Dear Denise, I am so sorry for the losses of your brother and your sister in law - these two losses are so deeply connected, aren't they? I reflect on your compassion and on "the stories we tell ourselves" in order to survive. Sometimes living in reality is unbearable. You showed your sister in law love and acceptance. This is a great act of human kindness and caring.
I wrote this yesterday and then fretted about it later in the day. Was it right to share this story? Thank you for caring for me, Donna, and comforting me. I'm glad I shared.
I am so glad too. Our stories are sometimes so painful and mixed up with shame and covering up shame. I know this to be true in my own family - isn't this a universal truth? The best any of us can do is to keep showing up with compassion and you told us what that looks like. Thank you.
Yep, that shame is such a silencer and the barrier to help and support. I have been asking myself since her death about any messes in my life that need attention. It's been my own call to action to make sure I'm okay.
Joan and your brother were so fortunate to have you in their lives. You seem to be an exceptionally perceptive and generous person. We should all have the great good fortune to have a Denise in our lives. I am so glad you were able to maintain a relationship with them that can now bring you peace.
It's been so helpful to write this out with all of you. I'm really grateful for all these supportive comments. In the past few days, I have begun to understand how tortured Joan was and how much she blamed herself for my brother's death. She's now at peace, too.
Dear Denise, my friends and I were just discussing the power of listening and how listening is the beginning of finding remedies and solutions— especially when we are faced with things we don’t experience first hand. Your loving recounting of your sister-in-law’s story touched and moved me. When my brother died, my sister-in-law chose to cut off her relationship with me and with my mother. It’s been painful. I’ve failed at having compassion for her. I see from your story that love is hard, and it’s a choice. At least I can have compassion for myself and be realistic about my limits. Thank you for sharing this.
Oh, Phyllis. It's all just so hard and so complicated. For me, you hit on the key -- compassion. I could feel better when I included compassion. You also remind me of something that's important about compassion; we must be compassion for ourselves. Sometimes, we keep love in our heart for a relationship that's not present in our life. That decision to the keep the love matters very much. It's what you're doing.
I know two people like Joan. Yes, it does steal any opportunity for a beautiful life at home. But it isn't just their clutter habit that steals it, it is their siblings and loved ones, who won't advocate for help or improvements. It is a group illness, not just a Joan illness. The Joans in my sphere have subtle brain problems, with visual-spatial processing problems and subtle memory deficits that make it hard for them to track items, put them away, or remember where they keep them. Hence the endless clutter. Their siblings don't love them enough to advocate for a neurology visit; they love themselves and their comfort more than they love their sister Joan. It is sad and it is wrong. I am sorry that your brother had to live in an oppressive place, for the sake of their comfortable clique. That's not what family is for. btw, executive functioning weakenesses would have made it hard for Joan to organize herself enough to show up to your lunches on time and keep to a schedule. She tried twice as hard as you did to get there, and she still made it half an hour late. She could have gotten an executive functioning coach. Some people with challenges similar to Joan's have told me that there are medications that calm down the ADD part of their brain and help them initiate tasks much more easily and keep to a schedule better. There is no cure-all, but there are helps and improvements that Joans siblings (and doctor) should have advocated for, before she even met your brother. May we all advocate for help and healing for our siblings and loved ones, and not sentence their roommates to an oppressive home.
I think there's so much more to Joan's story before we met her that we don't know that adds many, many layers to her story. She was in distress which caused distress. Her friends tried but Joan refused. Her family system seemed to be its own dysfunctional mess, very worried about a rift caused in the relationship by any kind of honesty or intervention. Just painful for so many for so many reasons.
I'm so sorry for Joan and for your brother. The US needs a better way to address messy family systems like that. Colleges have dorm moms; the US could use block moms. eg social workers whose job it is to live nearby and work for honesty and intervention, so that people caught in the middle, like yourself and your brother, don't suffer or languish in poor housing conditions. Our current social, medical and legal systems just aren't competent to cope with those family systems.
Dear Denise, I am so sorry for the losses of your brother and your sister in law - these two losses are so deeply connected, aren't they? I reflect on your compassion and on "the stories we tell ourselves" in order to survive. Sometimes living in reality is unbearable. You showed your sister in law love and acceptance. This is a great act of human kindness and caring.
I wrote this yesterday and then fretted about it later in the day. Was it right to share this story? Thank you for caring for me, Donna, and comforting me. I'm glad I shared.
I am so glad too. Our stories are sometimes so painful and mixed up with shame and covering up shame. I know this to be true in my own family - isn't this a universal truth? The best any of us can do is to keep showing up with compassion and you told us what that looks like. Thank you.
Yep, that shame is such a silencer and the barrier to help and support. I have been asking myself since her death about any messes in my life that need attention. It's been my own call to action to make sure I'm okay.
Joan and your brother were so fortunate to have you in their lives. You seem to be an exceptionally perceptive and generous person. We should all have the great good fortune to have a Denise in our lives. I am so glad you were able to maintain a relationship with them that can now bring you peace.
It's been so helpful to write this out with all of you. I'm really grateful for all these supportive comments. In the past few days, I have begun to understand how tortured Joan was and how much she blamed herself for my brother's death. She's now at peace, too.
Dear Denise, my friends and I were just discussing the power of listening and how listening is the beginning of finding remedies and solutions— especially when we are faced with things we don’t experience first hand. Your loving recounting of your sister-in-law’s story touched and moved me. When my brother died, my sister-in-law chose to cut off her relationship with me and with my mother. It’s been painful. I’ve failed at having compassion for her. I see from your story that love is hard, and it’s a choice. At least I can have compassion for myself and be realistic about my limits. Thank you for sharing this.
Oh, Phyllis. It's all just so hard and so complicated. For me, you hit on the key -- compassion. I could feel better when I included compassion. You also remind me of something that's important about compassion; we must be compassion for ourselves. Sometimes, we keep love in our heart for a relationship that's not present in our life. That decision to the keep the love matters very much. It's what you're doing.
I know two people like Joan. Yes, it does steal any opportunity for a beautiful life at home. But it isn't just their clutter habit that steals it, it is their siblings and loved ones, who won't advocate for help or improvements. It is a group illness, not just a Joan illness. The Joans in my sphere have subtle brain problems, with visual-spatial processing problems and subtle memory deficits that make it hard for them to track items, put them away, or remember where they keep them. Hence the endless clutter. Their siblings don't love them enough to advocate for a neurology visit; they love themselves and their comfort more than they love their sister Joan. It is sad and it is wrong. I am sorry that your brother had to live in an oppressive place, for the sake of their comfortable clique. That's not what family is for. btw, executive functioning weakenesses would have made it hard for Joan to organize herself enough to show up to your lunches on time and keep to a schedule. She tried twice as hard as you did to get there, and she still made it half an hour late. She could have gotten an executive functioning coach. Some people with challenges similar to Joan's have told me that there are medications that calm down the ADD part of their brain and help them initiate tasks much more easily and keep to a schedule better. There is no cure-all, but there are helps and improvements that Joans siblings (and doctor) should have advocated for, before she even met your brother. May we all advocate for help and healing for our siblings and loved ones, and not sentence their roommates to an oppressive home.
I think there's so much more to Joan's story before we met her that we don't know that adds many, many layers to her story. She was in distress which caused distress. Her friends tried but Joan refused. Her family system seemed to be its own dysfunctional mess, very worried about a rift caused in the relationship by any kind of honesty or intervention. Just painful for so many for so many reasons.
I'm so sorry for Joan and for your brother. The US needs a better way to address messy family systems like that. Colleges have dorm moms; the US could use block moms. eg social workers whose job it is to live nearby and work for honesty and intervention, so that people caught in the middle, like yourself and your brother, don't suffer or languish in poor housing conditions. Our current social, medical and legal systems just aren't competent to cope with those family systems.
We really do need to better support individuals and family systems so that the painful situations transform into healing ones.