Category Archives: family

No God

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13

Today, for the first time in my life, I admitted that I believe that God does not like me, does not care for me. It’s not something that is easy to admit, but it is true that this is how I feel, what I believe. I want the truth to be otherwise.

An hour passed since I wrote the paragraph above.

The realization that there is not one thing I would do in the world for my mother and stepfather is painful for me. I’ve tried and tried to search in my heart for feeling for them, but there is none to be had. I come up empty every single time.

When friends shake their heads at this fact I want shake them back and yell, “Don’t you know that I wish I could find a shred of feeling for them?! It is painful to feel nothing for one’s parents. The guilt is immense.”

If you blow out a candle enough times you eventually will be unable to relight it. You can only relight it so many times. My parents extinguished the light long ago. I’ve tried to relight it for them to no avail.

When the light was extinguished for my parents it seems that God blew out my candle as well.

Death brings choices

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8

When you’ve run away from home you can never truly run away.

You ran away at 18, and aside from a short period of time in your twenties, you’ve not looked back.

The news of your grandmother’s death wafts its way to you eventually. You’ve learned that your grandmother died on Friday, the mother of your father. Your father left your life when you were a little girl. You didn’t have a lot of involvement with this grandmother, but you did have contact with your aunt, your father’s sister.

The family expects you to attend. You can’t even bring yourself to call them “your family.” The concept is an abomination to your brain.

There is no way that you are going. For a moment of insanity you considered it, and looked up flights on Kayak. The cheapest flight was $890! But you know in the back of your mind that if the flight had been free you would have declined. The search was just a formality for your brain.

Though you are not going, you have that shaky, twitchy feeling. You know that thousands of miles away that they’re shaking their heads when they speak of you. And though you ran away 20 years ago, they still have a hold on you.

Cate called …

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8

I heard from my sister,Cate, unexpectedly. Previously, I wrote about how we had lost our connection. It turns out that she has been struggling herself with personal issues. All this time, Cindy, my therapist had advised me that Cate not speaking to me was not about me, that it was about the fact that I reminded her of the trauma we went through, and that my PTSD further reminded her of that trauma. She tried to convince me that Cate’s absence in my life was not a reflection of how she felt about me. No matter how hard she tried to convince me of this, I still was left feeling like my sister had had enough of me.

All of this made sense, but I couldn’t buy the entire theory. I just felt hurt, and abandoned by Cate. I thought I was an annoyance in her life. It turns out that Cindy was right. Cindy is usually right. One would think I would have figured this out by now since I’ve been seeing her for a few years.

Cindy has tried to convince me that trauma survivors often think that a sudden absence of a person in our lives is because of us, or something we’ve done. She’s tried to teach me that sometimes people absent themselves from our lives for reasons that have little or nothing to do with us. I think I’m finally starting to get the concept that she’s been talking to me about for a few years. I’m a slow learner. 🙂