Struggling emotionally today. It's my sister's birthday today and she would have been 49. This year it will be 30 years since she died. Instead of putting on a brave face or trying to squash my emotions I've just been to the work loos and had a proper cry. Red-faced now but feel better. This is progress for me - actually feeling stuff!!! It's so sad. I still miss her. Been doing a lot of psychological work on myself since doing LL - have never stopped really, despite starting to comfort eat again - and have realised so clearly that for me, she was the mum I never had. My biological mother has narcissistic personality disorder (I've only just discovered what that is and it's a relief to know her weirdness has a name) and has never been warm or caring towards me and probably never will be.
Some examples? (I have HUNDREDS of these)
I stood on a rusty tent peg in the garden when I was about eight and slashed my foot open. She slapped me for being so stupid and told me I'd probably get lockjaw, but didn't get me any medical help.
After the very traumatic birth of my first child I was readmitted to hospital with haemorrhaging and double incontinence, and once the doctor arrived, after waiting hours in A&E, the first thing she did was demand of him whether she would be able to claim on her insurance for the holiday she was missing because of me.
She spilled a cup of hot tea in a cafe and it accidentally splashed all up my younger daughter's leg (when she was an infant). She sat there as if nothing had happened while I begged her to ask someone for cold water and tried to strip my daughter's tights off her scalded leg. She ignored me, so I had to carry my screaming daughter to the kitchen, where a kind lady found me ice.
IS IT ANY WONDER I'M A BIT OF A MESS?!!!!
My sister was so kind and supportive and emotionally available. When she died, I lost my mum, kind-of.
This is so sad. But also healing in a way. No wonder I'm a bundle of neuroses and insecurities as well as being a perfectionist and overachiever lol.
Feel rubbish about myself today though - am huge. Ugh. Anyway... tomorrow is the big day I start Cambridge, so hopefully this is the last time I will be feeling so big and heavy and clumsy and ponderous.