I’m thinking of not writing so much about the Midsummer celebration, more about some things I got to know about my family while I celebrated yesterday with my aunt. I don’t feel like writing about how fucking drunk I got, more about maybe a reason to why I feel mentally bad and have problems with alcohol sometimes..
We’re bad at talking about stuff in our family. My aunt and me feel like the only ones who actually talk about what happens in our family and with our relatives. If something bad happens, they tend to just put the lid on and pretend that everything’s fine.
Some years (or MANY years) ago I first got to know that one of my cousins on my mom’s side of the family had been in trouble with drugs and was in rehab. Yesterday my aunt told me though that it was more mental problems he had, than drug problems. I remember him from when I was younger. I remember him one time showing up at my parents place without a warning. I of course got happy to see him and we hugged. Now yesterday I got to know that he probably had escaped rehab that time, that’s why he showed up at our place. Apparently he still does that..
Anyway, I got to know that he had tried to kill himself when he lived with his parents (my mom and aunts late sister who died about 7 years ago or something). He had made it as a cry for help, cause he knew when my aunt (his mom) was gonna come home from work, and just as she did, he had hung himself in their kitchen and my aunt had found him and cut him down. They rushed him to the hospital and since my aunt (his mom) talked bad swedish, my other aunt had to call the doctors and talk to them and take care of everything on that part.
He was okey for some time, but then he started doing drugs with a girl he was dating. They got a baby and she had to be taken to a fosterhome later cause they couldn’t take care of themselves, much less a kid. I met her only some years ago and she’s really sweet! I hope that she will grow up without alcohol and drugs..
Anyway, so my cousin has a long story dealing with drugs and mental illness, mental hospitals, rehab etc. And just last week, I think, my other cousin (his sister) had told my aunt (the one I celebrated with yesterday) that he had shown up at her place in Östersund. Just out of the blue. He was talking jibberish that he had been saved by Jesus and that he was now perfectly healthy and was gonna live in Östersund. But they found out soon that he had escaped the hospital. His sister tried to make him contact social services and she helped him with meetings and such, but in the end he never showed up. And you can’t force someone. He has no papers and no one ‘cares’ to take him back to a hospital or rehab, so now he’s homeless in Östersund, and alcoholic and probably doing drugs again.
And my granddad was/is an alcoholic. His daughters (my mom and my aunts) had to go look for him during the evenings cause he would be out drinking and they’d find him laying in a ditch, being so drunk that they had to help him home. My aunt says that she still remembers when she was 10 years old and had to go look for her drunk dad in the streets…. it was normal for her!
And my grandmom is aparently on some calming medecine for anxiety and her nerves.
All this information about my family got me sad and a bit confused… but I’m so happy that I know more about it now because it does help me to understand myself; There’s less questionmarks about why I feel mentally bad, why I have trouble sometimes with alcohol. It all feels so scarily calming and ‘okey’ to know now. It’s like I feel like it’s a curse that my family and relatives has been having for so long and when it’s in your blood, you know.. :-/
Alcohol, drugs, mental problems, medecines… I feel like I’m in a whirlpool and my aunts words and story are twirling around me and I have to try to grasp it and understand..
I’m worried that she will call me one day and tell me that my cousin has been found dead somewhere, either of some overdose or suicide..
Why? Why did I have to be yet one to suffer by this curse?
And I also found out that my aunt (the one I met yesterday) was a mistake. She wasn’t meant to be born and that my grandmom still reminds her of that, telling her that she’s a mistake etc. I just can’t see my grandmom say words like that, but apparently she does! Jeez…
I have to stop writing now, I think I got it all out now so I can try to sleep.
I’m going back to stockholm tomorrow and I’m longing..