Keeping Secrets

Yesterday seemed liked one of the longest on record and saddest.
I  got a message from my sister, my brother was in the hospital again- I wasn't quite sure what had happened. He called her at three in the morning sounding very incoherent. As I write this, I feel I am  betraying some sick family secret I need to protect - I have done my whole life.

Obviously I have a need as a writer, a human being to relate and not stay in a cave anymore about this.
I know millions of people experience this- it is just that I have been so well trained to keep secrets.
I don't  want to carry so many anymore, the load weighs too heavy. I don't know what normal is sometimes.Yesterday I felt like I was hallucinating being around my mother and brother. It is not that I don't love them, I just can't play their pretend game in life and haven't in so many years.

I picked my mom up yesterday morning to take to the hospital to see my brother. Talking about everything but what was in front of us- I was going insane. Radio gets turned up louder as she droned on and on about the nothingness of life to avoid any real feelings. I do not do well with that on the best of days.

  He was in the hospital because he had taken too many pills.This is his fourth time in a hospital/rehab for  similar things.( Ray and I have admitted him three) I am feeling every ounce right now, not pretending. It hurt to see him paranoid, asking me if everyone could read his thoughts. If I could read his thoughts. Talking about the transmitters in his brain. My tears flow as the brother I love so dearly was someone I didn't recognize. He looked like a homeless man, wild eyed, crazed... confused, frightened, disheveled. Not the one I knew. Where did he go? Even writing this seems inconceivable to me. How can this be, it can't be true.

Earlier in the morning when I first called my mom to ask how my brother was- my usual question, I already knew... my sister already told me. But my mothers answer as usual, "Oh, he's fine."I blew a fuse. I was so tired of hearing he was fine. Fine is not calling an ambulance at 2 am going in the front yard barefoot in your underwear -waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Fine is not coming in on Mothers Day in a suit jacket- only and  your underwear on under it. Others acted like it was perfectly normal. I haven't been in a family situation in years, I was freaking out.

I love my brother. I have done everything I can to do- to get him help through the years. When there is so much denial surrounding the situation- it is a difficult to do this. I am worn down
from trying, caring, not knowing what to do, and most of all being his mommy. The letting go is the hardest part. I am  about six years older  than him, (ever since I was about twenty- I have been with Ray) I have felt like his parent. Getting him out of jams, so many things then we don't talk for long periods of time. This past one was in November - he went off his medication and I told him his behavior changed, he needed help. Immediately he cut me off. Boundaries aren't cool in my family. Saying how you feel can take a punishment of five years and upwards at times. I know, I have paid it with many of my siblings. I have not been a popular gal by any stretch.

I was talking to Ray about the face I show most of the time- usually smiley.
I really feel  like I have been a Warrior in battle for so long and I want to lay down  the gauntlet and just live my life in peace. I no longer need to prove I am strong. I know who I am- what I am capable of. Coming from this crazy making family that I have felt the need to protect- for God knows what reason. It's what  we were trained to do, and trained well. Protect the sickness at all costs. Yesterday, what I heard the whole day from my mother : How sick everyone is, with illness, death, disease, hopelessness. Hope we all don't die from some weird disease that's passed down in the family. My energy level was plummeting from not being able to grab some food all day, my brothers paranoia, and my moms cheery disposition.

What I took away from it-  I left this madness. I made a conscious choice many years ago to work my butt off and flee.To feel alone, frightened, not ever knowing where the road would lead- running wildly into the night,  just find my way the best I knew how. I could not breathe with these limited beliefs I grew up with. This fear, anger, shut down-ness.

Now I need to know I did my best. Yesterday I showed up, I got my brother into a facility again after the Hospital. I sat with him all day and listened to my Mother drone on and on about our impending health crisis to come. Later  that evening Ray and I went back and brought him clothes and essentials. He was calmer, now I need to be. It's time to let other siblings take over for awhile. I love my brother, but I need to let him do his work, and I need to do mine.