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!