I am in need of this reminder this week, so today I am going to refresh my memory as to why good, strong boundaries are so important in relationships with addicts.
An open letter to the addicts in my life.
I love you both very much. I know that you don’t feel like I do and you cannot see how I could. I distance myself from you both.
Brother,
I know that I won’t help you when you need it most, and I seem not to care if you are sleeping in a filthy motel with only one paid night left before you hit the streets.
I know that last night when you were crying and grieving, I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t even call. I won’t give you rides and I don’t believe your lies anymore.
I understand how you feel like I am better than you and I don’t have time for you, and I know that you think I don’t have any idea exactly how it feels to look out into the world feeling like you are completely alone with no one who has your back.
The truth is, you have physically hurt me, and you don’t recall any of it.
I am pregnant now and I really cannot risk being around you for one second.
I love you so much, and it absolutely breaks my heart to see you hurting and in so much obvious and denied, stuffed, heart -wrenching emotional and physical pain.
I love the memories that I have of you, when you were young, silly, and care-free. You were unapologetically….you. The best little brother ever. (even though I wasn’t the nicest big sister)
I pray for you all of the time and the only thing that stops me from swooping in and saving you- giving you rides, ten bucks, another night in the motel, a shoulder to cry on—is my own well-being and safety and your well-being and safety.
I cannot and will not allow myself to be lost in you. I cannot and will not ever forfeit my own Recovery to ‘help’ you. How in the world could I break these cycles for my own children if I was destroying my own progress by getting lost in my love for you-& choosing to helping you in all of the wrong ways?
Oh’ how I wish I could just grab your face and reach the depths of your soul for you, but I cannot.
Only you can.
I wish that you could see from a different perspective, I want so badly to force you to see how talented you are, how much you are loved, how valued you are as a family member and just how important you are to the world. You have so much to offer. You have so much life left to live.
Even now, after you have been in and out of prison, dozens of treatments, accidents, car wrecks, overdoses, health problems, developing mental health issues ALL drug and alcohol related…. over a ten year span..
—my heart and mind still tell me the harsh truth.
Only you, brother can decide that you want to change and give it all you have.
Until then, I will keep praying for you.
If or when I get that phone call that I have been expecting and dreading- It will kill me inside, but ultimately I know that there is absolutely nothing that I could have done for you.
************************************************************************************************Mom.
My love for you is much different. I love the idea of you, and the you that I have heard stories about.
I know that you think my brother is my responsibility. I am not sure why you have formed this idea in your mind, but somewhere over time- it developed into something real for you.
There is no way for me to help you understand how much I care about my brother, I am not abandoning him – but newsflash. I didn’t give birth to him.
This way of thinking that you have had my entire life, is precisely what gave birth to my colossal, destructive, and hard to get out of role reversal & enabling issues.
I understand that you do not comprehend simplistic statements and cannot follow in conversation. I know that you don’t choose this, you simply do not have the capability of having rational thought patterns.
I know you get frustrated and you don’t see why I am not helping you to help my brother.
I can sense the anger in your text messages, and I can hear you struggling to keep it together in the 1 a.m voicemails that I have been getting.
The hatred, the antagonistic threats and the sarcasm in your voice are exactly why I am still honoring the boundaries that I have had set with you for a few years now. You still aren’t safe for me to be around.
I wish I knew of some long-term, documented study out there that has already been conducted, to help me to better understand what has happened to your brain.
The mental health issues that have been either exaggerated or have developed as a result of your continued drug use frustrate me. I don’t understand the way you interpret and perceive any given circumstance. I cannot understand you decisions. We live in two different worlds.
My main frustration stems from not being able to get through no matter which way I word things, or how patient I am.
I don’t hate you but I certainly hate your illness.
Yes, I use to yearn to know who you may have been, or maybe who you were. By the time I was born, mental illness had already begun the decomposition process...but…..
I don’t hate you anymore.
I don’t blame you for my drug use anymore. Those were my choices.
I accept what is.
I have learned about the psychology of your illness and and I completely accept you for who you are.
I have come to a peace, a place that I found after true forgiveness for you.
God has shown me what true empathy looks and feels like, and I have that for you as a human.
You truly did the best you could, with what you had to offer. What I do hate, is the idea that you were cheated out of life. Maybe, you cheated yourself because of the choices that you chose to make, but ultimately, you missed out on so much Joy.
I wish that you could feel true peace for even just one second.
That, mom, is what i struggle with presently. That you won’t ever know what it feels like to just…..be.
I want both of you to know that my decision to stay away isn’t always as easy as you think it is. It wasn’t an easy choice to make. I knew that after over twenty years of the drama, I needed a break at the very least. I needed a chance to figure out who I was, apart from the role that I had adapted to. I needed to give myself a shot, for my kids. They deserved that.
It has been one of the most difficult decisions to stay committed to, and at the very same time, one of the best decisions that I have ever made.
I also want you to know that it is never too late to change things. People can and do recover every day. I don’t think you are throw away people. I don’t believe that you are lost causes. I think that miracles happen every single day and like I have said before- if you are still here breathing, there’s still HOPE for you.
************************************************************************************************
Venting & getting these things out is a healthy thing to do. It helps me to sort out my emotions instead of ignoring them. These thoughts and feelings weigh heavy on my heart and sometimes it makes it tough to enjoy my own family, or be excited about my own life happenings when I know there is so much hardship going on in the hearts and minds of these two. The battles are continuous for them.
In this case, I don’t have the option to say these things to either of them and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter, and sometimes, it just isn’t necessary.