BanjoCat Creative

Terra Date: May 6, 2026  |  By being_human

There’s really never a right time to talk about subjects that people would rather forget. 

I have thought about this for a long time. I’ve waited for a brother/sister to reach out in an attempt to honestly understand what happened to us. To demonstrate some sort of interest and concern for a sister that labored to hold our house of cards together and give everyone a winning hand in the end. The effort of caring for our mother was not what destroyed me. It was the “trust that broke the family trust”.

That family of eleven. We should have been able to come together and support the last days of our mother with dignity and shared sacrifice – but we didn’t. It all went sideways and I was left sitting in the wreckage of a slow motion accident t-boned by misplaced trust.

In lieu of unity something else took hold. Something dark and incomprehensible. A specter that has accompanied the family from the beginning or so it would seem. It drifts under the surface of our everyday life. It roams in the shadows unacknowledged but well fed. The time of testing was put before us and the specter located a preexisting fault line. It wasted no time burrowing itself deep within this canyon of shared childhood traumas.

You always knew it was there, that it existed, but hope would make you blind until the inevitable day when you felt the ground start to shake. When it hits it hits hard. Then and only then will it have your full attention. The specter, watching the dust fall and smiling with delight, pokes at the fresh wounds and watches as the fragile family structure begins to crumble. It was a direct hit. And, as in war, the civilians standing in the safe zone do not fully comprehend the wounds sustained by those in the middle of the conflict. They simply choose to look away.

Over the years I have sent emails that went unanswered. Peace offerings that went up in smoke. Is there still a chance to understand and heal this mess?

This is the question I will explore. Writing in this journalistic style seems the only method I have left to process these demons into the light. I need to wrap this untidy mess up and be done with it. Perhaps the reader can relate with what follows.

In this family, my family, the expression of challenging feelings is viewed as self-indulgent and melodramatic. Feelings are a sign of weakness and shame. Anger and confusion as a response to being manipulated and managed like a puppet instead of a person is inappropriate and “unhinged”. Thinking outside the box is not permitted and is dangerous. A threat is defined as any question asked that creates discomfort for the bearer of the fractured ego that interprets it as an accusation of stupidity. Relationships are only as good as they are useful. Honesty is a knife instead of an equalizer of truth. Lies are acceptable as long as there is a scapegoat to carry them. Betrayal is a virtue.

Real love should be as deep as an ocean but here, in this jagged circle of thorns, it stagnates in a puddle of fear that has mastered the art of self deception in exchange for the false cover of self preservation.

I have been discarded without conscience. Dead to a family that holds itself above reproach regardless of its willful infliction of well-intentioned cuts upon another soul. This is somehow a just punishment for the service I rendered to family. That service being the full-time care of our mother until her death in 2024.

I have been told only that I am “the problem”. The difficult one. It’s an all too convenient way to bury “the problem” (me). This turning away may release some anxiety and disabuse them of the notion they may be, at least in part, culpable for the twisted outcome of events. Look away if you must, I say, but the fingerprints remain on the objects of injury you held in your hands. These enigmatic objects still hold the energetic signature of the unadulterated story. You can try to move on from it but it has been recorded in the ether and will come back around one day like a boomarang.

The complete lack of interest in “my side of the story” has made it abundantly clear that the majority of my siblings consider me persona non grata. They will say outwardly honorable things but act in the opposite manner entirely. All I can glean from the lack of communication is that somehow what I sacrificed was not a sacrifice. It was turned upside-down. It was instead selfish, weak, and greedy. I “chose” to do it, therefore, I should have had no expectations of my very large family to share in the sacrifice that was taking care of our beautiful mom and preventing her greatest fear from coming true. To be displaced from the home she loved and processed into a “home” for the elderly. Essentially, abandoned by her children and dying alone.

Being a care-giver is not for the faint of heart. There are decisions to make on a daily basis. Wounds that need healing. Wounds of the body and of the mind/spirit. You must pay close attention to vital signs and make sure personal hygiene is prioritized in an effort to maintain health and dignity for the elder that has become totally dependent on you for everything. The soiled bed linens must be routinely washed. There are medications to dispense and side-effects to mitigate. There is medical advocacy that requires research so as to not fall prey to one-size-fits-all medical care that blurs contraindicated lines. There are healthy meals to plan and to make in full realization and intention that you do these things for the love and health of another.

There is much energy spent on creating an environment that is orderly, clean, and comfortable. Each day is a day of service. You have precious little time to attend to your own needs. As a result, if this routine goes unbroken for months/years at a time, you begin to fall apart in every way imaginable.

You might think this is much like being a mother so it’s not that big of a deal. That would be true only if you were caring for a disabled child. The stress of caring for a healthy growing child and an elder that is moving closer to death is not an honest comparison. One is thriving, learning, and progressing while the other is weakening, degenerating, and stagnating.

Most of my siblings had no clue nor were they interested to know the details of our mother’s condition and what I was dealing with on a day to day basis. Any information that was passed to them never came from me which was odd considering I was her full-time live-in caregiver.

And so, as one judged by an uninformed jury of my siblings, I have been left to languish in this odd debtors prison. The charges spun up by the phantom fears of one terrified voice struggling to dominate the situation. This domination effectively demoted and dismissed the cares and concerns of those directly affected by decisions made in a vacuum. These unchecked fears inhibited the proper processing for the services I rendered and birthed, what appears to be, irreparable division among the family. My absence seems to be of no consequence or concern. They got what they wanted and in the end that was all that mattered.

This was the outcome my mother knew would come but was powerless to confront given her impaired and weakened state. There were a couple of times early on when she summoned the stamina to be heard but she was overruled and folded into compliant defeat. These defeats caused her to forgo the notion that she had any say whatsoever over her life.

It hurt her to the core to watch her children retreat into stubborn defensive positions as they refused to listen to one another. It was a pattern she recognized well. A pattern she and my father struggled with in their lifetime together. This breakdown of cooperation between her children served (to her) to confirm the thoughts of her own failure as a mother. The inability to work as a team instead of a tyranny caused numerous preventable hardships. It caused both sides to suffer needlessly.

Inevitably, after twenty-six months of exhaustion and disappointment – I broke down. I was no longer able to hold my anguish at bay. She said to me “Have faith. I am so proud of you.” I think it was then that she decided to let her life go. Our deterioration cycle seemed to have its own kind of synchronicity. We were both fading and she knew it. Our hearts, being as dove-tailed as they were, silently accepted that it was time for both of us to let go. Our time together was well spent and precious. We were grateful for the experience of sharing those last years with one another despite all the noise that threatened to spoil it.

At this point in time, I have blocked most of my siblings phone numbers so I don’t have to be tortured by the family text thread. It was too unbearable to watch them flaunt their self congratulatory contentment while at the same time pretend I didn’t exist. The callous charade buffering the reality of what was and what is. Picture, if you will, all the sweet birthday wishes that pop into a group thread in a big family and when it is your day there is only silence. This is but a tiny sliver amidst the more serious thorns still embedded underneath my skin.

What is gaslighting?

Generally defined as a psychological manipulation over time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, their own perceptions, memories, and sanity, often leading to confusion, eroded self-esteem, and dependency on the perpetrator.

At its core, gaslighting is not a single lie or argument. Rather, it is a systemic and sustained campaign of denial, distortion, and deflection. The gaslighter systematically feeds false information or withholds truth to destabilize the audience’s sense of reality. Common tactics include outright denial, such as, “That never happened. You’re imagining things.” Or trivialization. Someone might say, “You’re too sensitive. It’s not that big of a deal.”

More sophisticated versions involve enlisting third parties. Everyone agrees you’re overreacting or projecting blame or someone says you’re the one manipulating me. Gaslighting thrives because it is gradual and it is relational. It rarely begins with overt cruelty. Instead, it exploits an existing bond of trust.

Honestly, I feel like the forgotten left-overs sitting in the back of the refrigerator. First, you just forget it’s there. Maybe you never liked it in the first place but felt obligated to eat it. You open the fridge and consider checking to see if it’s still edible but decide you’ll deal with it later. Weeks have passed now and the smell of it greets you as you open the fridge door. It’s rotten now. There’s only one option left. Throw it in the garbage.

That’s what has happened to me in a nutshell. So much time has passed and they don’t want to deal with the stink of an uncomfortable conversation. Perhaps they were hoping the jam-packed memory hole would expire and consume itself. That one day, the trivial trials of their sister would simply disappear. That will never happen. The wound has certainly developed a scar but it will never fade away entirely. In the meantime, toss me in the bucket and close the lid. Problem solved.

To say it hurt is an epic understatement. The intensity of the grief I experienced having been betrayed and abandoned is a hard one to describe. Basically, a part of you dies before you die. The person I was doesn’t exist anymore. I feel that in my bones. The person that longed for family and connection didn’t shut them out – that person simply gave up.

The same pattern of deflection and uncompromising control continues in the extended wake of my mother’s death. The family trust, a year after selling the family home, continues to be an open issue. There are many questions asked that remain unanswered. This is a clear signal that nothing has been learned from past mistakes and nothing could be gained by speaking to a wall.

I carried a terrible weight on my back and was sick with grief for a long time over the realization that I had not only lost my mother but also many of my siblings. It appears I will never know why. A few of them are still in my life. They support me and have done their level best to help me through some very rough times. A couple of others followed through in one critical area. They kept a very important promise but could provide nothing more – no time, no effort, no energy. It was clearly not worth pursuing. I was not worth pursuing. To them I can only say I can understand – to a point. 

The following video perfectly reflects my struggle. If you can relate to what I have written so far this video may be of some solace to you. It lays out the psychology behind bystander betrayal, family scapegoating, social gaslighting, and the hidden role of people who protect dysfunctional systems by pretending not to see.

“The People Who Watched You Get Destroyed Were Not Innocent” [33:19]

Life is not like a movie or a bible story is it… The avatars in these tales exemplify a reality that could be, that should be, but rarely ever is. Ironically, we are the ones (the audience) that put on a show each and every day for others and for ourselves. We put on the costumes and the masks that match each interaction and automatically perform our lines to keep the illusion alive. We give them what they want in order to keep ourselves hidden, and therefore, safe.

The backlog of unaddressed emotional retardation that keeps us from righting the wrongs and healing our wounds is bound tightly in our chests. To unwrap that gift is to unleash a dragon that you fear will tear you apart and reveal you as an imposter or worse. This reveal, at first glance, would shift your relationships but the hardest part to deal with is seeing yourself, your real Self, for the first time in your life. 

That’s the mirror no one wants to look into – better to make excuses and float through your busy life. But one day life slows down to a crawl, you get old, and the mess you ran away from will resurface. It always does.

All relationships are love stories of one sort or another. In childhood, siblings develop a natural bond of love and connection that they often lose over time. In the chaos my family experienced growing up we leaned on each other to keep from crashing out completely. My expectations as I cared for our mother set me up for a serious fall. We are not children anymore but we’re still stuck playing out our childhood roles. I am the fixer, the caregiver now morphed into the scapegoat. These roles, of course, can blend and change over time. I’ve never been one for labels but this might help open the readers mind to step back and realize there are ghosts in the machine that move levers within us that should give us pause and empathy for one another.

I lost one of my closest kin relationships to the specter that exploited the weakest weakness within them. It still holds them and hides in plain sight without concern over ever being recognized. Consider yourself fortunate if you can maintain your connection or spark deeper connections with those family members that you hadn’t felt close to before. That is what I am finding now. My dream to be close to my family ended up in ashes but out of those ashes I am creating more honest relationships with a few of my siblings. We are learning to be free, to be generous with our thoughts, and most importantly, to face conflict more honestly.

Since this post is a kind of finale it should end with the song that prompted me to write it “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” by Elton John. It’s an odd choice really but it washed over my mind as I stood underneath the shower and began to sing part of the chorus out loud “sweet freedom whispered in my ear, you’re a butterfly, and butterflies are free to fly, fly away, high away, bye bye”.

The words to this song have an obvious initial meaning of a man that has had enough of his “beloved”. He realizes she is not the person he thought she was and frees himself from the attachment. The “someone” that saved his life was himself. That still small voice that reminds you there is more to you than meets the eye. Don’t sell yourself short or make yourself small for someone else. Don’t be a pawn in the game if you don’t want to be sacrificed on the alter of someone else’s ego. A universal message of love lost and rebirth in the aftermath.

Someone Saved My Life Tonight – Elton John [6:44]

When I think of those East End lights, muggy nights
The curtains drawn in the little room downstairs
Prima Donna lord you really should have been there
Sitting like a princess perched in her electric chair
And it’s one more beer and I don’t hear you anymore
We’ve all gone crazy lately
My friends out there rolling round the basement floor
And someone saved my life tonight sugar bear
You almost had your hooks in me didn’t you dear
You nearly had me roped and tied
Altar-bound, hypnotized
Sweet freedom whispered in my ear
You’re a butterfly
And butterflies are free to fly
Fly away, high away, bye bye
I never realized the passing hours of evening showers
A slip noose hanging in my darkest dreams
I’m strangled by your haunted social scene
Just a pawn out-played by a dominating queen
It’s four o’clock in the morning
Damn it listen to me good
I’m sleeping with myself tonight
Saved in time, thank God my music’s still alive
And someone saved my life tonight sugar bear
You almost had your hooks in me didn’t you dear
You nearly had me roped and tied
Altar-bound, hypnotized
Sweet freedom whispered in my ear
You’re a butterfly
And butterflies are free to fly
Fly away, high away, bye bye
And I would have walked head on into the deep end of the river
Clinging to your stocks and bonds
Paying your H.P. demands forever
They’re coming in the morning with a truck to take me home
Someone saved my life tonight, someone saved my life tonight
Someone saved my life tonight, someone saved my life tonight
Someone saved my life tonight
So save your strength and run the field you play alone
And someone saved my life tonight sugar bear
You almost had your hooks in me didn’t you dear
You nearly had me roped and tied
Altar-bound, hypnotized
Sweet freedom whispered in my ear
You’re a butterfly
And butterflies are free to fly
Fly away, high away, bye bye
Someone saved, someone saved, someone saved my life tonight…

What I want to say to my family is this… I have accepted the rejection. I have accepted that you despise me for reasons that will remain a mystery. I no longer have a desperate need to know why you did what you did to me but if ever the day comes when you want to talk about it – I will meet you there. Has our window of opportunity closed? That is up to you. It’s always been up to you.

That’s my story. I loved and I was let go. Not by one person but by many, all at once, for various different reasons only known to them. I did something beautiful (even remarkable some would say) but the poison that has tainted the well remains. Until that is addressed there will be no reconciliation.

I have learned and continue to learn from this experience. I have said goodbye to my parents. The love I have for them will always burn warmly within my heart. We were friends. We understood each other. Accepted each other. We loved each other – flaws and all. My siblings are not my parents. They are each uniquely themselves and carry both the good and bad traits we picked up from our upbringing – but with a Machiavellian twist of their own making. I have tried to navigate a path back into their spheres of reality but I no longer recognize them. I am an orphan in a world on fire. Our family feud a microcosm of the macrocosm that is a spiritually confused and ungrounded world at war with itself.

I don’t hate my family. Despite everything that has happened I still love them. However, the role I have held is one I no longer wish to play. I am not seeking any sort of praise – just righting some of the wrongs that framed the narrative for failure. At a minimum, it just needs to be said out loud. This is me finally realizing I must fix the mess I carry inside of me with or without their participation. For now, they have made their decision. They have gone their own way and only fate can tell if we shall ever cross paths again.

As always, thanks for making the time to share in my journey.  If you are a caregiver, God bless you and may the Lord of Life provide continued strength in your journey!

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• caregiver
• death
• family
• mom
• psychology
• scapegoat
• shadow work
• sibling roles
• spiritual science

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