Turn the Mirror Around!

I used to think it was easier for parents who understood their kids to connect to them and parent them out of making the same bad choices. I realize now, that understanding my son’s issues throughout his life has made parenting him harder. I know what it’s like to have a brain that doesn’t let you concentrate, how it’s tough to set still in class, pay attention, retain information. I get how a “hyper” moment can leave you feeling vulnerable and how anxiety starts to overload you with the negatives others MUST be thinking because you were just on overdrive. Empathizing with these things caused me to set the bar too low as a parent.

As he got older and moved into adulthood, I also understood the struggle of an up and down personality. How I can be a “go getter” one minute – (that’s what I call it when I have a good run, a good month or so of organizing my thoughts, which in turn organizes my life, keeping my house clean, eating right, exercising daily … just …. having it together); and a “no-getter” – (feeling overwhelmed to the point of doing nothing, which leads to everything piling up, unfinished). The longer I let the latter stick around, the more chaotic life becomes and the harder it is to pull myself back up again.

I see this in my son and I understand it. As an adult, I’ve had my bout of turning to substances to ease an overactive mind. As a “functioning” adult, in times of “no-getting”, the most recent easy fix was turning to food. There have been times I have literally eaten myself sick JUST because that sugar makes me feel better; at least for a minute. The only difference between turning to drugs and turning to food is that food is not called “drug”. I’d say it’s more manageable than a drug addiction because of lack of severe withdrawal, but when I’m in that “no-getter” cycle, it doesn’t feel manageable AT ALL.

In the spring of 2018 I was “go-getting”. I had started therapy, and doing basically anything to help pull me out of the no-getter funk I had been in for years. By Christmas I was down 35 pounds and feeling great; feeling like life, even with my son in treatment, was manageable for the first time. When 2019 started, so came my excuse to stop therapy as now I had a new deductible to pay. I didn’t need it. I was doing great, right? What I didn’t realize then was, my go-getter lifestyle (at that point) was solely based on the fact that my son had been doing well for months. In treatment, sober, back to himself; no worry here.

Turn it into a Lesson

Then it happened. He moved back to Morgantown. He was now close enough for me to fill my “mothering” need once again. I started off strong, but it didn’t take long before I was sucked right back into the chaos of an addict’s world. Suspecting him of using, KNOWing I was doing too much and not holding him (or myself) accountable; the anxiety, the guilt, the depression. Before I knew it, Dylan’s life was in shambles once again and I had put back on all 35 pounds and then some. BUT I wasn’t all the way back to where I started. Why? Because THIS was the most valuable lesson I would learn to date. Without it, I wouldn’t have realized that no one else was going to do this for me. This was ME, it had ALWAYS been me, even before drugs had come into our lives. I needed to hold myself accountable, stop taking the easy road, stop making excuses, stop blaming my son’s choices for MY reactions, and JUST DO IT!

I’ve worked hard the past 9 months, and still have certain struggles I’ll continue to work on, but I’ve been my go-getter self longer than any other time in my life. I talk to my therapist at least twice a month, I’m enjoying time with my husband, friends and family; I’m down 55 pounds, and for the first time ever, can speak with my son in a calm, meaningful way, no matter WHAT I’m getting from him on the other end of that phone 🙂

So, if you understand the addict in your life, if you empathize with their anxiety, depression, need for control, etc., try turning the mirror around. Take it from me, you will never be able to truly hold them accountable without first, taking your own inventory.

Much love, Shelly