TheBanyanTree: It's Not All Pain

[Sally Larwood]

Yup. What she says. 

Sal 

Sent from my iPad 

> On 28 Jul 2014, at 11:18, Gail Richards <mrsfes at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Love is always better!!  And I haven't told you lately...I love you, Monique, and I'm so glad I can tell people I know you!!
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Monique Colver
> Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2014 12:09 PM
> To: Banyan Tree
> Subject: TheBanyanTree: It's Not All Pain
> 
> *If you're not following my blog, which is highly likely, it's at:
> mcolver.wordpress.com <http://mcolver.wordpress.com>*
> 
> A couple of years ago remnants of my family sat around a table at a Mexican
> restaurant as one last final hurrah for my parents, which is to say my dad
> and stepmom, after we threw their ashes to the winds on the side of a
> mountain. We drank, because what else is one to do? And we talked, and when
> the talk somehow veered to childhood, as it always will, and mention of the
> inappropriate behavior of certain male relatives regarding me came around
> we howled with laughter.
> 
> 
> Inside, I was not howling with laughter, but it’s important to keep up a
> good front. It’s important not to let them know how damaged it made me,
> because we want everyone to think we’re tougher than that, we’re stronger,
> and we overcame it successfully.
> 
> 
> A couple of weeks ago a sister-in-law contacted me on FB and asked if
> everything was okay, because my posts of late had seemed to be sad. That
> was sweet. Apparently there was mention of me when the brothers and wives
> got together over Father’s Day.
> 
> 
> Well, I had just come out of one of the worst depressive episodes of my
> entire life, so I think it could safely be said that I had been sad. I’ve
> recovered, mostly, but I’m still finding my way back to the light because
> it’s not like an on/off switch, one day I’m in hell and the next I’m not. I
> wish it were.
> 
> 
> I told her I was fine, that I had been depressed, but I was much better,
> and since I wasn’t sure why she was asking I assured her that it’s probably
> not a genetic thing on our father’s side, which is the parent I share with
> her husband. She has young children, two little boys that I miss seeing
> grow up, and I know that as a parent she has to worry about them.
> 
> 
> During the past seven months, since my surgery, I’ve been looking for my
> way back.
> 
> 
> And I’m so much better, but I still can’t be left alone for long periods of
> time because then the panic starts to come back, and the anxiety, and I can
> quickly spiral away if I’m not careful.
> 
> 
> I’m not sure many of us get this far without being damaged in some way.
> 
> 
> We howled with laughter two years ago because men behaving inappropriately
> with me is funny, at least to everyone else, and while it would have been
> nice to have once heard, “I’m sorry that happened to you,” I don’t recall
> that happening.
> 
> 
> It may have. I don’t remember much of my childhood.
> 
> 
> I know people who would say, “At this point, why do you care? I wouldn’t
> care.”
> 
> 
> Ah, if only we were all like you, with none of the baggage of being
> ourselves.
> 
> 
> For the past seven months I’ve worked really hard to get back, and I didn’t
> involve my family because they wouldn’t know what to say – I have a
> sneaking suspicion they regard me as a bit of a loon, an impression I
> haven’t done much to dispel. I do the wrong things, say the wrong things.
> Around them, I’m still the scared 7 year old, always looking over my
> shoulder to see what my older half-brother, now dead, was up to, the
> awkward 10 year old everyone made fun of because it was fun, and I was no
> one, the 13 year old disgusted with my hands-on stepfather. I’ve spent a
> lifetime loving them, mostly from a distance, but I’m not sure they think
> of me much. That’s okay. We’re not all the same. I have a rich family of
> friends, a wide circle of people scattered around the globe that love me
> despite my damage.
> 
> 
> We all do, no matter what our damage.
> 
> 
> I miss my sisters-in-law, the one who takes me out drinking mostly while
> her husband, my brother, looks at us as if we’re misbehaving (which we no
> doubt are), and I wish we could do that more often, and the other one, who
> is raising two little boys with my brother, and who seems to have her shit
> so much together. I miss my nieces, and my niece’s children, and I miss my
> brothers.
> 
> 
> I even miss my sister. I called her recently because I hadn’t heard from
> her in a long time, and after talking to her I missed her even more because
> she’s not the same as she used to be. Her world has grown so small and
> self-contained, while mine has grown bigger and wider.
> 
> 
> They all have their own families, and they’ve all contracted in to their
> own worlds, and that’s great for them, if they’re happy and loved. But my
> world, by necessity, went outward, and so I feel even farther than two
> states away. I had to leave home when I was 18 so I wouldn’t die there, and
> I mean that both literally and metaphorically. Each trip back is a reminder
> of both how far I’ve come, and how far I haven’t.
> 
> 
> I know that they care, in their own way, and their way is not my way, and
> I’m reconciling myself with that. I have been for years. Recently a niece
> reached out to me, and it gave me such joy, but maybe she heard I was sad
> and was checking up on me. I want to tell people that I’m more than what
> they remember, but I’m not sure anyone cares.
> 
> Here’s the thing about my mental issues: yes, sometimes it sucks to be me,
> and sometimes I just want to give up, and sometimes life is hard, but
> there’s another side to the darkness, and it’s the joy. I am capable of
> feeling such joy, such contentment, such love, and some days I love so much
> and so many that I’m overwhelmed with it. More and more days now as I get
> farther along in my recovery.
> 
> 
> Some days, if I read the news and listen to what’s going on, I can be
> disgusted with the human race. But if I look at only what I experience, if
> I remember that we’re all born of light, I am filled with such complete
> joy. I love people so much, the look of them, the feel of them, their
> voices when they’re happy and talking and doing people things. The only
> thing I love more than people is animals, and that’s quite a compliment.
> 
> 
> I know that they won’t all love me back, and some of them will love me back
> in inappropriate ways, and some will despise me for a myriad of reasons,
> but I can’t help but love them anyway. I try not to, but it’s too deep
> within me to do anything else about it. I know, I’ve tried, because it
> hurts not to be loved back.
> 
> But it hurts even more to not love them at all. Not the people who hurt me,
> I’m not a saint, but everyone else, anyway.
> 
> 
> It doesn’t mean I love to be around everyone – we all have people we don’t
> want to be around. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love them anyway, does it?
> 
> I don’t go around talking like this in public because it’s awkward and
> people don’t know what to say back. Or at least I assume that’s what would
> happen – I’m certainly not going to try it.
> 
> 
> I miss them, the people who were there when I was growing up, and the
> people they attached to when they were grown, and the people they gave
> birth to. In spite of it all, and whether they care or not.
> 
> 
> And for the people I love, I am always here if they need me, and even if
> they don’t. I can’t help it.
> 
> 
> I meant to write about pain, but pain is sometimes from feeling too much,
> and mostly what I feel now is love, and not pain, and so my thoughts go
> there. Anyway, isn’t love better?
> 
> 
> M