Breaking free of abandonment and neglect

I just came back from a walk around the neighbourhood with my dog Jasper, its all so whisper quiet here, not much activity during the day or any sign of other people much at all.  I had returned from town as I felt bad Jasper and I today did not make it to the dog park.  Today I had to put my own needs first.

I have been making a real effort to get up and out before lunch time these days.  I don’t know if its running away or whether it just is that I am trying to make an effort to answer the part of me that needs to be no longer in solitary confinement. Today after a very very hot day we awoke to rain and 13 degrees C.  That is a remarkable drop from 33 which is the temperature that was reached on Tuesday.  As I went quietly about my business in town I was aware of the flurry of activity leading up to Christmas.  I passed a group of about 50 children singing carols and that gave me a little Christmas buzz.  It was a deep joy that I could be out there as part of the human race although nothing about me is into competition or racing about, it was just nice to feel a part of it.

I went to the library and then sat down to eat my takeaway lunch.  I went through my wordpress emails and began to think of those who at this time of year are really struggling and may have their hearts in a deep dark place.  I was overcome with tears and compassion.  I was also grateful to notice that this year, I am no longer in that deep dark lonely wilderness of abandonment depression as I have been on so many other Christmases past.  This year I actually don’t have that deep dark empty disconnection pain deep inside.  I was thinking about this as I returned from my walk because as usual as I was walking about in the neighbourhood I was comparing the state of disrepair of certain parts of my house compared to the lived in loved in places that around here that mostly seem to be taken care of.  I started to judge myself and in that place I started to lose touch with my joy and feeling that I am actually doing so much better these days.

I need to remember the houses that look so good have families living inside them. They have men or a father around about and I don’t have either.  My therapist and I were discussing this absence of the masculine theme around not only me but my entire family on Tuesday as I had a dream where I went looking for the husband of a good friend of mine who is building a house very close to here in the dream and when Jasper and I arrived there was no one there but a maid.  Last week a male friend I thought I had started to develop a relationship with and had promised to be there for me just ignored my texts.  I don’t know what I have done but it really hurt at the time.  And last week it really took me into a dark place but for some reason today it did not.

I have to be on the look out for when I start to project abandonment and neglect onto things outside of me.  I need to remember that there is a very real and painful theme of masculine absence throughout our entire genetic history.  Last weekend I met with my cousin, the daughter of my Dad’s brother and she said that she believes through another cousin that it may have been possible that my father’s father didn’t just die but actually committed suicide.  There have been suicide attempts throughout three generations since then that I know of on Dad’s side, including two in my own family.

I have the Sun Neptune square in my chart, and this also speaks to loss and masculine absence and how that can manifest for me is that I didn’t have that masculine guidance and support in my life much.  Now I need to be on the lookout for when this absence/neglect/abandonment theme starts to replay.  I need to take steps to keep reaching out and being a loving inner father not only to myself but to Jasper as well.  Last week all this sadness about dad’s absence came up with my brother.  He wasn’t capable of responding.  I now see that is because he doesn’t understand how it was to lose his father at 23 and never will.  I lived that and I lived through being left by men 5 more times throughout 30 years since Dad died.  It was such a lot of abandonment and suffering and I do believe I have grieved all of those abandonments over the past 5 years deeply since my last partner decided he didn’t want to be with me any more as I made the decision to support my Mum when she wasn’t well rather than be there with him on his travels.

I think I am finally beginning to come to terms with the fact that although I am on my own I can also choose when not to be.  Taking care of myself means getting up and out when I need to.  It means taking the risk to connect.  It means being able to comfort myself or reach for comfort from those who can be there when I am hurting.  And I now see that the true ongoing abandonment really occurs when we abandon ourselves by not getting to know our own pain and deal with it.  For all of these realisations I am so enormously grateful.  I now know I need never suffer alone.