chronicles of wellness that one should get up instantly and get on with their day to keep the anxious thoughts at bay, I don’t. I lay in my dark room and think about it all. I mentally catalogue everything I think could happen today and then small thoughts catch me violently with a left hook – I should call to see my niece, I haven’t seen her in a month. I’m a terrible aunt. She’ll forget me. I miss her. I don’t want to see her, I don’t want to be reminded of how much she looks like her Father who betrayed me and broke my heart after my sister got sick. I hate him. I hate his whole family. I believe in ways that if he had reacted better, my sister would not have gotten as bad as she did. I think there are people out there who would have supported her and stayed with her in the face of mental illness but he rebuked her and blamed her. He refused to recognize the mental illness except as a tool to take her daughter away from her. He abandoned my nephew, the only dad he had ever known.  I hate him for being such a coward and never even trying to see him – oh yeah, I haven’t seen my niece for a month. Maybe we are not seeing these children for the same reason...my guilt is crushing. I wonder how many more people will be impacted and infected by this story? I wish that I had more strength to be the one to support my sister through mental illness – especially when it is the detail about Rob that makes me hate him so much. It makes me hate myself. It makes me mad that I did everything I could for a year for my sister and she never got better – in fact, she got worse. Did I enable her? What did I do wrong? Didn’t I love her enough?

                I imagine that I have worked so hard to save my sister because I am still trying to make sense of my Father’s death and my role in that. I don’t think I killed him but other people do. Other people would call me an outright murderer. This is the legacy I get to deal with my Dad – the infectious thoughts of others who feel I didn’t do everything I could have to save him. I spoke with my Dad’s best friend the night before his funeral and I begged him to let us have some of his ashes. I begged him to let us be involved and he turned me down flat. He said I was pathetic and desperate now to be absolved of my sins. He said I had not talked to my dad in 4 years and he was not going to forgive me in proxy of my father. He said I broke his heart. He said my dad died of a broken heart. He told me that in my dad’s will that he asked for his ashes to be spread and spread meant spread – not given out in tiny bits here and there. He took my father’s words literally and exactly. He was protected my dead fathers ashes from me. He would not let me taint my father anymore. The smallest voice in the back of my head protested. It said, “I was a child. I was a child caught in a terrible and bitter divorce between my parents. Why didn’t you step in and help us – the kids? Why didn’t anyone step in and help us? We were children living with a mom with severe mental illness, with no money and no creature comforts. We barely got by. It was desperate and humiliating. I never wanted my friends to come to my house so I made friends who had worse houses than me.

I was a child.

I was a child.

And now I am responsible for the way in which my parents conducted themselves in an ambivalent marriage and a distasteful divorce that saw my father move further and further and away from us until we just got phone calls on our birthdays, sometimes. I understand why my father moved away from us and my mother. She was toxic. Her mind could not process the right thing to do and she was venomous. She often used us to get back at my father. It seems fairly standard issue in most divorces these days so I don’t think it was note worthy of any history books. It was what it was. And I did the best I could.

But I was a child.

And I was 22 when my dad died with two of my own children and a marriage barely hanging on and all I wanted was a smidge of my father’s ashes so I could hold him one last time. So I could find some organic link that seemed to elude us when he was alive. You were right – I was desperate. I am still so desperate to find a link, something that says it is ok to be his daughter and grieve. My father wronged me – perhaps not intentionally – perhaps in the same way I often wrong my own children now. He left me. And he didn’t even put me in his suicide note. He wrote to everyone but me. He didn’t even mention me. For certain I had not spoken to my dad in 4 years. When I had a son at 19 he was as evasive in his life as he had been in mine and I said NO. I decided I would not subject my child to a half a Grandfather as I had been subjected to a half a dad. I was 19 years old. I had no life experience or crystal ball that told me he would be gone in three years. SO I stood my ground and I said “I’m not going to take it anymore”. I believed I was protecting my son in a way that my parents had never protected me. It went through my head all the time “where was everyone to care for us as children?” And so indeed I did protect my sons and they met him only once – at my Grandfather’s funeral only three months before my dad’s.  And indeed they have no memory of what they are missing – unlike me who can’t decide really what it is that I am missing anyways.

SO I am at a crossroads AGAIN. I am angry at my sister and I want to say NO again. I want to say that I will not put my children through this anymore, or indeed myself. I will not be manipulated to love someone who will ultimately die. I will not go through that pain again. I tell myself this as if saying it over and over will make it true. That my sister could now somehow die and I won’t feel a thing because I have said NO. How ridiculous this is, I think this as I even write it. But how ridiculous is it to think that getting up and running everyday will make my sister well? Because there are no certainties anymore, I have just started making up my own. I am failing myself in this regard. I am devising certainties that I know to be no certainties at all. I am simply hoping for a miracle that I can point to having some small hand in that can pinpoint my right to be on this planet at all. “I ran” I’ll say when they ask me how I managed to keep this poor near death girl alive. And they will all be inspired and awed by my great sacrifice. THEY who doubted my love and regret for my father. THEY who barely notice how much I am suffering daily. THEY who have scoffed at my commitment and told me long ago it was a lost cause. Well, it’s my Happy Ending isn’t it? It’s the Happy Ending I am most looking for. The one my Father so regrettably never found. The one my mother will likely die without. The one my sister is on the verge of losing altogether. Someone should get a happy ending here – why shouldn’t it be me?

Because if I have a happy ending, the guilt of it will kill me. That’s why.