Glory continues to share her journey around her mom’s addiction.
In this episode Glory shares part of journey as a Social Worker working with clients and as a daughter trying to know when and how to help her mother.
The collateral damage and pain of addiction in the extended family is also part of the conversation – how to balance Glory’s own well being, when to step in with her mom and in which ways, and how to detach from extended family’s opinions when they don’t align with Glory’s actions.
Throughout it all Glory’s love and respect for her mom is evident, second only to her love and respect for herself and her own journey.
See full transcript of the episode below.
You are listening to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction now here is your host Margaret Swift Thompson
Margaret: Welcome back. If you remember when we left off last week Glory had shared how her mum’s addiction to doctor prescribed medication had grown into a problem and how she knew something was wrong at a very young age. Let’s rejoin Glory as she shares how she moved through life with therapy and faith as her guideposts. I believe you’ll find her resiliency inspiring.
Glory: Seeing how she struggled I didn’t want to impose any other burden on her to know what was really going on with me and so I’m sure there was a part of it that was my way of making sure I was taking care of her. Try and avoid causing harm to her as well was a big part of it for me
Margaret: I think you speak to a factor that is pretty common in this family disease which is children become almost like a mini parent and worry very much about the identified patient in this case your mom and making sure things are as stable as possible.
Glory: Uh-huh
Margaret: That you can’t put anymore burden on her ’cause she won’t be able to cope.
Glory: No. I definitely think that’s true and I think that’s been one thing that has been incredibly helpful in this journey for me. Is to learn that it doesn’t matter who it is. Obviously in social work I deal a lot with people in recovery. It doesn’t matter if it’s someone you know is just a friend or if it’s someone in your own home. Their journey is their journey and yours is your own and we can’t really own it for anybody else. Whether that’s their mental health journey or the recovery journey. We can’t take that on and say we’re going to fix that or try and prevent them from relapsing or prevent them from having some kind of breakdown. None of that is ours to own we just have to own our own journey and try and make sure we’re taking care of ourselves.
Margaret: When do you think you got that reality check when do you think you internalized that with your mom, have you?
Glory: I think I’m on my way to being more at peace with that. I do think I can thank my career a lot for that. Having to see people successfully go through recovery and some people not make it and I think that’s helped me to understand that better but, also just in becoming an adult and realizing that I am responsible for my own needs. I can’t project on someone else that I need something from them. If there’s something that I need to be in charge of making sure I get that met, it’s not anyone else’s job I don’t know if I really understood that well enough when I was a teenager to find relief in any way, but now as an adult that makes a lot more sense.
Margaret: And is that about making sure you meet your own need or even just being able to be vulnerable and ask for someone to help you meet that need?
Glory: For sure and I think that is what it is, I guess more of what I mean by that is, just taking responsibility for your need. So it’s not anyone else’s job to make sure that those get met it’s for you to look and seek the answers to whatever you’re needing. To ask for help when you need it. To say I’m not OK I need someone else’s help instead of someone else trying to read between the lines and figure out what you need. I think that’s more so what I’m trying to express. It’s just that it’s important to not expect everyone else to figure it out for you. You have to take on the responsibility to figure out what your needs are and to seek out answers.
Margaret: So how I relate to that in my own story is I had an invisible obstacle course for people who were close to me that they should be able to figure out. With me absolutely showing them nothing and telling them nothing if they love me good enough, and the worst part about it is I thought I was right in this because that’s what I did for everyone else. ‘Cause I read their mind and I knew what they needed before they opened their mouth and it’s all got to be the other way around.
Glory: Exactly!
Margaret: And I don’t know about you Glory but my God did that lead to some pain in relationships.
Glory: Yeah and it is that perception that we can control other peoples’ actions in some way shape or form, and obviously like growing up in you know a portion of my life being kind of unpredictable we crave that. We crave to control what we can but that’s the biggest thing for me that I have to learn over and over again, and I say it’s my kids all the time it’s something I struggle with is the control trying to make sure that I’m not always trying to anticipate everything and come up with plans ABC&D for my own peace it’s not going to give me peace in the end.
Margaret: So, no it’s like chasing the drink or the drug.
Glory: Yeah.
Margaret: It’s looking for something outside of us to make us feel better that’s never attainable or consistent.
Glory: Right.
Margaret: And it’s no different than the addict looking for the symptom to be fixed by the use which isn’t sustainable. I don’t think family members really understand that and you say it well there you say you know growing up in an environment where there was some unpredictability which makes sense when there’s active addiction around there’s going to be various changes in that person on all different levels and everybody’s story will be slightly different but there’s changes and so for you looking to mom the disease is in charge so the disease is unpredictable you don’t have that consistency it makes a lot of sense that at some point you said OK I’m going to have to keep this going because I can’t rely on that person to be able to do it for me on a consistent basis.
Glory: Exactly.
Margaret: And that’s hard to let go of isn’t it even when life has become more stable?
Glory: Definitely it is. I mean control is something that I struggle with day-to-day and it you know, it is a good point to bring up that that is the same journey that the people who are struggling in addiction are dealing with. It is riding the waves of life and not falling apart. It’s really difficult to do for anybody, but I think it is it’s empowering to be a family member of someone who struggled with addiction because I don’t know, it almost gives you more motivation to tackle those things and to make sure that you’re always checking in with yourself and making sure you’re not falling into your own trap because you saw it happen to someone else, and the pain that came from that so. For me honestly, it’s been almost inspiring to look at the journey that I’ve been on with my mom and realized that I’m capable and I can figure this out. I figured it out before I can figure it out going forward. I just need to make sure that I’m always taking that temperature of where I’m at. What am I really trying to do? Am I trying to escape the pain you know or am I, am I just allowing life to live it out and taking one day at a time, you know.
Bumper: This podcast is made possible by listeners like you. Can you relate to what you’re hearing never misses show by hitting the subscribe button, now back to the show.
Margaret: I think it’s important to say that everybody navigates this journey individually and differently. Even though there’s a lot of overlap that we can relate on, and your resiliency to seek help to do your temperature checks is one example. And another maybe someone who is absolutely unwilling to do that, can’t do it. It scares them too much and they don’t do it until they are really in a place of despair because. The way I put it is as a family member just like a person who has the disease we don’t change until we’re in enough pain that we have the willingness to do the work to change. And a lot of family members are under the illusion that if my person gets well, then I’m going to be just fine. And your story speaks to that. Your mom’s ride in recovery has been bumpy and yet you did the work. Do you think it’s because you reached a pain point where you said I just have to do something different and you’ve continued to do that?
Glory: 100 percent I think that. I tell people all the time I was lucky ’cause I hit my rock bottom at a very young age where I truly thought there was no reason to live any longer, and I think because of that it’s allowed me to only go up from there. So that it’s not like I never got there it’s just it happened really soon for me. I feel like you know some people it takes a little bit longer but for me it happened so soon that now I know the way out. I know what it feels like to feel the worst, and how uncomfortable it can be to do that internal work to try to get out of it. But it’s so worth it in the end and so empowering. Then you can see people when that happens to them at least for me and again this is probably why I’m called to be in the helping profession, but it’s so empowering to go through that experience. You hit rock bottom and you still come up. To be able to look at other people when they hit rock bottom and just walk alongside them and help them to realize that they’re going to be OK, and they’re going to come out on top.
Margaret: Yeah, it’s beautiful way of putting it is we have the privilege when we work with human beings on their journey of walking alongside of them. I think the dangerous place for people who work in the profession as well as lived through addiction in their home. Sometimes the struggle to just walk alongside is very real that it’s hard to not jump in and try to do more. I remember always hearing from one of my mentors you cannot work harder than the person you’re working with. And yet in our families, how many of us haven’t tried to work harder than the person who’s got the disease to try and get them well?
Glory: Yeah, I definitely feel like that was incredibly true for me. I knew that for my career because that’s what I was trained in and it made sense. But for some reason when it came to my mom, anytime she would have a situation where things became worse I felt like I needed to fix it. And of course, ironically, I led many of my clients to really successful recovery stories where you know, it was a beautiful ending and for my mom, you know, I’ve suggested lots of things to her and tried to “walk alongside her” in a lot of different paths and she’s just said no, and that’s probably good (laughter) because it’s teaching me a lot along the way. But yes it’s been a completely different journey detaching from her success and not defining that is who I am. If my mom isn’t well, I am not OK that’s been an incredible hard journey to go down, for sure.
Margaret: Well and that’s the roller coaster of addiction as a family member when they’re doing well, we’re like we’re OK and then when they start struggling, it’s like Oh my God I got get down there with them. And the hardest part about recovery, I think for family members one of the many struggles is, I can’t do that with them because then I’m no good to them when they do ask for that help. I have to get off the ride.
Glory: Exactly and I have to say one thing that’s been really hard and I hope, I hope overtime as things progress in knowledge of this. you know becomes more widespread and people understand addiction better. I will say that families can be very critical too and it probably goes the same way when it’s your child as it is when it is your parents. There are family members that will say well you should be doing XY or Z or you know you need to do this to help them, and they’re not doing well because you didn’t do this for them. That’s made it extremely difficult. I’m sure it is the same for anyone’s situation when they know someone who has addiction, but particularly when it’s a family member I feel like there’s a lot of guilt that’s placed on the people around them that they should have done more. They should have done something differently and that’s been really difficult to manage. Especially when, you know it’s not always my place to share the bad days or the issues my mom is having with the rest of my family. They just have to know that I haven’t stepped in to help this time and they don’t necessarily know all those details and that’s been really, really difficult. I feel like it’s alienated me from quite a few family members. I don’t feel comfortable sharing all of the gory details of her recovery, but all they see is something happening to her and that I should have swooped in and I didn’t.
Margaret: I think, what you spoke to in the very beginning of that is absolutely accurate. Wanting people to understand this disease who are not educated yet to know that. So, what I assume possibly happens is they see the situation, they see you continuing to do you and your life and that separation, and they’re terrified for what may happen to mom but feel just as powerless as you do. But instead of feeling that powerlessness jump on trying to get you to do something.
Glory: Exactly exactly.
Margaret: It’s all driven by the fear of the fact that mom in this case has a chronic, progressive, and potentially fatal illness and people can’t seem to breakthrough and get them to do different.
Glory: Yep.
Margaret: And so, when that frustration and fear hits if I can’t change them, well let me grab the next person in line who might be able to do something different and that would be you.
Glory: Yeah.
Margaret: But I hear you. That’s a very painful place to be, and I think that speaks very much to recovery for family members when one member of the family starts to recover and use these new tools that are counter intuitive and don’t look like what other people think you should do there’s some backlash.
Glory: Exactly it comes across as you’re being cold, or you’re you don’t care about them, or you’re not being a good daughter, or good parent whatever the case is. In reality you know that, you know potentially doing any of those things that they’re recommending aren’t going to fix the situation at this point and you have to do what you need to do to stay in a good place mentally and you know sometimes they’re just rejecting the help and that’s not something for everybody to know but maybe they said no to the help you offered and at that point in time it’s not your place to twist their arm to try to convince them it’s not going to make a difference.
Margaret: No. It’s a very valid point and I think that that lack of awareness of the impact on all family members it’s a demonstration of that is those extended family members aren’t really looking at how it’s affecting them they’re just trying to jump into anything that will get them out of their discomfort at that time.
Glory: Yeah.
Margaret: I have compassion for them because they know no better. I also have compassion for you because I think the road you are taking to use these tools though unpopular or not familiar for your family members are the best thing you could do for your mom.
Glory: Yeah.
Margaret: They just don’t see that I suppose in that situation.
Glory: Yeah and to be honest I mean like I said there’s times where I choose to let them critique me or whatnot because it’s not always my story to tell. I’m sharing my story today because I had a conversation with my mom, and she encouraged me that the story could help others. But on a day-to-day basis it’s not my story to tell her recovery. All that I can share is what I’m doing to address my own needs and my own struggles. And I just want her to always know that I am honoring her in that, and sometimes that causes pain for other people when they don’t understand all the gory details of our journey. But I have to just sit in that because I feel more comfortable there in honoring her, than I do spreading it out for the world to know when it’s not going to do any good.
Margaret: Glory shares her story with such respect for her mother, doesn’t she? Please come back next Sunday to hear more from Glory who offers such insight to how the disease of addiction impacted her as a daughter, as a child and into adulthood.
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story please find resources is on my website: embracefamilyrecovery.com
This is Margaret swift Thompson.
Until next time please take care of you.
