Tag Archives: “drama therapy”

The Dirt that Siblings Throw

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I started talking to a grief counselor, and she wants me to journal about my grief.  I can do that.  Hell, the only time I ever journal is when I am trying to make some sense of my grief.  I didn’t tell her I already blog about it, but that’s irrelevant. 

I’m not good with counselors.  I can smell a scripted approach.  I picked this one because I plugged all my needs into a website that could find me a counselor based on my insurance and my problems.  Her’s was the second profile that came up.  In her picture, she was standing outside in rain gear in horrible weather, smiling like she had just climbed Mount Everest.  She told me later that she was standing in a hurricane in that pic.  That picture and her credentials were enough to sign me up—extensive post-graduate work in grief and trauma.  I think she’s going to unearth a lot more than grief.

So this entry begins my “grief journal.”  One of my brothers, the one I don’t like, didn’t give me a Christmas present this year.  I think it’s because he knew there wouldn’t be any blow-back from Dad.  It’s a sinister assumption to make, but my brother is sinister.  I can picture him ranting to his wife about how he’ll keep me in the loop until Dad’s gone, then he’ll make a neat, clean break.  His DNA is 50% ADHD and 50% anger.  Life has no meaning for him if he has nothing to rage against.

I told my new counselor a little bit about him—that he’s a narcissist, that he ruined his children, then turned his back on them, then turned his back on me.  But I won’t let him ruin me.  Why is all this coming up in a grief journal?  Well, we have no more parental glue.  My kind brother wants to foster more communication.  My narcissist brother wants to be free of any obligations to a sister who clearly thinks she is better than he is.  His words.  As I write this, I wonder which one of us needs the counseling more. 

Everyone—family, colleagues, friends—loved and appreciated my obituary for Dad.  I made him human, my husband told me.  My eulogy will do the same.  I will send him off as the dad that I remember, not the one my brothers do.  But I’m not stupid.  I know that they had a very different experience being raised by young parents.  My mother was nineteen when the first of my brothers was born.  And she told me stories about trying to parent in the ‘60s, and it wasn’t pretty, and my dad was far from saintly.  Dad tried to tell me the same from his angle after she died.  He had a lot of guilt.  I told him that everyone has their regrets, everyone has made their mistakes.  The secret to happiness is you don’t dwell. 

Poor Dad was convinced he was going to hell.  I think that’s why he clung to life for so long.  The truth is, like my obituary expressed, that he was a deeply caring and complex person, a man many many people loved.  You don’t earn that status by being a bastard or alienating your children.

Was it something I said?

40s are the new 40s, Addiction, Election 2016, feeling old, Life in the Suburbs, Reflections, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Gimme a W!  Gimme a T!  Gimme an F!  What’s it spell?  Well, I don’t need to spell it out for you.  If you don’t know the acronym by now, then you just might be TOO old to be reading this old broad’s blog.

Something strange happened recently:  I almost LMFAO (in the past tense) when I discovered that my blog had been viewed 55 times in one day.  55 times.  Huh.  That’s more times than I’ve seen it, I think.  Was it something I said?  Probably.  Was it something I don’t remember that I said?  Perhaps.

I didn’t laugh when I saw those stats because I can’t believe people would read this.  Quite the contrary.  I sometimes believe that I have a story worth telling, something that might spark thought or conversation or even friendship (see “Why are the Forties the New Forties?”).  I laughed because I can’t seem to tell a story unless it’s accompanied by crisis.

Years ago, when I was blundering neck deep in personal and financial crises–a legal battle that went on and on, an unhealthy accumulation of debt, unmedicated depression, a job that I was flushing down the toilet, “new” parenthood, you name it–I sought some refuge in my oldest and best friends, alcohol and writing.  Actually, I didn’t seek some refuge there, I sought it all.  Almost every night, I posted some besotted rant in my blog about my husband’s ex wife or the thankless and misunderstood job of the stepmother, or the teacher, or whatever.  I was angry, exhausted, and unhealthy.  And people seemed to like those rants.  I had a solid audience.

Then, the wounds began to heal–we settled our custody disputes with my husband’s ex, we sorted out some of our money problems, we moved to a very safe and boring place, I found a job I really liked, I went on meds, then I went sober, then I lost a bunch of weight, and then I had nothing to kvetch about anymore.

For the past five to six years, I’ve distracted myself with a string of short-lived hobbies: gardening, repurposing old furniture that I found on the sidewalk, playing the guitar (today, I am fond of playing Cracker’s “Turn on, tune in, drop out”), everything but what really defined me for so much of my adult life–drinking and being pissed off.  Can those be hobbies?

I’d like to say I don’t know what sparked my latest first-world crisis that seems to have produced more thoughts that others are willing to read, but that would be dishonest.  I’m introspective enough to know what has shot me back out of the cannon.  I can even pinpoint the date–November 8, 2016.

I’ve gained a bunch of weight and started waking up with hangovers again, but it’s not all bad.  Those 55 views (even if some were same viewers going back) are my proof of that. And I am loving some of the material that these viewers produce–stuff about alcoholism, depression, alternative lifestyles.  Some write feel-good poetry.  Some write books.  Some have advanced graphics skills that make my blog look sloppy and primitive (soooo 2003). Give me more, please!

As for the crisis, I’ll deal with it.  I have to.  45 year-old drunks are unsexy.  Where’s that life hacks book, again?  I think I need a glass of cold water and some barbells…