Narcissistic Ramblings

I got to spend part of the day with my darling sister, emmalion, today. She is such a wonderful person for so many reasons, but it’s her toleration of my narcissistic ramblings that proves her strength of character! That’s all beside the point, anyhow. While I love my time with Emma, topics involving the rest of my family always come up in conversation. This is normal, of course, but it makes me realize how terrible my coping mechanism has become. I don’t have the time, nor the will, to properly explain all of the intricacies of my family and our dynamics with one another, but I find that I have to mentally, emotionally, and physically distance myself from them to maintain what sanity and optimism I have.

Today, for instance, I heard about my bedridden mother’s belief that she has been healed by some shaman in Arizona, how my teenaged sister who has stopped going to school is now doing cocaine, how another one of my sisters (aged 22 and in her second semester of college) is trying to get pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby before he begins transitioning into a female, and also how my step-father has only gone to one of his last 12 scheduled shifts.

Every time that I think the spiraling out of control has at least slowed down, it just gets wonkier. My mom’s husband will probably get fired again and be unable to pay rent or bills (again), my youngest sister will end up in jail/hospital/rehab or her depression will get the better of her first, while college sister will get pregnant and/or her asshole of a boyfriend becomes a woman, and this will all drive my poor mother past what is at least her positive state of mind regarding her health and well-being which will cause her disease to flare up and then another attempt at suicide.

My mind can hardly fathom how much more complicated this whole situation is, regardless of speculation about the near-future. I don’t know how else to deal with it all besides compartmentalizing it and avoiding it all together. I’m weak. But it’s been effective. And I’m sure affective, too.