I saw one psychiatrist who, after listening to me blather for a session and a half, started a rampage of diagnoses. In amongst these was sociopathology, based on the fact that when it comes to inter-personal relationships, I tend to lack remorse or the general sense of what is right and wrong.
I have an overbearing habit, and another of dining and ditching. I take a lot, and then I can walk away from any one, at any time, for any reason, without looking back. I can craft words meant to stab hearts and smile while delivering them, guilt-less.
Honestly, this is half-true.
As I’ve gotten to know me, I’ve come to realize that my cutting narrative can only really come from one place, a world crafted solely of self-protectionism. It’s evident in most romances I’ve had, relations with family and I fear, one day, I’ll end up with the guarantee of being alone every Saturday night because of it.
But realization leads to corrective behaviour, right?
In truth, I don’t have the voice inside of me that says what is right or wrong in regards to how I treat others. I have merely a ruler created by what society has had me witness. I feel guilt, at times, when I assure myself that I should because other, normal people would. My soul is occasionally crushed by the weight of shoulds, but I still don’t have that voice.
Sometimes, I think hearing that missing voice before I took steps away from people, before my face twisted in rage, might have saved a lot of bridge arson. Sometimes, I think that I would have a completely different life if I had the opportunity to hear the words before I said them, to know what their effect would be, and to choose not to because I felt that they were wrong.
It’s just easier for now to keep the damageables at arms’ length.
This is why I don’t have much of a relationship with family. I have a mother, three sisters, a brother, two grandfathers, cousins and an aunt – all of whom I rarely speak with. It’s easier than having to put up with their imprefections and my overwhelming need to tell them exactly what wrongs they are commiting at any point of any day.
I don’t regret this. Wistfully – usually during holidays – I sometimes wish things could be different, but I know that they can’t. After this person I am was made, after I was created to be untrusting and wary, it’s too large a leap to hold my tongue and believe that people are not disappointing assholes down in their cores. More people who will abandon me. Or abandon me again.
I kept quiet for too long, you know? I quietly let unjust things take place for nearly 20 years and I don’t have the filter anymore – it’s been uninstalled.
But some things, I worry for. They nag me, these parts of me that aren’t strong enough to just be with family and friends. They make me think of what I’m missing out on.
Or what I might have had a hand preventing.
As of two weeks ago, two of my three sisters were pregnant. Both under 20, both with their own demons and familial strife to deal with. Both excited, both replanning their futures much in the same form of excited bliss that I do during manic phases. They were both going to be mommies and that meant that everything, all of the shit they’ve already had to live with, all of the mistakes and wrongs committed by and against them, would be erased.
They were going to be maternal, simply responsible to another person – someone who would love them intrinsically and wholly.
My baby sister – the youngest baby sister, because I’m the oldest – lost her baby. And it breaks my heart a little, even though the logic is missing as to how a 15-year old going through pregnancy (and childbirth and rearing and all of the piss, puke and shit of parenthood) might be an okay scenario. I know it’s for the best. And I know how much she’s hurting.
I wonder if I had been there, if I hadn’t walked out the door at her age, protecting myself and becoming an adult far before time meant for me to, if she would be in this situation. Would she have gotten pregnant? Would my blunt nature and my openness have dulled the need to play with fire and get burned?
I have no idea. But I know that of anyone, I might be the someone who gets her most – someone entirely able to understand her need to be selfish and mourn, and be a brat in other people’s eyes, maybe, but mostly to curl up into herself until she’s capable of standing firmly on two feet. I wasn’t much older than her when I lost my first glimpse of motherhood.
Maybe me not leaving would have saved her from this present, but maybe the guilt I feel about keeping a distance from her family and the heartbreak I feel for her can be remedied.
Today, for the first time since she was three, I saw my baby sister.
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