lovaliss's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - It seems I am preoccupied with my parents happiness and levels of grief because that is often the role sibling survivors take on after a sibling dies. It is characteristic of a the living children to kind of protect the parents from more grief, to keep up appearances if necessary to assure everything and everyone is okay even if it's ultimately to the detriment of the parents. I remember doing this. So does my sister. We realized it lately. People were telling us that she needed help, that she needed therapy or anti-depressants, that she wasn't okay, when my sister mentioned this once to her, that her longtime friend from childhood and high school and adulthood had said she wasn't the same and that she thought she needed helped she snapped. She shouted, "Of course I'm not the same! How could I be the same!" And we realized that our job was to be loyal to her, even if it was to her detriment, to keep people away if necessary, and to create the picture that she was alright and that we were all alright. I see that these remnants still exist--in a way it's a type of co-dependence that was created in light of the grieving. So even though I'm a grown adult, I have an obsessed preoccupation with their grief and trying to protect them from grief, which has been a real challenge when I have been a direct cause of that grief. You can imagine my split loyalties, one to myself, one to the codependent unit. At times I get all brave and decide to live for myself, for my happiness. At other times I succumb to my role, and worry to my own detriment and to the sacrifice of my own happiness about their happiness. I would like to try to figure out how to not do that but how to demonstrate healthy boundaries and love without getting sucked in. I think if I could do that, it would also help me learn these skills in my personal life and in my personal relationships; skills I basically lack all around and thus put up with more shit than I should in almost every facet of my life. This may be dramatic, this may be untrue, but I think unfortunately, it is probably more true than untrue. 3:23 a.m. - 2012-05-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||