Hey everyone. Thank you for your posts, it's been a rought couple of days.
I'm alright but it's taken a lot of meditation and working through stress. It's been lovely having my folks here but I always reach a point (whether they are here or I visit them) after 3 days where I start to feel ill. Emotionally ill is the only way I can put it. I think it's partly that empath thing where I just don't get enough time alone and they have these intense and fully charged energies that I just absorb.
I'm my famiiy's sounding board. I work in family support and I end up spending my time with everyone counselling them. My siblings are the same. They all have complex and quite unhealthy relationships with my parents that nobody handles well. There are a load of things going on with has made my dad's OCD worse and he is intensely negative a times. My mum can't cope with it all and feels voiceless and there is a heavy depression over her.
I really empathise with them all but we go over the same ground again and again and nothing changes. I suggest the same strategies, support etc again and again and still nothing changes......
I decided to stop doing it. I can't keep on in this role and when they leave or I leave them I'm just broken. I feel conflicted and guilty as I love them dearly but I know that being around them all the time is not healthy for me. I makes me feel like I'm buried under all these emotions and I'm losing control. Not good in the early days of sobriety.
BOUNDARIES.... I need to put them in place and stick to then. With love. Protect my own well-being. I cannot be the fixer of all things and part of what everyone is dealing with right now is a continuation of poor boundaries/attitudes in their own relationships. They have to address that themselves.
Thanks for letting me vent. They are away tomorrow and I just need time alone to put myself back together. Gabe xxxx