I am
Home again.
And what have I learned?
I have learned that I do not turn into a pumpkin if I play the dutiful daughter. I have learned that I am not playing. I have learned that it is not the whole of my extended family that is dysfunctional, only my end of it
I have decided to take the option of being happy.
Having met up with my beautiful cousins who have remained in stable and loving, supportive relationships with quite frankly, awesome spouses, it's made me think. This wider family represents my childhood and adolescence (including holidays) and even some of my early adulthood. That is until our grandparents died and by then I had already moved away.
Family support wasn't taken away, I removed myself from it. I buried it. I have not been kind to myself.
My own, tremendously handsome sibling and his beautiful young wife are another matter though. Not stable. Not happy. Trying- they are definitely working on it but they do not support each other in any constructive way at all because they don't know how to-complicit in dysfunction perhaps. I can't find the words to begin the conversation. He's ignoring, papering over, willing it not to be so. I know this cycle so well because he has not been kind to himself. He is lost and scared, spitting and fizzing to warn others off in a desperate defence reflex.
Not to me. To me he just lies.
All this beauty is in one room, with laughter and memories and cake. I am peppered with compliments for my organisation, for my children, for the decoration, for my ingenuity at keeping the surprise - but never, not once for taking my beautiful place in this beautiful family. I am invited here, there and everywhere and thanked for being the catalyst of the reunion, but no one tells me I look nice -not even my mother.
I am trying to let it wash away. It sounds so petty and ridiculous. It is petty and ridiculous, I know it. It just takes a lot of brushing off.
But, I can choose to be happy. I can choose to believe the gushing texts
that have been arriving all day.
I can remind myself that I
avoided mania-inducing states and
was not tired and lethargic for any of the visit, for what was possibly the first time EVER.
I controlled my cyclothymia.
Home again.
And what have I learned?
I have learned that I do not turn into a pumpkin if I play the dutiful daughter. I have learned that I am not playing. I have learned that it is not the whole of my extended family that is dysfunctional, only my end of it
I have decided to take the option of being happy.
Having met up with my beautiful cousins who have remained in stable and loving, supportive relationships with quite frankly, awesome spouses, it's made me think. This wider family represents my childhood and adolescence (including holidays) and even some of my early adulthood. That is until our grandparents died and by then I had already moved away.
Family support wasn't taken away, I removed myself from it. I buried it. I have not been kind to myself.
My own, tremendously handsome sibling and his beautiful young wife are another matter though. Not stable. Not happy. Trying- they are definitely working on it but they do not support each other in any constructive way at all because they don't know how to-complicit in dysfunction perhaps. I can't find the words to begin the conversation. He's ignoring, papering over, willing it not to be so. I know this cycle so well because he has not been kind to himself. He is lost and scared, spitting and fizzing to warn others off in a desperate defence reflex.
All this beauty is in one room, with laughter and memories and cake. I am peppered with compliments for my organisation, for my children, for the decoration, for my ingenuity at keeping the surprise - but never, not once for taking my beautiful place in this beautiful family. I am invited here, there and everywhere and thanked for being the catalyst of the reunion, but no one tells me I look nice -not even my mother.
I am trying to let it wash away. It sounds so petty and ridiculous. It is petty and ridiculous, I know it. It just takes a lot of brushing off.
that have been arriving all day.
I can remind myself that I
avoided mania-inducing states and
was not tired and lethargic for any of the visit, for what was possibly the first time EVER.
I controlled my cyclothymia.
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