My Journey - Part 2

Since my last blog post I have spent a lot of time thinking about how we got to where we are today.  Honestly there is a lot of time somewhere in the middle of our recovery that I just cant remember.  Where I left off last time in the journey of my recovery was just before my second child, Emma was born.  The next year is just a blur.

When she was just 3 months old, my son, David, who was born with Spina Bifida underwent tethered cord surgery.  It was something we were aware could happen for a long time before it did and we were terrified.  So there I was in the hospital with a new born, that I was still attempting to nurse and a special needs child that had just undergone major surgery and 2 hours from home.  My husband is terrified by surgery in general but during my c-section a few months earlier and for David's surgery he had a very hard time coping.  So he spent much of his time coping the best he could but was not able to help much of the time.

Anyone who knows my precious Emma knows that she was a very fussy baby.  Which made this time in the hospital even more stressful. She would be screaming and I would lay her safe in her crib while I had to care for David.

David had complications from this surgery and we had to travel frequently from Bangor to Portland and had a few more hospitals stays over the next few months.  I had to leave my baby home in the wonderful care of family and friends but it was so hard to be separated from her.  Much of the time David and I were alone together in the hospital room at the hospital in Portland.  When he didn't need my help I would sit in the window and watch the rest of the world going about their business.  It seemed to me that since my world had stopped all of theirs should too.  Our world became the hospital. For days at a time we didn't even go outside.  David had to lay flat on his back for part of the time after his surgery.  But once he was feeling a little better sometimes he would come and sit on the couch with me and we would look at the Sea Dogs baseball field.  David is crazy about baseball and we would pass the time talking about baseball.  It was a very scary time for me but I look back fondly on the precious time alone we had together.

Over the following months David's recovery was very difficult and much of the year after Emma was born I just don't really remember.  I wish now that I had kept a journal so I could look back and remember all that we went through.  But I was so afraid to even write down what I was going through.  I didn't want anyone to know what we were going through.  I am so thankful that I am no longer in that place anymore.  Honestly, I am still afraid of what people will think of our story but I am determined not to be ruled by my fear anymore.  I will write our story and take the good with the bad.

So because I did not keep a journel I am afraid that most of the details of the year following the birth of Emma in my recovery are a jumbled mess mixed together with changing lots of diapers and taking care of my small children and helping David get stronger.  I think I let a lot of things slide during this time mostly because my life was so busy.  But in December of 2009 my husband and I separated for the second time in our marriage.  This time apart ended up being one of the best things that could have happened.  It made us put our focus back on our marriage and recovery.      

My Recovery ~ In the beginning

A lady that I recently met but have quickly grown to respect said to my little girl you wont ever know what your mommy has gone through for you. For some reason those words really struck me. I started to think about all the things I have done in order to do what most parents do which is to make sure their kids have the best life possible.  One thing that I have been tried hard to do is be very open and honest with them.  I do not believe that secrets help any situation.  But that has been hard.  So I started to rethink the purpose of this blog.  While I hope to reach out to people that suffer in one way or another from the effects of addiction I also hope that someday my kids will read this and understand how things happened.  Maybe they and other people can learn from our mistakes and from our successes. 

So my recovery began about the same time as Joe.  I dont remember now exactly what happened that put me over the edge on this particular day but I decided I had had enough.  After about 3 years of marriage things were spiraling out of control.  I went to visit a friend who recommended a christian counselor at Bangor Baptist, John Kasten.  So I made an appointment.  On my first visit I sat in his office listing all of the crazy things Joe had been doing.  Then John started asking me things about myself.  I remember thinking why is he asking about me doesnt he hear all of the things I am saying about my husband.  It was then that I started evaluating my life and how I had become the person that I was.  Not all bad or good just really thinking about who I was.  He recommended a book that really changed my life, Love Is A Choice by Dr. Robert Hemfelt. 

Over the next few years I went to see John, Joe went to see Jim LaPierre and we went together once a week.  We also started going to a group for young adults at the Rock Church and Joe was going to meeting regularly and working the steps.  It was the beginning of a very difficult process but things really started to get better.  Well things started to go good for the first time really.

But like John always told me that life is an incline plane and unless you are moving forward you start moving backward.  After years of therapy and meetings we started to think that we could take a break.  It was very hard on not just us doing all this every week but on the wonderful family who was watching David for us. 

Ever so slowly we started to let down our guard and things started creeping back into our lives.  That would be the first relapse our family experienced.

My Journey

I have decided to change the focus of this blog from Our Journey to My Journey.  As I have learned through my own recovery and self discovery as the wife of an alcoholic/addict that I have no control over the choices my husband makes.  I do have control over myself and my reaction to them.  This of course is easier said than done.  After being in therapy for over 5 years I am still very much working on myself and as it is for everyone we never arrive we can always learn more and reach higher. 

I am hoping to be as honest as I can about what life is like and the chaos that often comes from living with my husband.  Of course being a wife and mother are connected so I will share what life is like for not just me but our family.  But this is life according to me and from my perspective and is not necessarily how anyone else views it.

I hope to reach out to other families that are struggling with family memebers of addicts/alcoholics.  I am always open to reactions to what I write and would love to hear the experiences of others who are have been or are going through the similar circumstances. 

The one thing I know for sure is that isolation is not the answer to living with this problem that we often tend to keep a secret because it is too painful and embarassing.

Because I am a stay at home mom and find it difficult to go to al-anon and naranon meetings I have joined an online group.  I would recommend it to anyone that has trouble getting to meetings or lives in an area where meetings arent available.  www.naranongrouponline.com

So this is my continued effort to take myself out of my self imposed isolation and join the rest of the world.  I look forward to sharing My Journey with you all and hopefully getting to know some new people in the process and reconnecting with old friends. 

so much worrying to do and so little time

so i kind of went back into hiding. things are so unsure and ever changing that i havent known what to say.  i have spent a lot of my free time reading lately.  my lovely therapist, kate, at higher ground services, asks me how i am coping with things and one thing i do is read. 

i have a problem with worrying.  i have been so worried about things lately mostly things that are completely out of my control.  so i spent the rainy weekend reading as much as i could. i read about amazing women who overcame amazing obsticles.  it inspired me but also kept me from dwelling on the things i could not change.  with the chaos of our life working has been very difficult. who wants to hire someone that may or may not be in jail next week and how do i find a job if i dont know anyone and dont know if my husband will be here to help watch the children.  so needless to say finances are very tight.  so i worried all weekend that the money we were expecting to pay the rent today would not come.  i was so worried that in my head i was aleady packing our stuff and figuring out what we would do next.  of course for anyone who knows me i am a planner.  always anticipating the future and what should be done next.  it some cases it comes in handy in this circumstance it does not. 

worrying not only is exhausting but it makes me have very little patience.  how dare somone ask me again to help them go potty for what seems like the hundredth time this hour.  what is that child drinking anyway and of course anna would have diareah this weekend and why do all the neighborhood children want to spend their time at our house?  dont they know that i have so much worrying left to do today that i dont have time for any of this? 

so losing myself in a book is how i escape the pressure of life instead of turning to drugs or alcohol. and of course all that time and energy was wasted because the money came and it was such an unbelievable joy to pay the rent today.