Hell is Other People

The other night at dinner a conversation occured that has been haunting me ever since.

We were at a friend's place discussing the healthy soup he had made. I mentioned that my sister and I would shortly be commencing our soup cleanse/diet that we will be participating in until we leave for Ontario. My friend says "That's great! Healthy eating and soup are so great. What brought this on?" And my sister, withat batting an eye or missing a beat says:

"So our mother will love us."

My friend recoiled slightly and blinked a few times and then sort of laughed awkwardly and said "Oh, of course you're mother loves you." And this time we tag team him:

"No, she really doesn't" I say.
"Yeah, our mother is special like that", my sister confirms.

And we then go back to sipping our soup and enjoying the toasty naan bread I'd brought, as though we were talking about the weather, and this was all very normal.

Because to us, it is.

I've been troubled by this discourse largely because I feel genuine sorrow, pathos, and compassion for my sister. It upsets me on a deep emotional level that this little girl (which she will forever be to me) should grow up without a mother who loves her, and without a mother even capable of faking love for her to such a degree that this fact has embedded itself through her skin and into her DNA. I want to hold her and sing her songs and tell her I love her. And then I remember that I did those things once upon a time, trying to make up for the hole that we both came into this world with. The hole that is shaped like all of the feelings and experiences we will never know. Because it is extremely sad.

And despite the fact that I well up with tears at the thought of my poor sister who will never know a mother's love or protection, I am also aware of the reality that although my sister was not loved or really wanted by our mother, she was not unwanted, resented, and occasionally despised, as I was.

My sister also grew up in a household with two parents. One of those parents very clearly loved her very much, was controlling and sometimes scary, but would give her anything and would never let her fall through a crack too large. I did not have that joint parenting experience, due to a variety of factors. I did not have the security of someone else there to rely on to look afer me or to care for me. I was entirely dependant upon this woman who was very clear about the fact that I ruined her life from the day I was born.

Despite the fact that I become emotional at the realisation of the pain suffered by my sister's tragic upbringing, and the awareness that my own was far far worse, I am completely unaffected on an emotional level by my own tragedy. Or, if so affected, I am detached from the experience of those feelings. I cry at the thought of her heartbreak, I blink and shrug at the reality of my own.

Somehow, that doesn't seem right. Don't get me wrong, I abhor people who are full of self-pity, and especially those who use their sad tales as excuses for bad behaviour or begetting their mysery on others. But why is it that I can listen to a story about a child losing thier fish and be devasted emotionally, yet I can tell you stories that will make your hair stand on end about my own life as if I'm recounting an episode of "Cheers". I guess this is why, when I do select one of the many of such stories to share, people will often ask a variation on am I for real?, their understanding of the world including that people would not make up such things in competition with their understanding that people would not experience these things and go on to recall them without a hint of feeling.

I'm not saying I've lived the hardest like of anyone on the planet. I surely and by a large margin have not. But I've been through some shit, and I'm starting to realise that my lack of emotional attachment to said shit is probably kind of weird. It's only when I get scared that any semblance of it bubbles to the surface.

I'm forced to conclude that I cut off a lot of those emotional connections within myself and re-wired my neural pathways to avoid attaching feelings to events, a long time ago. This was likely my best defence mechanism from what would have otherwise been disabling pain and disappointment. I guess I really wanted to survive. I guess I didn't want to be a disaster perpetuating the cycle for another generation. (From someone who spent a lot of years under suicide watch, that's an interesting and rather shocking realisation.)

But the difficulty is that now my feelings betray me in frustrating and destructive ways. You can hurt me in ways that are absolutely piercing and we can still chat and laugh,, watch a movie together and have dinner like none of that ever happened, because even though I know it did, I don't feel it. And I will keep those things secret from everyone, as much as possible because intellectually I am able to process that they are wrong and bad and that people would be upset if they knew the truth.

My feelings also betray me in that they come roaring forth in excessive disproportion to the mildest of offences: you don't want to come to my party, you don't respond to my text, you put up photos without asking me, you won't let my sister come to your dinner - fucking watch out! Because you and everyone you ever met will be hearing about this for weeks to come.

I know that these things are out of wack. I know that I hide behind my intellectualism the way other people hide behind booze and clothes. It's easy for me. It keeps me safe. And it radically decreases my quality of life and keeps me afraid.

Mostly, afraid of myself instead of the monsters down the hall. Which is maybe just control in a different suit.