History One

I come from a long line of alcoholics. I love my family. It may offend them to say that, but its time to speak the truth. My father and his mother were able acknowledge their addiction before they died. I am so glad they did; that they were able to stop the downward spiral. I can't say we healed from the damage, but at least they did not descend any further. It's much the same story in my husband's family.

I always knew Grace had her biological chemistry stacked against her. I worried and schemed and tried to protect every moment of every day. It would be more honest to say I CONTROLLED everything ~ or pretended I did. I've learned so much in my own recovery about how insidious that control can be to those around me as well as to myself. But those details will have to wait until a later post.

So when Grace started experimenting taking pills when she was 13 years old I freaked out. Talk about control... the more we tried to force and manipulate the more she rebelled. The tighter the screws, the bigger the fight. I still haven't sorted out which steps were wrong, which were good healthy boundaries. But I know this: the spirit behind most of my actions was unhealthy. I wanted things to be safe and nice and pretty for me more than for her.

Of course, as a mother I wanted her healthy and ok. But so much of my motivation was to save face, to feel good about myself. We all know how we cluck our tongues at the parents of those 'out of control' kids. Tsk, tsk we say to each other... They should have done better.... They should do such and so... 

Inside we are afraid it might be us someday. I was ashamed of being 'that mom'.

It hurts to say that. But one of the biggest blessings in confronting this demon is that there will be no more hiding. So I've said it out loud (kinda - at least wrote it out here). Now I need to say it Grace. Baby steps in honesty...