What is it in our blood that makes us hesitate when it comes to our family, even if those relationships are toxic? Scars can never heal completely, yet there is a lingering memory of what our skin used to look like that deceives us into thinking there is a possibility of having that virgin skin again.
Perhaps it is a primordial instinct leftover from our early years as a species trying to beat the odds; greater numbers meant an increased chance of survival. But here we are, 100,000 million years of evolution later, and we are still stuck with these emotions that can catapult us into emotional turmoil.
I find myself stuck between time and a hard place: How much time can pass before that memory of what we used to be like before the scar tissue formed is erased forever?
We are chosen by nature; bound by love. What happens when that love dries up like water in a desert? In my experience, when it comes to blood ties, that love can never totally evaporate for reasons not even Freud could comprehend.
This drop of love, even if there is only an atom of it left, instills in humans a recoiling reflex.
Imagine you haven’t seen or spoken to your father in thirty years. One day, after being pestered to go buy groceries for your kids’ upcoming soccer match, he passes by you in the baking aisle. Or you’re in a business meeting and look down to find you’ve missed a call and it was your father.
Thirty years you’ve retreated from your emotions and memories of a father that left you and in less than a second it took one simple event to cause those walls to come crumbling down. You are flooded with anxiety, threatening to overcome you.
It is easy for people to be dead to you when death naturally has a finality to it. It is a whole different matter entirely when the deceased’s’ ghosts come back to haunt you.
A few people in my family have said and done unforgivable things and haven’t spoken to them ranging from months to years. I got a missed call from two of them within the same week and I seemed to lose consciousness for a few seconds only to regain lucidity to find myself about to call them back.
How do you move forward when the other party refuses to let history be just that?
My hesitation now comes from the textbook definition of insanity: Repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome.
Millions of books have been written on mental illness. I’ve yet to find or read one that accurately tells you how to be the loved one of someone with a mental illness.
“Set boundaries,” we are told. “Don’t have expectations.”
These are impossible feats when we still have memories of the old selves of the people we love. Better to see a loved one come and pass then see a loved one transform at an atomic scale emotionally into someone else but wearing the skin of the person we held most near and dear.
It is the same dilemma people suffer from when friends or family are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But rather than not being recognized by those we love, we are now unable to recognize them.
Substance abuse, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder all run in my family. And as each member falls like a domino I am left with the vernacular of diseases that are, to this day, little understood.
Those with these diseases are robbed of which is them. And those who love them are robbed as well. Both parties fall victim by losing the ability to see the world for what it is. It is the same feeling one gets when they are stuck in the purgatory between consciousness and sleep; they are unable to define what is real and what is not.
So as I grapple with my emotions debating to pick up the phone, I must constantly remind myself that the memories of the people I love may indeed be just that. The hardest parts are when I get a glimpse of those brief moments of lucidity which yank me back to the past and delude myself into thinking, “They’re back! Just like they used to be!”
I’ll never forget something my Grandmother told me once when coping with loss. I asked her how she was so positive all the time and she smiled and said, “Because. If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry.”
I move forward trying not to take life to seriously and finding every reason to smile. The most beautiful people are those who have been submerged in suffering but still managed to find their way out of those depths. That is what I have learned from this experience. And that is what I continue to remind myself so the next time I do make that call, I won’t fall down crying. But if you do fall, make sure you stand up laughing.
Devil's Advokat 