Half/Whole/Nothing/Everything

It has been some time since my last post, and in the interim a great deal has transpired. For one, and perhaps this is the most crucial to my journey through these experiences, is my family's quasi-acceptance of the idea of schizophrenia in Tavia. This is not entirely the magical solution I had hoped for, but rather brings up yet more sensations of alternative narratives and realities, shaded in colors of insecurity, ignorance, uncertainty, fear, and hope.

In the vortex of this mixture of multi-valent and diverse experiences of reality, lies the deep, deep dread that I am entirely alone in my understanding of my sister, and to some degree, myself. As we move deeper into the exploration of what it means to be a family in 'admission,' that is, in a state of admitting the culturally-agreed-upon label and solution to this issue, it becomes increasingly clear that others' views, memories, ideas, and generally their interest level in the situation all vary greatly from mine. The fear of being ultimately alone, and therefore truly experiencing the thing which I think I may have feared most through my campaign and my fear 'beard' of being somehow insane myself, is now lurking quietly near me. Sadly, I wonder if the ghost of all of this will haunt me, and me alone.

So to start, I air the questions that wind through my head: Did anyone else know the Tavia I knew? Did anyone else care for her as I did, or see her vulnerability? If I ever knew her, was it truly 'her,' or simply a schizo-affective shade of her? How might I feel differently about myself and my family if she were not ill? What parts of me that she appropriated are truly me, and what parts were her? (that is, how much did we intermingle, and how much were we truly separate?)

The very wary familial agreement to label the thing with which we all are dealing does nothing to lay my anxieties (above) to rest. And I think of all the questions, it is the last which truly bothers me the most. The re-reading and re-writing of my past through the lens of an agreed-upon reality of Tavia's illness has allowed me to also re-evaluate the self I have told myself I am.

A short history is required here. As children, Tavia, being three years my elder, was a great influence on me. Furthermore, we were forced to share a room, to both of our dismay and great disgust. We were always together, but it was a miserable pairing. Tavia was brutal, tyrannical, and controlling, yet I truly believe her intentions were no such thing. She explained to me repeatedly that she simply did not understand instructions to act in a 'normal' manner, or what she was doing wrong. Primarily, her weapon of greatest abuse was the idea that I 'copied' her in everything she did, and this constituted a sort of theft of self, as I tried to become her. There are two sides to this claim: the first, she claimed I copied her for any idea tha seemed good or she liked, that is, if I thought of an idea which she liked or loved, she claimed I had stolen it from her before she could think of it or say it. The other side was that if I were to create a different idea and present it, one she did not like or think suitable, she would deride it cruelly. In fact, any difference of opinion or even of something like a drawing, would draw her venomous criticism, including casting aspersions on my abilities, character, and intelligence. It was awful.

Throughout all of this, it seemed clear to me that Tavia was both a great bully, and terribly vulnerable. Either way, it was my job to make sure she stayed stable and ok, as it was me who would bear the emotional hurt and the abuse if she were to sway too far into a violent rage or depression. Her delusions of copying and stealing crept into me in a way I have a hard time describing. Everything in my life seemed to belong to her, every iota of me. And though others saw this, she never said the things in front of them that she said just to me. Telling on her either made it worse or made her so upset and uncomprehending I would relent just to stop her emotional downturns. And so I played along, and my brightness and energy sort of seeped away under constant stress and derision. I became more and more convinced I had nothing to offer and she everything. There was no way out, and I also loved her. It was a strange combination. As much as she did to me, there were definite moments of bonding, of fun, of love and caring (in her very odd way). There were moments where it seemed we could coexist, and being close and young and very intuitive, we seemed to be almost twins. Two who could do the job of a very good one. Perhaps this was due entirely to her illness. She needed a second who could take her through the vagaries of life, and I was stable and well.

As we go through this collective memory revision, it seems that that memory, and the idea of her as a true 'person,' a true personality and character, are also fading. And it frightens me for two reasons (that I can think of at the moment). On the one hand, it wipes away the memory of who I was as a child, very much defined by her and her actions, and on the other hand, it permits me to finally unfurl my idea of myself to include all the experiences she claimed were hers, but were, in fact, mine and mine alone. Her experience was much more alone than I can imagine, I realize, upon looking back now.

So here I am, waffling about and wondering if anyone shared my experience of her, an experience that is 1. now lost and 2. being revised even in myself. It makes me want to cry and scream. That is my experience at the moment.