I just settled down to go to sleep. I moved my hand to the right of my pillow and felt one of my oldest teddy bears, Berty. He has a brother, simply known as "Berty's Brother". I remember my grandparents bought me Berty when I was very young, a toddler, or something like that.
The neurons in my brain fired in a pattern that recognised this perceived act of kindness and activated an intense feeling of grief for my grandmother who is, well, she will move on from this world fairly soon. This is the second high-intensity burst of emotion I've had about her in the space of a week. Indeed, such grief is often thinly veiled by anger largely caused by my aunt and all that shit I can't be fucked to type about right now, as I sit here, having to vent on my blog to find some way to cope with this grief overload.
I did my usual methods, too. That worked, but we won't discuss those here. But it helps now, as I write this, I focus on that, too. In this post I am going to try and break down what I am feeling, question myself as to why I feel that way, and ultimately, attempt to derive some comfort from this process.
Grief is the emotion that is the strongest now. When I made the connection between Berty and my Grandmother, it hit me hard. Smashing the veil of anger and apathy I have developed for her because of my aunt, who I blame for this entire state of emotional turmoil, or at least, the premise for the apathy/grief combination.
The time-limited nature of the situation exacerbates the emotion to an extreme level. The fact that there is not a lot of time left for me to do... I don't know what. Anything, I guess, because my Nan doesn't have a lot of time left. That is the driving force behind the emotion that is pushing me to try and prevent myself from making a mistake of inaction that I could regret for the rest of my life. But I don't know what I should do.
Even typing that brings tears to my eyes. The emotion is strong; raw. It comes from the core, unfiltered, the kind of grief that would drive me to weep hysterically and scream at the Universe for the situation I find myself within.
My default state of being regarding my Nan is usually apathy, or anger. I have my reasons. I am not going into that here. But it is interesting to note how quickly that apathetic wall was smashed by pure grief when I connected my Teddy to my grandmother.
I felt an overwhelming urge to protect and love that Teddy, more than usual. I put him atop my pillow and patted him with his brother, saying "you guys stay here. I have to go", as I got out of bed. Looking behind me again to see that they are OK. They are safe.
That is important to me. I have always been emotional about plush toys like teddy bears. There is another example now, that I am thinking of that I will not type here that is bringing me to almost tears, yet again. It seems I am now hyper-sensitive to grief-based emotion spikes.
There is often a delay for me, when a major emotional event happens. I usually feel the emotion much stronger than most, all at once, after a period of apathy. This happened when my Grandfather, Pa, died. I cried so hard I had no tears left, all after having no words or emotion for days after my mum told me he had passed.
Even now I feel extreme grief. I want to cry, I am actively fighting tears as I type this. The grief evolves into anxiety; anxiety for the things in life I hold dear and value. My teddies, my plushies, my cats, my family and my friends. My mother specifically, but now, I have thought of my father.
That was a mistake, to bring him up, because that runs even deeper. He is a powder keg of emotion within me that is, one day, going to explode. For now, the keg is dormant. It needs to be that way for me to cope with my nan.
I don't know what I need to do. I don't know what needs to be done.
I thought I should go and see her and... say I love her, but I think it would make me feel worse. I don't know what to do. It almost feels like doing that would acknowledge she is going to leave this world and the realisation of that is something I am still trying to subconsciously avoid. Almost like I am hiding in my bubble, in my status quo, hoping that nothing ever changes and I can live in my safe space forever.
The anxiety of that bubble bursting terrifies me with greater intensity than anything else. Even death does not hold such a terror over me, I have thought of this subject many times in the past. I would rather die than live in a world feeling the emotions that would surface from the destruction of my bubble.
Self-awareness only helps so much. BPD intensifies and focuses my emotions to extreme levels. I know that. I can understand that, yet it offers almost no comfort to me, experiencing those emotions right now.
Typing this is the only thing that is stopping me from breaking down into tears and succumbing to the Wave of Grief. The aftermath of this grief will smoulder and fester, into further anger and hatred for my Aunt, who has become something of an outlet for all my hatred and rage at my family, and for good reason.
I will make it known here, on my website, that I never hated my nan. I love her very much, I care about her, and I am grieving for the fact that I will lose her soon. I am grieving for the fact that I could not spend time with her because.... of my anxiety, caused by people like my Aunt, and my Aunt's twisted plan to turn my Nan against me.
There it is. Anger. I feel it now. The grief has given way to anger. I think I prefer this. I go over the idea of my nan in my head now and my mind transfers thought into how much I absolutely hate my aunt. There are things I want to type here that I will not, because they are illegal, but just stating that will have to suffice.
I love my Nan.
I care about her.
This entire divide in the family was caused by the aunt who interpreted my message of concern as a personal attack on her, as per standard reaction of a narcissist.
