I’m sitting here tonight trying to parse through a lot of thoughts. I’m running solo and it’s difficult. But I want to trust myself, trust my parts, my system. They have done a lot for me and despite the challenges in my life – eventually the system made really good decisions in terms of trying to get me to a more stable place… to live.
It’s actually quite impressive. But I want to be real about what I’m struggling with…just living my life right now there is daily anxiety and pain. I wanted to put together a metaphor but to be honest I don’t want to sugar coat it. Every single day I experience some form of pain, anxiety, or depression. No wonder I just numb out sometimes. And I can endure it because I have for so long and it’s necessary to keep going but, I’m trying to do better about finding healthy ways to alleviate that pain when I can….if I can. Sometimes going to therapy is not enough because there’s just too much to say in the space of an hour. Look at this mess….
***
Volunteering to be conservator of my brother’s estate has been awful. I am a graduate degree educated individual, but I can’t understand half of what the lawyer says. Maybe part of that is dissociation, but a lot of it is just legal jargon and process I don’t understand. I’m constantly confused and anxious. I’m going to just try and be direct and if he thinks I’m an idiot well fuck him. It still makes me anxious though. It was just confirmed last week that I’m officially the conservator. This week I have to get bonded and as I was filling out the application I kept dissociating. The application contained questions like when my brother died (“the decedent” – learned a new word for dead person), how much money did he have in his estate, how old are his kids, all of it so clinical and cold. I just can’t… I could only fill out half and it makes me feel like a failure. I gave myself some compassion and told myself I’d ask for help… again even if it makes me feel like an idiot… and I’ll try again tomorrow. The thing that worries me, is this isn’t even the hard part. The house sale will be the hard part.
***
My parents… the last time I saw them for dinner… that whole interaction. My mom’s bruises my dad’s weird cover up. I’ve never known my dad to be physically abusive to my mom but I don’t know what’s going on. They just went to Mexico for two weeks and she just sent me a text tonight. It was a photo of her knee badly bruised. She told me she couldn’t sleep got up and ran into a glass door in the hotel room – it doesn’t look like that. I know she’s trying to reach out… trying to get my attention and care and in my effort to protect myself I’m ice cold.
Maybe my dad’s abusing her, maybe she’s abusing herself (can self harm run in the family?). She told me she forgets a lot of things and she talks to herself a lot like I do. With how she grew up I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a dissociative disorder as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if feeling like she failed and let her son die alone isn’t eating her up inside. I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad finally snapped and blames his son’s death on her and is physically taking it out on her. And here I am…. watching it and trying to protect myself while also watching people who… I know I shouldn’t love, but do…. fall apart. I get a front row seat to watch my parents die slowly and painfully inside. And all I can offer is an empty platitude “Ouch, better put some ice on that.”
The guilt I feel from all this is immense… it’s overwhelming… it’s so painful and I have to put it away so I can function. I don’t even know what to do. It just hurts so fucking much. You see, I understand their pain…. I get it… I feel it too… I wish I could share it with them… I wish I didn’t also blame them…. I wish I could make it better and all go away… but I can’t. I just have to sit and watch it because to turn away feels like abuse in itself; no, it feels like neglect. It feels like what my brother died of…
He didn’t really die of covid. It was neglect. In so many ways, it was neglect.
I just bawled my eyes out. You see, my brother had the sweetest smile and such a warm heart. And it kills me inside that he never got to live the life he should have. He was born first into our family… and male… and suffered so much because of these simple facts. Not that I didn’t also suffer… it just all makes me so fucking sad. All I can do is support his kids and I don’t even feel like I’m doing that particularly well. I try goddamnit. I’m trying so hard… but I’m a fish out of water and I’m not terribly well put together either and I need to take care of myself first because of that. It feels selfish and makes me feel all the more guilty, but I know it’s the right thing to do for now.
***
I did see how happy the kids were to visit me when I picked them up. How much fun they had playing games with us, eating out, going to the bookstore, watching movies, etc. I also see how sad they are when I tell them I have to take them back home. That somber look on their faces crushing my heart because if they wanted, I would let them stay here forever. I would give up everything to help them… I just don’t want them to suffer like I do…. like their dad did.
I have a part I haven’t spoken about to date on this blog. But she’s an incredibly loyal and protective part I call, Wolf. I haven’t talked about her… she’s also my competitive spirit, the part of me that craves movement. She is fiercely loyal; loyalty that can appear self-sacrificial at times. She shows up around the kids a lot even though they don’t know it. She might even be a tad maternal, how shocking. Loved is there too the true caretaker… and yet I’m usually pretty anxious when the kids are over. And something in particular has been weighing on me. Thanksgiving was my brother’s favorite holiday. In fact, the last video I have of my brother alive is from Thanksgiving last year – my dad took it. He had been making more family movies in his twilight years, interesting right? But last year we were all being cautious because of Covid, how ironic. So we only saw each other for about an hour last year at my folks place for a bit. But my other brother and the kids didn’t come that year. I do wonder if he regrets that choice.
Most of that video you only see the back of my brother’s head as he was serving his kids. Even though, there was always plenty of food, Eddie always brought a baked ham because it was his favorite. It was just something he always did…my family didn’t agree on much, but we all universally loved my mom’s thanksgiving cooking and yet… Eddie always brought a store baked ham. lol I was nervous this year that the kids would be really upset about Thanksgiving but… on a whim I went ahead and asked them what they were doing with their mom and if they wanted to come see the Plaza lights with me this year since we live within a short walk of there and it would surely be after their mom’s celebration.
My niece exclaimed, “I’d love to do that!”. And I was genuinely shocked and delighted! She explained that she’d much rather do that than be at their mom’s house seeing people she hasn’t talked to in three years. lol So there it is. We have a plan for this year… something about that lifted my spirits a little. That even though my brother isn’t here.. I still get to spend time with them, something I don’t think I ever fully appreciated for the past 12 years of their life.
It’s funny how much loss, makes you appreciate life, isn’t it?
There’s more…. there’s work and Rich and.. all sorts of other shit but this was a good self-therapy session. I cried a lot, and I wrote until I was too exhausted to keep going. I’m anxious about work, but I’m deep breathing… we’ll be okay.