[Dawn]

Hi Benjamin,
I've just this minute finished your book for the second time and am having some really good thoughts. I can't remember reading the bit about your experience in the desert when you connected with your mother/the empty chair the first time I read it, did I just miss it out or block it out, not sure. I found it very moving and wanted to connect to my sister at that moment in the same way, not sure if or how I can but hadn't consider addressing her before, perphaps I need to.
All the negative experiences I've ever had where I usually freak out big time, cry and cast about in vain for a way of coping are all just a repetition of the same projections??
I have set my life up to deal with my hurt I think, everyday I deal with other peoples difficulties and life and death confrontations and how to help them come to terms with what they are facing, I physically nurse them through their paths to dying and feel I make a difference, but afterwards can't really face up to going back to do the bereavement visits because I no longer make any difference the deed is done, dead and buried as it were, nothing else for me to do??
I feel my mum and dad had a separate life with my sister that I am not privy to, am I jealous. Do I miss the comfort of a sisterly confidente but never askowleged it, do I make a connection with the people who are dying because I know they are dying, do they hold an answer in my mind, I feel useful, I feel, I can't think of the word, justified as a person as a being because that is what I do?? What?
Its up to me to stop any upset reaching my parents as that could have jeopodised my survival that is what I thought after reading your book and then that just got built on as I've got older, to try and make everything alright, keep things as stable as possible otherwise, otherwise what? All hell would let loose,? Trying to keep equilibrium in everything is jolly hard work and I reach a stage when I can't do it anymore, then there is no point to me, down times, I regroup and start again only to follow the same route. I need to embrace it all not push it away but again how do I do this when the original didn't have a language, I don't know how to get at it all, I suppose I want it all now this instant, as the ideas arrive then I want them solved, I know this isn't possible really and its a long old job, but 50 odd years is a long old time to be 'at it'
I have sometimes thought I couldn't carry on with it all but its not an option, the guilt would be too overwhelming to ever contemplate such a way out
I have a brother who I rarely see and have never discussed any of this with, its always ever just been thoughts about me and my mum and dad and their baby and recently having seen her as my sister, how do I relate to a sister? I don't know. I have a real good friend who I have recently considered might be a substitute sister, and I have felt cross with her recently but don't really know why, she hasn't done anything to deserve that projections? Similarly I go through times of being cross with my current partner and he hasn't done anything either but I somehow have a deep instinct not to run from them so this is where my unconscious mind really wants me to be, but what do I do, how do I find my way through?
The thoughts are going now, sorry to ramble, and apologies but if they reemerge I'll have to come and ramble again. I feel I need to read the book again as it seems to be offering me some answers.
Thanks for reading this,
Best Wishes,
Wendy,
Dawn was my sisters name, is my sisters name xxxx

[sunshinegirl]

I can understand your other life away from your parents and sister. It gives you the opportunity to know yourself better, it stretches you and you have an outlet for your compassion.

Which you may not have received or developed with your parents.

I also have a good female friend who is more my sister than my sister. I don't get cross with her but I do often wonder about the dynamics of our friendship, as I do find it easier to assist her in a time of difficulty than my own sister.

I believe it's all to do with their perception of me, in reality I am a stranger to them as much as they are strangers to me. There is a distance never talked about between us all which stems from their unacceptance that I left physically in distance many years ago, and return infrequently.

This dislike they have had that I left there immediate space is one of abandonment. They essentially felt I abandoned them, both my parents, sister and best friend at that time. They all have this issue with me, yet they don't speak of it, but use it passive/agressively. The end result is that they choose to leave me out of the group(s), the more they did that then the more I felt disregarded. It's a vicious circle. I had to understand that they were more hurt at my leaving them 25 years ago than I was at leaving for greener pastures with a sense of adventure. I didnt consider for a moment at that time that they may have felt the wrench more than I, and so were hurt more so at that time than I have been by their later behaviour. Perhaps compassion is easier to administer when it is more readily accepted.