Music: None, except for coffee makers whistling and lids of pots rattling with oatmeal boiling. We are in silent mode till all the sleepers are safely back from their voyages into dream land.
Garden: Also damp. Not my garden though. My hosts garden, riot with tulips of a staggering number of colors. They are all being kept locked-up safe behind a ten foot fence from the deer in this hilly woodland.
" We admitted that we were powerless over _____(alcohol) - that our lives had become unmanageable."
I am thinking of what it means to be powerless over alcohol. I thought about powerlessness yesterday, but today I want to think about what it means to be powerless over the thing that is scaring you the most. The thing that is seeming to tear up your world. The thing that would be on the top of your list to eliminate or annihilate, if you could, from you life. What does it mean to live with something like this every day? And know that you are powerless over it? In my case it is alcohol, to a certain extent, but more so, it is mental illness. My son's mental illness.
That has been my battle for the last three years, as least as far as I could see, though I couldn't at the time name it as such. It has been named now, but it wasn't till he started getting arrested that the rest of the family started having to name it too. It's strange being the only one, standing in a howling storm, trying to shout for help, and not being able to be heard. That's how it has felt for the past three years, as I tried to tell people in the family what I was seeing and being looked at, or told, I was probably exaggerating things. I felt even more alone, and afraid, as I watch my son descending into madness.
Even now, as I write these words, I feel like I am talking about a character in an Emily Bronte novel, the one that never got published, with the heroine relegated to living out on the moors in a dilapidated croft, left to care for the family invalid. Interesting choice of words the Victorians like to use for those with an incurable illness. Invalid. To be invalid. To be of no use. it is funny how quickly we relegate those in our lives, and in society, to the category of invalid. Are they are invalid because they are unproductive? Because they do not jibe with the flow or current form of society? Are they invalid because they do not make sense to us, or because we not make sense to them?
That was a side jaunt. The main topic is my powerlessness over my son's actions or mental conditions(s). I say conditions because a mental illness is not one steady state, it is a series of states, ever shifting and ever changing. That is something maybe some people do not understand. That your loved one is not out of sorts all the time. That is what is so frustrating too. Because when they are not, you are tempted to think everything is back to normal. Your hopes get raised. But when the psychosis returns, you are thrust into a place of fear, worry powerlessness and anger. Why him? Why us? Why this?
There is something about the mind that is so mysterious. We do not know why, or how, we have personality, emotion, thoughts. We do not know some are considered within the realm of normal, and some, even depending on the culture, are seen as dangerous, heretical or if nothing else, a nuisance. And yet, through the miracle of modern medicines we want to control them. I am not saying that I am against medications. I am very well aware of the pain and suffering that is caused when a loved one can't maintain any kind of consistent or independent life.
Manic and/or depressive states are like being cast adrift on your mental world. You are riding huge waves, bigger than you are and all you can do is be carried along. You are either taken to the top of the wave, life a surfer, or plunged to the bottom of the seen and the pressure and silence can be fatal. It can feel almost impossible to rise back up to the surface and see the sun again. This roller coaster ride of the brain's chemicals must feel like you are stuck on a amusement park ride that you can never get off. Even if you are screaming, crying and begging to be released.
But to be the loved one of someone going through this is to be the parent, standing at the bottom of the roller coaster, watching your screaming and crying child ride the coaster again and again and again. No matter how much begging and pleading with the ride attendant to please stop the ride and please let your child off, nothing you can do will stop it. That is how it is to have a Bi-Polar son or daughter. God, or higher power, or the big yellow banana in the sky has flipped the switch on the roller coaster of life and walked away from the rise to have in indefinite lunch break. The randomness can seem cruel and indifferent. Why my child, on this coaster, at this time and with this attendant?
So where does the powerlessness fit in? Well, in-general, the illness itself. Specifically, in my case, now that my son is over eighteen, I have no say in his treatment, whether he shares any of his medical information with me and I cannot talk to anyone he may work with. It also means that barring him being of danger to himself or others, I cannot interfere with his "right" to wander the community freely, delusional and homeless. There is nothing more frightening to a parent than to see your young adult child exposed to the elements, homeless, jobless, isolated and alone in their mental sates and possibly at the mercy of uncaring or worse, unscrupulous people.
To come to terms with the fact that I am powerless over my sons mental illness has been one of the hardest journeys I have ever made, so far. My instinct to protect, to advocate and to challenge is strong. Not to be able to do what I feel I do best, feels like being the best player on the team, benched for the season. I am still trying to mediate on why my higher power, or THE higher power, has put me in this position in the game. I know it is not as hard as what I am going through, but it feels hard enough right now. It is also being posed, in the Al-Anon program, that we are all powerless over our own lives. That it is Higher Powers choice, and theirs alone. Also radical.
How many ways my life has been unmanageable because of my son's illness, as well as the other activities he has been involved with because of it, cannot be counted. But the most predominate effect has been my emotional life. Maybe that is true for everyone. If it were just logistics, that would be relatively easy. It is to deal with the emotional turbulence, the fear, the worry and the anguish that just takes the stuffing out of you. Or takes the stuffing out of me. To imagine my life, with my son still being unpredictable in his actions and activities, and me calm and composed seems like a miracle. I am ready for a miracle though.
Now back to the retreat. Was this a retreat from the retreat, or am I retreating to the retreat? (smile)
Thanks for listening!
Keep coming back:)
Things to look forward to today: Writing, reading, listening and more writing.
Challenges to face today: To not think and worry too much about my son today.
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