Hard Choices Are Really Hard

I have been a little reluctant to write this post. I was hoping some other thoughts would come to mind but they haven’t. There are other reasons why I have been reluctant to post, but I think the biggest reason is it’s not fun to realize we are not perfect, we don’t always get it right.

A few weeks back I was speaking with someone I have been trying to help navigate the crisis of loving someone in severe addiction. This case, like so many others including my daughters, is compounded by mental health issues.

The situation has been going on for quite some time and like always things keep spiraling further and further out of control. Issues with the law are piling up. Overdoses are happening over and over. The pain for both the affected individual and those that love them has reached unimaginable proportions.

THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH ANY ONE PERSON CAN DO

When this happens our ability to help our loved ones diminishes. Finances become drained. Due to that, other areas of our lives are impacted, vehicles needing repair, and energy is being completely drained from us in response to the relentless stress of ongoing chaos for an unending variety of reasons.

As I was explaining to this person they must take care of themselves first. Truthfully, I cannot help my loved one beyond my own well-being. And that it is okay to allow their loved one to feel the outcomes of their actions, always being careful to offer help toward recovery when we can. No parent, spouse, sibling, family member or friend wants to do that, but sometimes it is inevitable.

I AM NOT SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE

As I was trying to help this family understand I had to confess, “I was not the best at this.” I often struggled with having to make the hard choices. I shared that because I wanted them to know I realized how hard it was for them.

A DAY THAT CHANGED A LOT

One day that changed a lot for us was the day that Lauren called her brother to see if he could come to pick her up from the Police station. She had been arrested for a DUI. I will never forget the look on his face as he walked into our dining room. It was a look of complete dismay and bewilderment as he said  “Lauren is asking if we can pick her up at the police station, she has been arrested for a DUI.”  EVERYTHING FROZE, we did not know what to think or say. For our family this was not even on our radar and in no time at all that look was on my face. The post “These People Are Trying to Help Us” tells more of this time in our journey.

HINDSIGHT, WELL YOU KNOW THE REST

Hindsight is always perfect, isn’t it? Well maybe not always, some of it depends on us.

It was that arrest that caused LaLa’s anxiety to escalate so much that she could not decide whether to do treatment locally, so she could live at home, or go away to a residential program. She begged me to make the choice for her. It is not uncommon for anorexics to experience increased anxiety; having that knowledge greatly influenced our decision to send her to a program for eating disorders in Waltham, Massachusetts. That’s what we thought we were fighting, There was more.

Having completed the program in Waltham successfully, LaLa’s next step in treatment was immediately to start partial care at a local Intense Outpatient Facility (IOP) thirty-five minutes from our home. “Partial” is as intense as residential treatment, but patients did not sleep there. Lauren hated the new program and couldn’t adjust to it. My wife and I now know why she felt that way, but we did not understand at the moment: We were in the dark. We were fearful she would lose ground in the progress she had made while at the residential facility for anorexia, so we made the choice to build a team of private doctors and counselors who would provide a full array of care for Lauren equivalent to what she would receive at the Intense Outpatient Program. The team was led by a psychiatrist who practiced the Maudsley treatment, this treatment integrates family members into the process of an individual’s recovery from an eating disorder. The treatment was initially developed for the care of drug addiction, but that didn’t matter for us, we thought. In a short while, Lauren, for the first time in her life, was over 100 pounds. I wept tears of joy with her mom the day of Lauren’s weigh-in. She later confessed to me that she was not sure she really weighed over 100 pounds. Anorexics are masters at loading up for weigh-ins and even inventing ways to carry extra weight. I told her I chose to believe she was a legitimate 111 pounds.

KNOWING MORE MAY HAVE HELPED

Soon the time came for Lauren to appear in court. Since it was her first arrest the court wanted to be as gracious as they could while being sure they were giving her an opportunity to get well. As part of that, she would go through several evaluations, one of which was about substance use. We were brokenhearted about what they recommended. They felt Lauren was at very high risk, they could not say of what and wanted her to go into a long-term treatment at a hospital in Waterbury CT. We were at a loss and totally confused. At this time, we had no idea about Laurens drug addiction, and of course, privacy issues would not allow them to tell us directly what was going on.

I wrote a letter to the court explaining her progress and the effectiveness of the program we designed. The court agreed with the letter and ruled to not mandate her to treatment in the long-term facility. Part of me wrote that letter because I could not bear to see Lauren’s pain in having to do that.

THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO

I was faced with a hard decision a time before when Lauren first entered treatment at Walden. It was within the first several days. She was struggling, and afraid. She asked me if I could work out getting her into one of the treatment centers for anorexia here in Connecticut. There are several in our state, this one was called The Center for Discovery. She begged me to get her somewhere close. Now, I understand, that this was because of her fear of her mom or I dying while she was away from us. You can read more about that in the “Summer of Driving”. I did everything I could, called every contact I had, talk to every center in our area, but Laurens BMI was too low, It was between 12 and 13, and none of the residential level treatment centers would consider her with a BMI of less than 18. At Laurens level she needed to be in Partial Hospitalization. Talking to her on the phone while driving home, I felt a level of emptiness that has only been surpassed by her loss. I knew in my heart staying at Walden was the right thing for her, but telling her there was nothing I could do was crushing to me. I pulled over and we cried together on the phone. As we hung up she promised to do her best. I ended the call feeling powerless against the fact that this time the hard decision was made for me.

HARD CHOICES ARE REALLY HARD

When we are faced with the really hard choices it may help to ask a few questions. “Are my actions really demonstrating how much I love this person?” Not easy to answer amidst the flood of emotion that surrounds loving someone in addiction or mental health. Another question is, “are my actions more about helping me avoid my own fear or pain?”

Third, we must always consider, “In my actions is my loved one still being given an opportunity to move toward recovery?” That option must always be present, even when our loved ones can not avoid the heavy outcomes of their choices and behavior. When that happens it’s hard on them and those that love them!

This weeks featured image is by Brooke Shaden. It is called “House of Floods”