Uncertain

This week I read a post from a first-time mom. Her situation is unique because she is a foster mom. In her post she talked about the ambivalence (see last weeks post) of being a mom. A cool thing she did was write words that represented what she felt about being a mom. The one that came up the most for her was “torn”. You can read her post here “Torn”. The image she created is the featured image this week, her name is Brooke Shaden.

When I read her post I could relate what she was saying to loving someone with mental health issues or an addiction. You feel torn, torn about whether you are doing the right thing. Torn about whether you are enabling them or not (everybody has an opinion). Torn about if you can hold on even one more day.

In the last part of a poem, Brooke includes within her post she makes a statement that clearly expresses how it feels to love someone in addiction. She says, “But you – I love uncertainly.”

That expresses so much of how loving someone in active addiction and trying to help them toward wellness and recovery is.  For me, there where three big uncertainties I had to constantly manage:

The first, the uncertainty of knowing how long we would be able to “positively” influence her life.

Early on before we realized that Lauren was addicted to heroin, and at the time she was not. Through later conversations with Lauren and information her medical record revealed it is likely that Lauren began experimenting with drugs in late middle school or early high school, the first being Adderall. It was not until the middle of her senior year in high school that she was asked at a party if she wanted to try heroin, she said yes. You can learn why she said yes in “Stabilize“. Before the heroin days, seeing hints of turmoil in LaLa’s life we began to see that we, increasingly, were a huge part of a slowly diminishing circle of positive influence in her life. We felt she needed us to be that, especially her mom. In interacting with your loved one you never know what to expect. Will they be pleasant and sweet, I referred to this as LaLa in “little girl mode” or would they be flat out toxic. Honestly, little girl mode was a welcome respite from the constant stress. Any situation could turn on a dime by the way. When Lauren was working with a private addiction counselor, the type of treatment that helped Lauren the most, I went through a period where I would record the mode swings that Lauren went through. I noted what she had done that day, who she had been with, and how it showed up for her. I did it to help the therapist, but it really helped me, I learned a lot about LaLa.

For Lauren the nasty moments were not often when she was high, but rather when she was heading into withdrawal, most likely driven by fear and the pain of what withdrawal from heroin feels like. It is not pretty. In one of those low moments I literally had to restrain LaLa to get her to clean up a mess she had made in our living room. The full story is in “Why We Chose Love” . It was one of the saddest moments of my life. In those kinds of exchanges it would have been easy to say something that might have ended our connection with LaLa completely. Many times I had to fight to restrain myself from saying things I knew I would have regretted later. I wish I could say I was perfect at it, but I was not. In the end her mom and I were able to positively influence Laurens life right up to the last day. This was especially true of her mom, they had a very special bond and Lauren leaned on her mom to the end.

The second, the uncertainty of knowing how long “IT” would last.

Nereida, LaLa’s mom, and I both did this, but I think I did it more often. You would set yourself up for deep disappointment. Every time she would go to a treatment center, an IOP, a new addiction counselor, or therapist, your heart would leap. This is it, she is coming out the other side, she is all fixed, all better, it’s over. We will have our beautiful daughter back. That would last for a while, and then the cravings would start. The ambivalence would show up, read last weeks post “Ambivalence”. The siren call of dope would be too loud for her. The crash from that was devastating for us and always ridiculously hard. It was probably the same for Lauren, “Here I go again, I have hurt the people I love most!” Recovery and healing is not a one-step jump to the jackpot, it’s a process of steps forward and slips back. The better question to ask is: “Are they progressing”, LaLa was?

The third, the one you never want to think about but you always know is there, the uncertainty of whether it will all come to a screeching halt.

For our family it did, LaLa overdosed for the sixth time in the last 355 days of her life and did not survive. That’s what I said to a friend who happened to be on the shortlist of people you must call as soon as something like this happens. Friend answers the phone, “Lauren overdosed again” reply “Oh no”  tearful reply “She did not survive” long pause!  I suppose if we can keep the risk of this somewhere in our mind and still maintain our sanity it does keep a sense of urgency present which we must be aware exists, but we don’t keep it in our minds, why would we? You can slip into a false sense of feeling this is manageable, especially when the person you love has survived multiple overdoses because of Narcan. I am grateful for Narcan. Going through multiple overdose experiences with someone you care greatly about lulls you into feeling she has overdosed before but she survived before, the Narcan helped. It will help her again. I did not consciously think that but deep within you want it to be that way every time. There is a risk it won’t be.

So, the uncertainty remains, in life, not just addiction, we just do not know what tomorrow holds. Everything comes with a measure of uncertainty, everything. I think I can speak for my son, my wife, and me, when I say “We had 8,173 days with LaLa. She filled a huge space in our lives that won’t go away. Most of those days are attached to memories of laughter, joy, a few tears, and buckets full of love at the highest level. We would not trade living without uncertainty with having missed moments of such a deep connection with Lauren.

To have experienced love is always worth the risk, even uncertainty!

This weeks featured image is created by Brooke Shaden, it is entitled “Torn”