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