We feel and cope based upon our emotional definitions created from our lives. We then use those definitions to justify and judge our actions as well as the actions of others. Every single action has a reaction no matter how small or how big. No matter if we see it or not. The green truth is as tricky as drugs because it justifies a limited view as well as a limited responsibility. We are all perfectly, irritatingly, messy people who listen to the snake and bite from various apples. The mirror knows that running from the truth or even denying the truth will never solve what is happening. The answer lies in the full circle of heavell because if everyone is doing the right job, no one would be here.
I had the opportunity to speak with a mother recently who expressed her fear that her child had been lying to her. Some people believe that it is normal for children to lie as a part of their developing independence. Most people don’t realize they lie on a daily basis and do not see the harm in it. In actuality we are teaching our children to lie and then blaming them for it. Do as I say not as I do. I asked this mother if she lied to her child. She said no. I asked her again. She then admitted that her child had called her out a couple of times on her behavior. There was the real truth. My response was don’t ask your child to not lie when you lie. We lead our children to where they are. We then judge them for it while justifying our own. We even deny we lead them there to begin with. The truth is ugly and no one wants to look in the mirror. Happy people with happy lives do not blow it up one day. They were lead there in a variety of ways. Its how they learned to cope.
Every day since this had begun, the doctors would tell me that Ryan should be able to breathe on his own. That he should not need the ventilator any more. Every day they had tried to wean him off it and everyday he would crash. Their last sentence would always be…This is BAD. Bad because they couldn’t solve this? Bad because medically he was dead yet alive because a machine was breathing for him? Their emotional definitions lead them to define that situation as “BAD”. My emotional definition of that situation was so much more extreme; a gut wrenching, rip my heart from my chest, I can’t breathe anymore because the poster child was no more. Bad had been at the beginning when I had first learned of his drug use. Bad had been when I had forcefully had him taken away in order to prevent this from happening. I would have taken “BAD” in a heartbeat. Day after day we had that same exact conversation.
My ex-father-in-law had flown in to town to support his son. It had been years since we had seen each other. Devastation can bring out the worst in people and I wasn’t sure what to expect. The green truth had been that I believed my ex was responsible for Ryan becoming an addict. I had choice words to describe my ex. I wasn’t sure if his father had choice words to describe me. No matter what he had been thinking or feeling, as soon as he saw me he wrapped me up in a great, big bear hug. For just a few seconds that burden was lifted and I had taken a deep breath. We were bonded. I wasn’t just his ex-daughter-in-law. We were both parents of drug addicts. We belonged to a group that neither of us imagined we would ever be a part of. It had not been his dream nor had it been mine. The difference was that his child was standing there and my lay in an I.C.U. room just down the hall. He would go back to a hotel room with his son while mine was not coming home…ever.
Behaving today as we did yesterday as we will tomorrow is how angels fall. Dreams do become nightmares. I’m still screaming and you are silent. Everyone enables. Everyone denies. The snake has baskets and baskets full of apples. Don’t take a bite. The circle of heavell sucks. Don’t look into the mirror. Keep believing the green truth. Millions of souls are for sale. Do as I say not as I do because then I don’t have to be accountable. Are you there drugs? It’s me a mother and I want my poster child back!
The snake is laughing because he whispered and the apple was eaten. He has claimed another victim. He finds his power through not only devaluing others but by replacing their emotional definitions with his own. He thrives on all pain. He celebrates the suffering because it makes people vulnerable whether an addict or not. Who is the snake? Anyone or anything that encourages running from despair or judges you while lacking accountability or decides for you what you deserve or how you feel or blah. Every day we encounter snakes. Every day those snakes create more victims. We all listen to and believe a snake as he tells us who we are and what we deserve. The green truth is that addicts are the messy people. The real truth is that we are all messy people. Behaving today as we did yesterday as we will tomorrow is exactly why we are here. Justifying it by solely looking at addicts only empowers the snake more.
The night had passed. Ryan was still alive. Still on the ventilator. Still sleeping with his eyes slightly open. His room was quiet with the exception of the machines that were monitoring his vitals, feeding him and most importantly breathing for him. As I stood there it reminded me of when I had watched him sleep as a baby. He wasn’t a little boy any more though. I wasn’t able to rock it away or put a band aid on it and he wasn’t fine. The trauma had made me a victim. My anger, my pain had made me a monster but I kept that hidden because Ashlee and Taylor had needed me to be strong. Traumas cannot be unseen nor unfelt. If not dealt with appropriately, they lead to a failure to cope well in life. They lead to failing to hear and believe ourselves over other people such as those that appear to be good.
My ex had spent some of his time praying in that chapel on the floor just above the ICU. He also had spent time talking to a few of his doctor friends, getting their advice on how to help Ryan. He would then wait for Ryan’s doctors to tell them what his friends had said. He was constantly talking to the nurses and advising them. His behavior had irritated some of them. They however did not realize what it had meant to be a father whose son was alive because of a machine. Despite the desperation in him, he was using every ounce of courage and strength he had to ensure that Ryan would wake up and breathe on his own.
While it was not said, there was an air of judgement by those that were taking care of Ryan, by family, and others. After all it had not be an accident. It had been a choice. What choices, though, had been made for Ryan that had lead him to choose to run from his pain? Where was the judgement of every single person involved in that then or even now? He wasn’t just some spoilt kid having a tantrum. He was not someone who had a happy life and then decided to blow it up one day. Happy people don’t alter their state of being but unhappy people do. Not knowing or realizing that is an understanding of how we got here. It is however NOT an excuse to not bring every ounce of courage and strength that we have to fight for our loved ones even if it means looking in the mirror at ourselves. A father who was an addict taught me that.
All pain, regardless of its inception, requires comfort for those who are suffering from it. We do not get to pick and choose who or what we support. We do not get to decide what trauma is or how people handle it in life. That judgement is the friend of the snake. It leads to many, many apples being eaten. Some of which culminate into dreams that turn into nightmares or even death. Judgement is an excuse to not be accountable and never leads to seeing the full circle where solutions are found. Pain can and does lead people to alter their state of being. Addiction then turns them into monsters and creates more victims through family and friends or even outsiders. Just because it has been done does not make it right nor does it justify repeating it. Heavell is where the green truth and the real truth collide.
When a tree falls it is because of the whole forest. Do as I say not as I do makes me a liar. It makes you one too. Everyone enables. The poster child won’t wake today and that is bad. I am a mother of an addict and I deserve compassion. So does he. The snake is still whispering his lies…why do you listen? I am setting the monster free. You can run but you can’t hide. The mirror knows the real truth and SO DO I.
Someone recently asked me why I write and speak about my life. She was by all appearances shocked and horrified that I would do so. I told her, “I choose to not hide from the truth.” When we are scared or even distraught, we sometimes reach out to others to help us; to acknowledge our pain or to bring peace to our fears or to even run from them. At times the support that we receive can help us to feel comforted. Often, though, we don’t reach out because we know that judgement usually follows. We know that some people merely appear to care while gathering information. Not knowing how to be supportive is understandable. Pretending to be supportive in order to gather the details so that one may “gossip” or judge or avoid accountability is completely unacceptable. To speak is to draw attention to ourselves and that attention can have devastating effects that require strength to stand through. I, admittedly, have not been strong in the face of life’s challenges. There have been those who have celebrated that because I have made it easy for others to “appear to be good.” With each fall or collapse, I have eventually stood, thanks in part to the help and wisdom of my children. The truths in the mirror have been so painful but we, together, are learning to embrace and celebrate the perfectly, irritatingly, messy people that we are.
It was almost time to go to the airport to pick up Ryan’s father. I was alone with Ryan in that ICU room. I could not help but cry as I had looked upon the face of my poster child. His eyes had been slightly open. When I leaned close I had seen the brightness of his blue eyes. For me it had been proof that he was still with us and that the streets of his soul had not been deserted. I later learned that the brightness had been due in part to the drugs that had kept him sedated.
I was standing while listening to the hum of that ventilator that had breathed every breath for him. I just hadn’t been able to bring myself to sit in the chair in that room. As his chest had risen with each rhythm of that machine, I stood over him as not just his mother but also as his protector. I had thought about all the times I had told him, “when you breathe, I breathe.” I leaned close to him and said, “I love you to the moon and back.” In my mind I had heard him as a little boy say, “no I love you more.” I had turned and walked out of that dark room not knowing if he would be alive when I returned from the airport.
After I had arrived at the airport, I went inside to meet my ex at the luggage pick-up. He was turning as I watched him talking to a man; another passenger but still a stranger. I had heard him saying things about Ryan over-dosing and of not knowing what to do. My ex had looked distraught and was speaking in a pained voice. All normal behaviors that occur during traumatic events as we reach for comfort and relief from our pain wherever we can, not unlike addicts. That desperation though can also place us in a vulnerable position. Again, not unlike addicts. Neither of them were aware of me but I was completely aware of them, especially that stranger. He listened intently and whispered in my ex’s ear. As soon as that stranger had realized that I was standing there, watching and listening, he had turned quickly away. His eyes never looked directly at mine. He never offered condolences to me. He had, however, offered to my ex to take Ryan away on his fishing boat in Alaska after he recovered. It was a fishing vessel that spent weeks out on the ocean. My ex saw that offer as a possible answer to keep Ryan safe if he recovered. I saw it as a predator preying upon a vulnerable parent to gain access to a young male.
On the drive to the hospital, I explained what had happened and what the doctor had said. Years ago we had been united in the birth of our son Ryan. Neither of us had imagined that a day would occur where we would stand together as he left this world. Nothing that had transpired over the years in our marriage or subsequent divorce had prepared us for that. We had failed as a couple and we had failed as parents. None of that had mattered though. We had come together to say our goodbyes to OUR poster child. Time had stood still for us even though the world had kept revolving for everyone else.
We walked into that hospital at about 1:00 am in the morning. After we had gotten our visitor passes, we entered the elevator to head to the ICU floor. As the doors opened, I realized that we had gone one floor above where we needed to be. That floor had a chapel on it. I pushed the correct button and as the doors closed I realized that I hadn’t even known that the hospital had one. The doors opened once again and we walked to the double doors that separated us from the unit where Ryan was. I called back to the nurses’ station and let them know that Ryan’s father had arrived. Slowly those big doors opened and we walked that long hallway in silence. I had stopped just outside the final corridor. I told my ex what the room number was and that I would wait back in the waiting room. I had had my time alone with Ryan. His dad had deserved to have time alone with him too.
We are messy people. The fallen angel is sleeping. I am screaming. There are monsters in this world. I once had a dream. The snake is laughing. No matter the size of a sin, there is a price to pay. Why didn’t you do what I said? Is anyone there? It’s me, a mother, and I can’t do this…please don’t make me…
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