What's Bothering Me

I've tried to hide it, cover it up, pretend it's not there, make it less important than it is. I've tried to hide my angst by blogging about a visit to the wet market, flavours of my childhood, my evening with a family I adore.

But nothing is working. The thing is this. My sister is in meltdown again. And I'm at the point where I'm not sure how to help. But more than that, I'm not sure I want to help. I'm tired, so tired of it all. I'm tired of being her surrogate parent. I'm tired of shoring up her frailties. I'm tired of taking care of her, in truth.

She lives in Tenerife, Canary Islands. She has done for the past seven years, when she came over at the time I was returning to Hong Kong. She happily took on the running of my business, ultimately almost destroyed it, thankfully managed to sell it. She has had my apartment there rent-free in exchange for taking care of my dog and two cats, whom I had to leave there when I returned to Hong Kong. Now, she wants to leave but she doesn't know where she wants to go. Doesn't know how she'll survive when she gets there. One thing is for certain, wherever it is she ends up, it won't include the use of a free apartment and it's time I stopped supplementing her finances as she's unable to earn enough to live on, even without having to pay rent. In fact the only thing she does know is that she wants to dump all the animals onto me now. After telling me two years ago I couldn't have my dog back because he was more hers, than mine. And accused me of having trapped her with them, including her own dog. I couldn't see the logic in that little detail I'm afraid.

She wants to go into rehab. A private facility, maybe back in the UK. No, she doesn't know how she can pay for it. But she did at one stage say to me: "Once mum is gone I can use the money I get, for it." She's counting the days to our mother's death, to go into rehab?! I can't tell you how sick I felt when I heard that. A few years ago, because my father was strong enough to say 'no' to her, I paid for her to fly back and forth to the UK for therapy and treatment. It cost me a small fortune and she decided she didn't like where it was going because she was told no drinking with the drugs she was prescribed. For a while she took both. And even OD'd on valium and whatever anti-depressant she was on, one night in a drunken depression. Great - talk about stupidity, take drugs to lift the depression then drink to bring it back, all in one go.

Her most recent boyfriend has just left her. But to be honest I'm not sad about it. They are both alcohol-dependent, in different ways. She drinks a lot every day, he drinks every other day to the point of being virtually catatonic. Then the next day he'll have nothing. When he's not drinking, he still encourages her to drink. When he's drinking, she encourages him by being there when he needs to be taken home. I tried to explain co-dependency to her while I was there, when I witnessed this for the first time. I tried to explain enabling destructive behaviour in each other. She just got drunk, and angry at me.

So now she wants rehab for her alcoholism. Oh, sorry, no, she's not an alcoholic, she says. Because she only drinks in the evening. Drinks until the house is dry then goes down the road to the nearest bar and drinks any money she has away (yes, I realise I'm enabling her to do that). Drinks to the point that in the early hours of one morning, recently, a stranger found her on the pavement near home, unable to get back to the apartment. He picked her up and got her home. I still don't think she realises how lucky she was, that it was that particular stranger who found her. But no, she's not an alcoholic because she 'controls' her drinking she tells me. I breathed deeply, counted to ten and then proceeded to tell her that she is totally out of control and all she has is some structure to her alcohol-dependency, but absolutely no control over it whatsoever.

The arrows of accusation were fired out at me. You can never understand, you have never had a problem with alcohol. Well, actually, I understand better than she thinks, because she's talking to someone who, 10 years ago, used to have a bottle of vodka in her desk at work. She then said, I never saw you drink, as though only those you see drinking, have a drinking problem. I told her, not everyone makes a show of their weaknesses. Another arrow, well then when did you give it up? When I saw what it was doing to someone I cared about. Someone I wanted to help more than I wanted to help myself by leaving. I actually didn't touch a drop for over five years. And only recently have I taken to having a social drink once in a blue moon, and only with one person.

So, she believes she'll walk into a rehab clinic and they will 'cure' her. Like flipping a switch. I tried to explain that any switch has to be flipped by her own desire to stop this self-destruction. To first of all take ownership of it and deal with it. No one can do it for her. My sister can find responsibility in everything and everyone else, for her failures, for her drinking, for what she doesn't have. Her ex-boyfriend got married recently and they are expecting their first baby. She tells me that should have been her. I said, it's not you Rhona because he didn't want to spend his life with the likes of you, not the way you are at the moment. So it's because of x, y and z that she drinks, all external factors. Truth is, even when in the happiest periods of her life, she has reached for the bottle.

Alcoholism. As I've said, I've dealt with it before. I've been pulled down in its clutches because I cared. I've been almost destroyed financially and emotionally, because I cared. I cared enough to put time and resources into getting that person the help he needed. And which he ultimately threw back in my face, every single time. I cared enough to believe I could make enough of a difference to his life to make him want to change. I was wrong. I just can't do that again. Maybe I'm failing her. Maybe this IS the time she'll make it happen. Maybe I'm stealing her future from her by not just paying for her rehab, paying for somewhere to stay, paying for a new start for her, taking all her responsibilities away.

But I want to have my own life now. I want to make my own plans, and they don't include looking after her. For the past seven years they have, directly. And for many years before that, she had an impact on my savings. I will have to make some decisions about my animals (though I refuse to take her dog), some of which will break my heart. But I know what I have to do for my beloved Lupo, for him to have a life of quality, and sadly that means not being with me. One of the cats couldn't make the trip back here, he's getting on and is a little frail and the journey from Hong Kong all those years ago nearly did him in then. But I know I can make whatever decisions I have to.

Am I being heartless? Should I be looking after her, and out for her, like I have been doing? Is it fair to turn my back now? Am I going to end up one more reason she will use, to excuse her own self-destructive nature?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The old grey donkey, Eeyore stood by himself in a thistly corner of the Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things.

Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and sometimes he thought, "Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch as which?" and sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about.

Update 16 April - she listened !!! (back with the co-dependent alcoholic though) :

hiya fion...............All is ok here at the moment, went sailing yesterday and had to do a capsize!! All good fun though and better than spending the day in the friggin pub!! Me n kirk are on day 4 of no drinking!!!! Well the odd beer but literally the odd one so no drunkeness and what a difference it feels. Soooooooooooo much better and I so prefer it this way!!!!! Mind is sharper, not so tired and much more fun being sober!!!!