Do As I Say Not As I Do #8

Would you notice if your child’s heart was broken? What if it was being chipped off one little piece at a time until the hole was big enough to alter her or his state of being? Events happen, big and small, that affect our children. We just assume they will survive emotionally but there is a big difference between surviving and surviving well. In order to survive well they must cope well. In order to cope well they must know their personal emotional definitions and believe in them. Those definitions are created by their view of life. Their view is as valid as mine or yours. Affect those definitions and the foundation of a child becomes fragmented. A fragmented person will choose to find relief where she or he can. Some cope through drugs or alcohol and others cope through…

“After my parent’s divorce, neither my brother nor I saw our dad consistently. I was only 4 years old and Ryan was just a 1 year old. Right from the beginning my mom taught me to protect Ryan. My mom didn’t trust my dad to keep the pool gate closed when we were at his house. She did not trust him to not leave us buckled in our car seats while he went into a convenience store with the keys still in the ignition. Because she felt she didn’t have any other option, I was placed in the position of acting like an adult at a very young age. It was a lot of pressure.

When our dad remarried he took more interest in us. He said that our living in a city that was a couple of hours away affected his ability to see us. Our mom had moved back to be near her family. The drop off and pick ups  for our visits occurred at a McDonalds that was an hour and a half away. There were a few times he didn’t show up. We sat and waited for a couple of hours and then we drove home. Other times we didn’t want to go but we had to.

Our mom did not tell us that our dad was using drugs for several years. Because of the inconsistent visits, I don’t think she thought his drug use would happen around us nor affect us. It did though. At first we thought he didn’t see us because we weren’t “lovable” enough. If you don’t tell kids the truth they come up with the wrong answers on their own. Once we were aware he was using drugs, we thought he chose them over us. When he had more children with our stepmother, it seemed like they were more important. His love was inconsistent and confusing. How do you learn to love when that love has so many conditions or justifications?

During those visits, we felt like unwelcome guests. Everything seemed to revolve around the comfort and happiness of our siblings or our stepmother. Once when I refused to eat my stepmother’s mash potatoes, she demanded that my father force me to eat them. He did and then asked her “Are you happy now?”. Today my relationship with my dad is different but the memory will never fade away. I stopped visiting after that happened.

My stepmother also down played my dad’s drug use around my mom. My mom counted on her to keep her informed and us safe. However at their house she constantly referred to him as a drug addict in front of us. It was as if she was pushing him to use. He would tell us he was going out to get food and then not come back. How do you trust your dad if you don’t know if  or when he’s coming back? A lot of my teenage birthdays were spent wondering where my dad was because he would disappear on a drug binge. I couldn’t ever just be a kid because I was worried all the time.

Over time all those confusing messages created by the adults in my life left me in pieces.  There was a cloak of “do as I say not as I do”. I learned to not trust my dad or men. My knowledge was that love was conditional. If I was unhappy it was my fault and if anyone else was unhappy that was my fault too. I needed to be perfect or at least appear to be. Part of that appearance was not telling our mom what was really going on. I didn’t want to add to her burden and we wanted to see our dad.

I lived that fallacy until I just couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t step towards drugs. I didn’t want to become like my dad. Instead, I stepped towards males. I always dated several of them at the same time. I didn’t feel wanted by my dad so I chose males who needed me but couldn’t actually be there for me either. I stayed disconnected from them so none of them could hurt me. I am sure I hurt some of them. I was in control and that brought me relief. It was a vicious cycle that carried into my adulthood. It’s hard to realize that what we learn in our childhood is what we become as adults.”

The dictionary definition of an addict is: to surrender oneself to something habitually or obsessively. Depending on your experience (or lack of) with an addict, your feelings can range from indifference to extreme pain or even hatred. That reaction to the word addict is your emotional definition of that word. It is how you feel. The description is the same for everyone but the reaction to the word is different. Pick any word and think about how you feel about it. Does anyone else feel the same or is it different? How can we talk about and solve something as huge as addiction when we don’t all feel the same about it? How can an addict find herself or himself, when recovery is affected by everyone in their life and everyone has different feelings?

We didn’t get here in 30-90 days but we would be out of hell in 90 days or less…Right?