Music: Aaron Copeland's "Appalachian Spring" and Putumayo's "Best of Contemporary Singer-Songwriters (1994)"
Garden: Daffodils blooming, Chinese Maple budding, Pear tree budding, planting watercress in the stream by my house, from a writer friend. Thanks friend. You know who you are:)
BTW, I'm adding these categories at the beginning of the blog; mood, music, garden-to help set the ambiance of my writing milieu:)
OK, so the point of the blog.....
Step 1:
" We admitted we were powerless over ___(alcohol)-that our lives had become unmanageable."
I think it's ironic that the first song on the Putumayo CD that is playing as I write this is Dougie MacLean's "Ready For The Storm", since that song reminds me of the reason why I came to the Al-Anon and 12 Steps program in the first place. I came because I did NOT feel ready for the storm, did not feel ready for any storm for that matter. I was living in a perpetual storm and being tossed about like a leaf in a hurricane.
I came because I had been recommended to check it out, first by my son's stepmother, then by two successive counselors my son had been seeing, one in jail, one out. All in the span of a couple of months. They had suggested it because the crisis my son was in was tearing me apart. I felt if I did not show up every day to battle the system, fight for his care and his rights, fight to protect him, I would be a failure as a parent. He would be doomed. Eaten alive. Lost. Destroyed. And it would all be my fault.
My son had been arrested for acting out in public, being aggressive and intrusive, and in the process was being identified as possibly having a mental illness. He had been in one of the local jails and being assessed by a very kind and compassionate counselor there, then after agreeing to participate in Mental Health Court, by his caseworker/counselor as well. Both had said they thought he had a mental illness, possibly Bi-Polar, and that he could benefit from medication.
The family paid for a psych evaluation and it was determined he was Bi-Polar. This was not news to me, since he had lived with me for the two years after dropping out of college, in which I saw every kind of behavior and mood imaginable. I also saw the drinking and drugging, but neither of us understood that mental illness was the cause. The drink and drugs were to deal with the symptoms, but were not the cause of his suffering. But they were still impacting both of us, and the family, just the same.
Through all this I did not feel I could handle the storm. I tried, but I couldn't. My emotions were all over the place. I tried every imaginable trick to help him get control. I set limits, made threats, threw him out of the house. Called his father, called the police. I felt depressed all the time. I would come home from work exhausted. I would hide in the house, eating to comfort myself. Watching movies, reading books. Not talking to anyone. Not reaching out myself for help. I felt if only I were a better parent, a better person, this would not be happening.
I had asked him to move out for the better part of a year, but shy of calling the police to have him removed, I decided the lesser of two evils was to just move away myself, and not invite him along. My son is 22 years old now. This was when he was 21, about to turn 22. When I think of it now, it was so drastic, such a big upheaval, but is was all I could do to break the addictive dance we were dancing. I felt I was going crazy and losing my mind, and my life, to his crisis, his illness, and I was.
At least when we parted ways it clearly defined the problems each of us had to face. Each of us has had to confront who we are right now, independent of the other, and find out what we were each are made of. At first I thought it was going to be all him that was going to need to do the learning. I quickly found out that it was just as much me, as him, though. Maybe even more so. And boy I have had a lot to learn! A lot to learn about myself in relationships and how I protect myself from pain and hurt, and how that has shut me down from so much else in life.
It is strange writing this now. As I write I feel as though I am leaving so much out. So much of the experiences I have had with my son, not just recently, but much father back. Good ones too. I feel the need to protect him even now, try to explain, try to justify, to paint a better picture. But one of the things right now, that I am enjoying quite a bit, is not doing that for a change. There is a relief in owning what has happened, facing it, and knowing it doesn't determine your worth as a human being. It only determines the scope of your challenge. Your field of battle.
I am not only what has happened to me. I am also how I have handled what has happened to me. But that is not determined by always getting things right. It is also measured by how much you learn, and grow, from what has happened. What you have learned, about how to handle things, and how you have grown in how to handle those things better, that matters. Life is really only, and ever, about that. But sometimes I think it is like a still life, a well painted landscape, and if everything isn't balanced and pleasing, it is a bad painting, a bad life. That is changing though.
For me the 12 Steps are offering me a chance to look at that, really look at that. To create a new measure of honesty, acceptance and sanity. I have often felt as though my thoughts, my feelings, my very voice we not OK, were not allowed, or would not be listened to. I felt voiceless. I felt my very existence was shadow-like. I want to come out of the shadows now. I want to really live. Living means feeling pain, feeling everything, but not being devastated by it. Having a new understanding of life, and living it on it's terms, not mine. Because I am not in control. I am not.
Thanks for listening!
Here is another new addition to this blog:
1) Things I Am Looking Forward To Today
2) Challenges To Face Today
Looking forward to: To seeing my counselor today. I am going to ask her to review the psych eval on my son and try to reality test it against my reactions and emotions that I had the first time I read it last week. A new chance to deal with reality and find acceptance.
Challenges: The meeting tonight for the non-profit I am a member of. Some of the members are either alcoholics, or co-dependent with them, and not all in recovery, so I find the emotional chaos sometimes trying and frustrating. More opportunity to practice serenity......
More tomorrow:)
Keep coming back! *smile*
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