The card stands out for me recently because of a very complicated situation with my own family. My immediate family involves five people. So the card has an extra emotional aspect to it for me because each one of those cups represents a member of my family. Each one of those relationships has been deeply damaged. I’m at a loss for how we got here and how to move forward.
Things started to become evident to me after I woke up out of the delirium I experienced in 2023. Shortly after becoming fully conscious and understanding what was going on around me, I noticed my family was behaving very differently towards me. It was a surprise to me because I was laying in bed, unable to even sit up in the bed without having to be propped up, and I was starting to feel that my family didn’t take the situation as serious as it really was. There were a lot of dismissive comments made. The vibes I got seemed so out of place considering what I had been through. Visits became more difficult. So difficult to the point that I finally just asked to be left alone.
Of course this didn’t sit well with certain members of the family, but I was tired of explaining the same thing over and over again. It was causing me a lot of stress. The visits were always a lot of emotional work for me and given what I had been through and what I would have to do in order to get better, to rehabilitate, I just couldn’t afford to keep trying to justify the way I felt. I needed to focus on me. My entire life before the medical crisis, I was old faithful to every one of them, at some point of their lives. And when the time came when I needed someone to depend on, someone to see the mountain ahead of me and not be afraid to be a cheerleader or be a support, I was abandoned. I was literally abandoned by some, and emotionally abandoned by all. It seemed they didn’t understand how sick I really was.
There are a lot of questions about why I had gotten sick in the first place. Even more questions about my treatment and maltreatment while I was in the hospital. Why didn’t my family fight for me? Why did they let me lay there and let my hair and skin deteriorate the way it did? Why did I wake up and have to spend three years trying to rehabilitate my very damaged skin while folks would gather around my bed and talk about my looks, my condition and my weight but not lift a single solitary hand to help remedy the situation. It was clear the facility wasn’t going to do it, so why didn’t my family step in?
I found myself getting more and more agitated and aggravated by visits that seemed to focus on trying to make me feel like the whole thing was exaggerated, and I was just being dramatic. When I look back on my medical records, I mean, it was dramatic! My systems were failing. A particular family member actually said “I just don’t understand why you’re not up and walking around by now, they should be able to give you a couple pills and you be good to go.” This was said maybe four months into this hospitalization. There were several comments made that seemed to question whether I was “actually” as sick as I was saying. I just couldn’t understand why everyone had been so dismissive. There seemed to be a lack of concern for my condition, and it was rarely talked about as the terrifying ordeal that it really was.
It was a devastating decision to tell my family not to come and visit me anymore. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, but it was necessary one. Yesterday when I was doing my daily card for reflection, I received the Thoth Five of Cups - Disappointment. And because I don’t use this deck a lot, I was really struck by the word disappointment. Of course, there are a spectrum of meanings for each card, but when I sat to reflect with it yesterday, I realized that at the bottom of all of the complicated feelings and all the questions I have about why they acted the way they did, there was just plain old disappointment. It’s deep disappointment, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just like, “Wow, how could you guys just leave me out there like that?” I’m not a tit for tat, scorekeeper type of person, but after a while, sitting up here alone, I started to think you know, at some point in all of their lives I had been somebody that was there for them in a way no one else had been. I had made myself available, I could be counted on to care.
I don’t know where things go from here. I just know that I’m not going to continue to expose myself to the type of dismissive disregard that was eating up these visits. I understand that for some, they won’t feel that bridges can be rebuilt. I’m prepared for that eventuality. But what I know for sure is that when I needed their support, it wasn’t available. So I’m not really concerned about needing anything in the future. I was shown very clearly that my life held no real emotional value for them. When it came down to it, all their cups were empty of any kind of care or concern for me, and I was left to figure it out alone.
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