Old Truths

Last night I had a bit of a wake-up call.

I can't remember a lot about my youth, because it was so incredibly crappy.  I had a shitty home-life, and I was tormented at school.  This is why I always took refuge in books - at least I was able to forget everything, and live in another world for a while.

My brother is in the ICU, on a ventilator.  It's easy to say, and easy to hear, but when I saw him, I burst into tears.  There lies my big, strong brother, with a bit of his tribal tattoo on his arm visible between all the pipes and blankets, unable to move, speak or even open his eyes.  It was so incredibly difficult to see him like that.  I had been angry with him (see previous post), but all of that just dissipated when I saw him in that bed.  I told him that he'd better bloody fight to get better, that he was NOT going to put my dad through losing another son.  When I said that, he fought to become conscious, to communicate with me, and he squeezed my hand.  I know he heard me.

Last night, my dad came home late as usual.  He'd gone to visit Jay after work, and I wanted an update.  My dad came into the study and told me that he had had a long chat with the nurse who was in charge of my brother, and that, although my brother is stable at the moment, in my dad's opinion he is on a knife's edge - he could fall either way.  It's a truly frightening situation.  His pancreas is not playing nicely, and if his counts don't go back to normal soon, they'll have to do surgery to remove the rotten parts of it.  It doesn't grow back.  That's it then, serious damage to his pancreas, and the next major complication is diabetes.  In the meantime, they're suctioning liters of liquid off my brother's lungs to help him breathe.  My dad said the liquid is brown and disgusting.  I know it's from my brother's smoking.  And yes, I smoke too.

The nurse also told my dad that once Jay's on the road to mend, he has to go through serious DTs as well, hallucinations and mumbling and the whole trip, because his body has been so used to having two bottles of vodka a night, and now with it stopping cold turkey, it won't handle it well.  Fortunately, most of this will happen while he's still in the hospital.  By the time he's discharged, he will be weak, but the worst will have passed.

I then mentioned to my dad that once his body is healed, we will have to get his mind healed too, because Jay is seriously depressed.  I asked if he doesn't think it's a good idea to have a mental professional like a psychiatrist come and see Jay while he's still in the hospital, to start that process.  And he started flipping out.  He told me that he doesn't believe Jonathan is depressed - doesn't believe in depression at all.  Which, to be honest, blew my mind.  I have lived with depression my whole life, and have it under control now.  If I didn't have it under control because of the help of mental professionals, I would be as nutso as my mom was married to him.  I asked him (since he's done all the research on pancreatitis, and on the long-term effects, etc), if he's EVER read up on clinical depression - and he told me that no, he doesn't need to - those people are just out to make money, and basically, there's no such thing!  I must admit, a realisation hit me like a ton of bricks then

Maybe all the shit I had to deal with growing up was at least half my dad's fault.  My mom seems stable and happy now.  And I know she's on her tablets.  I'm on tablets.  If they'd recognised my clinical depression at the age of 13, and diagnosed me correctly, instead of having some high-paid fraudster telling them I was "just looking for attention", my life would have been different.  Maybe if he'd done his bloody homework, instead of being so bloody stubborn and full of his own opinion, my MOM's life would have been different.  He is so angry all the time, because he says that he should be married still, now that his kids are grown up and left the house, he should be with the one person he spent most of his life with, but things didn't turn out that way, and now he's alone.  While I think the best thing that could have happened did - my parents got divorced, MAYBE if he'd taken clinical depression seriously, and supported my mom, instead of denying it because HIS bloody opinion is correct above all else, they WOULD be together still. Anyway, when I realised there was NO getting through to him, I left it.

Then my dad started on me, again, about me smoking.  And I had enough, and flipped out.  I know my dad's scared, but he's taking it out on me in anger.  And I'm sick to death of it.  He lives in MY frigging house.  And I'm sick to death of him making me feel guilty.  He said that I'm acting just like Jay did - whenever my dad warned him about drinking and smoking, my brother fobbed him off, and look where he is now.  Sure, that may well be true, but I (and by this time I was screaming at him), told him I'm NOTHING like Jonathan.  I smoke, sure, but I'm fit and healthy, and I don't live ANYTHING like Jonathan does.  I don't drink, I eat healthily, I drink liters of water every day, I've just lost 14 kgs, and I do a ton of exercise working on the house.  And I'm SICK AND TIRED of him tearing into me EVERY time he speaks to me.  I'm fucking 41 years old!

To top things off, I'm one of a HANDFUL of people at the top of my field in the country, with a serious career, and even that's not good enough.

I have a lot to think about... I've been blaming my mom my whole life, but it hit me like a ton of bricks between the eyes last night that I may have been wrong.

Today's Whispers (9 April 2015)

Well, it's not easy when you're an empath like myself. I feel things incredibly deeply... This is why I have a reputation for being such a bitch.  It's to protect myself, and also, I tend to want to strike back on those who hurt me, because I feel it so intensely.

My day didn't start so wonderfully.  My step daughter is going back to Port Elizabeth after a month of trying to make a life for herself here in Cape Town and failing.  It's about the boyfriend, but that's a story on its own.  Anyway, her flight was at 7.10.  Squirrel left to take her to the airport and I proceeded to get ready for work. While I was in the shower, she tried to call me, but I only saw the missed call after her plane had taken off  so I didn't bother to call her back.  Then Aunty Shirley told me that she was stuck at the airport, and "they wouldn't let her on the plane" for some reason.  I immediately called her, and she told me they'd been 5 minutes late for boarding, so she was not allowed on the plane, so she was stuck at the airport.  I called Squirrel, who proceeded to rant and rave at me, about how he is sick and tired of this, how she can't even get on a plane correctly, how he's stuck in the parking area, how she can't find the car, and how this is the worst day of his life.  Huh.  Believe me, nothing tops my birthday week last year.  Eventually I reminded him that NONE of this was my fault, and it was not right that he was screaming at me, and I put the phone down.

I then immediately booked her on a bus for this evening.  She will arrive tomorrow morning,  but at least she's tiny, and can sleep on the bus.

Then I went to work.  At least Squirrel called to apologize for shouting at me.

While I was at work, Jay's girlfriend, Bianca, contacted me, rather furtively, on Whatsapp, to tell me that she needs to chat to my dad in person.  Jay had gone to the doctor and gotten some anti-depressants, and she mentioned something about how he has to change everything about his life, but couldn't really get into detail.  It needs to be mentioned that my brother is in serious trouble - he's drinking very heavily every night, and is totally batshit crazy.  I don't know why, but I honestly didn't think that the curse of our bad blood (i.e. the depression and anxiety disorders we inherited from my mother's side) would hit him.  But he's got it bad, with paranoia that's through the roof.  Anyway, my dad called Jay to see how it's going, and to try and find out more info, and Jay started ranting and raving about how he sees Bianca is talking to me on Whattsapp, and that if she and I are going to be "ganging up on him", he's going to kick Bianca out the house.  I mean, WTF???  I've only ever been on his side, I've only ever tried to help him, and he turns on me like this???  I didn't ask to be pulled into his drama.  I didn't ask to have to go fetch his ex girlfriend (Mercia) from his house on Sunday morning, and have her sit at my house all day, crying because of the way he had treated her and spoken (or screamed) at her because he was drunk, until she could go fetch the keys to her new flat.  I didn't ask Bianca to contact me.  I didn't ask Mercia to contact me to see how it's going. He pulled me in, and now everything is MY fault, and I'm conspiring against him?

He has hurt me very badly.  He is an asshole right now, and I don't want to know him.  God knows I've had enough of this shit growing up.

I'm done with people today.  Everyone must just leave me the hell alone.  I'm tired of crying because those I love and trust stab me in the back.