***ALL the trigger warnings on this one, people.  ALLLLLLLL the trigger warnings!!!!!***

(seriously, I'm pressing “send” in the fetal position, and I've had several days to edit and process – take extra care of your own nervous system here)

Ah, another trip around the sun (plus a few days – needed to take a while with this one), and here we are at the not-so-annual Birthday Breakdown, as started way back in 2011 (which seems so far away, on so many levels).  A recap of the year, what I learned, and what I hope to learn in the coming year.

So grab a snack and tasty beverage and make sure you've got a comfy seat (and maybe a support team in place), because this year's a doozie, friends.  Filled with grief – for those who've departed, for those I've clung to, for the last (I think?) of my magical thinking, for the sacrifices I made on behalf of that magical thinking, for the happily ever after fantasies that were part of that magical thinking – and Fucking Learning Opportunity™ after Fucking Learning Opportunity™.  (Though I believe I was fully paying attention this time – tune in next year...)

Remember last year's not-quite-a-birthday-breakdown, when I was musing that I might have ADHD, because I'd “graduated” from trauma therapy years ago, yet still had trouble with the space-time continuum, among other things?

Did you, perchance, hear the narrator's voice saying “but, she did NOT have ADHD!  Tune in next year…"?

Yup.  It was trauma.  It still is trauma.  And the events of the past year, especially the summer – well, and all sorts of things that were leading up to the past year and the past summer – have had me returning to my erstwhile trauma therapist for a “tune-up”, because I was no longer functioning as a healthy human should, and starting to scare myself a little.  (Just a little, don't anyone else freak out, just some alarm bells to inspire me to get back on the right path again.)

It's been an interesting journey the last 2 months, exploring Internal Family Systems with my no-longer-erstwhile trauma therapist.  It's quite fascinating, and I definitely feel it's doing the trick, though IFS is really difficult work and making me not much fun at parties.  (At least I assume it wouldn't… my nervous system has managed to pull me out of the last several parties I've been invited to, so I have yet to test the theory.)

The Reader's Digest version of IFS is the idea that we all have various “parts” / sub-personalities inside us, that interact in patterns similar to members of a family, taking on different roles and responsibilities (which can sometimes clash).  These are then grouped into categories.  The “Exiled” parts carry our deepest emotional pain, usually from difficult or traumatic childhood experiences.  They're called exiled because instead of being nurtured and treated with acceptance and compassion (by the adults in the picture at the time, and then in turn by ourselves, because that's what we learned from the adults modelling this behaviour for us), they were told or shown that they were unwanted, shameful even, and so they were suppressed and hidden away by our protective parts in order to protect us from shame and rejection – using the only tools we had, as a result of the poor modelling from the adults' reactions to our trauma (although I believe this framework also works for everyday “negative” memories, not just traumatic ones, but a number of my friends with C-PTS have found it exceptionally helpful).

Our protective parts are further categorized into “managers” and “firefighters”.  The firefighters are the emergency knee-jerk behaviour that we often find ourselves employing whenever a little bit of that pain or sadness or fear (or other so-called “negative” emotion that's been suppressed) starts to burble up – the fight / flight / freeze / fawn / fuck it reactions (okay, that last one is my addition, but I think it tracks 🙃 )  Depending on your story and modelling, this could be reaching for a drink, reaching for your cell phone, dissociating, self-sabotage, raging, etc.  (Or, if you're me, the “don't worry, I'm harmless” giggle, making myself small, diving in to rescue others, writing 40-page essays to justify my existence, etc.)  The managers are the more proactive, long term rule-makers, trying to organize your life to ensure you stay safe and don't leave room for stuff to burble up – which is kind of an impossible task, especially in a year of lots of emotional upheaval, so my managers were becoming ever more demanding and setting impossible standards for myself.  The number of checkboxes I “had to” clear before I would allow myself to eat, sleep, or – heaven forbid – just enjoy myself was becoming wayyyyyyy over the top.  And if I got close to meeting an impossible goal, the firefighters would kick in and I'd suddenly realize that two hours had passed without my noticing and I was now even further behind the managers' to-do lists (but I'd won a lot of games of Simon's Cat).  As one of my girlfriends once said, even Cinderella eventually got to go to the damned ball, when was I going to cut myself a freaking break?

Now, the managers and the firefighters are just doing the best they can, given the tool sets they were given.  And while their ways of “helping” the exiles can feel SERIOUSLY LESS THAN HELPFUL, PEOPLE!!!, their hearts are in the right place.  So getting mad at them or trying to turn THEM into exiles is not gonna help one little bit, and may in fact increase your shame to gargantuan proportions and create a whole bunch of new parts that really resent you not understanding or paying attention to them.  So the trick is to call a “family meeting” – or several – so that EVERY part feels heard and seen and appreciated and cared for, and has their basic needs met.  These parts all need to be re-parented by a grown-assed adult – that would be you (me) – who thanks them for trying to help, tries to figure out what their “end goal” was all this time, reassures them that you can find other, less problematic ways to get their needs met, and then show them, over and over, that you've got the exiles' backs now, so the protectors can stand down and take a nap or something.

For instance (and this is WAY OVERLY SIMPLIFIED), adult me can say “hey, firefighter, we were going to cook ourselves a nutritious meal tonight and go to bed on time, but it seems we got sidetracked and played Simon's Cat for three hours instead.  Something must have spooked you badly, wanna talk about it?”  (Please note that the firefighter may very well tell you to go fuck yourself, you're not the boss of her, and she can play games if she wants, and then grab a beer for dinner because it's made of grain and that's one of the food groups, right?!?)   Once again, this is difficult work.  You are essentially raising a toddler, or an elementary school student, or a teenager, or ALL OF THEM AT THE SAME TIME, depending on when the trauma(s) occurred – and all of them in your own damned body, brain and nervous system, which is not currently doing you any favours.

It can take A LOT of these conversations before your “parts” even begin to trust you enough to even join in the conversation.  Adults weren't necessarily trustworthy in their world, at least as far as getting their needs met is concerned.  So you need to prove to them that you actually do have their best interests in mind, because we're all in this bus together.  You just have to keep showing up, keep a sense of curiosity and compassion, and listen to whatever they have to tell you, and keep your hands on the steering wheel.  Because they always have something to tell you, they just aren't always able to use their words.  (Incidentally, this work is also helping me deal with my anxiety-ridden northern rescue dog, for whom I'm often able to feel far more compassion than I am for myself…  But then it eventually sinks in that I should treat my less-than-helpful-but-still-trying-to-help parts as well as I treat my dog who's doing flying cartwheels on the end of her leash and singing the song of her people because there was a plastic bag on someone's lawn that she is convinced is definitely an axe-murderer.)

Friends, I gottalotta parts…  It's peeling a freaking onion – a pre-verbal, toddler, teenaged, twenty-something, middle aged onion.  And the echoes of the not-so-great lessons I learned about my worth and place in the world reverberate through every atom of my being and can be very difficult to reason with (Editor's note: you're not supposed to reason with them, you're supposed to be compassionate – go back and re-read the homework, Alyssa!!).  It's exhausting, and I can't say I'm particularly spectacular at the self care thing yet.  (Though I DID give myself a self-care weekend for my birthday, and managed to both stick to it and not feel guilty about it, so… yay me!!!)

I'm working really hard at reparenting (or just parenting) myself, but I've got over five decades of stuff to undo.  Have patience.  (I'm saying that more for myself than anyone else, but you folks please have patience with me too. ☺️ )

In hindsight (of course), I can see that the lack of feeding myself properly, giving myself enough sleep, letting myself read a book for fun, caring for myself before every person on the planet was doing better than I am, etc., all started escalating again just over two years ago, with Slanderpalooza.  Being lied about (and lied to) is a HUMUNGOUS trigger of mine, since as a kid my reputation “had to” be squeaky clean before anyone would believe a thing I said about my abuse (spoiler alert: it was NEVER squeaky clean enough, nor would it ever have been – my “managers” didn't learn impossible standards, or how to move the goalposts at the last moment, in a vacuum).  On the other hand, a whole bunch of people spoke up in my defence during that debacle, because they knew me from all my community work, Barrie Families Unite, Glowing Hearts Charity, the Women's Shelter, and even Engage Barrie and Supervised Consumption Saves Lives (those latter two being the reason why many on Council wanted to ruin my reputation in the first place, of course).  So a little boost to morale for the managers, right?  "All we have to do to avoid people believing lies about us is give Give GIVE to the point of collapse, so that everyone can see how much we do for others and expect nothing in return.  Yippeee, let's get giving!!!"

So it will come as no surprise to any of you that I hit the wall of burnout in the spring.  HARD.  Which forced me to start looking (equally as hard) at all my internal drivers / daddy issues / mommy issues that chronically had me working myself sick – not even working at my own career, which I've been neglecting since the first COVID lockdown, but working myself sick with totally unpaid volunteer work – and ignoring my own basic needs.  And, thanks to a whole bunch of group work in my Healing Trauma program (went for my third year, now signed up for a fourth), realized just how deep and vast my sense of shame really is.  (Keep in mind that in year one and two of the program, I thought I had it easy in the shame department, because I'd worked through all the sexual abuse stuff, yay me!  As always, though, the sexual abuse has proven to be much easier to “get over” than the rest of the family's reaction, or non-reaction, when I disclosed that abuse.  The ripples keep rippling...)  

Choosing “Worthy” as my word for the year… oy, what a journey I'd set myself on!!!

Think it's gonna take more than a year, though…  I “wasn't worthy” of care and compassion way back when (I FUCKING WELL WAS, it's just that the adults in my life were incapable of giving them to me), so heaven forbid I consider myself or my “exiles” worthy of care and compassion now.  If ANYONE ELSE on the ENTIRE PLANET was suffering, it was my job to rescue them before worrying about myself (as a child, that was a useful survival technique – now, not so helpful).  It was my responsibility to keep everyone around me from feeling badly, especially about themselves, because bad things would happen if they felt badly.  If anyone else's reputation might be tarnished by the truth, it was my job to hide it, even from myself.  (All the red flags I've ignored and denied over the years – not just husbands, but “friends”, co-workers, fellow volunteers… damn it, I totally saw them, but then shoved down all knowledge until the things those flags were trying to warn me about inevitably came true.  Damn it damn it damn it – the calls had been coming from inside the house, even after ridding all the red-flag-bearers from my general vicinity over the past several years.)

One of my fellow students in the aforementioned Healing Trauma program recently asked if we were all just doomed to be shit magnets for the narcissists of the world from now on.  Because it certainly seems to be the case, looking in the rear view mirror.  But, as I responded to him in group, the rear view mirror also shows all the damned red flags.  We were never magnets, there are people like that all through the world (especially in places of power, because that's how they get there).  It's just that people who weren't conditioned to ignore the red flags see them and say “hell no, get away from me you psycho”, whereas WE say “oh gosh, I know exactly what to do in this situation, I'm going to prove to you that I am worthy of not having to deal with that bad behaviour and we'll all live happily ever after!"  Laugh until you cry, but this explains every single marriage and uber-dramatic bullshit situation I've ever found myself in.

(I was, around the same time as the burnout crash, buoyed by the Integrity Commissioner's long-awaited response to Engage Barrie's Code Complaint about Slanderpalooza, where she agreed that the Council members' behaviour was egregious.  "Yay!  It's not just me being over-sensitive, those red flags were really red!"  Although her solution was to train them better before next election, and… as I know all too well, trying to convince people who behave badly to behave better is likely an exercise in futility.  Little Lyssy's exiled parts needed a whole bunch of soothing, despite being believed – because, as we keep learning over and over, justice is an elusive thing.)

Oof.  Finding that quote hit hard.  In working through the threads of that spring burnout, I was seeing all too clearly the ridiculous amount of time and energy I'd spent trying to convince the people hurting me to treat me well, instead of acknowledging the BRIGHT RED AND WILDLY FLAPPING IN THE WIND flags, and getting the hell out of there.  It was good to see and unravel, but damn, that self-awareness and ability to figure out better ways to move forward was sure held back by despair and grief over what could have been if I'd figured that out several decades ago.  (I hadn't yet discovered Internal Family Systems work, so my “protectors” were also hard at work shaming me for being such an idiot all this time… ah, "the years before five last the rest of their lives", ain't that the truth?!?)

And so the mind turned to life lessons, pattern breaking, finding healthier ways of being in this world and connecting with others, and grief.  A WHOLE LOT OF GRIEF.  Grieving the people I thought I knew and relationships I thought I'd had.  But mostly grieving all that could have been, if I'd ever been allowed to safely just walk away, without bringing on – or risking bringing on – the Flying Monkeys (the nasty ones, not the brewery down the street).  Which in itself was a whole lot of work and emotional drain, but it wasn't even summer yet…

Late spring / early summer, it seemed like the universe was REALLY FREAKING DETERMINED to shower down ever more Fucking Learning Opportunities™.  I'm sure I'm not getting the chronology exactly right, but suffice it to say, it all pretty much happened at once, or at least felt that way.

First was Jasper's surgery (Jasper being the eight-year-old Yellow Lab, whose elder sister died only a few weeks after her surgery in early 2023), for what had become a ginormous lump on his butt.  Cue nervous system memories of Macie's death, plus other issues my nervous system had also been dealing with during her final weeks (including a then-fellow board member who was triggering my C-PTS bigtime, then mocking and attacking me for the accommodations I asked for to manage it, then holding that particular organization hostage for the remainder of their term as some sort of childish tit for tat, but I digress…).  Once excised, Jasper's lump got sent to Guelph for testing, and – phew – there wasn't a shred of cancer or anything other than fatty deposits.  He recovered well and is doing just fine (yay!).  Intertwined in this timeline, Cadeau (tuxedo cat) started developing lesions on her inner lip, sending catastrophizer brain and nervous system back into panic mode, as she also underwent surgery and treatment.  She, too, is now on her path to healing, although the treatment might be a lifelong thing, as it seems to be an autoimmune issue.  The mind turned to many reflections on life, death, and meaning.  Oh, and cancer.

Somewhere in there, my dear cousin Brian was coming from Australia to Canada for a visit with his family – which in itself was a good thing, because it had been a long time since we'd seen each other (though we chitchat on social media quite regularly).  But we were putting together a cousins visit with a bunch of us, which set my nervous system off again for no apparent reason… although upon closer reflection, it was setting alight old triggers of “having to” play the “one big happy family” game (even though the cousins gathering all get along just fine), feeling pressured to speak-no-evil, etc.  Fortunately or unfortunately, a couple of the others were going through the same stress-bomb (intergenerational trauma's waves spread far and wide, as I have learned since reconnecting as an adult to many of the family members who'd disappeared off the radar early on), and we were able to talk each other through it.  We of course realized that nobody was actually pressuring us to pretend a damned thing, it was just the old family programming trying to take over – and considering we were having a gathering of cousins who'd broken free from the old family patterns (even if our nervous systems didn't always trust that), we could be pretty darned sure that none of us were going to attack the other for not playing the game and living the lie.

These types of conversations have continued with two cousins in particular – also, funnily enough, estranged from their mother, who chose an abuser over her own offspring (intergenerational trauma ripples, anyone?)  We've been able to talk through a whole bunch of old patterns and share strategies for healthier living.  So, while the “big happy family gathering” was a source of stress (with the calls coming from inside the building) in the beginning, it turned out to actually be a really happy family gathering, a healing point for many of our old wounds, and re-bonded the family ties on much more healthy foundations.  Yay to us pattern-breakers!  The mind turned to many reflections on family secrets, family connections, family truths and meaning.

Oh, and did I mention that shortly before this, I found a giant lump on my throat?  Which of course set my brain to the ironic “oh great, now that I've finally found my voice and stopped being silenced by the gate-keepers, my body is about to throttle my voice on their behalf?!?!?”  I'm proud of myself that I somehow stepped out of old patterns of not wanting to “be a bother” or "make a mountain out of a molehill" (anyone remember Big Ethyl, the giant fibroid that made a break for freedom in spectacular Cronenberg fashion and ended me up in the ER before my previous doctor took my menstrual complaints seriously?), and called my (new) doctor first thing the next morning.  She saw me right away, said the medical equivalent of “yup, that's a big-assed lump”, and got me in for an ultrasound within the week.  (Which was good, because it gave me less time to catastrophize, but also not so good, because it meant she was worried, therefore I'd just catastrophize more intensively with the time I had!)  The ultrasound results came back saying that there was nothing wrong with the lump I'd found, it was just one of those benign thyroid lumps that lots of people my age get.  YAY!!!  … But… BUT, there were two others hiding further back that “looked concerning”.  Oh boy…

I was sent to a thyroid oncology specialist for a biopsy and to figure out next steps.  While I waited, of course, my mind turned to all the thoughts that accompany coming face to face with your own mortality.  Oh, and cancer.

The biopsy was sometime in July (not at all pleasant, although part of that might have been that the appointment was at 6:30am on a Friday), and came back with “funny looking cells” (the specialist's own words) on the right lump, and not enough of a sample from the left to be sure.  So a second biopsy (which was WAY less pleasant than the first – I guess because he really wanted to make sure he got a good enough sample, but yowza!) was scheduled in August. 

I'm going to leave you hanging on this one, because this story continues into and ties into the end-of-summer / early fall part of the recap.  (But I am here to give said recap, which ought to be at least somewhat reassuring, anyhow.)  But lots of reflections on life, death, connection and meaning in the interim.  Oh, and cancer.

Still in the late spring part of the timeline, my friend and stage manager from Music For the Changing Voice's debut got in touch, with a “heads up” that there was a story that would be breaking that weekend, involving an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse and their recently deceased Canadian icon parent, which was bound to cause a stir.  He didn't want me to be blindsided, knowing some of the parallels to my story (although I'm not sure he realized just how many!), but please keep it to myself for now, because the newspaper's legal department was going through all the fine-tuning before publication.  I was grateful for the warning, although the anxiety of anticipation was through the roof!  I was cycling between being excited for the survivor finally getting to tell her story, and panicking that she'd be faced with what I figured was the inevitable blow-back and re-silencing and shaming for coming forward.  And lots of reflections on family secrets, betrayals, connection, disconnection and meaning.

The day after I was let in on this secret, Andrew, my honorary brother died.  True brother of my beloved sisterfriend Ali, who has been an integral part of my life since grade two, as have been her brother and parents.  They are the family I spend traditional family holidays with, and have for decades.  They are the family that looked after me so often as a child (including having me over for numerous sleepovers, which were nights I was actually able to get some sleep, unlike most kids on sleepovers).  I in turn was part of Andrew's care circle as an adult, before he was welcomed into the L'Arche community.  He was a year younger than I, and had been struggling with many physical and mental health issues in recent years, including early onset dementia, which had taken away the Andrew everyone knew and loved, even before he left us physically.  It was so damned unfair.  Ali was, and is, devastated.  And I found myself at a loss for being able to make her feel better – mostly, because there's absolutely no way to make someone feel better in this situation.  Grief isn't something that can be fixed, it has to be moved through.  Which I know in theory, but felt absolutely helpless not being able to keep her from pain, because moving heaven and earth to keep people from feeling any “bad” feelings was my responsibility growing up, and I was failing in my duties to her now.  Lots of aha moments navigating through my own grief over Andrew and trying to figure out what a good and healthy friend could do.  Lots of reflection on family, chosen family, life, death, connection and meaning.

Meanwhile, when the following weekend went by with no dethroned Canadian icon story in the paper, the many layers of emotional charge had a new addition of profound disappointment for the survivor's pre-silencing, and anger at all the high and mighty people who apparently get to decide who's allowed to talk about what.  (In the end, it turns out they just delayed a few weeks to make sure everything was lined up perfectly, but at the time, I had no clue what was going on, and neither did my friend, so my nervous system headed to the all-too-familiar despair, based on my own lived experience.)  Lots of reflection on family, betrayal, loyalties (good and bad), life, death, my role in the universe, how the hell was I going to figure out how to be a “normal” person before I died, how long did I have left before my throat killed me, responsibility, not-my-responsibility, why-do-I-still-have-to-make-dinner-for-myself-and-is-there-nobody-in-the-world-who-will-look-after-me-right-now-because-I'm-totally-fucking-losing it?!?!?!?  (And, of course, the one person I've always been able to talk to about such things was trying to keep it together through her own CURRENT trauma, so there was NO WAY I was going to dump all this on her right now.)

Nervous system DISREGULATED.

End of June, beginning of July, I was definitely a basket case.  Little Miss Responsibility forgot to pay a ton of bills during those weeks, and has the interest charges to prove it.  The pantry freezer I usually keep crammed with pre-made healthy meals was already depleted – some nights I ate a can of beans, some nights a bag of chips, some nights I took too long deciding so went to bed with a glass of wine (fruit!) instead, but that was often at 4am, sometimes when I noticed the sun rising, sometimes when my laptop ran out of battery.

July 7, Andrea Skinner's story finally broke in the Toronto Star, detailing how her mother, celebrated Canadian author Alice Munro, had not only failed to protect her from her step-father's abuse, but had remained loyal to him even after he was convicted.  And it wasn't a little opinion piece hidden in the middle, it was several articles, broad in scope, detailing how the people around Munro had also known but swept it under the carpet, glorifying the abuser and his enabler while writing the victim out of the picture.

Sound familiar?  (If not, start with this post, then any posts filed under Katie Project)

What wasn't familiar, though, was that these articles had been put together with the help of Andrea's siblings and step-siblings, all of whom had worked hard on their own and with each other and with Andrea to get to this point.  All of whom supported Andrea and the telling of her story.  I was overjoyed for her, while also abundantly jealous.  But that's where Lyssy's Patented Magic Thinking started in – maybe, just maybe, my own sister would see this story (which got picked up by other media outlets and became a weeks-long story) and be inspired to reach out in the same way Andrea's siblings had?

This magical thinking was amplified when I was silly enough to read the comments section – and saw the OVERWHELMING public support for Andrea.  None of the expected push-back was happening.  Nobody was accusing her of anything nasty or selfish in her telling the truth.  Nobody was taking her mother's side.  NOBODY WAS TAKING HER MOTHER'S SIDE.  The bookstore Alice Munro and her husband had founded distanced themselves from their namesake.  The Alice Munro Chair at the University of Western Ontario was suspended (leading me to muse with “the team” whether I might see my fantasy of performing Music For the Changing Voice at the frigging Don Wright Faculty of Music's theatre, after all?).  Everyone believed Andrea.  Everyone supported Andrea.  Everyone was devastated that Andrea had to endure the years of sexual abuse.  Everyone was disgusted that a mother, even a Canadian icon mother, would turn her back on her child's pain, and choose the abuser and her reputation over her own daughter.  Andrea was getting the belief, understanding and compassion that I had always fantasized about, and I was living vicariously and joyfully through her “victory”.

MAGICAL THINKING MAGNIFIED TO GLORIOUS PROPORTIONS!!!!!!!

I waited patiently for the initial letter of reconnection and reparations.  I researched family programs at The Gatehouse and what might be feasible from a distance.

I waited.

I waited.

I got in touch with my sister about gift ideas for my nephew's birthday.  I got gift ideas for my nephew's birthday.  The “conversation” ended immediately following confirmation that said gift had arrived.

I stopped waiting.

I grieved.

I grieved A LOT.

I grieved some more.

As my chosen sister reminded me, I've been giving my blood sister so many chances to “see the light” over the last three-plus decades, and she's never taken the opportunity.  I needed to stop pretending there was some magical way of getting through to someone whose choices have consistently and repeatedly shown me that she is not remotely prepared to look at that light, or even acknowledge there's a light source she's working so hard to ignore and deny.

When I had to once again go no-contact with my mother in 2012, my sister specifically told me not to talk to her about it because she didn't want to be stuck in the middle – while reporting that she'd had our mother over every night to talk about it, and comfort her through her tears.  She'd “stayed out of the middle” (you know, where nuance and awkward conversations and difficult feelings hang out) by clearly choosing a single “side” – and after a dozen years, maybe I needed to stop wishing on a falling star that anything was ever going to change.  (We always roll our eyes at the “pick me!” girls in movies, don't we?!?)

As another sisterfriend said, in the most loving tough-love of a fashion: “if she had ever cared about your well-being, she's had a dozen years to check on you and make sure you were okay, but she hasn't.  Believe that.”

I grieved.

I grieved A LOT.

I grieved some more.

I thought a lot about family, about sacrifice, about betrayal, about life and death and connection and meaning.

I thought about the letter I'd sent my sister, back in our 20s – I was still with my first husband, although barely (he was sleeping in the guest room, where our computer was, and I had to compose the letter in between navigating his sudden need to sleep every time I wanted to use the computer).  Somehow it had come up in conversation that time in our pre-teens when she'd come back from choir camp, and I'd said “I wished you'd never come home” – which had obviously stung, and obviously was still stinging.  

I remembered that moment too, and what I'd said and why, and had wanted to make clear that the reason I said it had nothing to do with her, the sister I loved and would do anything for.  I had been happy to see her, truly I had.  But in the two weeks she'd been away at choir camp, I'd had a reprieve.  Because at that point, Dad had still been living with us.  I'd already disclosed his abuse quite some time previously, and my mother had enlisted me to “protect your sister”.  Mom had never spelled it out in so many words, but it had been clear to me that I had to make sure he never felt the need to go to her bedroom in the same way he went to mine.  I was already “damaged”, so it was now my responsibility to make sure my sister didn't become like me.  So “no” and “get out” were words I was able to bring myself to use for two glorious weeks, without threat of consequences to her.  Which had come to an end when she came home, and I had to protect her again.  Which I understandably resented at the time, although had directed that resentment at the wrong person, for sure.

I remember, viscerally, both the writing of this letter and the navigation of my computer time.  I remember, viscerally, after weeks of putting it together, re-writing, editing, second-guessing, taking up smoking again (briefly), and drinking way too much single malt (not-so-briefly), the moment I said to myself “just do it”, and pressed “send”.

I remember waiting.

I don't remember what I was waiting for, really – an “aha” moment?  The skies to open up and the angels sing and for her to finally understand why my love for her was sometimes tinged with deep resentment?

I don't remember any response.

Over the last few decades, I've often second-guessed myself whether I'd actually sent it or chickened out, because I didn't remember a response (though my body perfectly remembers sending it).  Anyone else I've shared that story with has had a BIG response.  An early therapist fought back tears and tried to be professional.  Friends didn't care about being professional and just openly sobbed.  How could a child be asked to make such a sacrifice?  Your sister must be so grateful that you did, though… no…?

Not that I ever expected a ticker-tape parade.  But I did expect… acknowledgment.  Perhaps an attempt to understand how this affected me.  Perhaps caring about the C-PTS symptoms I continue to struggle with, because – among many other things, of course – I had been put in this impossible situation on her unknowing (at the time) behalf.

Maybe she couldn't handle it – fair enough.  Maybe talking about it at the time was too painful – fair enough.  But for the love of all things holy, was a tiny offering of care and compassion for my pain, my mental health, my estrangement from family really too much to expect?  (Narrator:  Yes.  Yes it was.  Believe that.)

It was time to believe it.  And grieve it.

I grieved my sister.  I grieved my childhood.  I grieved my adulthood.  I grieved all the things that might have been, if I'd only been able to let go of that magical thinking before my mid-fifties.  I wrestled with regret, resentment, anger, sadness, lots of sadness, lots more sadness.  And maybe a couple of final splutters of magical thinking, before the last embers died, later in the fall (we'll get to that…).

I did my best to nurture Little Lyssy, but eating and sleeping… and showering and giving a shit about anything were still a daily struggle.  I beat myself up for not eating or sleeping or showering or giving a shit about anything, and vowed I'd be a better person tomorrow.  Eating and sleeping and showering and giving a shit were problematic the next day as well, so I beat myself up even more for not having stick-to-it-iveness, or being able to function like a normal person.

Thank Dog for my Healing Trauma course – I'd drag myself to a class, drag myself even harder into group sessions (because: PEOPLE), and be reminded that beating myself up for having trauma symptoms was not kind and not helpful, and was just me doing the work of my former abusers without them having to lift a finger.  (Keep in mind, I initially signed up for this course in order to be able to help heal others in community – but it's been such a big part of my own healing, as I slowly realize that I am also as worthy of healing as everyone else.)

I was reminded that fight / flight / freeze / fawn / fuck it are all natural reactions to unnatural situations that no human being is designed to endure without them.  I was reminded of the damned breathing exercises.  Of the damned grounding exercises.  That healing isn't a straight line.  That nobody can be expected to keep up at a breakneck pace when their neck is actually broken, or when someone is still jumping up and down on your neck.  That having trauma symptoms is not a character flaw.  That the trauma symptoms are trying to warn you about things and protect you from things, and are actually your friends, but maybe they're the friends you don't allow in the driver's seat.  That yes, I SHOULD have someone who treats me with compassion and gives me the grace and space I need, and that it really sucks that I didn't have that growing up (in my immediate home, that is – there were many angels further afield), but that doesn't mean I'm not worthy of compassion, grace and space, it just means I HAVE TO GIVE IT TO MYSELF NOW, even if a thousand ghosts are shouting that I don't deserve it.

(I'm still working on this, friends.  The ghosts are loud.)

The writer Martha Beck often talks about how we all know the story about the caterpillar that crawls into a cocoon and then out comes a beautiful butterfly – but they leave out the middle part, because it would scare the ever-living fuck out of anyone contemplating getting in to the cocoon in the first place.  The caterpillar doesn't simply go in there to have a wee nap and sprout beautiful wings.  The caterpillar goes into the cocoon and totally disintegrates into an unrecognizable goo, and then is rebuilt completely from scratch.  It is vulnerable as all get-out, because if anything damages the cocoon, the caterpillar – or caterpillar goo – dies before ever becoming the butterfly.

This was my summer of unrecognizable caterpillar goo.

I'm still mostly unrecognizable caterpillar goo.  But I'm now caterpillar goo that has had A LOT of time to think about life, death, family, chosen family, sacrifice, betrayal, worthiness, connection, meaning, and ghosts.

(Lest you think the year was all miserable, there were happy times – it's just most of those don't come with life lessons attached.  Although there were a number of pleasant surprises when I said “no” to people's requests, without providing a 40-page justification, and they said “oh, okay” and just went along on their merry way while still loving me – so even some pleasant moments have learning opportunities!)

And then, the end of summer / beginning of fall…

My cousin Brian's visit from Australia in the summer had been important because his father, my Uncle Tim, had been slipping, and he'd wanted his dad to meet his son's girlfriend and have a good visit before he was too far gone.  Over the last year or so, Uncle Tim would often tell me when we spoke on the phone that he'd been diagnosed with “early onset dementia” – I would always laugh and tell him that 89 ain't that early.  (I never said anything, but was saddened at the comparison with honorary brother Andrew having been diagnosed with TRULY early onset dementia.  Not that dementia at any age is particularly fair, of course.)  That joke got a lot of mileage, because he didn't remember it the next time I called.  I'd also know when he'd been listening to the “cast album” of Music For the Changing Voice, and learning “for the first time” about my father's (his brother's) abuse, because he would cry and apologize for not protecting me better – and I would always reassure him that I remembered exactly what he went through with his own parents for staying loyal and protective of me, my mother and sister.  He and Aunt Sherry (who died in 2019) had done so much for me, and many of our cousins.

It was a beautiful contrast to how my mother has reacted over the decades, every time she learns of my father's abuse “for the first time”.  I can understand the forgetting – dissociation can be a powerful survival tool, I've employed it myself many times over the decades – but what I can't understand is that every time she's learned that her daughter was hurt, her first reaction has been all-out DARVO, instead of the perpetually-needed offering of care and compassion.  Uncle Tim's repeated reaction helped me see that there were and are people who cared about my well-being.  But it also hammered home that the one person who “should” have cared the most was never able to bring herself to care at all, even when her young child was in front of her saying “Daddy's hurting me”.

And so, with all the other mental and emotional upheaval going on in my life, I'm afraid I didn't have the spoons to call Uncle Tim very often this summer, which I regret deeply.

Contrary to everyone's expectations (he's been known for a stubborn independent streak, let's say… genetic, perhaps?), Uncle Tim agreed that it was time to move to a home specifically for people living with dementia.  He'd have as much independence as he wanted, but there were people there to check in and make sure he was eating properly (hmmm…), etc.

He moved there towards the end of August, and it seemed to do him a world of good – mostly the socializing, probably, because he'd been living alone in the big family house they'd bought in the 60s and made bigger over the years.  Going from living on his own to a congregate setting, he ended up hospitalized briefly with pneumonia, but then bounced back and returned to the home with a clean bill of health.  Which didn't last long.

On September 9, my cousin Pam let me know Uncle Tim had passed away that morning.  And asked if I would please play The Swan at his funeral the following week, just as I'd done at Aunt Sherry's in 2019.  Through the shock and the tears I laughed, and told her he'd been reminding me of that every time I spoke with him for the last five years, and I wouldn't dare back out of that promise (she laughed too, knowing how important it was to him and how much he must have “pestered” me about it).  I would be there.

A little later that evening, I got a text from my sister, asking if I knew Uncle Tim had died (it struck me as odd – did she think everyone else in the family had shunned me out of loyalty to mom, too??), and that she would be flying in for the funeral.  I replied that yes I knew, thanks (!!), and I would be there playing The Swan, as promised.  I also expressed how surprising it was, since he'd seemed to have been doing so well in his new home, but maybe it wasn't that surprising.  She never responded, and I never heard another peep from her.  (In hindsight – and as my therapist and others later commented – I suspect she was mad I already knew, and was likely even madder that I had more information than she did.)

It was instead my cousins – the ones who'd just lost their father, and had a lot of funeral organizing, not to mention starting their own grieving process – who informed me that my mother would be accompanying my sister to the funeral, and said they would completely understand if that changed things and I needed to protect my mental health.  I said no way am I reneging on my promise, I will play The Swan no matter what.  (And I called some of my other cousins to make sure I had allies who could splash water on me or poke me or something if they saw me start to dissociate or spiral.)

A little flicker of disappointment came across, when I realized my sister couldn't be bothered to give me a “heads up” to prepare my self and my nervous system for dealing with our mother, but then I remembered my at-that-point-still-erstwhile trauma therapist's refrain “well, of course!”, and reminded myself to Believe It.

I would spend my precious time and brain space dealing with this new layer of grief, mourning the last remaining person of my parents' generation who had been a (real-life) protector.

Not that Uncle Tim and I didn't have our clashes in adulthood, I'm not gonna venture into toxic positivity here (although in hindsight, I think they were good Fucking Learning Opportunities™ for both of us).  But in our childhood, Uncle Tim and Aunt Sherry were back and forth from Sarnia on a regular basis to look after my sister and I – sometimes twice in a week, back when travel times were way longer.  When my parents split, and they continued to do so, he faced fierce blowback from his parents, and was disowned by them.  Nevertheless, he remained loyal to us.  The integrity he showed us was incredible, and something I only FULLY came to appreciate after the first time I had to go no-contact with my mother.  So there were a lot of layers to this grief, and a lot of layers to the processing.  My C-PTS symptoms were back with a vengeance, though I thought I was managing them pretty well.  (Narrator:  She was not managing them pretty well.)

Ah yes, but I left you hanging about the lumps on my thyroid…

The morning after Uncle Tim died – at least two weeks earlier than I'd expected to hear anything back – the oncologist called me to let me know that the second biopsy found no cancer.

I am 99.999% certain that Uncle Tim nudged the doctor from beyond the grave to get the results to me early, so I had one less thing to catastrophize about that week.  Thank you, Uncle Tim.

The “funny looking cells” are considered pre-cancerous, but the good thing about thyroid cancer is that it moves slowly and doesn't tend to spread to other body parts.  So I will have to have an ultrasound (but NOT a biopsy, thank Dog!) annually, but even my catastrophizing brain shouldn't have to catastrophize too much.  (Nevertheless, I have contacted my lawyer to update my wills and powers of attorney, and have stopped living under the assumption that I'll make it well into my 100s, because nothing is certain and nothing is permanent, ommmm…)

Also, thyroid cancer apparently runs in families, but nobody knows of anyone in my bloodline who's had thyroid cancer.  Fun fact:  apparently, unlike most cancers, excess alcohol use actually wards off thyroid cancer – which probably explains why nobody knows of anyone in my bloodline who's had thyroid cancer.  Damnit, maybe excessive drinking is one family pattern I shouldn't have broken from???  LOL…

Now back to the Fucking Life Lessons™…

It was a week of compressed grief.  And playing cello for the funerals of two people who I loved and who'd been entwined in my life from early on.

You see, while the L'Arche Community had already held a small family gathering and a Celebration of Life for Andrew, the Pecks had wanted to wait for the family's Celebration of Life (which also included members of the L'Arche Community, because they loved him so much) for a time that was easier for the far-flung relatives to attend – this is how much this man was loved, THREE celebrations!  May we all be so lovingly remembered.

And so I learned of Uncle Tim's death on the Monday, while preparing to play cello for Andrew's Celebration in Toronto on the Saturday, then Uncle Tim's visitation in Sarnia on Wednesday evening and playing cello for his funeral Thursday morning.  Oh yeah, plus having to deal with the mother I continue to be emotionally unsafe with at those last two.  But I worked on my breathing and grounding, and thought I was managing my C-PTS symptoms pretty well.

Narrator repeats:  She was not managing her C-PTS symptoms pretty well.

I got confused.  I mean, I knew on paper what was happening, but my nervous system was convinced that I would have to deal with my mother at Andrew's Celebration as well.  (I mean, it wasn't ENTIRELY out of the realm of possibility, but not terribly likely.)

I spent several days before Andrew's Celebration fighting mild(-ish) panic attacks, rehearsing my breathing exercises, rehearsing my grounding exercises, reminding myself what day it was, that I wouldn't have to deal with my mother until Wednesday, this will be fine, everything will be fine.

Friday night, I could not sleep.  I think I maybe got 2 hours in before the alarm went off.  In the morning, I was having trouble breathing.  I kept reminding myself this wasn't the funeral where I had to deal with my mother, but my nervous system was having none of it.  It was preparing a response to everything that could possibly happen, plus maybe three or four backup plans.  It was emptying all my insides of everything to lighten the load in case I had to make a fast breakaway.  It did not believe I was remotely safe, it did not believe I could handle anything without its “help”, it was gonna save me whether I wanted it to or not, whether there was anything to be saved from or not.

Heading down the highway, I had to pull over for about 20 minutes, because I was feeling like I was about to have a seizure.  (My nervous system takes the “freeze” response very seriously!!!)

I finally made it to the funeral home sweating (despite an awesome A/C in my car), feeling like I was gonna have a heart-attack, wondering how the hell I was going to stop shaking long enough to play the cello for Andrew, or what I would do if my nervous system found some more innards that hadn't been fully emptied during the service.

The first people I saw in the room were Andrew's parents – my honorary parents.  And all the panic evaporated away.  Even my nervous system believed I was safe.  We were safe.  These are the safe people today.  The safe people since grade two.  We got this.

It was a beautiful service.  The funeral director (somewhat snarkily) commented it was the only funeral service where he'd ever heard “Whistle A Happy Tune”.  Pfui.  It wasn't about the funeral director, it was about Andrew.  I played “Hey Jude” and “Silent Night” (yes, in September - Andrew loved it), and led those gathered in singing “Whistle a Happy Tune”, and a couple of his L'Arche friends sang “You'll Never Walk Alone”, and there was drumming and laughing and crying and a lot of utterances of his favourite phrase, “yeah, right”.

After the service was the reception.  Which is usually enough to send me into a mild panic attack, even without the spectre of my mother, because: PEOPLE.  I can handle crowds of strangers when I have a role (like playing cello), but I tend to choke up over small talk (because what if I say the wrong thing or reveal a secret I shouldn't?).  Considering the earlier near-seizure and previous several days of panic attacks, I was sure I was gonna spend most of my time in a bathroom stall or outside getting air and counting backwards from infinity while naming colours and sensations, but… I was okay.  I was relaxed.  I chit-chatted with distant Peck family members I had met at one time or another but barely knew.  I got waved to a table to chit-chat with Ali's work friends.  I chit-chatted with some of Ali's old cottage friends.  I was… being social…???  And ENJOYING it???  Who even AM I?!?!?

The reception drew to a close and I headed back upstairs to pack up my cello and gear, and help with some of the flowers and other things.  The Pecks gave me two of Andrew's drums he'd loved, and a little thank you gift for playing.  I didn't open the gift until I got home later, but it was a beautiful braided chain, and the accompanying card spoke of how Andrew's and the Pecks' and my lives had been entwined together since we were small children, and that they always would be.  (And yes, I sobbed – somehow I was surprised that the people I considered my chosen family had also chosen me.)  I felt secure, I belonged, I was loved.

I brought my first load of stuff to the car, then headed back for my cello.  As I left the funeral home, Ali's parents were already in Iliff's brother's car.  Iliff said “see you for dinner!”  I wasn't sure what he was talking about.  He said the family was having dinner at Ali's.  Ali hadn't mentioned anything, and I didn't want to intrude, so I said “oh, I wouldn't want to presume - it's a family gathering”.

Iliff looked me straight in the eye and said “you're family.  That's how it works.  You're coming.”

I cried all the way to Ali's in the car.  Happy tears.  But thank goodness I hadn't worn eye makeup.

I felt secure.  I belonged.  I was loved.

I didn't have to try, I didn't have to earn it, it just was.  Why on god's green earth had my nervous system tried to send me to the moon all week?

I reflected on the people who love you, just for being you.  And who appreciate you, just for being you.  And who don't expect you to tap-dance your ass off or write a 40-page essay to prove you're worthy of kindness and caring and belonging.

To give my nervous system a little credit, it seemed to have gotten its MASSIVE panic attack out of the way prematurely, when I was surrounded by safe people.  I was doing reasonably alright in the remaining days before my uncle's service.  I had several cousins ready to run interference if my mother refused to respect boundaries, or anything went south.  I had the necklace the Pecks had given me.  I had an amethyst bracelet my sisterfriend Amy had given me (with accompanying note about remembering my value and integrity).  I had Ali and the sisterfriends on speed-dial, one of whom was nearby in London that day for work..

I did realize, though, that I shouldn't push things, and decided to make sure I was in a good enough head space to play cello at the funeral, as promised.  So I gave myself permission to not attend the visitation the night before.  I just checked in to the hotel, and was going to treat myself to room service and a good night's sleep.  (Unfortunately, the hotel I chose SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE THEY OFFERED ROOM SERVICE neglected to mention their kitchen was undergoing renovations, so I had to resort to vending machine chips and chocolate.  Dinner of champions.)  Not sure I had a good night's sleep, but I had a somewhat reasonable sleep, anyhow.

First thing in the morning, my cell rang – which I wouldn't normally answer, but it said the phone number was from Australia.  Yup, cousin Brian (who hadn't been able to make the trip, for his own health reasons, but was going to watch the funeral virtually) was calling to give me a pep talk.  Such care and compassion from a man who was going through his own layers of grief that day.  I felt secure.  I belonged.  I was loved.

I got to the funeral home – the same one as for my Aunt Sherry's funeral in 2019 – super-early, to set up and go through my breathing and grounding exercises before I had to “face the music”.  The Emotional Support Cousins arrived early too, and we all gave each other pep talks.  One of their abusers showed up first and we ran interference and supported each other.  Pattern-breakers, unite!  Other more distant cousins arrived, there were hugs and silent knowing.  Oh my god, how many of us spent our entire childhoods thinking we were the only ones suffering in silence??????

I received an elbow to my side and a wide-eyed stare in one direction – my mother was here.  Heart stopped briefly, but knowing there were people who understood and cared and had my back helped get my breathing back to normal super-quickly.  My sister broke away briefly to say hello to me, then moved on just as quickly.  She and our mother and her husband found their seats, and the Emotional Support Cousins went to the ones we'd already saved so we could sit together and have each others' backs.

I was gonna be fine.  The Swan would be fine.  We got this.

Narrator:  When suddenly…

Before The Swan, there was the eulogy, given by my cousin Chris, the eldest child of Tim & Sherry.  In which he spoke about their integrity, and caring of the many cousins who needed care, even when their caring was met with painful consequences – and that's when the tears started.  Too early.  Get it together, 'Lyssa, get it together…

I got it together enough to play The Swan, although was in tears throughout – albeit controllable tears.  As soon as I finished, Pam (youngest daughter of Uncle Tim) came up and gave me a huge hug.  And the floodgates opened.  For her, for Uncle Tim, for all the reasons why I was having to manage my freaking nervous system, for… everything.  I managed to get the cello back in its stand, and get back to my seat, before the silent sobs took over, amplified by the hands reaching out, the comforting looks down the aisle.  Dear lord, I can't cry when something bad happens, but the moment someone extends a bit of kindness, I'm a trainwreck – what does THAT tell you about me???

After the funeral, it was off to the cemetery, then the reception (again: PEOPLE, but I had my Emotional Support Cousins, we got this).  One aunt came up to apologize, saying “she trapped me in the doorway, I didn't know what to do, I'm so sorry, I hope you don't feel betrayed” (the “Alyssa is a crazy liar” letter writing campaigns from years ago did not land the same way my mother must have hoped, in no small part because she'd apparently forgotten I wasn't the only victim in the family) – I reassured my aunt I wasn't upset, that of course she should navigate the pleasantries, “just don't expect me to do it, and we're fine”.

Again, who the frig AM I – I was comfortably chit-chatting with various friends and family members, enjoying the next generation, especially talking with one nephew about music (he's recently taken up the cello, oh my!), but feeling surprisingly comfortable, despite regularly checking over my shoulder and bracing myself with the over-rehearsed responses.

Despite all the summer's work on Magical Thinking and grieving what was never meant to be, a part of me still longed for an authentic connection with my sister.  But my mother was plastered to her side the entire time, so there was no opportunity for me to safely approach her.  And she never took an opportunity to break free, even momentarily, and approach me.  Whenever I looked over, her husband was glaring daggers and she was ignoring me.  Le sigh… Believe It.  Magical Thinking is just Magical Thinking.  Let them go.

At one point, some of the cousins and I noticed and remarked that my mother, sister and brother-in-law had been sitting alone at their own table pretty much the entire time.  In a strange turn of perspective, I actually felt sorry for them, and commented that it was kind of sad they were isolated like that.  One of the Emotional Support Cousins scoffed “oh, they know they're in the wrong”, and I felt both further saddened and finally vindicated.  After how many decades of worrying whether I belonged, knowing I didn't belong…?  Yet there I was, actually enjoying myself at a family gathering (a miracle in itself), while the people who had made it clear I didn't belong were left on the periphery, because they were still stuck in (and clinging to) the old family patterns.

I never had to try so hard, I never had to pretend everything was perfect.  My family, the blood-and-chosen ones capable of being loving, caring and compassionate family, loved me, warts and all, C-PTS symptoms and all, weirdnesses and all.  All I had to do was be myself, my genuine and authentic self, and that was enough.  Even for blood family – at least, all the blood family except those sitting alone at their table, eating their egg salad funeral sandwiches.

Mind.  Blown.

Now, the underburbling of anxiety was still certainly there, as my nervous system continued to brace myself for every possibility – it's had over five decades of training.  But I was able to distance myself from it, not get mixed up in that soup.

Compare and contrast how I had felt on Saturday (once my nervous system finally remembered that was a Peck family event) with how I felt at the Wright family event.  How I have ALWAYS felt at Wright family events.  And finally realized that… well, duh… how I felt on Saturday is how you're SUPPOSED to feel at a family gathering.  Family isn't supposed to instil panic attacks, or cause you to second-guess every microsecond in case you make a misstep or blurt out a secret.

I was THIS years old when it finally dawned on all my “parts” that my social anxiety is because all the socializing I did growing up was in an emotional minefield where I was held responsible for everything anyone did or didn't say or do, and woe betide me if I presented as anything less than perfect, lest I blow the secret that our family was far from perfect.

Emotionally heathy families don't expect perfection.  Emotionally healthy families know none of us is perfect.  Emotionally healthy families don't place the responsibility on children for the behaviour of adults.  Emotionally healthy families don't enlist children to keep terrible secrets.  Emotionally healthy families don't go full DARVO when a child – or an adult, for that matter – says “ouch, that hurt”.

I'd spent so much of my life twisting myself into a pretzel, denying my own senses, my own truths, thinking there was something wrong with me… When the wrongness really fell on the side of the adults who would DARVO a child who dared say “ouch, that hurt”.

I do fit in the family – with the family members who've done the work and broken the patterns and are emotionally healthy.  I will never belong to the members who continue to swirl in the old patterns and DARVO anyone who stops swirling with them – and that, my friends, is a really great place to NOT belong.  I was so enjoying reconnecting with the cousins, nieces, nephews, partners and friends, without any of us having to worry about keeping secrets, BECAUSE WE HAVE NONE.

I saw my sister, mother and brother-in-law starting to head out, and patted myself on the back for making it through the day without a panic attack, as well as letting out a sigh of relief that there'd been no high drama I'd had to deal with, I hadn't had to remember any of the over-rehearsed responses to anticipated words or behaviour, my mother had kept her distance and everyone had behaved.

My sister broke away to come and say goodbye.  She told me I'd played beautifully, and it was good to see me, “if only from afar”.

Now, perhaps my nervous system was just primed to hear a tinge of blame in her tone, but Little Lyssy was hopping up and down inside, ready for the firefighters to take out the shin-kicking boots.  I reminded all my insides that we'd just made it through the day without drama, let's just say a pleasant goodbye and Adult Self would find a way to process that comment at a later date.  (Because yes, even without the perceived tone, the quip about “if only from afar” indicated, at best, that my sister had been completely inconsiderate of how having the woman I've been no-contact with plastered to her side might have made “afar” the only reasonably safe option.)  I wished her a safe journey home, and then re-grounded myself at the sight of my cousins' “WTF?!?” facial expressions (yeah, I guess I wasn't the only one who'd heard the tone?).

Part of me just wanted to let it go.  This was the last family funeral I'd be likely to have to run into my mother, and I'd already given up on having any sort of healthy relationship with my sister, so long as they lived fully entangled lives literally next door to each other.  But, damn it, that Magical Thinking wanted one last gasp at trying to find that one perfect thing that would make my sister understand my pain and want to try and find ways to stop adding to it.

Little Lyssy needed to convince her to care.

I know… I know… sigh…

Days later, and after undergoing a gazillion self-edits and third-party review, I sent the email.

I started by mentioning her “if only from afar” comment, and saying it sounded to me like that had been upsetting to her – it was upsetting to me, too.  So if a better connection was something we both wanted in the future, she needed to be aware of why “from afar” had been the only safe option for me.  I mentioned I'd been struggling since learning our mother would be there, and had been doing all I could to make it through The Swan and the rest of the day, to avoid another panic attack.  But every time I looked over at her, our mother was plastered to her side, and she never broke free to approach me or even the cousins group that were visiting on the other side of the reception.

“So the reason why you only saw me from afar was because you chose to stay in a place where you knew it was unsafe for me to approach, and you never made an effort to safely approach me until you were leaving.  Seeing me only from afar was a natural consequence of those choices.”

I added that I was disappointed that she hadn't taken the time to warn me that our mother would be joining her, since she knows I had to go no-contact with her for my emotional safety, and that it was our cousins (who, after being recipients of some of mother's letter-writing campaigns, understood how difficult this would be for me) who gave me a heads up instead.

“While the rest of the family’s support was a relief and a blessing, I received none of that support or compassion from you – nor any indication of understanding of how difficult our mother’s presence would be for me (I note you never replied to my confirmation I was going, and it was Pam and Brian who warned me that our mother had confirmed her attendance, giving me ‘permission' to back out if I needed), nor even interest in understanding my reality.”

And… perhaps I should have quit while I was behind, but Adult Self already figured this wasn't going to land well, and Little Lyssy really needed to be heard, if not listened to.

So I relented to the little one's proddings, and added:

“It seems that I had still been holding on to a whole lot of ye olde magical thinking – believing and hoping that when the Alice Munro story finally hit mainstream media earlier this year (and you saw the world’s reaction to a mother who shamed and silenced her own daughter out of loyalty to her abusing husband), you too would start to understand and care about what I have been going through all this time.”

And… okay, yeah, I probably poked the bear by pointing out some of the other choices she'd made that didn't give me any reassurance that she was willing to be proactive about my safety and well-being, and finished with:

"While there will always be a part of me that wishes for that magic key that opens up more caring and compassionate choices towards me, I’ve spent much of this summer (not to mention this past week) grieving and coming to peace with the reality that not everyone is able or willing to make those choices, and nothing I do or say will ever change that.  So my choice must be to honour and protect my reality, and my emotional and neurophysical wellbeing, and keep safe and healthy boundaries around myself from those who can’t or won’t.

There is nothing I would love more than for those boundaries to stop being necessary, but until more caring and compassionate choices are demonstrated, “from afar” is my only option to keep me and my banged-up C-PTS nervous system travelling safely on my healing journey.

I hope we are one day both able to make different choices.

Love,
Alyssa"

After a few days, my sister's reply came back.  It began with “Wow Alyssa!  Did you really just make Uncle Tim’s death and funeral all about you?”, and descended from there into a world-class gaslighting- and DARVO-fest.

I am sorry to report that, upon reaching the end of her response, the first thought that came into my head was “I wish I'd never protected you!”

Which I immediately took back, thinking “What sort of person wouldn't want to protect her sister?!?!?”

And then I thought… “What sort of person wouldn't want to protect her sister?”  (Narrator:  Believe It)

And then I re-read all the over-the-top statements and accusations she was making, and the cruel way she'd chosen to phrase them, remembered many of the times she'd resorted to this type of shaming in more subtle fashion (and I'd always believed what she told me about myself and my “true” motivations, shrunk away, vowed never to speak up again, and kicked myself for being such a horribly selfish sister), and remembered my still-at-that-point-erstwhile trauma therapist's refrain “Oh, of course she did!”

As my shortly-after-that-no-longer-erstwhile trauma therapist later said, she's learned these techniques from a master.  And that master has become even more entangled in her life since the last time (in both senses of the word) I had to go no-contact, so she's going to use every tool she's been given to keep me from upsetting that.

Believe.  It.

The last of the Magical Thinking fluttered away.  Or thudded.

And left at least thirty years of ache in its wake.  Because the beautiful thing about Magical Thinking is that it keeps you believing in the fairy-tale ending that will never be, so you don't have to face and grieve what never was.

It's been over two months of processing what that beautiful, trying-to-be-helpful protector known as Magical Thinking has always been trying to protect me from.

When my father died in my last year at University, I was surprised by how devastated I was – we'd been estranged for years (and I'd always had another layer of Magical Thinking that his death would miraculously erase all the damage caused by his abuse – haha, haha, lemme tell you how that fantasy worked out…).  But what I was truly grieving upon his death was not the loss of his presence in my life – it was loss of the Magical Thinking that one day, there would be a way to get through to him, and he'd see how badly he'd hurt me, apologize, make amends, and everything would be okay again.  When he died, I had to acknowledge that he would never “get it”, never care, never make things right.  He'd never pick my well-being over his demons.

As difficult as it was to go no-contact with my mother the first time, my Magical Thinking at the time allowed me to believe that losing her relationship with me would be a wake-up call for her, she'd decide to figure out how to stop causing me debilitating pain, and we'd all live happily ever after.  Dipping a toe back in to having contact with her a few years later, she did seem to have stopped the more overt abuse, which helped to feed the Magical Thinking for many years.  Clinging to that Magical Thinking helped me chastise myself to ignore the deep pit in my stomach the first time I saw she was wearing Dad's engagement ring ("but I loved your father!").  Kept me silent when having dinner with a couple who referred to my mother as a widow (erm… no, by the time my father died, she'd not only divorced him but also her psychologist she'd left him for – my second ex-husband is now dead too, do I get widow benefits??)  Pretend I didn't notice that the only way we could get along is if we avoided talking about anything substantial.  Pretend I didn't notice the chainsaws juggling in my stomach every time I visited.  (Or how much box-o-wine I consumed every time I visited.)

By contrast, the second no-contact had me in a fetal position for months, because I was not just losing my relationship with my mother again, I was losing the Magical Thinking that anything would ever change.  (Her letter-writing campaigns over the next several years pretty much nailed that coffin shut – there were people I didn't even know were on her Christmas card list who would send notes saying “I'm so sorry, I never realized how bad it was”, and “I can't imagine ever saying anything like that about my own child”, until I finally asked them to stop telling me, and they respected that boundary, because: emotionally healthy people find it easy to demonstrate empathy and compassion.)  I had to acknowledge that my mother would never “get it”, never care enough to stop hurting me, never make things right.  She would never pick my well-being over my abuser or her own reputation.

And yes, as many have been trying to get me to see over the past twelve years, and even since the first time I had to go no-contact with my mother, a quarter century ago (!!), it's time to let the Magical Thinking go around my sister finally “seeing the light” and offering up care, compassion or even curiosity.  She's shown me what she's willing and able to offer me.  Over and over and over again.  It's time to Believe Her.

Yes, even Little Lyssy and all the Exiles (great band name, no?) are believing her.  Which is good in the broader sense, because it's an important first step in healing.  But lord love a duck, the last two-plus months have been a living hell of grief and sorrow and anger and resentment and “what sort of a person wouldn't want to protect her sister?”.

I still don't regret trying to protect her.  I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I hadn't done my best to protect her.  But I'm done now.  Time to protect myself.  To go one better and CARE FOR myself.

The firefighters need to end their 50+ year shift.  The managers need to just trust that all the policies and procedures are in place, and back away from the steering wheel.  (That was a horrible mixed metaphor, but I don't care, because guess what?  I ain't perfect.  But I'm still worthy and loveable.  And some people even find my lousy mixed metaphors charming – I'm not sure who those people are, but I'm sure they're out there…)

This past year has been a year filled with grief – for those who've departed, for those I've clung to, for the last (oh, for the love of all that's good and holy, LET IT BE THE LAST) of my Magical Thinking, for the sacrifices I made on behalf of that Magical Thinking, for the happily ever after fantasies that were part of that Magical Thinking – and Fucking Learning Opportunity™ after Fucking Learning Opportunity™.

What do I hope to learn next year?

LESS.

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, COULD WE JUST GIVE IT A REST WITH THE FUCKING LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES™?!?!?!?!?

I'd like to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

The last 5+ years of endlessly driving myself into the ground with volunteer work is just not cutting it.  I don't think I'm even any good at it anymore, honestly, because I'm still so freaking burnt out, I just don't care if I do a good job anymore.  Which maybe is good for my mental health, but probably not good for the causes I burnt myself out for.

I'd like to get back to my creativity.  As always, I would like to read more books for fun.  I'd like to go to bed before the sun rises or my laptop runs out of battery.

I'd like to make a difference in the world WITHOUT BEING SO FRANTICALLY DETERMINED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.  I'm realizing that so much of my motivation for volunteering myself sick is to be there for the people who I was when nobody was there for me.  Which sounds noble, but is not feeling very healthy anymore.  I think I need a sabbatical and just take some time to be there for myself.  What a concept.

I'd like all my parts to finally learn that my worth isn't tied to how much I've done for others.

(Yes, I just threw up in my mouth a little at saying that out loud.)

My word for 2024 was Worthy.  I'm pretty sure I already know my word for 2025.  But you're all just gonna have to wait until “between the years” to find out what it is.  There will be a theme song.

In the meantime, I'm working hard.  I've got AN INCREDIBLE support team (oh my god, can I just tell you how grateful I am for the incredible women in my life who show me, on a regular basis, what healthy female relationships can be?!?!?  WHAT THEY ARE?!?!?).  I'm privileged enough to be able to afford and access my no-longer-erstwhile trauma therapist.  I got this.  But I'm gonna need a bubble for a little while longer – please don't take it personally if I don't show up at your party, I'm processing a lot right now.

I know I've said many variations on these lesson themes over the years – both the lessons learned and the lessons hoped to learn.  I'm sure those who love me have cringed many times as they saw me jumping back into Little Miss Fix-It mode, or otherwise neglecting myself – I, too, was getting really frustrated when I kept “doing the things” despite having “learned the lessons”.  Now that I've started doing Internal Family Systems work, I'm realizing that my Adult Self may have already learned the lessons, but my exiles and protectors still had to catch up, because they did not yet believe a single word of the lessons.  It's taking a lot of work and a lot of patience, and I can feel some of them get their “aha!” moments as I try to integrate them all, but it's definitely a work in progress.  A lot is loosening up, though, and I'm feeling hopeful, in a non-Magical Thinking kind of way.

Considering how relatively quickly these knots are un-knotting, I'm fairly confident I'll figure this out before my throat decides to kill me.  (But if I do go too soon, tell my nephew Clark that he has to play The Swan at my Celebration of Life.  And somebody needs to get the archive Music for the Changing Voice video from Talk is Free Theatre for “The Teenaged Angst Melody”, because I really want everyone to get a good laugh out of me earnestly performing “And When I Die”, complete with quavering lip.  Do it, or I'll haunt you.)

The caterpillar goo is still stirring around, trying to figure out this whole butterfly thing.  But I've got some wonderful friends and a wonderful chosen family and a wonderful no-longer-erstwhile trauma therapist helping me through.

And if there's one MEGA LESSON for me that's come out of this year of Fucking Learning Opportunities™, it's this: the people who truly love you care about your well-being – and the people who show disregard for your well-being do not truly love you, and likely never will, so you need to stop trying so damned hard and just save your VIP section for those in the former category.  (Probably seems simple and boring to you “normies”, but it's a mind explosion to me and all my parts.)

I do still plan on living well into my hundreds, so I've still got a half of my life to enjoy that hard-learned lesson.  Tune in next year…

Happy Birthday – plus several days – to me.

Next year's gonna be amazing, I might even have a nap.

Thanks for making it this far,
Love,
The Birthday Girl Crone (a role I am coming to embrace and adore)

Obligatory dog and cat photos:

(Cadeau has started OCCASIONALLY joining the Montdogues on the bed, but only Gráinne enjoys a good snuggle with them, still)