“Life Is A Box Of Chocolates…”

From Courage to Change, March 12:

“What does another person’s mood, tone of voice, or state of inebriation have to do with my course of action? Nothing— unless I decide otherwise….

Detachment with love means that I stop depending on what others do, say, or feel to determine my own well-being or to make my decisions. When faced with other people’s destructive attitudes or behavior, I can love their best and never fear their worst.

‘Detachment is not caring less, it’s caring more for my own sanity.’”

Well, it took me a long time to get to this place, where I felt I deserved to be sane and healthy. I needed to shed a lot of baggage—things like guilt, low self-worth, and the thrill of martyrdom—in order for Al-Anon to work its magic on me. Guilt, in particular, cripples us and puts at risk when we need to set limits. Not until I did this was I able to set healthy boundaries with the people in my life. Like all card-carrying codependents, I didn’t know where I ended and the other person began. I was enmeshed in everyone’s difficulties, my daughter’s most of all, which effectively kept me from facing myself in the mirror and dealing with my own defects and resulting problems.

I’ve learned many healthy life skills in my program of recovery, and I would pass them on whenever I could. As Forest Gump’s mom would say: “Life is a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” That’s true of course. But the secret of being happy is making the best of what you get, no matter what that may be.

Lighting Candles In Greece: Lessons In Faith

I was on the tour boat in the caldera of Santorini and we were approaching Oia at the end of the day, hopeful to catch the sunset from that end of the island. Oia, and most of the towns on Santorini, looked like horizontal white jewels, sparkling against the sun’s rays, perched atop this rock in the Mediterranean. It was a stunning sight and can only be appreciated like this from down below.

We disembarked and decided to forego the smelly donkey ride up to the city, deciding to walk up. I was immediately drawn to the Church of Panagia Platsani. After entering the cathedral, I went right to the candles and lit one for my estranged daughter, Annie. I found this to be wonderful nourishment for my soul. The cynical me said, “Oh well, another money maker.”  But the believer in me said, “Listen to me, God. I’m talking to you now. This is my prayer.”

I’ve heard it said that prayer is talking to God, and meditation is listening to Him. I did a lot of praying in Greece, in many Greek Orthodox churches. I spent a tidy sum of money, money I could have invested in souvenirs. But I chose to invest in prayer in the country where I began to lose my daughter thirty-five years ago.

“Losing my daughter…” We learn so much by craning our necks and looking backwards. We gain so much clarity through hindsight.

It’s very hard, this practice of letting go, and the faith I’ve been gradually acquiring these past many years has been a lifeline. It’s kept me from permanently free falling into despair—that black hole of uselessness—as I’ve been letting go of having Annie in my life. Only a mother can know the glue that binds her to her child, and all mothers must let go of their children. “They come through you,” Kahlil Gibran says, “yet they belong not to you.”

Letting go is a constant discipline for all of us. But letting go when your child will be coming back is one thing. Letting go when they’re gone—that’s something else. My girl has a brain disease and has been pumping her body with substances that have caused a lot of brain damage. It’s a very cruel thief, substance abuse. It robs you of yourself. My daughter Annie no longer resides in that body.

So I light candles in the country where circumstances threw her into a tailspin of depression. Her parents divorced and she rarely saw her father afterwards. Annie got through adolescence adequately, but she was a grenade waiting to explode. When she was twenty-one and a college graduate, she plunged into the dark world of drug addiction and has remained in that never-never land ever since—that fantasy world where what you want never comes and so you need to get more…

My faith has come to me, not like a burning bush, but in increments over my own years of recovery from this.

Getting Out Of The Way

I’m a mother. When my kids were little, it was my job to keep them safe from harm. If they ran across the street with a car coming, I might have spanked them a little so they’d remember to look both ways the next time. Yes: pain; yes: consequences. Yes: both good teachers.

But when my daughter was twenty-one and started making terrible choices, I still thought it was my job to protect her from harm, self-inflicted or otherwise. And I still treated her like a two-year-old.

When she first stole from me early on, I went into a long period of denial and guilt, minimizing my feelings and believing her incredible explanations. My inaction only emboldened her, and she went on to steal in other ways. Several times, she stole my identity, with no explanations. So even when it was clear to me that her behavior was sociopathic, I still behaved inappropriately: I did nothing. Even when the credit card company told me to do something—that it would be a lesson for her—I still did nothing.

Where was the smack on the rear she would have gotten from running across the street? Where were the consequences that would have reminded her to be careful? I presented her with no consequences in the beginning of her illness and so she learned nothing. Her progressive illness got much worse. My guilt was crippling me as an effective parent.

Not until I started working my own program of recovery in Al-Anon was I able to release myself from the hold that was strangling us both. I needed to get out of my daughter’s way. She wasn’t two anymore.

I’ve made a lot of progress since those early days. I’ve learned to let go and leave her to the life she has chosen. Four rehabs helped her turn her life around for a while, yet she always slipped back into her substance abuse disorder and the life that goes with it. But staying out of the way has given me the freedom to take back my life and learn to live joyfully by focusing on my blessings. It has also given her the freedom to take responsibility for her own life and hopefully her own recovery. If she reaches for it again, and I pray she will, how much more rewarding it will be for her to find her own way!

Surrender Is Not Submission

From Each Day A New Beginning, July 19:

“‘At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance…’ ~Maya Angelou

We had to surrender to a power greater than ourselves to get to where we are today. And each day we have to turn to that power for strength and guidance. For us, resistance means struggle—struggle with others as well as an internal struggle.

Serenity isn’t compatible with struggle. We cannot control forces outside of ourselves…And when we choose to surrender our attempts to control, we will find peace…”

I often write about the pain of resistance. How the very word carries an aura of courage and strength. Those of us who have addicted loved ones would do anything, it seems, to save them from such a miserable life. I spent a number of years trying to save my daughter—resisting—and refusing to allow her the dignity of her own (poor)  choices. I felt courageous then, determined. I couldn’t surrender to the power of addiction; I thought it would be cowardly.

But I tried and failed to save my daughter. She’s been in and out of recovery for over twenty years. And though I pray she reaches for recovery again and comes back to her family, I can’t make that choice for her. She can only save herself. And I truly believe that the addicts who recover do so because it is their own desire to get their lives back—not someone else’s.

So I’ve learned that I can only save myself. When I give up the struggle to change things I can’t control, my life is more peaceful. I find the energy to focus on gratitude for what’s good in my life.

Sometimes letting go—not resistance—takes courage.

Walking Through Cancer/Part 18

                                          Testing My Mettle…Yet Again

Last spring when I had raging carpal tunnel syndrome in my hands AND a viral mouth infection so severe I couldn’t eat anything but pablum, I whined that “it never rains, it pours.” Well, those two maladies were a walk in the park compared to falling down the stairs and breaking my humerus three days before my first chemotherapy infusion.

“God,” I said looking up as though that were where He lived, “You are really testing me. Geez, isn’t t-cell lymphoma bad enough without having to cope one-handed with my arm in a sling?”

It’s a good thing I couldn’t see Him because I knew he was smiling, sure that I would meet this challenge just fine. And I would have slugged him, I was so mad.

At myself, of course. I talk about remaining teachable and I think THIS time my self-will has wrought a bad enough consequence to make me stop in my tracks. How did this happen? I failed to turn the night light on, was nearly finished barreling down fourteen steps in slippery socks, missing the last one, and plummeted onto my left side at the base of the stairwell.

My first thought: I will not be defeated by this. I got up and was grateful I could walk without pain. More gratitude: it was my left side and not the dominant right. I went to my phone and called 911.

Camano Island Fire and Rescue was there right away and whisked me off to Skagit Regional Hospital in Mt. Vernon. X-rays were taken, and I waited in the outer area for my friend to come and take me home. Oh, did I mention that Gene had just that evening flown to San Francisco for the memorial of a friend? Timing…

I was quite alone in my house, but not for long. The front door was constantly revolving all weekend with friends coming over to teach me how to wear a sling, cut up vegetables, open bottles for me, perform a myriad of tasks reserved for two-handed people. I’m so grateful for them.

My son took me to my first infusion the following Monday. He held his tongue, but I knew he was furious that I could allow such a disaster to happen at the start of my chemotherapy. When Gene flew back the next day, more dismay and head-shaking that I could have been so careless.

So there you have it. This occurred on October 17, just eight weeks ago. It was fractured badly and the ice cream is nearly off the cone. Still quite painful, it’s not going to heal on its own. So I saw a shoulder surgeon this week and he’ll schedule surgery for as soon as possible, when treatment is over.

The sooner the better, so I can get through rehabilitation therapy and hopefully get back to paddling my kayak this summer. Am I too ambitious? Nah.

And I’m nothing if not determined…

Boundaries And Self-Regard

“If you bring me peace then you get more of my time. Simple.”

I read this online a few months ago and I’m so struck by the message, the tone, the unapologetic boundary setting. How many of us can say this to our loved one, whether it’s our child or our third cousin? This is a hard one for me. It puts my own needs first. And good self-care is something I’ve learned late in my life.

Early on in my daughter’s disease, I allowed her to be a battering ram. She was very abusive to me. Now, I know that it was the drugs talking. (“What we allow will continue.”) But I was stunned, ashamed and feeling overly responsible at the time. I thought I deserved her wish to punish me (martyrdom).

What a relief to finally reach a place where I feel worthy of some peace and joy. This has come after several years of working on myself and changing some self-defeating attitudes. Going into reverse, I’m no longer ashamed, and I know I’m not responsible. May we all reach a place where we can deal effectively and intelligently with this baffling disease. And not be destroyed by it. God Bless!

HALT

HALT Am I hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? A good time to pick up a healthy snack, count to ten, pick up the phone and/or take a nap.

Often when I’m angry or tired, for whatever reason, it’s best for me to lay low and not spread any negativity to those around me. These feelings are important for me to recognize, and I don’t want to deny them. But I need to guard with special care how I’m interacting with those close to me to avoid any collateral damage. Does that make any sense?

Progress Not Perfection

Perfectionism just keeps us stuck in being dissatisfied with ourselves. It isn’t possible for us to be perfect all the time. Trying to be perfect is a terrible weight around our necks. If nothing else, it’s a huge distraction from doing the recovery work we are called to do. Let it go. We are enough just the way we are. When we can make peace with that—and I admit that it takes a long time— we’re well on our way to an unexpected freedom!

Change Is Good

From the blue Nar-Anon pamphlet:

Changing Ourselves

“Addiction is like a chain reaction. It is a disease which affects the addict as well as the family members, friends and co-workers. We try to control, cover up, and take on the responsibilities of the addict. The sickness spreads to those of us who care the most. Eventually, we begin to feel used and unhappy. We worry, lose trust and become angry. The addict blames us and we feel guilty. If only something or someone would change!

When we discover Nar-Anon, we find others with the same feelings and problems. We learn we cannot control the addict or change him. We have become so addicted to the addict that it is difficult to shift the focus back to ourselves. We find that we must let go and turn to faith in a Higher Power. By working the steps, following the traditions and using the tools of the program, we begin, with the love and help of our Higher Power and others, to change ourselves.

As we reach out for help, we become ready to reach out a helping hand and heart to those in need of Nar-Anon. We understand. We do recover. Slowly, new persons emerge. Change is taking place.”

Though I have changed and grown through my work in the program, I. of course, still love my daughter and am available to help her if she reaches out to me for help. The difference is that I’m a healthier person now and am able to make the tough choices I couldn’t make years ago. I pray she finds the strength to come back to her family. We can’t get back the lost years, but I still have hope, like the warm sun shining on my face, and keeping my love strong.

“The Road Less Traveled”

I think we, who are willing to be in this room and undergo personal change, are brave souls.

When I joined Al-Anon, I was in my Fifties, and anxious to save another person I loved.  But oh what a joy it’s been to let go of that obsession, which was becoming so shrill and counterproductive.

I was relieved to turn the focus back on myself and learn that my faulty attitudes were the source of my pain, not the people around me.

Regarding the amends steps, it’s possible to overuse them, just as we might exaggerate our negative defects in the 4th step. I’ve done both! That’s why it’s so important to understand the purpose of amends: reaching personal freedom.

These are intended to be hopeful steps, not self-flagellation. Making this list and then acting on it is just another way to weed our garden. My husband’s always reminding me to weed close to what we’re growing, so that nothing interferes with the growth of the plant.

Making amends is not always pretty, and rather than freedom I sometimes look for forgiveness and closure. With my daughter, Annie, she threw them right back in my face. So I knew I was on the wrong track to expect absolution from her, and my sponsor helped me appreciate my efforts and then let them go.

My real reward has been surviving that loss without the need to punish myself for it.  Truth is, I’m really not that important! Things happen in life, and it’s not always my fault.