Blog Healing Journey-- Letting Go of the Past—Sadness

Pervasive sadness.

Unanswered grief.

Chronic mourning.

This week, the next paragraph of my Letting Go of the Past letter addresses sadness. As siblings of people with disabilities, we often feel sad about what we missed out on; about what we will never have; about what might have been. It’s a chronic grief cycle that can never be resolved using our current thought processes. But before we can change those thoughts, we need to feel the sad, empty feelings inside. Really feel them—without a bottle of booze or a pint of ice cream. Feel them with a pen and paper and a big box of tissues. Don’t be ashamed to cry, even to wail, out your sadness. We hurt inside and have been hurting for a long time. These feelings have been building up and will not disappear overnight.

When I was a child, mom and dad always did their best to try and fix my sadness. They would feed me something, buy me something (if they could afford it at the time), try to distract me. The aim was always to be happy, be positive. Put on a brave face. Don’t be sad. In my entire life, I only saw my mother cry two times. Once about something related to my brother and the second time when she found out she had a terminal illness. I learned how to hide my emotions from the best.

We sibs have been taught, unintentionally, to do whatever it takes to avoid feeling sadness or other negative emotions. We are the strong ones. We are the ones who must hold it together when others can’t.

The real problem is that the sadness and negative emotions don’t just go away. They only get buried, destined to surface again and manifest themselves in a different way. Just like with anger, when sadness is covered up rather than addressed, we will do unhealthy things to deal with the uneasy feeling that is inside. Things like drinking too much, eating too much, shopping too much, watching too much TV. The list goes on.

I’ve suffered with those buffering behaviors since I was old enough to get my own food out of the fridge. I think I’ve buffered using most vices.  I still struggle with it. It’s embarrassing to admit. Because, as you know, I am supposed to be perfect. That’s also part of the deal when you are the sib of someone with a disability.

So, onto paragraph 2 of my Letting Go of the Past letter. 

I am sad because…

·          I feel like I was a bad sister, in my heart  

·          I was ashamed of my brother

·          I resented my brother

·          I wished my brother was “normal”

·          I never knew a “normal” sibling relationship

·          I never knew a “normal” parent-child relationship

·          I never had a “normal” childhood

·          I will never have nieces or nephews

·          I can’t fix everything

·          I always put others before myself, to my own detriment

·          I feel as though I am not enough

·          My over-protectiveness of others has negatively affected my relationships with my spouse (now ex-spouse) and children

·          I have always put up emotional walls around myself to protect myself from being hurt by others—even those I am supposed to trust

·          I’m afraid to let others in

·          My self-esteem has suffered from the judgments of others

·          I have few real friends—I have trouble relating to others

·          I don’t know who I really am

·          Everything I did in life was because of my brother

·          Everything I did in life was to make others happy—not to make me happy

·          I feel guilty a lot, like it’s always my fault

Just as I said last week, these are my thoughts. They may not be yours. We all have our own experience. This exercise is not a “blame everybody else for your problems” exercise. It’s a purging of your thoughts exercise.  There are no right or wrong thoughts. If you think them, they are real for you. You need to write your thoughts down to see them, and then you can deal with them.

Now it’s your turn. Write down your thoughts. Don’t hold back. Allow the sadness. Embrace your feelings. Don’t look for excuses for them or ways to make them happy—not yet. How do you know what happy really means until you are able to fully experience sad? Being a sibling of someone with disabilities is not a life of hearts and flowers. Don’t try to force it to be that way. Accept what is.

Part of the time, life sucks. So, let it suck and feel how bad that feels. Then, when you’ve learned how to fully feel the sad feelings, you can learn how to fully feel the happy feelings.  Without contrast, sad vs. happy, think how boring life would be! Why have we been trying to hide that contrast for so long? What are we afraid of? A feeling is just a vibration in your body.

I appreciate all the comments and feedback I’ve been getting from my fellow sibs. Love to all!

Next week, we’ll uncover more emotions on step 3 of our journey together. See you then!

Paula

Blog Healing Journey--Letting Go of the Past—Anger

Today would have been my brother’s 59^th birthday. For at least the last 50 years or so (probably more), I have identified myself as the sister of a person with a disability. I have identified myself as a helper, fixer, do-gooder, people-pleaser, champion of the underdog, and mostly—worst of all—a victim of the circumstances of my life. Everything I did, even though at times I tried rebelling my way out of it, I did to fulfill the roles I believed were true about me.

My parents have both passed away, and yet I still do things to try to please them.

I am 62 years old and still not clear on who I am.

Step one is to Let Go of the Past.

The past is gone. It is only a thought. It no longer exists and can only affect me based on the thoughts I think about it.

To Let Go of the Past, I will be writing a letter to myself over the next several weeks to help me to uncover negative feelings. While I do not endorse dwelling on the past, it is important to actually face the past, deal with it, and move on. Covering up feelings by overeating, overdrinking, overworking, overspending, over-doing anything just to take away the pain temporarily will never solve the problem. It will only create new ones.

This process may seem harsh at times. It is not meant to disrespect of my parents or my brother. It is an examination of my own thoughts and feelings through the eyes of a child who experienced pain because of her sibling’s disability. Unfortunately, those childhood feelings are still with me and need to go away. I am doing this process both for my own personal growth and also to share with other siblings, so they may know that others understand. It is the beginning of the healing process.

Some people might think I didn’t love my brother or my parents if they were to read this blog, but quite the opposite. I loved them fiercely and was in protection mode most of the time.

Let’s get started:

It is important that you address your letter to yourself. I addressed mine, “Dear Paula,”

During the first week, write paragraph one, “I am angry because…”

I will not include the full letter here because some of the stuff I do not want to be public. But here are some of the thoughts that I have been feeling angry about:

     I am angry because there were so many responsibilities and so many expectations placed on me;

     I am angry because people judged me and my family because of my brother;

     I am angry because my parents made excuses for my brother’s behavior and his mean, aggressive actions towards me because he “didn’t know any better”;

     I am angry because my feelings didn’t seem to matter; because I was “smart” I could always handle everything;

     I am angry because I feel like I am not enough, no matter what I do.

Your list may (probably will) be different, and in some ways similar to mine. Be honest with yourself!

I suffered actual trauma as a child, but it was never acknowledged because the person causing the trauma (my brother) was disabled. I guess that was supposed to make the trauma imaginary.

I’m convinced that my parents actually believed that it was just drama and not real trauma. Paul was disabled, I was not. Therefore, I was supposed to be able to deal with anything. Although I know that Mom and Dad did love me very much, what they did not know at the time, was the lifelong effects the trauma had on me—eating disorders and other buffering behavior, perfectionism, people-pleasing, lack of personal identity.

That’s the first step of the process of Letting Go of the Past. I invite you to work on it this week. Get your paper and pen and start writing. Let it out. Let it all out. Don’t censor yourself. And, allow yourself to actually feel the anger. Don’t push it down. Don’t try to hide from it. Sit with it. Experience it. How does it feel inside your body? Accept how much it hurts without numbing it away with food, alcohol, TV, or something else. Let it come out. And be gentle with yourself. Treat yourself well. You have gone through the hard things and survived. 

You’ve got this.

www.siblingcoach.com

Siblings as parents—Where I began

I still remember seeing my baby brother for the first time. I was three years old and, in the 1960’s, you couldn’t go into the hospital ward until you were twelve years old. At the age of three, I was allowed to stand at the bottom of the steps in the old hospital (a remodeled house) while the nurse held that precious little bundle up for me to see.

Me, at about 5, with my brother.

In that day and age, it was very common for older children to babysit the younger children in the family. This was especially true on the farm, which was where I grew up. So, at the age of 4 or 5, I started taking care of my little brother for a few hours at a time while mom helped dad do chores outside.

As a young child, I relished my role as caregiver. I felt important. I felt responsible. Sometimes that adult-level role left me feeling alone and afraid, but I always tried to hide it if I could.

As my brother grew, it became apparent to my parents that he was not developing like other children. After a long, painful journey (I accompanied my family on the appointments) my parents got the word that my brother was disabled. Back in the day, they used the “R” word to diagnose my brother and the doctor advised my parents to institutionalize him.

My parents didn’t need to think long about their decision. They would keep their son at home, he would go to school, and he would live as normal a life as possible.

My typical sibling relationship quickly became atypical. Normal as possible was anything but “normal.”

Throughout life with my brother, my personal pain was great, and my desire to “fix” everything even greater. I was consumed with guilt, anger, and resentment, but those feelings were buried so deep, I wasn’t even aware of them.

Check out my attitude! 

For many years I defined myself by my past—as a sister to a brother with a disability. I didn’t give myself another identity. This prevented me from moving forward to my full potential. Even though I was an over-achiever (an effort to make my parents happy, I believe), staying stuck in the past has always held me back from what I really wanted in life. 

Over the next several weeks, I will be using this blog to go through a process of moving from a past-focused way of thinking, to a future-focused mindset.

This blog journey is designed to help my fellow siblings realize that whatever your past or present relationship with your disabled sibling might be, it is possible to let go of what isn’t working in your life and move forward. 

Please join me! 

www.siblingcoach.com 

The following article, which was posted by a sib on the Facebook group, really hit home with me, even though my family life did not parallel the woman in the article. It’s a good read about  experiences and feelings of many sibs.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/10/when-kids-have-to-parent-their-siblings-it-affects-them-for-life/543975/