Healing While Helping
…Today, I want to challenge myself. I want to talk about a part of my story that I often run from…the part that says, I need help and it’s okay.
You know as I sit here and I begin to write, the question I really ask myself is “where to begin?” and “which part of my story should I share, because there are so many”. And it is so easy to run to that freer part of yourself that you want others to see. The part that doesn’t require much vulnerability, reflection, or struggle. The part of your story that glides off your fingertips because it has been the story that you have told so many times before. The part that doesn’t require you to shift. But today, I want to challenge myself. I want to talk about a part of my story that I often run from…the part that says, I need help and it’s okay.
It was Friday night at 11:39 p.m. when my sister called me and asked me had I spoken to my dad. As taken aback by this question as I was, considering my sister has always had the closest relationship with my dad and talks to him every day, I responded “no, the last time I talked to him was the day before yesterday, why?” She quickly replied and shared that my dad’s girlfriend had called her crying and said that my dad had not been home in two days and she didn’t know where he was. My sister said she had called him multiple times, but she couldn’t get an answer and that he wasn’t responding to his girlfriend either. She paused on the phone and then told me that our dad had been using cocaine again and that she was concerned. I instantly went into a place of panic and fear. I offered to call my dad even though I assumed he wouldn’t answer. I called and got no response, but by my surprise he called back about 10 minutes later. He was clearly high out of his mind. I could hear it in his voice. And as I listened to him try to force this normal conversation and pretend as if everything was okay, my skin crawled. I was instantly triggered and flashbacked to my childhood.
My dad has always gone through these cycles of using cocaine throughout my life. When my grandmother passed, when my mom passed away, when he got divorced, whenever he was out of work etc. but my sister and I hadn’t seen him use cocaine to the point of not coming home since we were kids. When I was 10 years old I moved in with my father after my mom passed away. At first, things were fine, but it quickly escalated into a situation where my dad was getting high consistently and wouldn’t come home for days just leaving my sister and I at home alone. On some of the days when he would come home, he would be high as a kite, and still look me in my eye and try to carry on a conversation as if I didn’t know a thing. It’s crazy how that side of my father felt so foreign, but yet so familiar to me. Foreign in the sense that, the father I know and love at his core, is so far from that part of him that is addicted. But familiar in the sense that, that was the part of him that I experienced for many years of my childhood.
And the pain it felt to look at him in the eye when he was coming down from the high of snorting cocaine was insurmountable. And when he wasn’t high, he was drunk. And I couldn’t bear to spend another night in my room, quiet, as I listened to him throw up everything he had inside of him. So, I made the decision to move in with my grandma, a place where I felt safe. A place where I felt I could exist without silencing my feelings in an effort to not hurt his. Because it‘s amazing how you can have so many conversations and yet still feel silent. See the thing is, it has always been very clear to me that my dad feels bad about that part of himself. And I know some may say, well he couldn’t have felt that bad because he didn’t quit using. But see, that’s the thing with addiction sometimes. You feel so bad and low that you don’t know where else to run or how to get out. You don’t know how else to escape your pain. And that has been the most difficult for me. To love someone so deeply and see so much good in them that you just want them to see it for themselves. It has been difficult the past couple years as I’ve worked directly with individuals struggling with addiction and assisted them with healing and transformation that I haven’t been able to provide to my own father. But that’s the irony of it all. To work in the mental health profession and have to come to grips with the reality that it is not my role to facilitate change in the lives of my family as if they were my clients. It is my responsibility to learn how to love truthfully and find peace within myself about the things I cannot change.
As I reflected on my experience of flashbacks, crying spells, numbness, and some repressed memories of my childhood I was faced with the fact that there are many parts of my life that I have not yet processed. Parts of my story that are yet to be fully pried open with the intent of release. And I share this because I myself am I mental health therapist. And I struggle sometimes with the reality that I sit in a room and create space for others to tell their story, but yet have not fully told my own. It’s been heavy and confusing to be in such a battle with myself about beginning therapy again. To be scared of what might come up, what I might have to re-experience, and more importantly what it might take for me to heal once I release all that I have been holding. But I know that it’s worth it. Because I’ve seen the restoration that is possible when you get the help that you need.
To hold space for others, when I haven’t even created that space for myself has been a feat. A feat that I am not particularly proud of because it takes self-nurture to be able to pour fully into somebody else’s cup. I have witnessed firsthand the courage it takes for my clients to sit in front of me and share their struggles and the power that can be held in a room when a person becomes a storyteller. And so, this is the start. The start of me not only holding stories, but telling my own. In all its nuances, lows and highs. A time for me to challenge myself to care for my own mental health in the way that I care for others. This is a charge to anyone reading this who struggles with their mental health or knows they may simply need a release, but are scared to take the first step. I feel you. I see you. But let’s take it together. Because I promise that on the other side of our deepest vulnerabilities, is our biggest release.