Time heals all wounds .... suicide is real ... beyond trite phrases

@Appleblossom 💞

@Appleblossom I haven't read this piece but you have your finger on the pulse with the latest releases. I am glad that it has given you some healing with your siblings deaths, and all these years later must still cause you pain. Not having read it, I am unsure if the author is agreeing that 'time heals all wounds' or if the author is refuting that idea as absurd in the face of familial suicide.

I think that time can help wounds to scab over but I have found more healing in not pressuring myself to heal, as opposed to gritting me teeth and forcing myself to heal, simply because it would make others around me more comfortable and at ease. I feel social pressure to heal, and ironically the most pressure comes from people whose lives are a million light years apart from my own life experiences. They may vaguely intellectually understand what I have been through, but imagining, is not the same as living.

On Friday night I watched 3 episodes on Ken Burns doco on SBS on Hemingway. It was sad and repugnant all at the same time. I felt sad for his mental illness and the legacy of mental illness that crosses generations like my own, but repulsed by his macho killing of animals and game hunting. It triggered memories of my father, all that over the top masculinity, but then falling to pieces when he is without a subservient women by his side to look after him and be a compliant nurse maid. Totally pissed me off to hear his 1st wife admit she loved him more than she ever loved her children, can totally relate to women like that, because my mother was the same. I guess you could say he was a victim of the times, but it was so uncool how he treated his transexual son. I found it interesting that his eldest boy, or second eldest, I can't remember, had a psychotic break that went on for some months but that it was his first, and his last. Gave me some hope I will be a one hit wonder and won't be shoved down the rabbit hole again.....none of us know what health problems lie ahead of us. But the legacy of suicide continues in the Hemingway family, I think his granddaughter or grand niece took her own life not that long ago....they remind me of the Plath/Hughes families.....I guess cos in many ways it is my family story too and I am scared that it hasn't ended and my niece/nephew could be next......I hope you are well if you are in lockdown Appleblossom

Great in-depth post good on you , and I feel you

love from your Clawde Thankyou

Hugs @Clawde

@Corny Thank you for your very thoughtful response.

The author Maria Tumarkin was unpacking the axiom, not pushing them at all, but looking at different angles. That is why I liked it. It was not prescriptive.

I looked at the first episode of Hemingway. Not sure if I will continue. I am more interested in the broader Paris scene and not at all interested in his macho side. I am wondering off hand if it is a response to his WWI experience. He is so celebrated as an author. Hearing you about the sadness of a woman indulging him. He seemed to set up a new wife neatly in time to move on.

Because of my life I ask long questions about the nature of love and what is good. Just my way. Its great to hear from you again. Been a while.

Hugs

Apple

I can understand why you can’t continue with the Hemingway doco @Appleblossom . The misogyny and patriarchy are too much sometimes, not to mention the killing of lions and rhinoceros and all the game hunting.

Maybe because I too am from a family that is riddled with mental illness, that crosses generations, I’ve had relatives die in Callan Park, and having a mother with schizophrenia was life changing for me and my sibs. Especially being stuck in regional Australia with zero mental health support…..I think I was drawn to the Hemingway story for those reasons, I am from the family that everyone under their breath referred to/refers as ‘the mad family’. I did feel sorry for the guy in the last episode he clearly suffered from BipolarI disorder and yet some of the commentators in the doco still used phrases such as ‘madness’ and ‘crazy’……come on guys it’s like 2021 already.

I couldn’t touch any war or post-war novelists because my high school English department just over-dosed me on them and I couldn’t stand the association they have with some of the darkest years of my childhood. So even though literature is one of my favourite art forms I haven’t read any Hemingway because I just couldn’t face men born in the same era as my grandfather’s/and father. But feeling like an ignoramus that should know influential writers I have battled on with some recently even if I find the author personally gross or revolting for all the misogyny, sexism, and homophobia……but that said, honestly, I can still appreciate the talent they have and their craft. Even if I wouldn’t like the artist as a person, I can see why they were influential and can admit that most def they had skill. Writing a novel would be so hard.

You say: “Because of my life I ask long questions about the nature of love and what is good”…….I ask questions about love too Appleblossom, but for me there are lots of different types of love. The pain I have felt from romantic heartbreak, isn’t the same pain I felt finding out my mothers involvement & complicitness in my CSA, even though I am a lesbian lady, and in both instances it is a women that is inflicting the pain…..they felt different inside. And then the love I feel for my 2 Sibs & niece and nephew is like a Lioness love, like if I was pushed, and anyone tried to hurt them, I most def would be going to prison!

There are some very strange noises coming from the adjoining units during lockdown! And Phat beats....same time every day, the Phat beats start. I can’t figure out if they are human or animal or digital…….eek. I hope you are warm and cosy. It is really windy in ol’ Sydney town. But July has been scary dry. Seeing the fires in the USA, Greece and Turkey I worry about this summer…..love Corny

@Corny

Good to hear your love includes the strength of a lioness. Try NOT to get locked up! lol

I am concerned ongoing re fires and the climate generally. I watch consumption, reuse and reduce, and be careful about heating and cooling the person and the home and am a mild activist. We do not want another 2019/20 bushfire "season". Many of us are trying, yet the myths of growth and progress .... seem set to whirl on and on ...

I did not do literature at school, which may have been a good thing. I began later at uni. I bought a b ook to help me understand my father's New Guinea experience, otherwise I did not have much input re typical Aussie social cultural or war experien ces. So kind of making up for it after the fact.

There are some photos about Callan Park on the net. I have looked up places I was in as a child and also my family. Somehow B&W photos seem less scary than my imagination. Sort of contains it somewhat.

I was going to post this last night but was interrupted by my son. Lovely to "talk"

Apple

Gosh @Appleblossom you have had such a hard life. I can't recall what state you live in and if you experienced institutionalisation, but my family has. My great-aunt and great uncle died in some of Australia's last psychiatric institutions. My mother had what the called 'shock treatment' in one of those same hospitals. I was alive when my great aunt died, I was maybe about 7 years old. It's quite incredible how long she lasted, I think she was in her late 70s and may have even cracked her 80s.

I have always intended to go back through the family history but have been so consumed with coming to terms with my own traumas, and coping with the psychosis in my relatives in the present day (and my own) that I haven't got around to it. I am pretty sure that my Pop placed both of his sibs in there.....but I am not sure. I think his brother took his own life....but I haven't confirmed it.....I know that people are still placed in a ward, never to be released in NSW even though asylums are to be closed. And there is the adolescent wards close to Parramatta somewhere...its just so sad and it really humbles me on days when I am feeling sorry for myself and all that I have lost with my MI. There are people out there with it so much worse than me.

It always shocks me @Appleblossom how far behind Australia is in the climate change deabte/action.....I cringe as our representatives make us look like the ignorant, uneducated back-water of the world in this matter. Australia really is so far behind in lots of areas, 10,15,20 years behind. I think that Death Valley in California made some record this summer, I am pretty sure it was over 50 degrees. And I think it was during the bush fires that Penrith reached close to 50! From memory maybe it was 48 degrees! Horrific. And the State government is building the 2nd airport in western Sydney along with lots of other infrastructure and the climate scientists are predicting that in 30 years time those suburbs will be uninhabitable. That houses will have to be built underground to escape the heat. Our building and housing standards are so poor in Australia, no double glazing is required by the developers, inappropriate insulation given how hot it is......I've looked up the forecast and Sydney is due for a little rain but still high temperatures for winter!......We will have to move in with the wombats @Appleblossom . Burrow down to the cool - Corny

Gave me a lovely chuckle to think of burrowing down with wombats.

You are not the first to mention bunkers etc ....a lot of people are turning to that way of thinking. I love country but not up for bushfires ....Its a worry.

@Corny

Yes my father died in an institution. My mother also had the shock treatment. While they were in hospital we were put in care. I was 6 with 3 younger sibs. All 3 passed too young .... 21, 33, 52. Later when I was 10, I visited my father in hospital in a Repat. I am aware of Parramatta girls homes and the equivalent down here. I am in Melb. Got tickets with an old gf who went to one when she was 14 and quite a drinker. Still they are quite different experiences, the real orphanages from the naughty girls homes.

I joined a group of people raised in care. They are good for getting research and details but I find they get me too upset by the agitating manner they keep past pain alive. I understand it is a tricky path to walk, and everyone has to do it at their own pace.

Hearing you about getting over one's own traumas. It has taken a while to reduce my stress and rumination and desire to research it all ... I am slowly coming to terms with it all in a less agitated manner.

The de-institutionalisation drive has good and bad about it. I see my brother as a martyr of it, just the state system doing its thing without treating individuals adequately. Too busy to worry about him, so the family gets to carry the load.

I am open minded about orientation. Grew up with many gays around of both male and female. Nice families or marriages were not very much in my social environment.

Apple

My goodness @Appleblossom you have had such an incredibly hard life. You are incredible just to survive and to be still standing. Just one of those life experiences would have completely destroyed another person. People would meet you or walk past you and think that you are so 'normal' , and have no idea what you have lived through. I hope that you have secure housing, a soft place to fall, and just a little corner of the world where you can be at some semblance of peace even if it is only momentary given your traumatic life. Maybe you have a furry friend to cuddle into too.

I think it is wise for you to titrate how much research you do, and going back into the past......you would most definitely have a stress disorder, and unfortunately how bodies reached that tipping point where we have to be very gentle because it takes so much to get our hyperarousal back down to our base line. Maybe you have met some people that have spoken to you in a historian/rsearcher detached kind of way and you have felt like saying, hang on this is my life! But I am the same @Appleblossom I need to know facts before I can process things and try to come to terms with it. I just need to know the whole truth even if it is horrific, I've always been like that. I said to Dr K when I simplify what happened to me and what put me into psychosis; it is truth. Finding out what really happened just spun my brain into overload. I am sure that coming to terms with your own truth has tipped your mental health at times......it takes so much stamina to live with MI and complex life-long trauma. I imagine globally there will be thousands of children left orphaned by Covid...it breaks my heart of little kids feeling scared, alone and unwanted.

I often think to myself imagine having a mental illness back in the day with no treatments available and institutionalisation......but the reality is that heaps of people have treatment resistant mental illness and medication compliance is a constant battle for people with no insight into their illness, which was both my parents when I think of it. But I do agree with you there are extreme cases that can't live in the community safely on their own and need a gated community.

Yes @Appleblossom I didn't ask to be gay I was born this way. It has nothing to do with my CSA, I have never felt that it did, women are my home. In an Irish Catholic it was no mean feat to standup for myself as the only gay in the family......

You guys have had a shocker in Melbourne with the lockdowns. I can't see Sydney coming out of at least some restrictions for a few more months.....we will remain the national hot-spot for a long time me thinks. One of my sibs became Mrs Fi Fi Pfizer II yesterday and the other sib will be Mrs Fi FI Pfizer III this afternoon so my anxiety and panic attacks are a little bit lessened, but I do worry about the kids, and the unknowns of this virus......poor buggers don't have great genes, but I will become their full-time carer until the day I die if they ever lost their health. Cheers to your health @Appleblossom stay warm and cosy in August, its the windy month. Corny

Hi @Appleblossom

I was doing a bit of a search and came across your post. With my youngest child now an adult I find myself having more space and trying to make sense of my sisters mental illness, how our relationship changed and my sadness around that and her eventual suicide. I had a lovely day with my daughter recently, a day to the beach which I used to do with my sister and I found myself comparing the two and how, at a much younger age, eventually I was struggling to support my sister as much as I might have liked. It's like my mind is questioning...'You can have good relationships, you are supportive'. But I guess because I was young, overwhelmed, burnt out after dealing with dysfunctional parents. I just have a lot of sadness at the moment and I guess I wonder what has helped others on this journey? Thank you