Acceptance is hard work

@NightFury ahhh the couch-meld, classic. Rest is actually a NEED so I am proud of you! Writing off a day is something we all need to do from time to time. My friend likes to remind me - If you ignore your body when it tells you it needs rest, it will end up doing it for you (usually in quite an unpleasant way).

They will indeed be there tomorrow! 😉💜

Might sound like beautiful connection, but it's complicated @NightFury .

I'm really only helping my sister out because she has 3 young kids. I moved next door to her so I could support her. Once the kids are 'grown up', I won't be staying near them and I'm going to move out.

My sister's husband is a lovely fellow, but he's not really capable of a lot of things which means my sister gets really stressed out. My brother in law spent the majority of his life on drugs due to an unfortunate incident when he was a kid. This led him to turn to drugs. My sister sort of 'saved him' and supported him.

Hence, my brother in law sort of works, but doesn't make much money. So what he earns is like a bit of pocket money, while my sister is the main breadwinner and she only works 4 days. Hence I help them with looking after the kids, paying some of their mortgage, paying bills etc...

So yeah, it's' a bit complicated.

@tyme thank you for sharing with me.

It's so difficult to do things on one wage, well pretty much one wage, so I think it's amazing of you to help support them. Sometimes we all need someone to give us a leg up and help us get through.

You're doing something kind, empathetic and supportive and the kids will remember that. Even if they aren't aware, they will remember how you made them feel and all of the time you spend with them.

I hope it's okay for me to say...It may be complicated, but don't discount what you do for them.

@tyme you're probably off spending time with your family...but I thought I could honour your trust in me, by sharing...

I understand a little about complicated relationships with your siblings...

I don't know whether you read, but my brother went to court this week and was found guilty of stealing. It's not his first dalliance with the law and not his first trip to court. I've done a lot of supporting him through his life too. He lived with me for a time, because he had no where to go and no job, and he knows I'll lend him money most times he asks. I've picked him up from parties and nightclubs in the early hours of the morning, so intoxicated that it wouldn't have been safe for him to be on his own. I've grown up thinking it's my responsibility to keep him safe and make sure that he's okay. So...this explains why boundaries are so hard for me to set when it comes to my brother. That and...he can be volatile and reactive.

But it's less complicated than my relationship than my older half brother. I didn't know he existed until maybe eight years ago. He contacted me over Facebook and my Dad confirmed who he was and that it wasn't some crazy stalker. Initially my Dad wasn't interested in having contact. I started to build a relationship with him and my Dad eventually came around. It was tough, it wasn't the same as the relationship I built with my other brother. He came into our lives and moved from QLD to Tassie to spend more time with us. He has four children. So I'm an aunt to them as well. But two years ago, he decided to fall out of contact with us, without justification. I haven't heard from them, or seen them in two years.

I guess the intention behind this was to show that I do understand how complicated siblings relationships can be.

@Jynx

Thanks for understanding @NightFury . It's hard. So I just help as much as I can.

I'm now waiting for my nephew to get out of the shower to play our game 🙂

Please take care hun and I'll check-in with you tomorrow.

Wow @NightFury ty for sharing. Finding and then losing a sibling, even a half-sibling, is really rough. That not-knowing is also the worst hey. You want to move on and say 'hey that's on them' but without clarity, it can be hard not to go back and review your own behaviours and stuff. I hope that one day maybe you'll both get a chance to reconnect and to heal through all the grief. Complicated relationships often come with complex losses, and that grief can be hard to grapple with when it's not cut n dry.

With your brother/boundary-setting - don't be too hard on yourself. When it comes to formative relationships, our brains are wired into patterns. It's why we often fall into the same old 'scripts' with our parents/siblings - even though we may have grown and changed to a point where if it weren't family, we would be able to stand up for ourselves more, when we try to do so with the people we grew up with it can feel like all our progress goes out the window!

@Jynx I've kind of buried that grief. When I do let it in a little, I end up thinking things like..."I wasn't enough for him," or like "maybe he didn't like me or our family." Or he looked at us, got to know is and then decided we were too hard, too complex, too much for him. None of that is helpful, so I buried it.

@NightFury would you believe me if I said that even if those things were true, they still only reflect on him?

As in, sometimes people simply are not in a place in their own recovery to be able to be in stable/healthy relationships with other people who are in recovery - and that is no one's fault, nor does it mean that you are a bad person, an undesirable person, or an unworthy person. You 'not being enough' is maybe cos you aren't... like, a team of mental health professionals. Buuuut I'd wager that is more likely to be projection - we are all prone to it after all. There's a myriad of reasons he may have cut contact. It doesn't make it hurt less, but maybe it can help you release some of the guilt/internal blame. Who knows, maybe you actually dodged a bullet!

Glad that you have a chance to process a little of that buried grief now hun. If tears wanna fall, maybe they need to. No shame in it, grief is soooo much. It's love with nowhere to go.

But we gotchu 💜

@Jynx I don't believe it within myself, but I know that you believe it and that gives it some level of reasonableness and credibility.

I hear you. There's a theme here...me blaming myself for things that go wrong in my relationships and friendships with people. It's not something I want to dig into tonight. It hurts a bit....a lot actually.

❤️ thank you.

I finished my colouring just now...

I feeeeeeeel this @NightFury - the self-blame is rough.

Maybe when you feel more ready, we can open up a chat about attachment wounds. But no rush, seems you've been unpacking a lot of late, and it's important to take it slow - try to ensure you retain a sense of safety and stability as you go 💜

Gorgeous!! Really made the colours pop!! TY for sharing hun, love to see people's differing individual 'eye for colour' hehe.

Catch you tomorrow if you're floating about 😊