Friday’s Child - Thoughtless

Crescent Falls

Sometimes it's better to not take the plunge.

From November 26, 2007

We Didn’t Think About You

A friend asked me recently if I’d ever asked my parents if they knew what my sister was doing to me and, if so, then why did they never stop her?
The first answer is easy: no.
But it has a second, painful part. The real reason I never asked was I didn’t want to know. Frankly, I was scared of the possible answer.
Let me explain it like this: We had a very old sewing machine that I had the idea that I might fall heir to someday. It belonged to my paternal grandmother and we had it stored first at the farm and later in the garage when my parents moved to town.
One day a cousin asked dad if she could have it. He said he'd promised it to my sister. The cousin then asked her and she said the cousin could have it.
Granted, I’d never said I wanted it, but neither had it occurred to me that I had to. I’d assumed that since we’d had it I’d be given a chance at it. When I brought it up to my dad later said, “I’m sorry Leah. I guess we just didn’t think about you.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this reason. There are only so many times I can hear “we just didn’t think about you.” I didn’t want to have to hear it again.
It’s absurd to suggest they didn’t know my sister was hitting and gouging me. She made quite a scene as she did it, screaming and stamping her feet, and would often rail afterward about how unfair it was. It would take a tremendous force of will to not notice. So I never asked. I had no wish to hear how they just didn’t think about me.

Friday's Child - Water Under The Bridge

Sometimes the water under the bridge stays turbulent awhile.

##

From Monday November 5

Still Taking Calls

I still take my sister’s calls because we’re in the midst of probate of our dad’s will. I need to maintain contact so when the matter is concluded I can pay out the remainder of the estate. That’ll be next spring sometime. Until then I will speak to her.
She is a vulnerable and needs help. I recognize that, but there’s nothing I can legally do to get her the kind of help I suspect she needs.
Listening to her paranoia and blame serves no purpose. It does not help her situation and it leaves me feeling used.
I stay on the phone long enough to determine what she wants. That’s all.
Once the legal matters are completed I may well not accept her calls anymore. I do not know.
##
Update June 20/08

We didn’t have to go through Probate after all.
I signed some papers a few months ago instead.
No payout yet, but I am sure it will arrive at top government speed sometime during the current epoch.

Friday’s Child – An Unwilling Sounding Board

We’re getting down to the wire here. Just a few more left.
Ummm, dare I say, “Get ‘em while you can?”

Seriously, I’m nearing the end of the posts I had on Prozac Palace. I know some of you read them there and you’ve been very good to me by reading them again and commenting. I appreciate it.

And I wish you a very Happy Friday the 13th!

From October 22, 2007

Backbone

It was expected of me that I would be my sister's sounding board. I used to listen to her whining. She’d take my time up, and it would stay with me because I felt powerless.
I stopped feeling powerless a few months ago. If she wants nothing more than to whine about problems, real or imagined, then I’ve no time for her. She has not listened to any solution I’ve offered.
She does not want her problems solved; she wants people to feel sorry for her. It’s sad that this is all she has, but she has created this world herself.

She has found a way through life by becoming an energy vampire. She will suck the life and goodwill out of anyone who lets her. She is no longer welcome to mine.
Once I’d made that decision I was able to cut conversations off after a few minutes rather than let her talk herself out. I no longer feel sorry for her, nor do I feel responsible for her. She has elected to not change. Mental illness is not an excuse for everything. Nor should it be.

Why did I listen all those years?

I felt compelled. I could hear my parents telling me that she needs someone to listen to her.
One night, back in my teens, she started talking about a problem. I said something, probably insensitive, and tried to leave the room. Mom insisted that I stay.
This scene is seared in my mind. I’d replay it each time my sibling called to unload her burdens.
My backbone sprouted a few months ago. I refuse to give her my energy and I stopped paying attention to the replayed scene.
I feel better. My energy is my own. Being from the same family unit is not a valid reason to put up with nonsense. Call it selfish because that’s what it is. I am looking after myself. No one else will do it for me.

Friday's Child - Plain Spoken

From Saturday, October 13, 2007

She Nuts And Should be Locked Up

I never thought I’d be writing about mental illness, never mind posting it on a blog for the world to see. In fact, talking about it was something I avoided.
My parents avoided it, therefore I assumed it was the right thing to do. Even after I grew up and knew better not talking was so ingrained that it came naturally to me.
A few friends knew, and I suspect most of our relatives knew it. An open secret, I suppose.
After dad died last year I decided it was pointless to downplay it. With both parents gone it meant no one was around to studiously not talk about it.
I’m blunt. It’s my nature. I’d used kinder, socially acceptable ways of answering question about her up to that point.
No more of that sensitive nonsense.
Now when friends and relatives ask about her I look them straight in the eye and say, “She’s nuts and should be locked up.”
On the whole it’s gone over well. The only problem was with an elderly aunt who isn’t quite all there herself. She looked at me like one of those old-style cash registers where the numbers keep spinning, but no total ever comes up.“She’s all right, then?”“Yes, Aunt Redacted. She’s fine.”
What this has done is given everyone else a chance to talk about it, too. I suspect most people were relived to hear me be so open about it. After all these decades they finally got the blunt truth.

Granted some might have been taken aback, but they are used to how I speak so they got past it quickly. They understand if you don’t want the answer, then you should not ask me the question.
It’s helped because they know they can call me after she’s called them with one of her pity-poor-me almost-truths.
She’s gone through a few cousins in the past 10 months. Like many mentally ill people, she is very manipulative. She knows what to say and how to package it in order to get the maximum effect.
It worked, especially on mom. After she died my sister only had dad to emotionally bully. She took right to it. I don’t think dad fell for much of anything. Mostly he wanted to help her and did not know how.

Anyway, my cousins call after she’s whined to them about whatever perceived slight or invented trauma has befallen her.They tell me what she said, and then I tell them what is really going on. For example, she whined to one last winter about not receiving any inheritance yet. I wrote about it in The Calls Are Escalating
In short, she’d gotten the registered letter notifying her of the bank draft I’d sent, but she hadn’t gotten around to signing for it yet. She told the truth, but she wasn’t very honest about it.
This is what she does. The only recourse I have is to be open and honest and tell the truth.
**

Thoughts and speech should be plain and clear like water in a mountain stream.

Friday’s Child – Mental Awareness

Above the first set of falls at Crescent Falls.

Not all mental illnesses are created equal.

from Oct. 04/07

It’s Mental Illness Awareness Week in Canada Sept. 30 –0ct. 06. The point of it is to make people aware of the issue and to dispel as much of the stigma of it as possible.
Good, laudable goals.
There are degrees of mental illness. From mild depression and other mild disorders where the sufferer can function in society, to severe disorders
Persons who are severely disturbed cannot function in society. Perhaps some can, I can't speak for everyone, but I can say from personal experience that certainly some of them, such as my sister, can't.
Our dad said my sister “had a health problem.” Fair enough. I can’t argue with that.
But it goes beyond a simple health problem because it’s mental, not physical.Call it what it is.
The difference is in a physical health problem we can generally trust what the sufferer is telling us. That’s not always the case in mental illness. It’s difficult separating reality from a mentally ill person’s perceived reality.
I simply cannot trust anything my sister says. Perhaps what she tells me is true. Perhaps it’s created from her tortured mental state. It could be her truth, but maybe she knows it’s a lie. It is not possible for me to tell.
I’m all for dispelling the stigma of mental illness. Not talking about will not make it go away. Frankly, it adds to the problems suffered by mentally ill people and their families.They already feel alone and believe no one will understand them or what they’re going through. How can anyone hope to understand it if no one’s talking about it?
We should talk about it. Shout it from the rooftops. Mental illness is no one’s fault and the silly idea that it is has to go.
The sufferer has not failed as a human being. His or her family has not fallen down on the job. That notion has got to go.
You can be in the home of a mentally ill person and not catch it. Mental disorders are not contagious.
And let’s lose that idea that it’s a lack of discipline. Specific to my sister, I do believe that if our parents had said no to her and not let her get away with screeching and stomping and scratching me and hitting me and making a scene all the time, then it would have had some impact. However, it would not have made a grand difference.
She would still be insane and she’d still be calling me at new and full moons with all manner of interesting ideas.
She has worsened. The night before the September full moon she called to accuse me of having her followed. She told me about people breaking into her apartment and putting angel dust into her drinks and that I was behind it. I believe she is incapable of reason, because even as she believes I’m orchestrating it she steadfastly refuses to tell me where she lives.
She told me that she neither wants my help nor wants me as her next of kin. I don’t know if she’s officially disowned me yet, or if she’ll even remember that she wanted to do so.
As I said earlier, I’m all for getting rid of the stigma of mental illness. It’s not serving anyone.
The first step is talking about it. That’s what I’m doing.

Friday’s Child – Confronting A Coward

We’re getting down to the wire on these repeat posts. It looks like I’ve got about a month’s worth left. I know they’re not the easiest works to read. Thanks for sticking with me.
#
Here’s a picture to help get you through it. If you’d prefer, you can always comment on it instead.
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From Monday, September 24, 2007

Confronting A Coward

It’s interesting that a few new and full moons have waxed and waned since my sister called.
The last time she phoned my husband answered. After a few moments of putting up with her nonsense he told her to “Fuck off and leave us alone.”

It appears to have worked.

Mental illness aside, my sister is a bully. She likes her own way and screeches and screams and stomps and rails about unfairness until she gets it. The quickest way to calm her down or shut her up is to give in.

I’ve have observed (I’m not a professional counselor or psychologist or the like) that bullies tend to back down when confronted. The bulk of them are cowards.

It’s worse when someone, my sister for instance, always gets her way by raising a ruckus. They don’t learn anything and their bad behavior gets reinforced. It worked once so I’ll do it again and again. Why try anything new?

Standing up to my sister wasn’t the kind of thing my parents were apt to do. It brought on the kind of drama and excitement that no one wanted.

Reason and logic, as occasionally tried by our dad, was lost on her. My sister is quite intelligent and was the smartest in her class all through school. But reason? She doesn’t seem to grasp it. She’s a creature of emotion. I suspect her idea of reason is if stomping and yelling and crying worked in the past, then logically it will continue to do so.

In fairness I don’t think she knows any better. She can’t cope with reality and even when she was purportedly sane she really didn’t deal with it all that well.
Bullying though violence or simple loudness worked. Giving in is wrong, but it is easy.
I think I wrote already how I stood up to her once by saying no. She didn’t speak to me for two years.
And now, my husband pointedly and forcefully told her to leave us alone. To date, that’s happened.
I may be speaking too soon, though. The full moon is two days away.

Friday's Child - Don't Make A Scene

Hello everyone. Thanks so much for reading these and for your thoughtful comments. I know it's difficult, but you've all managed to find good words and I appreciate it.
If you find yourself stuck, just say that you read it and I'll be happy.
I've added a video of Crescent Falls at the end of the post. I am sure there's a metaphor just waiting to be found, but I'll leave it where it is. The video is strictly for entertainment purposes.



Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Don’t Make A Scene

I’ve been trying to write a post on anger for several days now. It did not want to be written.
I feel it, but it seems to be an almost dispassionate type of anger. As if it really isn’t connected to me
I wondered about that and gave it a great deal of thought. I can express rage, especially if I’m being mistreated by a corporation or the like.
I contain my anger. I am calm. I use my vocabulary and their own policies to get the matter settled. Most people would say this is the correct thing to do and I’m hard-pressed to disagree.
It’s not like anger and I are strangers, but in a way we are. Anger equals insanity to me. And violence, too. It’s what I learned.
All those years of my sister flying off the handle over nothing has ingrained this relationship deeply within me. It’s made it difficult for me to express it any way but coldly and through tightly clenched teeth.
Being mad didn’t help me out one bit when I was young. It led to retaliation. If I got mad and kicked at my sister to keep her from hitting me, I simply got it worse from her. Seething isn’t healthy, but at least I didn’t get hit.
And I can always hear my mom’s voice, “Don’t make a scene.”
I’ve disconnected myself from the passionate side of anger. Coldness is easy. Hot anger is difficult. I can sense it inside me. It’s hidden deeply away after all those years of not standing up for myself. Of not making a scene.
I hear my sister screaming and I hear the slammed doors and stomped feet that punctuated my childhood. That’s what hot anger is to me and I want nothing to do with it
I don’t scream and I don’t make a fuss. I have trouble doing anything that in any way makes me seem like her. I was a tomboy growing up. Although that was natural to me, I may have emphasized it more than was necessary. If my sister was the role model for feminine, replete with screaming and stomping and slamming, then I wanted no part of it.
I got past that enough to get along in the world and I can get mad and keep my cool and get matters solved. But somehow I feel like I’ve been cheated.
I want to be able to have and show anger. I’m a writer. We’re supposed to show, not tell. How can I when it’s my learned response to step away from what I’m feeling?
I swallowed anger and hurt all those years so I wouldn’t draw any attention to what was happening. I decided back then that the best course of action was to ignore it. That meant not acknowledging anger or pain or anything else.
I clenched my teeth. I still do. My jaws are usually tight. I can be upset and work through it. But it doesn’t touch me very deeply.
I’m not sure if I could ever lose myself in a rage. I don’t know if I want to, but it would be nice, maybe even healthy, to know that I can.

Friday’s Child – Dance of the Wills

Update - I’m happy to report this matter is nearly resolved. Changes in the Public Trustee’s office meant there was no longer a need for this matter to go to probate. Payment of my dad’s share of his brother’s estate is slated to arrive shortly.
But this is how it was last year and for that reason I have chosen to run this again.

From Sunday, August 12, 2007

Dance Of The Wills

Bike rides have a way of clearing my head. Matters get resolved in some fashion. Perspectives change. Life gets easier.
Yesterday was like that.
My sister is about to be invited to contest our dad’s will. It’s because the Public Trustee’s office needs it to go through probate in order for his estate to receive his share of his brother’s estate.
Uncle Reynold was in public care for virtually all his adult life. Government money he received went in to the bank. He died a few years ago and his money is to be distributed evenly among his survivors.
My lawyer will send my sister a letter explaining the need for probate and advising her she has six months to contest dad’s will. This is where the fun begins.
She’ll be upset and will rail at me for doing something to her. Not that she needs a physical trigger for this.
She recently decided for no earthly reason that I’d sent Social Services to investigate her. When my husband took the call the other night she ranted about not wanting to be victimized any more and demanded of him that she speak to “that thing you live with.”
A registered letter from a lawyer is sure to send her around the nearest bend, and she’ll insist on knowing just what it is that I’m up to.
I can explain the situation, but I can’t advise her. I’m in a conflict of interest because it’s my money she’d be getting.
I don’t think she’d contest dad’s will of her own accord, but she’ll talk to her friends and our relatives and somebody will tell her to do it.
Because she is an AISH (Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped) recipient, the Public Trustee’s office can contest the will for her of its own volition.
I can’t do anything about it. It is very possible that she could be awarded every penny of our inheritance. I’ve already told my lawyer that if it’s contested I’ll just pay it.
Am I rolling over and exposing my throat like the losing dog does in the fight? Well, yeah, I am. But I won’t win so there’s no point dragging it out.
It’s hard to not to resent the situation it. I put up with her violence and abuse. Now I may have to pay her for it.
The government believes private money is better than than public, and that’s why the Public Trustee’s office can make a bid for reallocation of an inheritance. In theory that’s great, but an AISH recipient can have up to $100,000 in the bank and still get the monthly cheque. Public money is still being spent.
It was tough to swallow at first, but it’s getting easier. I went for a bike ride yesterday and the fresh air cleared my mind. It was a fairly warm day, but not too warm, really just a pleasant day in fullness of a mature northern summer.As I pedaled I thought. I have a good life. I have a love and friends and a home and no debt.
I step outside and see the mountains. I have fresh food and fresh air and can go hiking or biking or anything else I want any time I want.I have my own vehicle. I work at home.
I’m living the life I want.
My sister collects AISH and lives in a mental construct of hell. She called me evil recently and at the time I am sure it was her absolute truth. Whatever she accuses me of she believes at the time. I understand that.
She is largely unable to help herself and is swayed easily by others. She doesn’t listen to me, but she accepts as gospel the most nonsensical claims of others.
Most of my inheritance is my bank account with only a bit left in the estate account. I was going finish paying for dad’s headstone next month then close the account and send my sister her remaining allotment.
I can’t do that now because of probate.
I can’t touch my portion of my inheritance either because I might have to pay it all to my sister. She might give it all away or spend it on whatever she fancies.
It is difficult to not resent the fact that the money my dad wanted me to have, the inheritance he designated for us to share equally, could go to her and quickly slide through her fingers.
Certainly I’m imagining the worst outcome for me because I need to prepare for it. It may not happen. But should this come to pass I have to be ready.
And it is, after all, only money.

Friday's Child - I, Evil

(from August 5, 2007)

Apparently, I’m evil.
My sister called about two weeks ago to tell me the above. In fact, she opened with it, screeching. It was another off-cycle call, several days before the full moon and early evening. I had no inkling she'd be on the other end.

How could you be so evil?” she demanded.

When I said I didn’t know what she was talking about she told me I did so. She wanted to know why I’d called her that morning. I’d done nothing of the kind. When I said so she insisted I not deny it.

“I don’t want to die like this,” she screeched into the phone line.
“It’s not my fault I couldn’t get out of Edmonton.”
“If our parents we’re alive to know how evil you are they’d hate you forever!”

I remained calm. I wasn’t about to get sucked into her bottomless vortex of insanity and pain. Certainly reason has no place in such a conversation. It only irritates her further.
So as calmly as I could I told her, “I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t give a rat’s ass. Good-bye.”

I’ve reached the point where I don’t have to put up with her nonsense. Listening to her spew doesn’t seem to have much of an effect. I think that it only keeps her at her current level as opposed to challenging her to do something to better her situation.

Listening fosters stagnation. It feeds her immediate need and therefore doesn’t assist her to meet whatever her true, underlying need might be. It’s a surface solution, the cliche’d Band-Aid ® on a broken leg.
I can’t fix her broken psyche and it’s not up to me to do it. All I can do is help myself. I spent my life listening to her drone on about her problems, irrespective of her mental state, and not doing anything about them no matter how many solutions were handed to her.

Perhaps she wants help and does not know how to ask. Maybe she likes the emotional satisfaction of feeding on another’s energy.
She can’t have mine.

Occasionally a cousin will call to tell me what I have to do. Well, no. I don’t have to do anything.
My sister does not listen to me and I don’t have the legal standing to do anything.
Even if I could force treatment on her, she is violent. I’m not exaggerating. I fear for my safety around her.

This most recent conversation lasted less than 30 seconds. I’m not going to waste an evening being yelled at and whined to. Perhaps it may be seen selfish, but that’s someone else’s opinion, not mine. No one is going to look after me in this except me.

It can be argued that she needs an ear. Yes, but I don’t think it does her any good, and I don’t believe it has to be mine. I understand this is a manifestation of her illness. I don’t think she actually means it. I doubt she’ll even remember making the call.

During a recent meditation my guides told me this about the situation: “If you hear with your heart, then you don’t have to listen with your ears.”

I take this to mean as long as I understand it’s mental illness speaking and not really anything personal, then I don’t have to waste my time on the phone with her. This is my approach. Unless she has a question for me, or needs to tell me something important —and real— I will hang up.

Friday's Child - Once In A Blue Moon

Last year I called my sister to wish her a happy birthday. It went about as well as one might expect.

By way of update, she eventually gave me a PO Box No. so I could send the money once the estate matters are settled, but to date she has refused to provide the postal code.

**

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Blue Moon Birthday

My sister’s birthday fell on June’s blue moon. I thought it would be a nice thing to call and offer birthday wishes. I do not normally do this. Commonly this day passes unmarked by me unless we happen to be in the same room. Ditto with mine from her.

Hey it’s once in a blue moon event. Why not? Our parents are dead and I’m probably the only family member she’s got that knew it was her birthday.
Anyway I called early--10 a.m.--and left a message.
She called by mid-evening and was taken aback when my husband answered and wished her a happy birthday.

I told her I didn’t have anything else to say. I’d decided that given the day and moon phase I’d make a change and not ask for her new address. Of course, this might have been the only time she’d give it to me.

She went through her usual litany of whines. She sort of asked me what to do about something, but then told me that I might tell her something wrong.
She apparently knew what to do two days earlier, but didn’t do it. I’m not quite sure why, but apparently this wasn’t the right thing to do any more. I don’t know why. I also don’t know what we were talking about.

I may have to call her again soon. I do need her new address. The estate taxes have been filed and all that’s left is to pay for dad’s grave cover. That’s due in September and then I’m done with the business end of dad’s death. I can pay her out and close the account.

All it leaves is an estate matter from an uncle who was also insane and died in public care. Dad’s portion will be paid to his estate.

Maybe I should leave the account open, but I need to cut as many ties with my sibling as possible. She is trying with me all the emotional games and manipulations that worked on our parents. I’ve had it with her nonsense and her games.

It was her incarnational choice to live a life off the sanity bubble, and I think whatever we had to work out from it is behind us.
I no longer believe that her life has anything to do with mine.

**
The photo is of some of last year's bog cranberries we found along the trail at Twin Lakes.
Nothing is wasted in nature as it will add nutrients to the soil for this year's crop.

Friday’s Child - The Desperate Cockroach Call

Originally posted July 8, 2007

In the fall of 2006 dad offered me “all the money I have in the world” to go and clean my sister’s apartment for her.
He sounded desperate. Said he would have done it himself except that he was old and sick.

No matter how many times I explained that a cockroach infestation required fumigation and should be done by experts, that neither Mike (I will not be alone with my sister) nor I could tolerate her cigarette smoke, and Mike couldn’t be around her cat, it wasn’t sinking through.

He’d repeatedly sent her money to get professional cleaners. Each time it was set up it would fall through. I never knew what happened. I can guess that she cancelled it or told them off or accused them of hurting her cat.
Anyway he sent her money for months, and it went to whatever. She complained to me at his funeral a few months later that he kept sending her money and she didn’t know why and didn’t want it.

Back to the call: dad begged me and he seemed quite upset that I was refusing. He went so far as to suggest that if I did it that sometime down the road I’d be happy I’d done it.
No, I’d resent hell out it and probably him, too. I didn’t say so, but I certainly thought it loudly.

He was so upset I told him I’d think about it.
That’s the absolute truth. I couldn’t help but think about it. It annoyed me for days that he thought I should go clean up my sister’s mess and be happy to do it.

I understand why I was asked: dad was plainly desperate to help Dawn even as she’d kept him on the edge of a sharp, thin emotional wedge for years. She complained constantly and blamed him for every little thing that was wrong in her life while simultaneously begging for money.

Did I resent the request?
You bet.
I’m not a martyr and I am not going to put myself in any situation where my well-being is at stake. Heaven only knows what else might have been incubating amongst the cat hair and ash trays. The worst part was dad’s unwillingness to accept that I didn’t want to do it and had good, solid reason for it.

Friday's Child - Dishes vs. Insomnia

Originally Posted June 30, 2007, as "The Dishes."

I had insomnia for eight months in my teens. It started just about a month or so before Dawn and I stopped talking. I barely slept from late September to the end of May. That’s almost an entire school year fueled on four hours of sleep a night.

It all started when I took a nasty knock to the back of my head one day at school. A bunch of us were goofing around during noon hour and I wound up slamming my head into a propane tank.
To this day, 34 years later, I can still hear the ringing echoes vividly. The goose egg at the base of my skull and the headache kept me from sleeping for a few days. That was okay. I expected it to be over and didn’t give it much thought.

But it stuck around. The more time I spent awake the more I got to notice my sister and to tune into her growing mental illness.
A few weeks after the insomnia began we stopped speaking and my insomnia worsened. This gave me time to notice even more and it grated on me that much more.

Of all her odd behavior and hair-trigger temper what sticks with me the most is the dishes.
Mom would leave them for her to do. My sister, being nocturnal, wouldn’t get to them until the wee hours of the morning.I’d finally get to sleep around midnight, and then be awakened by the splashing and clanging at around 4 a.m. I didn’t just hear the noise; it penetrated the stillness enough that I swear I actually felt it.

It woke me up and that was it. No getting back to sleep for. I had to be up at 7 a.m. and I sure could have used the additional three hours.
This went on for months. Finally I said something to mom. Even if I had been speaking to Dawn bringing it up to her would have been pointless. She didn’t listen tome at the best of times.Mom did say something to her one day. I didn’t hear it, but I recall Dawn’s whining response, “But it’s my job.”

And that was it. Never mind about my sleep, Dawn had her job.

Oh, yeah I tried assorted medication for the insomnia. Phenobarbitol, Dalmane, Sinequan, Valium, even sleeping pills. I discovered that most sleep inducers worked only once on me. The exception was the sleeping pills which kept me groggy to the point I couldn’t take them.
So I was awakened every morning by crashing and clanging and I felt it scrape me raw.

When I told my parents I couldn’t sleep they told me to get some fresh air and exercise. Dawn’s madness ruled and I went with little sleep.
Eventually, around the end of May, she stopped doing the dishes and I started to sleep through the night.

Friday’s Child - Questioning My Existence

From Wednesday, June 13, 2007

I didn’t say anything when I was young about Dawn hitting me.
“Dawn? Do that? Nah. She’s smart and popular." I’d imagine them saying.
I’d look a around my life and see that my parents ignored it. If it ever did come up it was laughed off.
"These kids never get along," I remember my dad saying once.

Dawn was very smart, no question about it. She was top of her class each year and popular, too.
I was withdrawn, my shoulders were hunched up, and I was quiet and managed average marks in school. Today that might be a signal that’s there’s something wrong. Forty years ago sibling abuse didn’t happen.

I could have done better in school but I didn’t try. It’s a small Gr.1-12 school and we had many of the same teachers. I had an irrational fear of being compared to my sister. No teacher ever said it to me, but I still thought it.
The last thing I ever wanted was to be anything like her. So I was an average student, didn’t have many friends, and I was a tomboy. But more than anything I was a virtual non-entity.
Despite being social opposites, I’d go to family reunions and she’d stay home. Some family member would greet me by her name, as happens to everyone with a sibling, and I’d correct them.

Their response?

"Oh, how is Dawn?"

So I’d say she’s okay and that would be it. Unless I asked, “How are you?” or something the conversation would end.
No “Oh, I’m sorry Leah. How are you?” or anything. No acknowledgement of my existence. Just a question about Dawn.

It wore me down. My parents ignored what was happening which made me feel like it didn’t matter. Outsiders mistook me for Dawn and then just wanted to know about her. I felt like a non-entity. I was sure I wasn’t Dawn, and I made sure I didn’t act like her, but beyond that, nothing.

Which brings me to my point: Why would anyone believe someone who doesn’t exist?

On The Lighter Side

I'm rerunning these Prozac Palace posts with the hope that anyone who needs to read this sort of thing will find it.
The material will also form part of my memoir. Offering it out is difficult, but necessary. Responses are probably also difficult, and not required, but they are appreciated.
**
From June 2007:

Can good things come out of mental illness?

Certainly they can. It varies from person to person of course, and it depends on what you do with what life hands you.

For me, my sister’s illness led to reading. I bought my first science fiction paperback at one of her sessions and was later introduced to Mad Magazine.

If memory serves my sister’s first visits to a psychiatrists began in the spring of 1968. I went along and waited in building lobby with an aunt. I can’t recall if there was drugstore or what, but there was a rack with paperbacks. I went over to it a few times. Eventually I decided on E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Masters of the Vortex. I never did finish reading it. It was the final installment of a series that I’d never heard of and wasn’t invested in. That doesn’t matter. I loved science fiction from that moment forward.

It seems to me that Dawn saw this psychiatrist for about a year. Her problems were eventually written off as growing pains (or so I was told) and she didn’t get any further help for several years.

Back to the good point. One fine day in the winter following the sessions my mom came home with Mad Magazine. Both parents had read it and both were smiling. They thought it was hilarious. It was and I was hooked.

From that day until sometime in my 20s I faithfully bought every issue. Its satire has stuck with me. Every so often I’ll recall a movie song or TV show title they skewered and smile.

Yes, it reminds me of life with Dawn. But it’s a good memory. Without her insanity I wouldn’t have been exposed to Mad.
**
Notes on the republishing of this post.
It didn’t literally lead to reading. I was already an avid reader. It affirmed my love of the written word and books gave me somewhere to go.
My use of “One fine day” and the post title “One The Lighter Side” are made with a very deep, reverential bow to Mad Magazine.

Friday's Child - Hell, Forgiveness and Blame.

Here's another post from Prozac Palace. Before we get started let me remind you today is the new moon. Remember to write yourself an abundance cheque within 24 hours of the new moon in your area.

The following originally ran Monday, May 28, 2007.

I told my sister to go to Hell the other night. Smartest thing I ever did.
Why?
Because now my shoulders hang properly instead of being scrunched up and tense, and the pain in the middle of my back is all but gone. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good physically. I know I’ve never felt this good emotionally. Spiritually I’m calm and centered. It was the right thing to do. I wish I’d done this 40 years ago.

She called Friday night to ask advice about someone who wanted money to help her move. She began the move in February and is in her new apartment, but it sounds as though she still hadn’t collected all her belongings from the old place. In the latest installment a friend told her to hire some professional movers but she didn’t follow up on it. He then told her if she gave him $500 he’d get some people together to do the moving for her. She wanted to know if she should give him money. I said it wasn’t a good idea.
She rambled on a bit about him needing tobacco the previous night and she didn’t get him any and he can’t go without it and he’s mad at her because she didn’t get him the tobacco until that day. She used this as a launching pad for her usual closed loop of complaints about doctors screwing her up, and the cleaning people hurt her cat and she didn’t even have bedbugs. (Her original story was cockroaches.)

I have had it with her complaints. She cannot or will not do anything about her situation despite getting patient advice from me and probably others as well. I listen to her whining because she needs someone to talk to and because we’re not supposed to be mean to the poor insane people who can’t help the way they are.
Not this time. I told her I didn’t want to hear her complaints.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” she said.
“I’ll take any tone with you I please.”
She said I was cold. I said, “Yes, I am. What do you expect since you beat me an average of 2-3 times a week until I was 10 years old? "
She was quiet for about a second then launched into how bad this was for her. She didn’t have her head on right in those days (This was her pre-insanity days according to the official record.) and she wasn’t getting what she needed then and she doesn’t even know who that person was. That may be the absolute truth, but she was far from finished.

Apparently she’s had therapy about this and she “has regrets.” Well, she was just getting warmed up. According to her when she was 26 I told her I was “going to get her.” It didn’t really happen. In her mind it did, but for the record I did not threaten her. She told me not to deny it because she’d been in therapy for years afterward because of it.

She went on for a while, but I’d had it. I will not put up with being blamed for her problems. I was calm, cool and collected.
"Go to hell,” I said as and calmly hung up.
The change was immediate. My shoulders fell to a natural and normal position. The pain between my shoulder blades drained away. It had showed up in the afternoon when I’d been wondering when I was going to hear from her. The full moon was coming; I knew it could be any time.
I smiled. I felt good. I should have done this 40 years ago.

She called back after abut 20 minutes and wanted to know if I was still “carrying this around.”
“Yes.”
"Well it really makes you ugly.”
So I told her I forgave her for beating me.

She’d mentioned something in the first call about having to find a new place and I wasn’t sure if that meant a third apartment or it was a reference to where she is now. When I asked about it she hung up on me. She called back about 10 minutes later with her original question and I told her not to give this fellow any money.
The conversation ended but this time I didn’t feel drained. She’d managed to turn my experience and pain into a much more traumatic event for her as her problems are my fault.
In her reality she is blameless.

This can’t be helped. It’s up to her to change if and when she wants. All I can do is not let her abuse me anymore.

Friday’s Child – What Did You Say To Her?

I’ve been re-running these Prozac Palace posts with the hope that anyone who needs to read this sort of thing will find them. It’s occurred to me that readers may wish to comment, but not know what to say. You’re under no obligation to say anything. If you want to, but are at a loss, may I suggest this simple phrase: I read it.


From Thursday, May 24, 2007

What Did You Say To Her?

Ever watch anyone go mad?
I’ve had that pleasure.

I watched my sister madness grow. It took her over, and my parents and me were along for the ride. I was in my teens and still in school so clearly there’s nothing I could have done about it. Nor should I have. It was never my responsibility.

Our parents did not do anything for quite some time. In fairness, there wasn’t a lot they could do. We lived on a farm 10 miles from a village and 35 miles from the nearest medical doctor. Psychiatrists were in Edmonton, more than 100 miles away.

My sister’s insanity was diagnosed in 1976 when I was 17 and had just graduated from high school. She’d been home slowly going insane for about 18 months. Compulsive hand-washing was the chief indication. Her temper was as random and explosive as usual although she did cry more frequently.

It was frustrating to watch because she obviously needed help and my parents did not appear to be doing anything.

Granted, I’ve no clue what they could have done short of having her carted away to a psychiatric hospital. I would have happily made that call myself, but I knew I’d never get away with it.

Dad almost did something once in the spring of 1975. He’d made an appointed to talk to a medical doctor about it, but then one of his brothers came for a visit so he cancelled the appointment. I see the logic in that. What he didn’t do was reschedule. Ever. I didn’t see the logic in that.

As for me, well, in November of 1975 my sister stopped talking to me. This was a treat initially. She’d wanted to borrow money from me so she could buy me a birthday present. Because this seemed absurd, I said no and I stuck to it. I rarely said no to anyone in those days and I decided if I was ever going to stand up to her I’d best get started.

She did as she always did and stopped speaking to me. Usually I’d let this go for a few days then I’d say something to her and it would be okay. But this time I decided she could make the first move. I was done with caving every time.

It took her two years. Okay, I’m stubborn. I get that. But in my mind I was making a point. Two years of her silence wasn’t much of an issue for me, but it sure was for our parents. On at least two occasions my dad took me aside and asked, “What did you say to her?”

No matter what she did nor how many times I told them what happened, it was always, “What did you say to her?”

Friday's Child - Words

I’ve been re-running these Prozac Palace posts with the hope that anyone who needs to read this sort of thing will find them. It’s occurred to me that readers may wish to comment, but not know what to say. You’re under no obligation to say anything. If you want to, but are at a loss, may I suggest this simple phrase: I read it.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Be Nice To Your Sister

What words do you want to hear? For me, growing up with a violent sibling, it was words of protection.
Perhaps a simple, "Stop fighting." Maybe go so far as a stop hitting or scratching or gouging or even yelling at your sister, said to my sister of course.
In my wildest fantasy I wanted to hear: “It’s okay. You’re safe now."
"She won’t hurt you anymore.”
“I won’t let this happen again.”
What I did hear once was, “Be nice to your sister.”

I was in my mid–teens and Dawn had been away from home awhile. She was living a normal life and even had a job. She came home for a weekend in November and shortly before she arrived my dad took me aside and said, “Be nice to your sister.”

Years later, when I was able to give it some thought, I wondered: Why didn’t you ever say that to her?

Forcing Medication

I’ve been re-running these Prozac Palace posts with the hope that anyone who needs to read this sort of thing will find them. It’s occurred to me that readers may wish to comment, but not know what to say. You’re under no obligation to say anything. If you want to, but are at a loss, may I suggest this simple phrase: I read it.

From Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Forcing Medication

I wrote recently about the “can’t help it” excuse for letting the mentally ill get away with their behaviors, especially when it’s their excuse for not taking their meds.

What is the solution?

I have no clue.

We can’t force the mentally ill to take their medicine. It’s no different than forcing a treatment on a physically ill person against his or her will. If I needed a life-saving operation and chose instead to thumb my nose at surgery and go off into the bush to die, then no one could legally stop me. I’m a grown woman and it’s my choice.

I don’t want live in a world where treatment is forced on anyone. Such legislation is immoral. The potential for abuse is terrifying.

Can you imagine being compelled by law to take medical treatment? What if you want alternate therapy but someone in your family decided you shouldn’t have it? You could be forced to go to a medical doctor and undergo chemical therapy or surgery against your will. You’d lose control of your life and give control of your body to someone else who claims to have your best interests at heart.

Canada already has legislation allowing for the courts to order medical treatment of minors. Members of the Jehovah’s Witness faith have been forced to accept blood transfusions in direct opposition of their faith and their personal desires.

The argument is the procedure was life saving, but it is still an example of government interfering in your wishes and I can’t bring myself to support it.

Yes, those are fine words. I stand behind them. But to be absolutely honest with you, there are days when I wish such measures were in place to force my sister to keep taking her medication.

What do you think? Should mentally ill persons be forced by law to take their properly prescribed prescription drugs? Should they be forced into treatment? Is it wrong? Is it right? Or should we just let them make up their own minds?

Friday's Child - Can They Help It?

I’ve been re-running these Prozac Palace posts with the hope that those who need to read them will find them. It’s occurred to me that readers may wish to comment, but not know what to say. You’re under no obligation to say anything at any time.
If you want to but are at a loss, may I suggest this simple phrase: I read it.
#
From Friday, May 4, 2007

"She can’t help it."
I heard that remark many times over the years. Once my sister was declared mentally ill then no matter what she did this was offered as the reason. I don’t buy it. Not totally anyway.

She’d never had to take responsibility for her actions when she was sane. Later, having insanity to fall back on made for a lovely soft landing.
Regular people who have limited experience with the mentally ill will often believe that the mentally ill just need a bit of discipline, a bit of order in their lives, and they’ll be fine.

It’s an absurd statement, but it may not be entirely incorrect.

I can only speak for what I saw in my sister’s case. If she’d learned personal discipline and had been made to take responsibility for her actions earlier it may have made a difference. If nothing else, it might have taken her longer to decide the blame for the injustices of her life rests with everyone else.
That’s an aside to my point. What I suggest is she can help herself to a degree. Let me explain.

I agree that she cannot help being mentally ill any more than another can be blamed for being physically ill. But when my sister flat out refuses to take her medication it becomes a different game. She can help it. The help is right in front of her; she is simply choosing to ignore it. She takes the meds, feels better, then decides she’s fine and doesn’t need them anymore. It’s a familiar pattern and hardly exclusive to her.

I think there are times she is scared to take her medication. Usually they come about when she’s been off them a while. Perhaps she can’t help coming to that conclusion, but she still made the decision to stop the medication. She can help that. She can help herself. It’s entirely in her control.

Saying she cannot help it simply feeds her. It provides her with a wonderful excuse to not do anything. Saying that mentally ill people can’t help how they are is as much an excuse for inaction from us as it is from them. Some behaviors can be altered and controlled. The excuse we give for them is really an excuse for the rest of us to turn our backs and walk away.

“They can’t help it” easily becomes “they can’t be helped.”
And that is wrong.

Friday’s Child - A Lesson For Unlearning

I’ve been re-running these Prozac Palace posts with the hope that anyone who needs to read this sort of thing will find them.
It’s occurred to me that readers may wish to comment, but not know what to say.
This is understandable.
You’re under no obligation to say anything. If you want to, but are at a loss, may I suggest this simple phrase: I read it.

#
Originally posted Monday, April 30, 2007

Were my parents any help against my sister's bullying? A commenter asked this and I gave the short, easy answer of no. But it’s not entirely correct.

Mom stepped in once. I was about eight and we’d gotten into a fight in the living room that wound up in Dawn’s bedroom. It’s been 40 years so I can’t recall exactly how it happened, but I remember clearly that I was winning.

My sister and I were about an arm’s length apart when mom came in and said we’d better stop. At first I was relieved. She’d stopped a fight. Then I got scared because I knew wasn’t really over and that Dawn was just going to finish the fight later on.

Then I realized something that proved true all through our lives. The only time mom ever stepped in was when I had the upper hand.
I learned that day to not stand up for myself. It’s quicker and more efficient to let Dawn win.
I still fought back to a minor degree. I wasn’t a total doormat, I simply had sense enough to take it.

Physical pain is transient. Gouges and scratches stop bleeding. Emotional hurt endures, though, and stopping a fight because the wrong kid was winning was an experience I only needed once.

For background on my sister and her mental illness please see this post at The Goat's Lunch Pail and this Goat's Lunch Pail post and Talia’s post on it at the Centre for Emotional Well-Being.