The Blues

If there is a cure for heartbreak

Even a temporary respite

From the clench and the drop

That captures you late at night

Holding you tight in its grip

Then it must be the blues

Let these mellow guitar rifs

Carry me to the place where

Grace bathes me clean

In my suffering

While there I catch a glimpse

Of a better life that this one

Of hell you dragged me through

Where I swallow down the bad

Thinking it was going to do me good

For no human life should be full of this much

Desperation

So just before I lay me down to rest

I will let these soulful soothing melodies

Carry me away to the place

Were my suffering is soothed by something other

Than simply drowning in this pool of tears

Hold onto yourself

Sometimes all you can do

Is hold onto yourself

When people rain down their blame and shame

Onto you

When it gets so hard to stand the abuse

What else can you do

Feels a lot like being hit over the head

With a four by two or lump of lead

There are shreds of iron filings I cough up

Trying to come to terms with this

Struggling to find my own sense of completeness

And trust

God knows this is my battle

I opened the door and gave too much

And the more you give

The more they ask

And the harder it becomes

When things fall apart

And they blame you

And yet this is the vulnerability of human need

Of a child still not able to skillfully wear

That cloak of self protection

All I can do is pray to God

There is an amour the bible tells us to put on

But inside the armour

All of my heart is dissolving in pain

You say I let you down

But it was not me it was you

I never asked this much of you

Why is it me who has to serve

As the toxic dumping ground

For all of your pain

All of your shame

All of own self betrayal?

Guess this is just the curse

Of the emotionally neglected

Boundaryless

Highly sensitive

Things are really hard

Things are really hard right now I am trying to hold myself together but I have been on the receiving end of texts blaming me for letting Scott down. He swears he is genuine and is angry with everyone.. He keeps talking of dying and its so unfair on me.. All I ever did was try to help, but he was my one lifeline after Mum died and its three years to the exact date we first connected and of holding out hope he would come and each time its been dashed and all the evidence is that he is genuine despite my brother’s point of view.. And then it occurred to me we connected two days before my older sister’s death anniversary in 2018 and he offered me that kind of warmth that no one else in the family seems capable.. All my brother talks of is pinning me down to the wire as hard as he can on money and despite the fact Mum bought me a property to be used as an investment in 2017 he has not released those funds.. If had moved in there and sold my own home I would not be in this position now.. It’s so deeply painful to me. I stood my Mum as I loved her and didn;t want her to be alone and made real sacrifices but the one child who was most distant was put in charge. I know she did this thinking she was protecting me but I am 59 years old now.. I should be able to make my own mistakes and bear the full consequences.

The last thing I want is to seem ungrateful but this is all about mistrust and its a very small sum now required.. I talked to my sister about it and she was sympathetic, she knows how he is.. he is so cut off emotionally its so hurtful and there really is no one else to turn to that will believe me apart from my therapist, the angels and God.. And even the angels said its so unfair..The gif he sent me said this :

Congratulations you let me down like everyone else.. sad face emoji

You hurt me You tore me to shreds

So yeah, congratulations, I hope you are happy now

It was so attacking and accusative.. and I told him I believe it was infantile.. I have done so so much to try and help this person and God knows I battled so much legitimate doubt but now for him to blame me, it hurts. and for my brother to now be penalising me so that only miniumum amounts will be sent to me hurts too. I held it together for a lot of the morning but after lunch I had a massive attack I have been trying to punch at the air and get this shit out of me.. I try so hard. I am there for people.. why does this happen… I am trying to detach but it hurts.

This is just a venting post as I have to get it out on the page.. I told him to shove his blame up his arse.. I am crying too but to be told I am happy that he cant get out and may die seems just so immature and unfair or else its just more emotional blackmail and manipulation. I know if I buy into it I am doomed but its just so hard this latest test God is giving to me…I have had stuff dumped into me so so many times by past boyfriends telling me either what a fuck up I am how I failed them it is a real struggle right now holding onto any sense of goodness..Please pray for me.

Thank you for getting back to me and being there

I am so lucky to have a therapist who will give me a brief call back on the days I get really triggered and distressed.. We had to set boundaries around these type of calls a few years into my therapy as I was calling her too much and she emphasizes all the time my need to ‘hold’ myself and look for self soothing strategies that work. I am getting better at that but today after the call from my brother I started to feel so so sad and helpless and hopeless I put in a call to her.. .. I felt like I was being denied when really I am getting some financial help within reasonable Saturnian boundaries and I need to keep being grateful for that so I do not get an attack of the ‘poor me’s’ and keep a balanced and grounded perspective on all of these latest challenges.

I listened to a Joyce Meyer talk on this last night.. She was speaking of her brother who committed suicide and went through a lot of abuse and drug addiction as part of his involvement in the Vietnam War, she did try to support him and is very open about her own damage as a result of sexual abuse… but her brother did not make it.. She said that he found it very hard to take action on his own behalf and looked a lot to others.. I do not know if he was an older or younger brother.. it seems that she took a more heroic approach and he collapsed more into a scapegoat role, something I have written about earlier in blogging history…

I have to watch my own tendency to become a victim or scapegoat too.. There are steps I can take on any day if I am tempted to fall into an attack of the poor mes or become too paralysed in ruminative dead ends.. Walking in nature is a good one for me, knowing I have the power to move my limbs.. I did two good short walks today and they both helped to recharge me.. I do think there is a time exercise is used to run from ourselves but since all of those times of paralysis after accidents had a huge impact to the degree that after the head injury getting out for a walk just felt like a Herculean effort, now it feels so good to be able to get moving and bust through the resistances and blockages. And the fresh air, besides being good for me, can always give me a new perspective. Add to this that with such a trauma history an elevated heart rate from exercise can act as a trigger of how it felt to come to in a flooded state after an accident or major. I get that every day on waking and trying to fall asleep but lately I am managing to cope a little better.

I am thankful to Katina for returning my call a short time ago.. The walk put me in a better place I am also so grateful to fellow bloggers who reach out to support me. I really do think WordPress, for me, has been such an invaluable help here in my recovery from trauma and complex PTSD. Reading other blogs I get to identify and also support, get validation and give the same.. When that flows it truly is so sweet and lovely.. So thank you Sara today for being there for me and validating my pain over past issues.. that is something I count as a blessing today, a kind of miracle of kinds. and I want you to know how grateful I am to you and how thankful too. Together we can get through this.

I wasn’t allowed to need

I was very moved by a post written by a trauma survivor today about waving goodbye to her son over and over as he looked back to see her after dropping him at school..You can read the post here..

https://wishing-tree.org/2021/04/15/object-permanence/

It triggered me as I remember crying at the school fence or gates for my Mum and longing so often for my older sister who left home and Australia when I was 3 and was like a surrogate Mum.. It occurred to me after I cried reading this back and thinking of the image of her lovingly waving goodbye over and over… how I had to put my need aside and even after Jonathan, my ex husband left me in 2004 I denied my need to be with my Mum, taking myself overseas and having the head injury. But then in a family pattern my Mum pushed me too at at that time away from her and did not seem to be able to validate my needs and feelings even after I came home 8 months later..

As I look back, with the benefit of hindsight, I chose to keep myself remote even after coming back in 2006 and used the anxious attachment patterns of criticism, and negation of inner need to deny closeness and keep up distance (natal Uranus in the first house).. Also, it actually at around this time of year I got involved in the last relationship I had in which we both had such bad trauma we ended up pushing each other away.. by denying vulnerability. My ex had a very strong Uranian and Chiron theme of emotional wounding to his mother bond in his chart with both planets aspecting a very soft Piscean Moon.

It occurs to me, that if Scott is real then that need for someone to need and come home to love is being denied again, my brother seems incapable of responding to either of his sisters from a place of engaged emotion.. Yesterday in the conversation we had he was putting down the car I drive and badgering me to upgrade it, when really a car is the least of my needs right now really.. He could be trying to be kind.. he kept telling me the same thing my husband used to say… “there is no need for you to keep living like a church mouse” and he told me that, despite the fact he is a very wealthy guy he struggles to spend any money on himself.. and he said to me “You and I am Mum we area all a lot like that.. we find it hard to spend money on ourselves, and it is true, Mum used to struggle when she bought herself anything because as a child she had nothing and the government never even gave my Nana a war pension after my granddad died of war injuries when Mum was only 7 years old.. She also continued to withhold stuff from my two sisters and most particularly my older sisters’ children.. but then Mum was a young child growing up during the depression.

I remember too with sadness how my ex husband tried to tell me he needed me when I ran off on him to pursue more therapy in 2002 and I blew it all off. I well remember reading back my email reply I wrote to him a few years ago and I actually wrote him an email after that to apologize about the tone of it that year… Whoever Scott was he needed me.. and may even be a symptom of my shadow … I know these days I am an adult and I can be there for myself but there was a time I really needed others and their comfort and it was so so absent..

Being alone and a loner is almost a habit for me.. A deeply ingrained one..but I do also love people and company.. I had a lovely chat with the Supermarket check out operator the other day about her favorite couple she serves. The couple are elderly and were in front of me in the queue…and she started telling me all about them. I shared with her how sad I often feel seeing elderly couples and told her how Mum survived and outlived Dad for a further 32 years, never fully getting over the loss… and that they met when Mum was only 17, to which she smiled at me and said.. “I was only 17 when I met my husband and we are married 30 years now.”

I think now of how much of a product of that loss my brother was.. how distant is his own relationship with the wife who continues to look down on all of us siblings and always ensured such a distance was kept between my older sister who died in the home and her children.. I cannot talk to my brother about a lot other than money things these days.. I do try but maybe i have not tried hard enough I just do not know but it seems sad my other sister does not reach out to him either as, as much as he says to me.. “we all know you are lonely” I often say to Kat my therapist that I do believe, he too, is often so deeply lonely in his own soul… he just overworks to hide from it. and then when I confront him with a need I get rejected or shamed over it… I just don’t know but I do need to write about this today.. as my brother and my own emotional unmet needs are very much on my mind today..

Slowly, oh so slowly I am recognising all of this with the help of others who so lovingly write about their own struggles with a history of emotional neglect they work just so damn hard not to project back onto their own children..

I just spoke to him. i have to keep begging and pleading for what i need and when i talk to him there is a tight tight band around my heart that keeps on getting tighter and tighter.. If Mum and Dad worked so hard what is it all for if we cannot be generous and help others.. I just don’t get it! This family curse seems to have no end really..

To love and be loved

You are still so real

To me

The love you gave to me

The sense of us being two parts of one whole

That now when my heart breaks open

The wetness of that rain spatters over everything

I ache with the missing of the you

I thought I knew

As I feel the cold hard materialism of my past

Where things and possessions were supposed to provide

The substitute for present engagement and love

The angels say there is a band we form around our hearts

Due to the past

And that healing only comes as we allow ourselves to love

Over and over again

The band that we brace and form can keep us so bound up

To surrender the control

Means loosening the threads

And comes with the feeling of

Obliteration

And yet this is perhaps the journey

I am now on

All I can do is love through all of this

Even as I gaze upon the empty ways of men

Grown deaf dumb and blind to

The agonizing cries

Of the human soul’s

Overwhelming need

To love and be loved

Surfing the waves of feelings and drowning to rise again

Sometimes emotions are like the ocean. . often! We feel the wave rising up or coming towards us and sometimes we run, sometimes the water, waves and emotions crashe over us and seems to almost drown us.. And it is my belief that there can be movements of tides within that have similar themes that keep replaying, rising and falling, themes that have been with us since childhood.

Today I got guidance to read a reading in Pema Chodron’s anthology of collected writings.. This one is taken from her book of teachings The Wisdom Of No Escape. The reading seemed especially pertinent for where I found myself today, in a place of confusion at times as emptiness opened up with a lot of sadness and grief, no text messages for three days and with the need to accept all of the present realities and doubts sown my brother. I am trying just to open to those waves of the cold lonely emptiness that I was used, despite all of Scott’s assurances I could trust and then stand up again to get on with my day and finds places of joy .. today it was found at the lake beach, with a brisk walk, some time in meditation and listening to the beautiful song of a Currawong.. I still am not 100 percent sure of what is real and true.. as I cried in therapy with Kat yesterday, sometimes… often, the world and other humans confuse me so so much.

This is the reading :

Keep Standing Up

I remember my first interview with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche(her first teacher) very well because I was hesitant to talk to him about what was really the problem in my life. Instead, I wasted the whole interview chatting.. Every once in a while he said, “How’s your meditation?” and I said, “Oh fine,” and then just chatted on. When it was almost over I blurted out, in the last half second,”I’m having a terrible time, and I am full of anger.’

Rinpoche walked me towards the door and said, “Well, what that feels like is a big wave that comes along and knocks you down. You find yourself lying on the bottom of the ocean with your face in the sand, and your mouth and your ears and eyes, you stand up and you begin walking again. The the next wave comes and knocks you down again. The waves just keep coming, but each time you get knocked down, you stand up and keep walking. After a while, you’ll find that the waves appear to be getting smaller.”

That’s how karma works. If you keep lying there, you’ll drown, but you don’t even have the privilege of dying. You just live with the sense of drowning every time. So do not get discouraged and think, “Well, I was feeling depressed and I was hiding under the covers, but then I got out of bed, and I took a shower. How come I am not living in a Walt Disney movie now? I thought I was going to turn into Snow White. How come I’m not living happily ever after?” The waves just keep coming and knocking you down, but you stand up again, with some sense of rousing yourself (back to life)” As Rinpoche said, “After a while the waves seem to be getting smaller.” That really is what happens.

It felt a blessing to be able to stride out today for a walk despite long panic attacks last night and this morning.. but I managed to surf those tides somehow.. I know the feelings of disappointment and loneliness will come and go like waves but I just need to keep surrendering and then rising up to kept standing and walking forwads as much as I can.

No stranger

You are no stranger

To knowing how it feels

To have your heart torn open

And broken again

To have longed for a soft and present friend

To hold your hand in the darkness

And so now it is you must enter this place

Again

And be the best friend to yourself

As you can

Amidst the disappointment stones and suffering

Do not let it twist and turn too long

This old and deep oh so familiar pain

Of loneliness

But open your heart

Fully as the angels said

To feel the deepest need of humans

That longing be seen and loved and held

Treated kindly, with tenderness, ompassion and empathy

As another living soul’s

Best friend

wising up

I got myself into such a state this morning I pranged my car again on a garden chair I had moved so as not to hit it with the car.. Lol..I just have to laugh at times like this.. I was containing the panic I felt over ever decreasing funds, cut contact from Scott and the broken oven which it does not seem possible to repair as the brand I bought has no repairers in my home town.. It was as if the world was ending but I just have to remember these are all fixable problems and the worst thing would be to get down about it all.. So I let myself feel that feeling of being sucked into a black hole and just witnessed it.. I also cuddled Jasper who will draw close to me at such painful moments to give me healing and cried telling him how much I love him.

What went down between Scott and I on Tuesday was horrible and he has not been in touch since.. I accused him of basically not caring and have been ropable over the money issue.. Despite this I am sleeping and I seem to be in a good sleep rhythm now (waking just after sunrise) which got broken during that long time of depressive breakdown and the resulting head injury that happened after Jonathan (my ex husband) left me in 2004. I am beginning to realize it is not good turning the critic out on others, they then feel attacked but I felt myself being attacked in being accused of only caring about money which is why I expressed how I felt and tried to defend myself but even that was turned against me. I am angry as I need my money to live and I gave and trusted.. that said there are no assurances in life and it all came with a risk. I look back now to where I should have held my boundary but I was scared about Scott going to Iraq and my value system could not let that happen without even trying to help.. Its still possible I am being played, I just do not know all I DO KNOW IS THAT I MUST STAND TALL AND NOT COLLAPSE EVEN IF I ALLOW THAT SPIRAL DOWN INTO NEGATIVE THINKING AND HELPLESSNESS TO TAKE HOLD I HAVE TO KEEP REMINDING MYSELF NONE OF THIS IS LIFE THREATENING AS LONG AS MY CANCER DOES NOT TAKE HOLD AGAIN.

I really self soothed this morning telling myself everything is really okay and no matter what else happens I have survived worse than this but I have never had to stare so much financial insecurity in the face but its what a lot of the world goes through.. I just have to be strong and keep moving forward but not by continuing to act and re-act out of triggers.. that is getting me nowhere and blowing off at the mouth is not getting me any where either.. I just keep trying to stay as close as I can to silence and spent some of my morning just walking and grounding and connecting to trees in my favorite play park near my Nana’s old house.. This place always brings me comfort and that outing really lifted my mood, gave me a burst of energy and shifted my perspective..

The angels told me in mediation today to look for my joy in the simple things and that I only have to be loving and love myself but being loving often means saying NO TO REQUESTS FROM PEOPLE PREYING ON AND USING MY ENERGY… Today I had real bursts of anger about how I have allowed myself to be emptied out again in this way by someone not taking responsibility for their life or using me but this is pretty much text book of how it is for empaths in this world before we wise up to the way our energies operate and how vulnerable we can be due to that quality.

The weight of it

There are ways to be free

Within the loving radius of your own company

Sometimes it just gets so hard to see

The way this inner sense of lack translates

And so we lose our peace with this

The fulfilling feeling of our body simply

Being alive

Moving and breathing

There was a time I longed for you

In a way I can no longer do

In the end you put me through far too much

And even though I know it was all for my learning

It is hard to forgive or forget

The endless pressure you kept using

To bend me to your will

And how all I did was collapse my self

Under the weight of it