Facebook is the devil!
I was all set too have the sort of Easter that was before me. I started the morning off by walking 5.3 miles with some Alanon friends. It was a beautiful morning and I love those girls. I was making a cake, but had no real plans for dinner...it was just going to be "us." The dad, little one, my girl and me. I decided at the last minute to buy a ham on my way home and cook that for dinner.
I was busy accepting that this holiday was going to be "simple." We have no family in the area and Molly was working and big brother is the next state away and spent the day with his bosses family. My girl is busy accumulating "clean" hours to make it in the door of the rehab. This was our day....imperfect, not an Easter Lily in sight, but its what we had and to be honest, I did not have the energy to try to make it any bigger and better that what it was.
Then I looked at Facebook.
A dear friend posted pictures of her Easter....long tables outdoors, Easter Lily's placed all along them, food and smiling faces through out, extended family all around, a beautiful sunny day. It was a postcard Easter celebration. And I was ruined by it. Even before I knew what was happening, I was wrecked.
Let me be clear that I don't begrudge anyone, and especially not her, a happy family life. Somehow she was able to pull it all together and I wasn't. I failed. Not just at Easter, but at the years it took to create that yard full of people who love each other and enjoy each others company. I know this is not a perfect family, they have their stuff like we all do....but its different stuff than I have. Better stuff....from my perspective at least.
What I saw in those pictures was my plan. Back so many years ago when we began to create our family, THAT was what I had in my vision, in my heart. I was going to right the wrongs of my violent alcoholic family members, I was going to do it differently, I was going to be better, do better, and I have in a lot of ways.... but it apparently wasn't enough.
So I have been fighting my way through this awful low spot. Molly and I were able to talk about honesty and how we don't live in a place of denial. We tell it like it is when appropriate, even about our own ugly stuff. My wise girl said, "most people don't live there mom. They put on a happy face and present like everything is perfect because they are afraid to let anyone know the truth." We talked about how nice it would be if we COULD set all of the yuk aside and act like it wasn't happening and everything was perfect. She said, "I don't know if we are even capable of living in that kind of denial anymore." Once you have pulled your covers back its very hard, if not impossible to go backwards. To pull them back up and over and start shoving your secrets back under there. They seem to start bursting out the tops and the sides....like big boobs in a too small bra. We talked about how we need to accept people as they come to us and circumstances as they come to us, but be true to ourselves and NOT let any of it rob us of our joy.
I went to my meeting last night and we are reading "In All of our Affairs." It was such a good meeting. One friend spoke of a daily step 10 personal inventory, what is my part? We talked a lot about the loss of our dreams and expectations for how we thought things would be. Another friend spoke of hearing what other families are doing for fun, trips, get togethers, and she said, "Thats not us." We agreed...we are just trying to survive. So I am not alone.
I think this last time of sobriety was so nice that I let myself hope. I let myself go back to all of those dreams I have had for my family and thought maybe, just maybe this time.....
But no. The statistics for a heroin addict ever finding long lasting sobriety are not good. Something like 2%. BUT God is limitless....that is the only hope I have. God is limitless and bigger and better than a statistic. But I need to step back. I have let myself get into the middle of everything this time. Not physically, but in my head. I have hoped so hard this time and I am crushed that we are still here, still fighting this same battle. Still trying to go against nature....a mother letting go of her sickest child in hopes that they will find their way. I feel like, "God, only you could have thought that up!" My experience tells me that the times in the past when I have been able to let go of her, *I* have felt better. I have lived in a place of peace and serenity. She felt the loss of her family and sought help.
I'm worn out people...and maybe that is exactly where I am supposed to be. More of Him, less of me.
Pray for me please.
Annette
I was busy accepting that this holiday was going to be "simple." We have no family in the area and Molly was working and big brother is the next state away and spent the day with his bosses family. My girl is busy accumulating "clean" hours to make it in the door of the rehab. This was our day....imperfect, not an Easter Lily in sight, but its what we had and to be honest, I did not have the energy to try to make it any bigger and better that what it was.
Then I looked at Facebook.
A dear friend posted pictures of her Easter....long tables outdoors, Easter Lily's placed all along them, food and smiling faces through out, extended family all around, a beautiful sunny day. It was a postcard Easter celebration. And I was ruined by it. Even before I knew what was happening, I was wrecked.
Let me be clear that I don't begrudge anyone, and especially not her, a happy family life. Somehow she was able to pull it all together and I wasn't. I failed. Not just at Easter, but at the years it took to create that yard full of people who love each other and enjoy each others company. I know this is not a perfect family, they have their stuff like we all do....but its different stuff than I have. Better stuff....from my perspective at least.
What I saw in those pictures was my plan. Back so many years ago when we began to create our family, THAT was what I had in my vision, in my heart. I was going to right the wrongs of my violent alcoholic family members, I was going to do it differently, I was going to be better, do better, and I have in a lot of ways.... but it apparently wasn't enough.
So I have been fighting my way through this awful low spot. Molly and I were able to talk about honesty and how we don't live in a place of denial. We tell it like it is when appropriate, even about our own ugly stuff. My wise girl said, "most people don't live there mom. They put on a happy face and present like everything is perfect because they are afraid to let anyone know the truth." We talked about how nice it would be if we COULD set all of the yuk aside and act like it wasn't happening and everything was perfect. She said, "I don't know if we are even capable of living in that kind of denial anymore." Once you have pulled your covers back its very hard, if not impossible to go backwards. To pull them back up and over and start shoving your secrets back under there. They seem to start bursting out the tops and the sides....like big boobs in a too small bra. We talked about how we need to accept people as they come to us and circumstances as they come to us, but be true to ourselves and NOT let any of it rob us of our joy.
I went to my meeting last night and we are reading "In All of our Affairs." It was such a good meeting. One friend spoke of a daily step 10 personal inventory, what is my part? We talked a lot about the loss of our dreams and expectations for how we thought things would be. Another friend spoke of hearing what other families are doing for fun, trips, get togethers, and she said, "Thats not us." We agreed...we are just trying to survive. So I am not alone.
I think this last time of sobriety was so nice that I let myself hope. I let myself go back to all of those dreams I have had for my family and thought maybe, just maybe this time.....
But no. The statistics for a heroin addict ever finding long lasting sobriety are not good. Something like 2%. BUT God is limitless....that is the only hope I have. God is limitless and bigger and better than a statistic. But I need to step back. I have let myself get into the middle of everything this time. Not physically, but in my head. I have hoped so hard this time and I am crushed that we are still here, still fighting this same battle. Still trying to go against nature....a mother letting go of her sickest child in hopes that they will find their way. I feel like, "God, only you could have thought that up!" My experience tells me that the times in the past when I have been able to let go of her, *I* have felt better. I have lived in a place of peace and serenity. She felt the loss of her family and sought help.
I'm worn out people...and maybe that is exactly where I am supposed to be. More of Him, less of me.
Pray for me please.
Annette
Comments
Annette, remember that picture was a second in time. It is like Martha Stewart. So lovely on the surface but inside a felony is going on. So often the beauty is a cover-up for the chaos. That second in time is not real. It is not real. Don't take any more consideration into than you would a commercial on television advertising wrinkle cream. Nobody looks like that! Nobody looks like the commercials and nobody looks like that one second shot in time.
Lauren
Addiction has beaten us all. It has showed us who is really in charge and our only defence is to take our own lives back and start living again.
One of my friends has a daughter that was addicted to crack until she was 40 but she has been clean now for 4 years. So there is hope.
P.S. Who cares about a postcard Easter. I spent the day in my pjs
Stupid Facebook. It's on the way out. Huff Post says so. ;)
I am praying with you. Be extra very nice to yourself now. More walks with loving friends. Your favorite song. Be like Anne Lamott and have a Tootsie Pop. Hug hug hug. Sending love and light. :)
Stupid Facebook. It's on the way out. Huff Post says so. ;)
I am praying with you. Be extra very nice to yourself now. More walks with loving friends. Your favorite song. Be like Anne Lamott and have a Tootsie Pop. Hug hug hug. Sending love and light. :)
You had a line about "failing" to create an environment where people love each other and enjoy their company. Well, I don't know about you, but I certainly can't make people love one another or enjoy their company. i don't have that power. none of us do, so perhaps you're being a bit hard on yourself here? My mother went through the same thing when she realized that me and my younger brother just don't get along and probably never will. We don't speak. Or speak very little...and she felt guilty about it, that she failed. She didn't. We just don't dig each other, is all. Nothing to do with her - she was as loving as she could be.
Addiction sucks. I'm an alcoholic (coming up to three years sober), and I identify with that young man coming late reeking. I know the destruction because I have been that person. i don't know what it's like to live with someone who is an addict / alcoholic, but I imagine it ain't pretty. But what I like about what you say here is that it's in God's hands. We do the footwork, and the outcome is up to Him. More Him, less us, as you put it. Your faith will pull you through a lot. Don't waste energy on what we perceive as people living "better" lives. As one astute commenter said - there lives a felony underneath it all (I love that line).
Blessings,
Paul
My version of an ideal family would be just like the Waltons. And not the Wal-mart Waltons. I mean John-boy, Jim-Bob, etc. That is certainly not how life turned out for me. I don't have that genetic material. I came from a family of alcoholics and became one. I got sober, then my daughter became one, and then some. Some of my siblings are now dealing with grandchildren who are showing signs of the family disease. I believe it is genetic and we are wired that way. Even if we grew up in the perfect home.
There have been studies that show people feel bad about their lives after looking at facebook. I have unfriended most of my show-off friends.
Take care my friend. God loves you, just the way you are, and so do I.
You know who else couldn't have imagined it? ME! I was so sad, so stuck, and in so much pain I could barely function. My blog was filled with so much pain I had to import the first year of it to another site. I read a lot of it today, the first time I had read it again in months and it hurt like heck to read it. I was truly paralyzed for years before I finally surrendered and realized I could do no more. If you would like to read my blog from the beginning, and see the progression of that pain, I could invite you to read it, even though it is now private. Email me if you want to read it.
You will see I was a complete mess.
I've come a long way and for me, I had to let go. I have learned the art of loving detachment and have embraced letting go, and letting God. The most critical thing I had to accept was that this letting go might not work, that she could die out there and that kept me paralyzed for almost a year, until I realized she was going to die anyway.
The blog post I wrote called The One in The Mirror was the most painful, honest post I wrote about fear, and blame and doubt. Again, just email me and I will access you to them.
It's all hard and everyone travels a different path. I am on your side as you travel yours.
LOVE,
Mrs. Dubose
2% WOW! I have never heard that. That is depressing.
Hugs to you Annette.
It makes me sad as well. But then again, I think back to the years I did host marvelous dinners for extended family, and how much they drained me (the people, not the dinner).
This is not how I imagined my life either, but I have hope that at least one of my girls will hopefully someday host beautiful meals that I can help them with and I will be surrounded by their extended families :) Perhaps a pipe dream, but it is what keeps me going.