Every day we choose to act and react based upon our emotional definitions created over our lifetime. We then expect others to behave in ways that fit what we believe is acceptable. We are aware that those behaviors affect us and yet are completely unaware that we also have the same effect. On more than one occasion I have heard stories of and seen first hand, people behaving badly in reaction to others behaving badly. In a hospital setting, people are often agitated. There is fear. Fear translates into anxiety and is often expressed through aggression. It is the fight or flight reaction. Doctors and nurses are tasked with helping people; even with saving them. They are in positions of power and yet they are humans who react with emotions; with judgement and the justification of that judgement. I have seen and been on the receiving end of their reactions. So has my son the addict. I have heard nurses tell patients that they do not respond to, nay treat well, people who are difficult. Do as I say not as I do is the behavior of most, if not all, people; especially adults. We are all perfectly, irritatingly, messy people in the world of green truths. Some of us just make it easier for others to appear to be good.
When the opportunity arose to speak to a large group of high school students, I had to spend time thinking about how I would connect with them. We were separated by the fact that I am an adult, a mother, a parent of an addict, a grandmother, a different religion, a different economic background…They would be able to see that our worlds were distinct. They would judge me based on any one of those aspects and not hear me; believing and justifying that I am unable to hear them either. My knowledge of drugs, my pain from them, will not prevent those students nor others from coping through drugs. If it had ever been that easy then Ryan would have done as I had told him to. If it were that simple, addiction would have never been a problem nor would it be an epidemic today. We expect young people to value our knowledge, opinions and feelings; yet we imply theirs don’t matter unless they are the actions and reactions we believe are acceptable. Everyone is responsible for their position on the circle of heavell and no position is more valuable than another. All of us have the ability to value and devalue in a moment or through many moments. We lead people to where they are and then blame them for having failed to cope well. Happy people do not alter their state of being nor do they justify their actions and reactions; but unhappy people do. Addicts and non-addicts are not really that different but addicts’ behaviors make them the obvious problem. The common ground between the high school students and myself is the fact that the snake speaks to all of us. That drugs do not discriminate. That no matter who or what we are, we all fail to cope well. How was I going to show these young people that what really mattered was their emotional definitions? I had failed to do that with my own children by justifying my position on the circle; which was a part of how we came to live in hell.
As I stood waiting for my turn to speak, I noticed the students assessing me. They were a captive audience as they had been required to be there. Some of them may have thought I looked like a nice person. Others probably did not or perhaps they did not care either way. I did see that the majority of them were skeptical about what I would have had to say. It seemed as if they expected me to tell them, even yell at them, about my pain. They seemed to expect me to say “Don’t Do Drugs”. Not once did those words come out of my mouth. Why? Because that would have been me telling them what mattered most; my opinion, my emotional definitions without regards for their own. For some of those kids, drugs had already had a profound effect on their lives via parents, family members or friends that were or are addicts. Some may have already lost someone they care about because of drugs. Some of those kids in that auditorium had been or currently were users of mind altering substances; drugs or alcohol (possibly in secret). There was the potential that a few of them had not been affected at all. I do not live in their normal and they do not live in mine. Telling them how to be would have closed them off and justified their reaction. I chose to show them the similarities, the common ground, that each of us feels about drugs; which placed all of us in the same group whether or not we were parents, students, real life princesses, athletes, angels or addicts. My question for them was: Is using drugs to cope really worth altering who you are? The cost of that is the loss of your personal, emotional definitions; the very definitions that make you who you are. Those students have the ability to save themselves but every position on the circle of heavell has the ability to destroy it or lift it up as well.
In the beginning, I had expected to see a change in Ryan in that ICU room. With each passing day that lack of change had become the normalcy. He was stable but critical. He had laid there with tubes running everywhere and still breathing because of a machine. Even whispering to him that it was alright to let go had not changed anything. He hadn’t. It was as if he was stuck in limbo and so were we. After a week, my employer had requested that I either return to work or resign. Why had it seemed as if the world had stopped moving when it hadn’t? Ryan wasn’t breathing nor was I but somehow life had to move on. I made the choice to return to work. Each night I had slept in Ryan’s room. My father arrived early each day so that I was able to return home. I would change, drop my youngest off at school, stop by the hospital again and then head to work. After work I would stop by the hospital, then go home to spend time with my family and return to spend the night with my son. I was not coping. I was existing. The doctors’ had stated the same thing everyday about Ryan; this was bad. How long was bad going to continue? Why wouldn’t the poster child just let go? I had begun to wonder if I would have to let go of him by turning off that machine.
Mirror, mirror just tell me the truth. Why do dreams turn into nightmares? It’s just too much to ask you to live this way. Tricks are not just for drugs. If everyone is doing their job, angels don’t fall. Little boxes of feelings. The snake speaks. Don’t bite the apples. Denial is my friend. Yours too. Heaven and hell are right here on the circle. We are all perfectly, irritatingly, messy people. How do you feel about drugs? Are they worth losing you? Let go poster child. Let go.
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