cutting ties - again

I'm hoping it will be easier this time. I've been away long enough that I really don't feel the same kind of entanglement(s) I felt before.

But the guilt is still there. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is not an equal and opposite kind of thing - that if my FAMILY felt the same kind of guilt as *I've* been feeling (which they SHOULD, as far as I'm concerned - they're equally culpable in this whole situation, I shouldn't have to be carrying all this shit alone), they would have DONE something about it by now. The fact that they've said and done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING tells me that they don't give a shit. Or, that their ability to express 'giving a shit' is so fucked up as to be something I want nothing to do with.

I am NOT going down that one-way street again. It's two-way streets or nothing from here on out.

***
I realized today that my brother seems to think he can just ignore all of what went before and that I'll be happy with the tiny little crumbs he's willing to fling casually my way.

Not so, buffalo breath.

I had made a couple of tentative moves toward re-connecting without thinking about it too hard - the birthday card for him a few weeks back, and the unexpected visit to mom's where I encountered the girls, and, briefly, my brother; and then the next day I emailed him a link to a comic/blog that i thought he might like.

All very natural, a normal desire to connect with someone who's been a long-term part of your life, right?

But things don't change so easily. I realized today how angry I still am, how nothing has changed, how there are all these assumptions being made without any discussion whatsoever. And that the same absence of conversation that has been standard operating procedure in my family for my entire life HASN'T CHANGED ONE BIT.

I thought I'd escaped unscathed, but the feeling like I wanted to make myself throw up again last night and this morning, for the first time in over a year, clued me in: I was literally 'swallowing' my anger - 'swallowing' something I didn't want to swallow. Namely the bad feelings, the fact that everyone was just brushing by me again, making light of my feelings, ignoring all the things I've said in the past as if it's all just magically better now.

Maybe I make it too easy for them. Maybe that's a habit I need to break. I don't know how to do it single-handedly - in fact, I'm pretty sure it's not POSSIBLE to make a giant, relational change like this by oneself. It takes the cooperation, interest and involvement of ALL parties.

Anyway. So, tonight, I found myself starting to feel sick, literally nauseous, as if I had eaten something bad. But I knew it wasn't food poisoning - if it had been from the food I ate earlier, it would have hit me hours ago and much more strongly.

This started with (I know this seems unlikely, but this is what I felt) a knotting in my liver. I'm wondering if the 'clenching' I was feeling is where my gall bladder used to be? And I thought, this is how the bulimia started all those years ago:

Back then, I felt incapable of expressing anger because any anger on my part made me 'bad', no matter how provoked I'd been by a person or situation - the feeling was 'unattractive' and therefore not permissible, and therefore I must bottle it up in order to be 'liked'. (See how fucked up/tangled up this gets? And how quickly? And how INSANELY DIFFICULT it is to figure out once all the complicated layers have gotten all twisted together over many long years of unquestioned bottling-up of feelings?)

And I realized that the 'backed up anger', or bile running the wrong direction (which was how I translated/interpreted the clenched (?) liver feeling), was me going against myself so as not to upset anyone in my family. Putting THEIR needs ahead of my own, once again.

As soon as I had that thought, made that connection, the nausea began to subside, and I could feel my energies begin to flow the 'right' direction again.

So I know I'm doing the right thing. I let my body be the guide here, to help me understand, feel and connect with my deepest, most powerful feelings.

It was really fucking cool! Though depressing to have to go through this all over again.

But it's like any path you travel enough times: You learn the shortcuts, how to avoid any traps or pitfalls, and you just generally learn how to make the trip as quickly as possible, especially if it's an unpleasant one.

Ideally, I suppose, you eventually learn to find a different route altogether, a PLEASANT one, or perhaps find a way to eliminate the need for whatever it was that caused you to take the unpleasant route in the first place. Although I think that last idea is just fantasy, wishful thinking - there are *some* things we can do without altogether, but close family ties isn't one of them. It's a bit like trying to do without air, water or food.

But perhaps I can learn to find other substitutes for the particular humans I started with. That's what I'm working on, for now.

***
The problem is, what if you're the only one in the family who seems to have any AWARENESS of the feelings of other people? Or, to the degree that you have that facility (or curse, handicap or whatever)?

***
I don't want to think about 'leaving the door open' or whatever - I feel like my prime directive right now is: SURVIVE.

Think ONLY and ENTIRELY about myself, no one else. No one in my life has EARNED that place of honor with me. So I will not give that 'position' away just because someone comes up and demands (or seems to expect) that I do so just because they WANT it.

Argh, this is getting all blargly again. Stop for a minute and let things coagulate (ick?) or whatever it is they need to do before I can continue 'processing' (blech-y shrinkology term.)