totlemoc

How the time flies! 

I just noticed the time and realized that it took me 90 minutes to produce the last entry in this journal. Upon rereading it, I notice how little I have achieved in those 90 minutes: it is chaotic, poorly written, full of errors; above all, I cannot see how, proceeding in this manner, I can uncover the whole meaning of what had happened to me, and I am not at all sure that even if I do, doing so will achieve that cathartic liberation for which I am hoping. Instead of making me feel better, this writing is making me feel worse. I finished last night's session by dousing myself with Xanax, despite which I woke up only marginally OK; I may have to resort to Xanax again this morning. Should I persist? Or should I revert to the old tactic of simply trying to forget? That bore its fruit after 8 years, perhaps I can do it again?

The forgetting cure failed because I made a mistake. The mistake was to help my aunt settle in Asia. I lived it here then, she came for a visit, and having visited and liked it, asked me to help her settle down here. Having fallen and broken both wrists, she was no longer able to work and wished to take an early retirement. Her Swedish pension would not start arriving for a few years, but she had some savings on which to live in the meanwhile, and was suing the city for compensation for her accident (she'd fallen into a whole in the sidewalk). Out of the goodness of my heart, I agreed, all the more readily as I was already leaving and on my way to Europe. I arranged for her to move into my apartment, introduced her to all my friends and acquaintances in Asia, my doctors, dentist, lawyer, my travel agent. She was going to be OK here and I was going to be safely away from her, and therefore from the possibility of contact with my family. It seemed to work well until my aunt suffered her psychotic attack and my friends in Asia demanded that I return to take care of her; and I made contact with my family again.

As a consequence of which all, I am left feeling miserable now: not only because I now realize that I must abandon my aunt to her fate; but also because the old wound has opened up and years of careful healing are lost, gone up in smoke. I feel again as if it all happened yesterday.

I know that the forgetting cure works -- eventually.  But the cure is too slow:  I am 47 now, in 8 years I will be 55 and perhaps I will be healed by then, but the original forgetting cure did not feel nice:  the first few years were miserable, only after four or five years did I begin feel normally and the feeling of pain began to recede, come back less and less often.  I am 47 and may perhaps have 25 years to live, am I again willing to settle on a cure which takes 8 years?  Besides, who will guarantee me that the old wounds will not open again after eights years, my memory jigged by further developments (death, inheritance, disease, funerals)?  So, would cathartic writing about what happens be a faster cure? Or more permanent?  I suppose I can try it for a while longer, until I can no longer break through the pain. 

There is one clear lesson in the error I made concerning my aunt: the lesson is that I must allow absolutely no contact with my family at all, no exceptions.  And its corollary is that I must help absolutely nobody from now on.  This is because the mistake I made with my aunt was due to my willingness to be generous and good:  when I resolved to help her settle in Asia, I knew I was taking a risk of running into my family. Looking at it now, I realize I should have refused.  And this is what I will do from now on.  I will distrust the feeling of generous self-sacrifice and refuse.  If i can refuse my aunt, I can refuse anybody.

The relationship between my mother and my aunt continues to puzzle me. Not because I wish to understand my aunt better, after all in a few weeks I am going to lose touch with her entirely; but because I keep returning to the thought that understanding that relationship might shed some light on my mother's character and therefore on what happened between us. The sisters lived apart for many years: my aunt emigrated from Poland to Sweden in 1975; my mother from Poland to America in 1980. For many years they lived apart. When in 1995 my aunt's son died and she became completely alone (her Swedish husband had abandoned her soon after her son's death), I flew out to Sweden to help with the funeral arrangements and took my aunt to live with me.

She didn't get to stay with me for a long time: after about a month she went for a weekend visit to my mother's and the next day my mother called me to tell me that my aunt would remain with her, for her own good, as she needed care. I was guessing that my mother wanted to take care of her treatment, or rather, that she wanted to control it herself. I assumed that she knew what she was doing in part because I had always deferred to my mother, but in part also because I assumed her decision was informed by her professional background. (My mother is a trained psychologist and for many years worked as a counselor in a variety of half-way houses). Nevertheless, I remember reflecting vaguely on the word control at the time, though it did not occur to me then, as it occurs to me now, that the control was not necessarily of my aunt's treatment, or even my aunt, but -- of me.

My family has a peculiar structure: we don't seem to have relationships with each other; instead, each of us relates to my mother first and foremost, and from there everything follows by a kind of relative calculus: if you and my mother like like this, and I and my mother are like that, then the relationship between you and me ought to be like this. The structure is like that of some kind of a monstrous spider web: all threads lead to the monster in the center.

I am certain that this odd structure has not arisen spontaneously, whether my mother is aware of what she is doing or not. Her insistence on moving my aunt to her house may have been part of that policy: to prevent me and my aunt from establishing our own bonds with each other. I can't say I regret the move: my aunt isn't a mean person, but she's helpless in a very tiresome way, and her conversation consists entirely of repeating old jokes and anecdotes. Had she remained with me then, she'd be with me today still. To be entirely honest, I am glad my mother did what she did, and did not object too much at the time.

My aunt remained with my mother for a few years, during which I heard from my mother with increasing frequency complains about my aunt. Understandable complaints: my aunt is lazy, messy, and she has a tendency to tiresome logorrhea. And during her stay with my mother, she suffered her first psychotic attack. Perhaps predictably, my mother's hospitality eventually came to an end and she forced my aunt out of the house and into her own apartment. She did it in the usual way, using other people to do so: it was my father who demanded that my aunt leave, declaring that she must never return. Perhaps it isn't fair of me to give my father no credit for such decisive action, but I have never seen my father take a decisive action without first consulting with my mother; and, myself having taken similar action in the past at my mother's bidding, I know how these things usually work in my family. I am certain my mother's urging was behind my father's action.

Yet, on the very same day my mother visited my aunt in her new apartment in order to keep the lines of communication going. The situation was again the way my mother likes it: my aunt was effectively cut off from my father and me, but still connected to my mother.

Why does my mother persist in maintaining her connection with my aunt? I cannot fathom. Looking now at their correspondence I see how little my mother cares for my aunt's health or well-being and that the two sisters' correspondence consists mostly if small talk, exchanged email jokes, banter, and my mother sending her more photos from her recent Pacific tour. In short, there is no substance in it at all. Why maintain such a relationship? If my mother cannot expect anything practically meaningful from my aunt (as she cannot, my aunt being in no position to offer practical help); and if my mother is not interested in helping her sister (as she has already made clear and her current emails confirm); and if the conversations are nonsense, then -- what is the good of the continuing contact?

Evolutionary Psychologists tell us that small talk is the equivalent of monkeys de-licing each other. Since, obviously, my mother is not being de-liced by my aunt, is my mother's interest in maintaining the relationship an atavistic throw-back? Not if you think what de-licing means: among monkeys, de-licing is an expression of submission. It has been observed that lower ranking monkeys de-lice higher ranking monkeys a lot more than is the case the other way around: de-licing is a public manifestation of submission and enhances the status of the monkey being de-liced. Perhaps also being de-liced gives alpha-monkeys a power trip? Is this what my mother gets out of continuing correspondence with my aunt? A power-trip?

Though I can understand this concept intellectually, emotionally it remains inscrutable to me. It makes a lot of sense to me that Timur would lock Bajazet in a cage and carry him around everywhere he went: Bajazet was, after all, The Lightening: he conquered Albania, besieged Constantinople, exterminated the Serbs at Kosovo and the Hungarians at Nicopolis. Defeating him was something worth bragging about. I can see how that could be a power-trip. But how can my aunt be a power-trip to anyone?

My aunt's de-licing isn't worth anything in practical terms (she has no goods to deliver) and in emotional terms it can only satisfy a faulty -- sick -- brain.

This leaves another question:  why is my aunt doing the de-licing? The answer seems to be that she is lonely.  Really?  Does vapid correspondence with someone who does not care for her a fig help to relieve her loneliness? 

How? 

Last November, I had to fly to Asia in order to take care of my aunt who'd become psychotic.

I was not able to fly immediately as airlines were full.  While waiting for my ticket to process, I contacted my sister, who resides in America, asking her to find out about my aunt's health history.  She replied that she was busy, without a car and therefore housebound, and she was also not in touch with our parents who were traveling in the outback of Australia.  There was, in short, nothing she could do to help.  But she would appreciate it if I updated her regarding my aunt's status regularly. Thank you.

Miffed, I wrote back to her to tell her that as she was not going to help, updating her was not going to be a high priority for me.  I nevertheless, I did send her an update a few days later when, still in Europe, I received the word from Asia that my aunt had slipped into a coma.  I described what I knew of my aunt's condition and concluded by asking my sister to contact the hospital in America where my aunt had once been treated to find out what the diagnosis had been at the time.  My sister wrote back to say that there really was nothing she could do.  And she added:

"I really do not understand how is it was possible for Aunt to be both psychotic and in comma at the same time, but perhaps you should contact Mother directly, though I wish you would not worry her unnecessarily."

My sister was washing her hands off -- and telling me, into the bargain, that I was incoherent and either fabricating or out of my mind.

I decided then that that was going to be the last message I would ever receive from my sister and I blocked her email address.

About three weeks later, after I arrived in Asia, found my aunt out of comma and broadly coherent but still physically incapacitated.  I placed her in temporary care at a retirement facility where she could be looked after, and kept an eye on in the event her psychosis returned, and spoke at length to her acquaintances, neighbors, and doctors.  As I did so I began to realize how serious my aunt's situation was:  she had no friends and no money, she lived in an Asian country where she did not speak the language, she had no health insurance, and the retirement pay which she had told me she was going to start receiving from Sweden turned out to be still un-applied for.  It was a miracle she'd survived her psychotic attack.

While trying to help her out with the application for her Swedish pension I realized that my aunt was not cerebrating well: she was unable to translate parts of the application from Swedish coherently, and asked about her past jobs she could not remember details such as company names.  Her mind wondered off on tangents.

Realizing the seriousness of the situation, I wrote a long email to my mother explaining that my aunt's situation was unsustainable, that in my opinion she could not continue living alone but had to live somewhere where someone could keep an eye on her; and that I could not take her to live with me because I did not have a fixed abode and lived on the road, in hotels for the most part.  My aunt, I continued, had therefore three choices:  a) to remain in the care facility in Asia where I had put her; b) to return to America to live close to my mother; or c) to go to Sweden and throw herself upon the mercy of the Swedish state.  I asked my mother to tell me which of these two plans she wanted me to put into effect. 

I received no reply to this message.

Meanwhile two things happened: first, an old injury in my foot began to hurt so much that I could hardly walk and after seeing doctors I realized that I needed an immediate surgery with a projected 6 weeks recovery period afterwards; which meant that I could not look after my aunt at all; and, secondly, my aunt escaped from the retirement facility, where she'd been looked after, taking an apartment in the city on her own.  (The reason for her escape was that she'd found the sight of the wheelchair bound "depressing").  I then realized that I was probably facing a situation I could not manage.  After all, the situation had been bad enough with my aunt cooperating; but if she were to insist on living on her own, and make such a decision without consulting with me, then I really had no hope of handling the situation. If she were to have another psychotic attack while I was in the hospital or recovering from the surgery, there was a good chance I could not be there for her. 

Then, while monitoring my aunt's email I happened on my mother's email to her in which she made some disparaging remarks about me, reporting for instance, with sarcasm, that asked by my sister to send her updates, I told her I wouldn't, and would my aunt believe it?  She then mused:  I wonder why he hates us so?

At this, the old wound opened up.  The old rancor and loathing returned, the sleepless nights, the hot and sweaty powerless cursing at night.

It was now wholly and completely plain to me that in the current situation I was not protected from the old hurt:  as long as I remained in touch with my aunt, I would be exposed to contact with the rest of my family and the old hurt would come back.  There was no way to remain in touch with my aunt and not be exposed to the danger. 

I realized that had to break off contacts with my aunt as well.

I had, in the course of the preceding ten years, broken off contact with everyone who knew my parents.  None of the people I broke with were close friends, but there were a lot of them and they were a substantial part of my contacts. Doing so meant a radical choice for loneliness, a major disappearing act.  Yet, it was the only way to make sure that my mother would not know where I was and what I was doing; it was the only way to avoid being hurt by my family again.  When my aunt proposed to renew our acquaintance I told her that my terms would have to be that she must not tell my family anything about me.  She agreed and all went well for some time.

Yet, it now turned out, that as long as I continued to know her, I would continue to be exposed to the old hurt and that the only way to forget about it was to break off with my aunt.  I considered that it would look bad, of course:  it would look as if I were washing my hands off her.  Of course my mother and my sister were doing it, and they were not ashamed, so why should I be ashamed of doing so? Who had more duty towards my aunt, her sister or her nephew?

Now, looking through the emails between my mother and my aunt I realized that my mother neither cared a whole lot, nor knew a whole lot about my aunt and her situation.  Nor did she seem to care a lot.  I began to wonder why my aunt bothered to keep up the correspondence and end every email with declarations of her undying love for them.  What was she getting out of the acquaintance? I asked myself with disbelief. 

For, if nothing, then -- why did she bother?