The stresses and strains.... 9th to 16th November

Blog 9th of November to the 16th of November My son is an addict and he’s still out there. He still uses daily. In early recovery I dragged him along with me hoping that he would be cured and that the recovery process would be absorbed and filtered down to him like a bizarre type of osmosis. I wanted him to get well so badly I neglected my own recovery, totally missing the point and becoming preoccupied with trying to stop or control his using. No one can get another person clean. I failed to grasp this. He was not ready, he didn’t want to stop and didn’t know how to stop, he had not fully comprehended his true condition. I live in hope that one day the miracle will happen for him. The old timers have told me the seed is planted and I hope and pray that he will be brought to his knees by this illness that has swept like a tsunami through my family. I also have to accept that this may never happen and that he may be one of the few who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. My son is a massive trigger for me, I can see so many traits of myself in him that it scares me; he knows how to push my buttons. When I’m with him I can swing from love to frustration to hate to fear to anger and back again in the space of a minute. I love him but loathe his behaviors. I should know better but I continue to expect rational behavior from an irrational person. When the phone rings and his number pops up I immediately think the worse, what’s he done now? What does he want? Where is he? Hospital? Police cell? Who’s he hurt/ upset/ robbed/ hit/ hiding from/ upset or who is after him? It’s the same with a text, a seemingly harmless “How are you Mum” results in that fear, what does he want? What’s the ulterior motive? For it seems there is always one. He and I are cut from the same cloth, you can’t kid a kidder. He’s a rubbish liar yet he persists in doing so. He lies when there’s nothing to lie about - it is so ingrained it is second nature. He has no sense of self and no idea how to just be, he is not comfortable in his own skin he is like a chameleon changing skins to fit in. And I being his mother feel so many different emotions when I think of him. I explored these feelings a little in family group on Sunday night and my main feeling is fear. Fear of what he is capable of, fear of his death, a fear of failure as a parent and the fear that he has the ability to make me so angry that I lose control and that dagger inside me jumps out. Fear of the dagger inside him. Ours is not an easy relationship. I heard another piece of sad news this week, a young woman who I nursed in a past job died, she committed suicide when on home leave. It made me think how fragile life is. Sometimes, for these girls, life is too painful to live. This young girl had a desperate life full of abuse and pain, as Wyn said the other night, sometimes people like her turn to drink or drugs as it is the only way to cope, to come through the emotional pain. She didn’t have any support. She felt totally alone, un-nurtured and unloved by those who were supposed to protect and care for her. I remembered a day on the ward when the hard snow came a few years ago, the patients had really enjoyed themselves making snowmen having snowball fights with staff, she ran in breathless grabbed me and another staff member and said, eyes shining “THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE”. It was the happiest I had ever seen her and I was so glad I could share that with her. There was an incredible sad inevitability about her short life. This week has been a difficult one, it’s been overwhelming at times and I have felt stressed snappy and doubted my ability to cope. My work is very stressful at present we have had 4 new admissions over the last month and the ward is now full. Staffs are finding it hard to cope and the patients are going through the stormy period as it’s been a massive change for everyone. Everyone reacts differently; some people put their heads down and get on with it, others complain and can’t see a way through and are negative. I’ve been trying to hand it over, I know I’m powerless over people places and things and that this too will pass but it’s quite difficult when you’re in the thick of it. It seems that everyone wants a piece of you, you walk through the door and everyone accosts you. I accept it comes with the territory but it feels as though I’m being bombarded. I have to be careful; stress is not good for me at all. The eating plan has been followed this week. I had one instance of over-eating a little on Thursday. I came home from group on Thursday, my partner had gone to a gig and I was looking forward to my tea, a chicken pie, when I got back I had been left a tiny piece of pie and I was really hungry. My partner’s brother had come over and he had offered him some tea as he was dishing up when he arrived. I was rather perturbed about this, and felt angry, it meant I was hungry. I over-ate at supper I had 4 crackers instead of 2. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot but when you’re following an eating plan its significant as you have deviated from it and this means you are in active addiction. I can try to rationalize it by saying I was hungry all I like. This, combined with stress at work, made me feel restless, irritable and then I start beating myself up and the negativity creeps in “You’re useless, you’re hopeless, you may as well just eat, you’re big fat and ugly, you should be ashamed, you can’t even do this properly, you’re a failure; then I start loathing my body. I have to repeat “I am the right weight for me today” and trust to believe it. It’s hard when I feel like this. Work today was again difficult, lots of challenges and another new client thrown in to the mix, coupled with staff feeling the strain and finding it hard to manage the shift. You try and support best you can but I do recognize that I need to keep myself safe and try not to personalize the negative comments, they are not directed at me they are directed at the situation that we are placed in. I need to look for solutions and put the processes in place to try to keep the team and the patients safe. I need to ask for help and not be too proud and accept that I cannot change the current situation. I snapped and swore at a colleague on the phone this afternoon when we had a visitor in the office, I apologized instantly and admitted I was in the wrong, I also apologized to the visitor for my unprofessionalism but it was a warning to watch myself. I haven’t done much step-work this week so feel I need to up the program and start looking at step 1 in regards to my eating. It’s time now. I’m looking forward to going on retreat as that helps cement my recovery and always gives me a boost which will help me in the run-up to Christmas. I have a one-to-one on Tuesday so that will help too. Julie