Despair & Addiction

I recently spent the day with a young family member whom I love deeply. She is a person in my life that I have loved like one of my own since the moment she was born. She has always had a personal struggle in her life and has been disadvantaged emotionally. It has kept her from reaching her own expectations of what life should be. I know she longs to be “happy” and yet fails to see where her happiness should be. Or even the ability for that matter to see or understand what “happiness” looks like. Despite what the world sees as the obvious reasons she should be happy; she is not. She finds no comfort in the support system in which she has. I will say that at times her support system of friends and or family can also be a failing system; but the fact remains that her “system” is a real viable stable support.

I cannot determine what a blessing is for her or dictate what she should be happy about, never the less I will have to find a way to help her see what she may not be able to. Her demons are great but what she fails to see is that she has already risen above them and won; truth. However they have somehow been allowed to manifest inside right at the very core of who she has become. Her view is not only skewed but it is jaded and cynical. Depression has captured her. She has not chosen to give up on life; she has simply chosen to keep the pain of her existence alive. She chooses to feed the power of her depression by adding to her pile. Decisions made are only to hurt not help her. Her mind set is to keep herself in a position that mirrors what her life has become. There is great comfort in what we know even when it is negative. To step outside of that comfort zone would actually require one to change the behavior or the mind set to get better or be happy.

The love she has for her children is immeasurable and yet on the surface you can stand in judgment of her and say she does not love them. The difficulty truly lies with the fact that the love she has for herself IS measurable; choices made indicate that her self love and respect is almost nonexistent. So how can you possibly expect her to love her children in any different fashion than she is capable of? Children are a blessing from God; yes, but they are also an incredible amount of pressure and burden when they need to feed off of an emotionally stable person who cannot even show up in their own life. Children serve as reminders of where we are as parents. It can be excruciating to see hear and feel what our children see, feel and express. The reminders of her mistakes viewed through her children’s eyes weigh heavy on her already fragile emotional state. Depression is now deeper. She begins to look for happiness in places that come fast easy and free; instant pleasures, instant acceptance, instant love. The high from the gratitude of escaping her pain is addictive, so she seeks it out at all costs. The cost is overwhelming as the instant feel good is now an instant toss back to the reality of nothingness. The quest to find the fast escape becomes the mission, nothing else matters. Escape is the only reality in her pain.

The war is not against the demons inside her any longer; the war is now against her own lines of which she will cross to consume her instant gratification. The hunger to escape is now the monster in which she has befriended. She allows her addiction to dictate her coping skills. With each line she crosses the anger intensifies and she knows that she has sold herself out for a quick easy fix. The anger and resentment with her own self adds to the heap of shit that already exists in a shit fuck of a life.

We stand there and yell at her to get her shit together, and demand that she change, get help, get rehabilitated….it falls on deaf ears. Why? Why can’t you see what you are doing? Why don’t you put your children first? Why can’t you see what you have right here in your life that is good? What is WRONG with you? Black and blue in the face yelling, it will not change where she is. She needs to be the one that is hungry for change, hungry for happiness enough that she chases it. Right now that path is too hard to take, change in her view of her life and its meaning requires a strength she does not have. I cannot lend her my strength nor can anyone. Yelling at her only shames her and deepens the wedge between facing her issues and running from them. There is NOTHING WRONG with her…… she is broken!

All I want to do is love her, just grab a big blanket and wrap her up and rock her until she loves herself enough to get off my lap and return to her life. Truth is I don’t want her to return to the life she has. IT DOES NOT WORK! Her life does not work. She needs to know that coming out of “rehabilitation” that life will be different. Yes it will require her determination to continue with good choices but seeing the work that needs to be done after fighting demons ….is it too much?

I love this girl like one of my own children and want so desperately to reach inside of her and fix her, but my hands are tied. I even feel that my words of encouragement or reason are just wasted verbiage on an already over processed individual. I weep for her and yet feel a rage run through me as I want to help her see that life is worth fighting for; she is blind. I am in the same boat as her in terms of fighting a disease that threatens our mortality. Her addiction…. is my cancer. I fight.......... but my fight is to keep my opponent in the corner of the ring, her fight can be won completely and utterly. 

I struggle with loving people that think nothing of the value of their own existence and mock the power of surviving life long enough to grow old and enjoy the bountiful joy that it holds. I hold my contempt for her at bay believing or hoping that she will rise up and seize her day. Perhaps I have no right to judge whether her fight is easier than mine…. I just want to see her win and not live a life in vain.

Today she begins the journey (again) to recovery. I am pained knowing that her journey will be long and hard and I hope and pray to God she realizes that she is worth the war. There are no magic undo buttons in life, there is no way possible to erase her past, but if she continues on the path she is on now…….. she will erase her future and create a past for her children and everyone else she leaves behind.

I love you and believe in you…..

~Christine~