BROKEN

How do you fix a broken life? A broken family? A broken home? A broken house? A child's broken life? I have all those things that are broken and it would hard enough to find a solution to fix ONE, but to even contemplate fixing ALL these things, well no wonder I am depressed!

My broken house is something I need a lot of funds for which I do not have. I would also need help and assistance finding reliable workers, which has always proven near to impossible in the past. We are talking major and minor repairs which affect our everyday life and most people would not be able to live with for a long time without getting repairs done. For us, we have become accustomed to such an uncomfortable way of living that it is our norm and we have adapted, but that is not to say it doesn't cause us discomfort. Leaking pipes under the kitchen sink that causes stench in the adjoining cupboards. Rising damp in one part of the house and condensation in the rest causing mould and mildew on walls, clothes, cupboards, toys everything. Broken hot water taps in the bathroom and kitchen. Broken banister. Broken panes in windows. Broken doors. Broken door handles. Broken thermostat. Rotten and leaky roof over one room resulting in the worst damp and mould. Vent in bathroom that has mud seeping through from outside. Broken blinds that need to be rolled up and down by hand after climbing on top of the kitchen counter. Broken floor tiles and worn and even missing carpets. These are but a few. So we live in a house that is cold, damp, smelly in places, with clothes and other products that have been ruined my mould or smell of mould. We have to use cold water in the sinks and the shower can only be used if we heat the hot water much beforehand as our water heater/boiler is old, and so on and so on. I have asked the local government for a "healthy home loan" that is for helping to create and maintain safe and healthy living conditions, but I was refused on the basis that my needs are not high priority/high risk. Here are just a few images to give you an idea.

                                                   Damage from damp on windowsill.

          Carpet on the stairs was so damaged I removed it hoping to keep the stairs wooden, only             to discover the wood was in damaged itself and so it remains, awaiting new carpet.

          Mould on glass jars stored in kitchen cupboard, not the only thing covered in mould.

                                                              Rising damp damage.

                           Slugs and woodlice inhabit our bathroom (and living room too)!

                                                Dishwasher drain and sink drain leak.

                                              Mould on a coat stored in coat cupboard.

           Mould in living room and most of our other rooms, ranging from white to black mould.

                                                  Muddy "gunk" seeps in from outside.


As if that were not a lot to deal with, I have a broken family. People used to refer to a broken home as a home in which the parents had divorced. My children do have a broken home due to divorce, but not only are the parents divorced, but the father is virtually nonexistent as well as the grandparents. Our family is broken though for another more pressing reason. I have no parents, only one sibling who lives over 5,000 miles away and an elderly aunt who lives over 1,000 away (none of us being able to afford the travel to visit and my aunt is too old to travel), no partner....I only have my three children to call my family. So too my children only have me and each other to call family; however, my son has not been part of the family for three years. Though I am in constant touch with him, support him, visit him etc, my middle child has not seen or spoken to him in three years and so therefore there is never a time when we are all together. My youngest daughter has increased her contact with her brother and she often comes with me to visit him, They have also started contacting each other on their phones independently from me. Obviously with my two older children being estranged from each other, this causes many unpleasant and difficult situations. This also puts added pressure on me to constantly juggle my time and respect my daughter's feelings to not have contact with her brother. It too can create avoidable delays since I often have to ask my children to wait to be picked up from school for instance, because I have to take my son back home after attending an appointment with him. It would be much easier if I would be able to pick up my daughters from school with my son, then drop off my daughters at home and carry on to take my son home (his flat, our home and school are in three different towns and my son's appointments are all in my town and not his). Weekends, school breaks, summer, holidays especially Christmas are extremely difficult for me and very upsetting that we are never together as a complete family.

                                                    Christmas 2008, happier times.

                                                                        Easter 2009

Visiting my aunt 2009

Last summer holiday together 2012, tensions were strong.

Last Christmas together 2012

March 2013, last ever photo taken with all my children together, plus my half sister.

So you can see from above, a broken home, a broken house, a broken family. These are contributing factors to my broken life and of course my son's broken life. I need not go into detail about my broken life and the other contributing factors, such as losing my mother, ill health as a child, loneliness, bad marriage, unemployment and my unfortunate last relationship, since I have discussed them at length in previous posts. However, adding to the list my children not being together, my household in disrepair etc, it is all too much to consider. The feeling of being overwhelmed by ALL these issues as grown and grown and been there for so many years, I do not know what to do about it. A big factor of course is that I have to think everyday how my son went from those images above to this:

He is alone, excluded from society and his family, both his immediate family and his extended family. My ex husband has a virtually non existent relationship with his children, and yet on those rare occasions that he does make contact he expects his children to be complacent and unquestioning. He never hears what they are saying to him, especially when his son speaks to him. The grand parents are not much better. There was a time when they seemed to have a preference for their granddaughters, not having much time for their grandson. Now the opposite is true. They went for a few years of  having near to no contact with any of them. Now they make contact with their grandson, but not at all with their granddaughters. The last time they saw my youngest,she was 7, she is 11 now. They saw my middle child 2 years ago for 10 minutes in the streets of London when my daughter took her exchange partner to do some sightseeing. They now see my son every couple of months! However these visits must be due to some sense of duty or guilt, yet that does not seem to be equally felt for ALL the grandchildren. My son was visited by his grandparents this week and they said they will not be able to see him over the Christmas holidays, for reasons my son forgot but he thinks it was because they will be busy. His father phoned him last week and since my son was drunk at the time he answered the phone, which he would not normally do if he saw it was his father calling. His father said he can see him Dec. 20, but no suggestion about having his son over for Christmas, which he has never done since we separated 10 years ago and more importantly, never since my son was told to leave home. This will be the fourth Christmas my son is not part of the family, two Christmas he was homeless, and NEVER ONCE has his father or grandparents taken him in over Christmas. I have had him over for a Christmas meal, but with my daughter "hiding" in her room and therefore I can not have him stay a night or two. However, there are no reasons stopping the rest of the family from taking him in for a few days over Christmas and yet there has never even once been an invitation. My daughters have been included in "their" Christmases before but not a good many years. This makes them feel unwanted and more broken.

My son had me on the phone for 2 hours last night, from midnight to 2 a.m. because all of his brokenness came bursting out of him. One of the things that bothered him the most is being "cut off" from his family and not being allowed to come over when he feels like it regardless of the fact if his sister is home and for her to be a part of his visit. He misses his family, misses the "old days" and wants to be together again. I agree with him, it adds to my brokenness as well. I can understand how this happened, yet my son can not. I fear that if they ever agreed to sit down together to discuss their feelings my son would get angry and aggressive which would only fuel my daughter's reasons for keeping him out of her life. 

He has not continued in education, has been homeless, slept rough in the winter, been in hospital numerous times, has a criminal record, has had a drug problem since his mid teens, has no friends, no social interactions, no family interactions, believes his sister hates him, no work prospects, anxiety and depression, in temporary accommodation, living on benefits with no hopes or dreams for a future and does not want to exist. He had an emotionally abusive and also emotionally absent father. He is full of sadness, regret and painful memories. He is broken and appreciates that we all are, yet he wants me to help fix it and I want to fix it because that is my job as a parent, but I can not fix any of it.

Before hate, anger, damage and bitterness set in.

The photo above represents a time before drugs, before chaos, before self harm, before we broke completely. It does not represent a perfect family of well adjusted children, my son was being regularly insulted and shouted at by his father and his sadness was already there. My daughter was living with the consequences of her club feet and constant medical care as well as a father who shouted at her often. My baby girl was still innocent and pure cuteness. If I stepped in then, and made real changes maybe it would have prevented some of the terrible things these children have since lived through. We can not go back unfortunately, and of course I would like to look forward, but have got to the point where I can only see this existences continuing until it ends......

That Day

Nothing prepares you for some things in life, even if you have mentally contemplated some possible events in your future. Hundreds of times I have mentally played out scenes in my head about finding my son after an overdose. Thankfully when it did actually happened, the outcome was not what I have ever imagined, my son survived! However, though the outcome was more wonderful than anything I have yet to experience, the actual experience was one of the worst I have experienced. I think the only other experience that comes close was being there with my mother when she died. That was when I first heard the death gurgle, but then she took a huge gasping breath, as if she was going to go under water, and she was gone. A very important difference is that she was my parent, you expect your parents to pass before you. She was also dying of cancer so death was an accepted inevitability in her short future. We do not ever expect our children to pass before we do. We do not expect a self inflicted death of our children, whether it was due to an intentional suicide, or an unintentional overdose or accident. How parents survive the death of a child regardless of cause is beyond me. I do not know if I have the strength to carry on living if I lost a child, even though I have other children. My heart bleeds for those parents, but selfishly I am so glad that I have not joined that group of bereaving parents.

                                       

I carried on as normal after my son was taken away in the ambulance. I tried to look for his drugs and take them with me. I packed a bag to take to hospital. I phoned his new drug worker and explained what had just happened and that we need to cancel the appointment for tomorrow. I looked for my keys but could not find them. I looked around the mess that was my son's flat and how worse the mess was after the chaos and madness of what happened less than an hour ago when 6 emergency attendants and doctors crammed in and tried to save my son. I talked to the housing staff. I found my keys, which were in my trouser pocket, but had never looked there, and I drove home to my daughters.

When I approached home my thoughts were how am I going to disappoint my daughters that we will not be packing up and going to the seaside for a few days as planned. There disappointment in having mom let them down, and it was their brother's fault was how I perceived their reaction. I sat down and calmly told my daughters what had just happened, their brother almost died and I had helped save his life. I told them without a tear in my eye or a wobble in my voice. They did not react much. I told them we could therefore not go away today, I saw the disappointment in their faces. I proceeded to tell some people what had happened, but it was all very surreal not only because I was calm, but because there was not the outpouring of shock and sympathy with offers to help. It all seemed too matter of fact. Is this what everyone expected to happen one day? Did it not surprise anyone? Even if this was the case, for I have feared such an event and have often voiced my fear, did we not deserve some shock and sympathy?

Then the calls from my son started. He was agitated. He was upset that I left his flat. His fear was the police would be involved, his flat searched for drugs, being questioned about the drug he took and that he would be arrested for having purchased that drug! Irrational fear, but it was his fear none the less. It seemed that my son would stay overnight and that the psychiatric team would assess him the following day to assess whether he would need to be admitted or not. Then as I calmed down with relief that he will be safe, and I would go take him his clothes, toothbrush, underwear etc, I got another call from my son. My son had been DISCHARGED!!! He was waiting for me to collect him and take him home. No psych consult, no overnight observation, nothing.

So my son took too much Butyr Fentanyl because he was very stressed and anxious and did not receive his Valiums in the post. He had none at home. He was agitated and wanted to calm down. He knew he had his "free gift" however, and that would work as a quick fix to calm him and get him to his appointment without stress. He was conscientious though that he was "ashamed" of his behaviour and so he did not want his mother to know or to see him have a smoke of the deathly drug. There was no way of measuring it out as the tools he uses were in the room I was in and there was nothing in his reach except a spoon and he wanted to hurry before I came back in his room to see if he was ready. Quick, what should he do? He used the tip of the spoon, he looked and thought it was far too much but he will only smoke a bit and it will be ok (though in his own words to me earlier he said, "this can kill people if they aren't carefully). This was not because he wanted a quick fix since he is no longer addicted to opiates. This was not to get high. This was not to kill himself. This was because he was very anxious and had nothing to calm him. This was the young man who is always meticulous about precise measuring techniques to keep him safe. This was the action of a very desperate person to get a few minutes relief from his mental anguish. He got relief by entering total blackness and nothingness.

This was also the young man who has had three or four psychiatric admissions and suffers from long term drug misuse issues. This is the young man who had purchased said drug and still had it at his flat. This is the young man who lives alone in his flat. This is the young man who has enough issues to warrant him living in supported housing. This is the young man who was discharged to return to his flat, possibly with more of the drug waiting for him and with no one to monitor him. This is the young man who overdosed on a drug and had a very long period of being unresponsive and in respiratory arrest. This is the young man who had to be injected three times with Nalaxone to stop the opiate overdose from killing him. This was the young man who was discharged from the hospital with no evaluation done, no follow up assessment appointment give, no determination as to whether or not he will be safe on his own. Discharged!

My youngest daughter said she wanted to come with me to pick up her brother. I was not thinking clearly at all because I said that would be fine. I did not consider my son's state of mind, mental well being or anything like this. I was so disappointed in the hospital and so concerned how my son will behave and stay home safely that I went in and upon seeing him ignored the fact that he was alive and did not hug him or show any emotion. Instead I was more concerned in asking the nurse why he was being released. My son did hug his sister who was uncertain what all the implications were, and was nervous and confused I think, so she did not hug him back. This obviously was not the reaction my son wanted and was not what he visualised in his head when he thought of us coming to get him after such a horrendous ordeal. We got to the car and my phone rang from the only person who actually rang me to see if there was anything she could do and ask how things were. My son became paranoid who I was talking to and why I was discussing him. These two factors made him aggressive and his behaviour was very upsetting. My reaction was also aggressive with a bit of retaliation and fear. Because of our confusing behaviour we both managed unintentionally to frighten my daughter who began to cry.

The rest is a bit of a blur. All I knew was that this was not the way we were meant to be acting.None of this was suppose to be happening. We deserve better than this but we are just too screwed up as a family. How did it all happen? How did we get here and more importantly, how do we get out of this hell?

I also knew I had the"death powder" (as my son would later call it). I did not know what to do with it. I was worried and I was anxious and I wanted to get my daughter home but I was also scared to leave my son to his own devices.

After I was home, I can not even remember leaving my son's flat or what was said, my son and I spoke on the phone until the wee hours of the morning. He was very angry and aggitated. One thing that he was particularly upset about was my reaction when I saw him in the emergency room. I did not hug him. I did not say I love you. My son had every right to be upset about this because it is true and it must have been very painful for him. Despite everything that had happened and what had been said, I am sure that deep done my son was scared and just wanted comfort from his mother, the only person in his life, his only source of love. He received no loving greeting from his mother. The hurt must have been deep.

All the emotions of this this day hit me the following day........

Betrayed

When we meet people in any sort of "care" profession we trust them, we put our faith in them and we make ourselves vulnerable as they soon know so much about our personal lives and issues. Sometimes we meet a support worker that we are somehow involved with and feel an immediate connection and a mutual like that develops into friendship. Also often when your family is suffering and there are many services involved, you begin to feel the desire to help others in similar situations who may be feeling alone and misunderstood. This is what happened to me.

With all the support my family was being offered, my son was not improving and my daughter rejected all help. I felt useless, helpless and hopeless. I offered myself to the volunteering mentoring program. I did the training and gave it a shot. It was not successful so I moved to the young people's services and began volunteering and that has seemed to go quite well. As a result I have made that cross over of having certain support workers (some who worked with me or my son) as friends or social media friends or on friendly terms with. All of these, except one, have been very pleasant associations.

The one that did not was made more complicated when the friendship became physical and more than just a friendship. I have written about this particular relationship and the pain and disappoint it has resulted in on more than one occasion. These posts, the first one in particular deals with this.

http://livingwithmydrugabusingteenager.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/drugs-brought-us-together.html

http://livingwithmydrugabusingteenager.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/it-is-killing-me-to-love-you.html

However, after many months of trying my best to forget the heartache this relationship caused to not just me but my children (well mainly my son), it has resurfaced and I just need to work through this by writing about it.

When someone is an addict they can treat the ones they love very badly. Addicts can and do lie and cheat for their own personal gain. Usually this is for money for drugs, lessening their own guilt and also the fact that when they are on drugs or coming down they can become aggressive and hostile, treating those around them very badly. There are those who can just be downright unhealthy and destructive and toxic. Sometimes the behaviour is not a result of the addiction, but the addiction is a result of these behaviours! Unfortunately, once they are an addict, some use that as an excuse to apologise all their behaviours on their addiction, when in fact the unscrupulous behaviours started before and perhaps the drug use was to mask their own inner conflicts of their behaviours.

The man I was involved with was a senior drug worker, mentor, rehab manager. He has a past of drug addiction but then started using years after our friendship began (at least as far as I know). We were friends, chatting and drinking tea. This friend came around on weekends to do odd jobs for me and chatted with my daughters and got on very well with them. This friend would also come by during the week to chat, sometimes meet with my son here or outside. He seemed to genuinely care about us all. Everyone who knew him professionally had respect for him, liked him and thought he was very good at his job.

It took two years for it to turn into more than friendship and things were ok at first when we wanted to keep things as friends with benefits but then I fell in love with him (actually I believe I was in love with him prior to us starting a physical relationship). Actually it started with what seemed more of a relationship than friends with benefits since he came over for a family dinner, played the Wii with my daughters and spent the night when we "consummated" our relationship, so it was not hidden from my daughters.

Fast forward now. Lies and more lies. Being let down and stood up repeatedly. Contact became erratic and on his terms. He was separated, he went back to his wife, he got her pregnant, he left her, he promised more of a regular relationship with me and then less and less contact until there was eventually no more relationship, no more contact.

Fast forward some more. After months of no contact he reemerges and comes to spend New Year's with me and my children. He spends a few days with us. He spends time with my son on New Year's Day in a good and friendly assuring manner. That first day he spent with my son was actually in my home and it was wonderful. Eating, playing games with my youngest daughter, the two of them playing guitar etc. Later I found out that he asked my son for his blessing and he promised my son he would not hurt me. Than  it turned vulgar, spending the entire day day with him asking to get hooked up with drugs and doing drugs all day in the B&B my son was staying in. Much later my son told me this man told him all sorts of sexual stories and even confessed to sharing dirty needles with HIV positive drug user. This of course raised fear in my son that I could possibly have been infected. Also telling him other upsetting stories which were highly inappropriate. Oh, but wait, they were doing drugs, that in itself is highly inappropriate!

On New Year's Day, he got down on his knee in front of my youngest daughter and asked if I would marry him. She was so happy and giddy because since his arrival he repeated said "I love you. I love you so much" in front of my her and in front of my other children as well. He talked about going away on holiday, this too in front of my daughter. She too envisioned a happy life for us all, but more importantly thought she could finally watch her mother be happy in love!

Was he high? No not really, but I did start to think he was on something. Later my son said they did "score" when they went to the shops earlier, but that he spoke about his love for me before they took anything. Also my son said that he did not take enough of the "right" kind of drugs to make him act like that because of the drugs, so even my son, a seasoned drug user, believed this man! Was he off his face and acting silly saying all sorts as people do when they are drunk for example? No. Was this behaviour self seeking in order to gain money or drugs or goods or food or accommodation? No. Was he off his face or having a bad reaction or a bad come down causing him to deliberately say painful things? No. Did he know of our insecurities and vulnerabilities and loneliness? Definitely! Did he know that he was the only man I opened up to and had a relationship with in the past 9 years? Yes he did. Did he know how much we all wanted to be loved and have someone who cared in our lives! Absolutely!

Moving on! While he was here I showed him how amusing it was that he has an alter ego account on Facebook in a pseudonym with two random friends that has not been used for years and it has popped up as someone I might know. He quickly grabbed my phone and sent himself a friend request!!!! I thought nothing would become of it.

A few days later he left early in the morning promising to be back in a few hours. I even gave him my daughter's keys and rather than saying he is ok without them and will just wait for me if I am not home, he took the keys making it even more believable that he would indeed be back. He never came. He never came back!

I won't go in to all the details of that,as it is all in my old post. Now let's fast forward again! On Aug 21st his falsely named Facebook name accepted my friend request. Also a week prior to this I got a suspicious email from the same 18 year old young woman who was harassing me during my friends disappearance earlier this year. The weird thing is that the e-mail from her was attached to a thread of e-mails from a former boyfriend of mine who visited me during the time I was in an on again off again relationship with this man and he was very jealous. Also suspiciously the email had a vpn redirect on it so it said it was sent from a few different worldwide locations. This "friend" had spoken to my son about how he uses a program that redirects his vpn so he can't be tracked. This email also had a suspicious attachment on it so I was suspicious about what it may contain, who sent it and why?

I was not in control of accepting this Facebook request, as I did not send it and was upset that this man or indeed someone else was looking at my person post, so I fixed my security that my posts would not be seen by this individual. He still only had the same two random friends and now me. He then started posting selfies of his torso, showing off that he has lost weight and become quite muscular.  I thought why do that when there is virtually no on on this Facebook to see the photos. As a few days past he bbegan adding some of his old friends and old co workers. More selfies aslo were posted, yet no contact was made with me. No message. No apology. No explanation. Why? Why do this to me? Why taunt me? Why add me to your facebook which I had no role in, only to ignore me and show me how well life is? Not because he is an addict, even if he publicly said he is an addict who is now clean but did lots of unforgivable things in the past for which he is sorry for. Why didn't I just unfriend him? I was morbidly curious and wanted him to contact me with answers because I thought I deserved that much.

Then after portraying his happy new life and still no message, I get a friend request from the 18 year old who swore she was involved with him while he went missing. I ignored it. I got a second request a week later from her. I declined it and blocked her. Morbid curiosity caused me to unblock her and I saw her post referring to me as an "ugly, old, slutty hag". I also saw that the two of them were together during the year and she posting an intimate picture of the two of them in July. I was hurt of course. Then I see a few days later that they are now friends on Facebook as well though he sore to me and his aunt in January that we can not believe a word she says, she is trouble and should be blocked! Well I notice his that part of his bio on Facebook says he is "prince of demons...." while hers just says "queen of cunts". It says it all and I hope the 44 year old man will be very happy with his 18 year old lover. I feel that they have more than likely discussed me and laughed at me and made me into a pathetic old joke. I feel humiliated, rejected, hurt, used, lied to about EVERYTHING! Not only that but because I accepted this man into my life and home he did betrayed and hurt children, especially my son, who was very angry and just wanted to punch this man if he ever say him again. My son has always felt let than and betrayed and ridiculed by people especially the males in his life, well just when he thought someone cared, he was kicked in the face again!

Has this man used me and deeply insulted me because he is an addict? Did he stay away from me for 9 months yet resume contact with a "girl"who was friends with his daughter because of his addiction. Did he promise to always love me and be my friend and help me because he took drugs? Did he promise my son that he would help him get a flat and asked for his blessing etc because he was an addict? My answer to these questions would be no, absolutely not.

Does he have people fooled and cheering him for his success in pulling his life around yet again and publicly admitting to be an addict who is now on the road to recovery and he apologises to all he has hurt? Yes absolutely.

Am I and my children better off without him in our lives? Of course. However, do I still feel I should have been treated with some dignity and respect? Yes. Do I still want him to apologise and explain? Yes, but I know that will never happen and that is why he is blocked from my Facebook. Do I in the corners of my messed up mind and broken heart want him to tell me he did not lie and he did really love me and always will. Yes, yes I am ashamed to admit it but I do. I loved this bastard like no other man before and he used me for whatever self gain it was, but he exploited my good nature and did not consider my feelings or my children's despite knowing all of our personal histories. Is it sick that I still want him to reach out to me and to reject the 18, even though I tell myself I would never have him back in my life on any level? Yes it is sick, but it is part of the sickness within me from my emotional scars of which I spike of in my last post "SCARS".

I will never forget this "friend". I do not know if I will ever trust another again. I will still wonder about him and I still wished he loved me in a healthy way. He is scarred as well and dysfunctional too and uses all the wrong crutches to survive (drugs and sex and emotional manipulation). Is this because of his addiction, again I think not, I think the addiction came because of his emotional damage and now it is a convenient scapegoat.

Well I hope this new scar of mine will start to mend now that I have well and truly exposed it to the light!

Scars

Well it has been a very long time since I wrote on my blog, especially since I was writing at regular intervals before. There is so much going on that I will write a few entries with specific issues, in hope of updating my readers as to what has been happening over the last several months. This one will be more about my introspection over the last few months.

I have been spending more time than usual trying to figure out why life has been the way it has been for me and my children. This has led me to try to understand my own life and why things have happened the way they have long before I married my ex husband, long before my children, and long before my son's addictions. I am wondering what is it about my behaviour, my patterns, my background that may have taught me dysfunctional traits that have led to make decisions that have created more and more dysfunction.

I have come to the conclusion that two major elements of my life have led me to be where I am today. Firstly the relationship with my mother and her premature death. Secondly, the traumatic onset of my bowel disease (ulcerative colitis) at a very young age (7).

I had a very close relationship with my mother. She was a stay at home mom until I was around the age of 6 or 7 and again from the age of about 10 or 11. I loved her and looked to her for comfort and assistance. She was my everything, she loved me unconditionally, she was a wonderful role model, she was self sacrificing, she was nurturing and hard working in everything she did. She was gentle and loving yet also a fierce lioness who would always step forward to protect or defend my sister and I. My illness must have caused her great worry and it was when I became ill and spent a lot of time at home and hospital rather than school which was the beginning of my somewhat less than ordinary social development.

I can not recall how many years I was at home, but during that time I did not go outside and play with the neighbourhood children, or if I did I have no memory of doing so. I know I missed a lot of school so the "normal" development children gain from the social and societal structure that school gives and teaches us was absent in my life. We had no real close family friends, no family what so ever in the same country let alone near by. For this reason my mother became even more important to me.

                                                    My mother and I before I became ill.

As the years went on I eventually began trying to do more things and though I missed much of my school years, my mother encouraged me to continue  education and sign up to community college. She was supportive and encouraging. I started taking one or two classes in the evening and eventually worked up to attending full time during the day. In the beginning it was very hard for me, though I was intelligent enough and eager to learn, I lacked the past experience the teacher expected of the students. I was ready to quite early on, however, my mother sat with me and we did the work together until I became more comfortable and confident with the work! When the first year was a success, and I started my second year, my mother encouraged me to apply to University and I was amazed I was accepted to all I applied for. My mother was so proud, I know she was. She wanted a bright and successful future me, even more so given the circumstances of my childhood.

Basically my mother was always there for me, always helped and advised and cared for me. I did not have the typical childhood in which I built up social circles and learned coping skills based on normal social development as other kids do through going to school and being part of a group. I did not live in a family in which there was lots of activity. There was no extended family, my parents only had one couple who they were good friends with and they were older and therefore their children were very much older than my sister and I. So while I spent a lot of my childhood at home, the home was quiet and I depended on my mother for all my learning and needs.

My mother and father did not have a healthy relationship and my father (as most men in those days) saw his main role as provider who went to work and earned money to fulfil his needs as husband and father. My mother and father fought often and seemed to have a love hate relationship, very much having their ups and downs. They eventually divorced when I was about 12 or 13.

They say women look for someone like their fathers to marry, I think I have always searched for someone to take care of me, love me  and support me as much as my mother did. I was just getting my feet on the ground, second year of studying at UCLA, loving it and doing well. Learning how to talk to people and socialise. Feeling better about myself, my life and the future. Then out of no where my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was given 3 months to live. My world crashed. My life changed. I cared for my mother at home. I took her to her doctor appointments, to radiation and chemotherapy. I cooked and shopped and cleaned and tried my best to maintain my academic studies. My mother and father were no longer together and my sister no longer lived at home. I watched my mother deteriorate and suffer and eventually saw her take her last breath after hearing that haunting sound of the "death gurgle".

I never found anyone who was even near to filling my mother's shoes because I must somehow project the wrong energy since the men I have attracted or been attracted to have been anything but a caring, loving, supporting giving man!

This is one factor of my life, my past, my personality created by my childhood that has contributed to my life's choices and my behaviours which have resulted in difficult situations and upset. The other one was a byproduct of my illness that affected nearly my entire childhood. As I mentioned, this illness resulted in years of near isolation. That plus the pain and discomfort and doctors and embarrassing procedures, all contributed to a very sad childhood.

Just before starting middle school my family moved and I had missed a lot of primary school due to being ill. I had a year of home schooling in our new home. I was also put on a high dosage of steroids which created a child who had the look someone with Cushing's syndrome. When I started middle school I was still slightly overweight, with bushy eyebrows and I wore my hair in two plaits. I wore unfashionable clothes and was painfully shy. I became the middle school's perfect candidate for bullying or as it was called then "being picked on". I was called names and laughed at in class, I was the one no one wanted on their P.E.teams or any activity that we were put into groups or teams. I was laughed at and rejected during lunch and recess. I was humiliated on the school bus. I walked alone from the bus stop to my home with a group of children (mostly boys) walking behind me calling me names and laughing all the way home. I have blocked out most of the names I was called and only one phrase has stuck in my mind all these years, "whale on the beach, whale on the beach".

                                                        Me at around the age of 10.

Naturally this lessened over the years and my appearance improved, a lot,inside I felt like the whale on the beach for many years to come.

As a result this made it very difficult to "put myself out there" as an adult when it came to socialising, first because of shyness, insecurity, now because of age, depression and my parental responsibilities, I  now realise that I have had a need to be accepted and liked and "popular". I have been somewhat vain and often insecure. I want to be wanted as a result of my illness and my childhood.

The years of exclusion and then the bullying when I re entered the world during my most informative years, created such insecurity and self doubt within me. This was because of my illness and then the horrible way I looked thanks to the only treatment at the time, long term steroid (prednisone) treatment. I felt fat and ugly for a very long time and whenever life was stressful I immediately started to attack myself and felt fat and ugly and useless. I have been looking for validation all these years and that is maybe why I stay in unhealthy relationships because I want validation regardless of the health of the relationship. Perhaps this need of validation and approval and being liked is why I wanted to be liked by my children's friends rather than being the parent who treats their children with more authority. I am deep down inside afraid to upset my children, I want them to like me as well, maybe that is why I lack some of the strictness that maybe a parent should have. I want to be seen as the popular mom and the cool mom in my children's social circles. That is absurd when you consider that all stems out of childhood experiences of being rejected and unliked.

This fear of being rejected and ridiculed and not being accepted, along with the void my mother's absence has created within me, has made me into someone who is a people pleaser, someone who avoids confrontation, always seeking approval from most people who come into my life. Maybe this affected my parenting and I should have confronted the terrible home life much sooner than I did. Maybe I could have avoided some of the damage my ex husband did to our son's emotional well being. Maybe I should have been more confrontational and cared less about being "liked". Maybe because of these issues within me it has somehow made me insufficient with dealing with all the hurdles and obstacles and in so doing I have created more and more issues until our life is as we now know it, chaotic, dysfunctional and unhappy.

This is me!

The expression that something can "scar you for life" seems to be true. My scars seem to have affected me and my choices and my emotional health which in turn has affected my children's lives. No one can ever take the place of my mother, but I should not be looking for anyone to fill a void even if she was the soul provider of all my needs. I suppose in meeting all my needs and my social isolation I did not learn how to be self sufficient and build a life worth living due to all my avoidance behaviours. No one can erase the years of bullying and feelings of low self worth, but I should not have spent too many years looking for acceptance. Now I find myself living in a society which is becoming more and more obsessed on how many people follow us, how many "friends" we have or likes we get, I feel that it feeds on my insecurities and though I am no longer an adolescent or in my 20's I seem to succumb to that horrible competition when it comes to my online life, and I HATE that about myself.

The real question is, if I am indeed scarred for life, how do I make those scars less permanent? If indeed these aspects of my psychological make up have helped create this hugely messed up life, how do I move on from understanding it to changing it? How did these things contribute to my son's feelings and seeking solace in drugs? My daughter's anxieties and fears and almost emotionless existence? How will affect my youngest in the nest few years?

On that note my next post will be how these issues allowed me to fall in love with a compulsive liar, womanising addict which in turn caused not just me but my son and youngest daughter great betrayal and broken hearts.

Once I have addressed these more introspective issues I will tell then update you all on my son's roller coaster ride of a life.

It is Killing Me to Love You!

How do you love an addict? And why love an addict? Because we do not choose who we fall in love with.  Who our children or loved ones turn out to be are out of our hands. We do NOT in fact love the addict. We actually HATE the addiction! We love who the addict once was, who we thought they were or who we would have liked them to be. We love the goodness underneath all the destruction that addiction has created upon their very being. We love the potential of who they could be if it were not for addiction sucking all the motivation and ability out of them. We love them, who they really are and they can no longer see under the darkness addiction has blanketed them in. We can not stop loving them regardless of  the fact that they believe they love their drugs more than anything else, when in fact their drugs are tricking them into and not letting them see how much there is for them to love without drugs!

                                 

I spend quite a lot of time with my son, but it is not the kind of time I would like. Time taking him to appointments. Time calling him and ringing sometimes over 30 times in succession to make sure he answers so I know he is alive. Time cleaning and caring for him. Time making sure he has food, electricity etc.. Time being out with him trying to run some errands and having  members of the public look at him oddly. Time arguing with him. Time listening to him talk to me like no good mother should ever be spoken to. Time watching him do drugs. Time listening to him talk about drugs. Time listening to him about his plans for the future which consist off stocking up on drugs, making drugs, tying new drugs. Time listening him complain about how he has nothing and no one in his life but drugs (and me). All the quantity, with very little quality. But I still love him.

I have watched painfully a "life" no mother ever wants for her child. I have watched while the one life addiction possessed knock all the lives of those involved down, like evil dominoes. I have watched, paralysed with fear and depression, being helpless to the intoxication and toxic affect drugs have on my beloved son. I have tried to fight that demon and tried to show my son that life is good and he is worthy of a happy life, but time and time again, the drugs win because they give an immediate gratification which hide all the pain, living in reality is incapable of hiding pain. Promises of a bright future with love and education, career, travel, dreams fulfilled, all require time and the belief in oneself and the dedication and motivation to make it possible. Addiction takes all that away and falsely tells the addict they "she"will make it better. And so the cycle continues and continues and continues. We all suffer, we all feel defeated.
                                 
                                         

On top of it all, as if watching my first born child, and my only son be seduced by addiction isn't hard enough, I fall in love with a recovering addict who has shown me that no matter how well you overcome the dysfunctional cycle of addiction and successfully create a "better" life, addiction will ALWAYS own you. You will always be fighting it in times of stress and unhappiness as she whispers to you to come back to her because only she loves you and only she can make you happy.

Falling in love with a recovering addict who eventually turned back to drugs, cunningly with prescription medication, but also using more and more recreational drugs until his life was in utter chaos, showed me another one if the pitfalls of loving an addict: they learn to become masters of deception! Addicts lie all the time! They lie to those who love them, they lie to professionals involved with them, be it probation, doctors, drug workers, whoever is involved with trying to help them. They lie to landlords, school or work colleagues (if they are fortunate enough to be in education or employment), but most importantly they lie to themselves! And sometimes they get a glimmer of the truth and feel shame for the lies, so they take more drugs to hide away from that horrible realisation.

                                       

So yes, addicts become very skilful liars and manipulators. In the case of the man I fell in love with, his lying became so ingrained in him that he became, and is, a compulsive liar and I sometimes wonder if he even realises when he is lying. He has told me so many lies that I do not know any
more when or how to ever trust what he tells me is the truth. My son, thankfully, oh yes so thankful for little things, still tries to lie to me, but often says,  "Oh what is the point in lying to you" and then I get the truth. Ironically, when I get the truth (which I already knew but was not spoken out loud) I am then sorry to know the truth because my son will go into great detail of all the ins and outs of what he is taking, how he is taking it and so on.

This is what loving an addict looks like, this is a typical day.
My son and I made a plan that I would come over. We would do some unpacking and tidying up together, then exploring his new neighbourhood, look at a few shops for things for his flat and then go get something to eat before I would have to return for the school run, When I arrived it was clear things were not going to go according to plan as my son had already indulged. I decided to start cleaning in hopes of making him feel better whilst improving his state of mind giving him a less chaotic environment at home. He sat there and he took drugs with me in the room and I felt defeated. I watched him slowly collapse and then briefly pass out.

Another day when my son was at my house and looking through my medicines to see if I had anything "good" and talking once again of drugs, drugs, drugs I could not help but get fed up and say the type of thing I feel I should not say: " Oh how I wish I was sitting here with my son having a "normal" conversation about how uni or work is going. We could be laughing at your stories of what happened when you went out with your friends. You could be telling me about how things are going with your girlfriend and how your flat is coming along as you set it up as your home." It was very upsetting for my son to hear me say such things because it feeds the self fulfilling prophecy and vicious cycle that he is in:
I feel low and bad about myself > I take drugs > my mother thinks I am a failure > I am a failure > Lets take more drugs >I feel low and bad about myself and so on!
Then I feel bad for saying it and feel more frustrated and get more agitated, it keeps feeding the negative fires we have perfected living in!

But when the day is done and I drive away from my son, or hang up the phone, it is irrelevant that I am angry or sad or frustrated by how my son "lives" his life chained to what controls him, drugs and addiction, because I remember that I love him and I worry about him! Sometimes, actually often, I see the little boy behind all the messy unkept hair, scraggly beard and dazed and often vacant eyes, and I miss him. Other times I look at him and see how he can still turn things around and he still has potential, yet the drugs are slowly killing his brain and his soul.

                                 

As far as the man I love, I still love him but I have my eyes more open now and I will not let his lies empower him to take advantage of me any longer. If he needs or wants my friendship, love and support to help him if he should ever make those decisions then I will be here for him. Loving two addicts and two emotionally stunted and manipulative people is very challenging to my mental health and extremely draining. At the end of the day my son is my son who needs me more and the man I love is a friend who has not committed himself to me so therefore I must try to let go because I had made him an emotional priority for too long. This man did not choose for all the horrible things in his life which lead to his addiction. You can not choose who you fall in love with, and I must say I still do love him. However,  I can choose how I react to him and he can indeed choose to be a real part of my life or not, and what that would entail.

So we do not choose to love addicts just as much as they have not chosen to be addicts. The drug is not the enemy, when you think about it, the enemy is emotional pain or damage that has created a need to use drugs to make life "better", that is why not everyone who has tried or taken drugs turn into an addicts. If that were the case most of use would be addicts! There needs to be healing before the addiction can end, but it is a very painful process to begin the psychology dissection of self whilst trying to identify the source of that emotional pain!

                                 

The Darkness of Depression and Dysfunction

My son and I are both going through very difficult times and as it often happens when two people who are very close and are both struggling, they become the worst company for each other. Last week each conversation ended in hurtful words being thrown around and it was as if we wanted to cause each other more pain and suffering because we were hurting! One thing I said to my son, which hurt him profoundly and created such abusive anger in him was the following txt message:  "I have many of my own problems which you seem to disregard. You need to stop making me accountable for everything. I am not responsible for delivering your medication. Your main problem is your addiction which you keep failing to address." There were many txts before and after this particular one, but this one really hit a core with my son.

How dare I call him "an addict" (not my words, but his interpretation)? Not only an addict, but he added "just" as well, "you think I am just an addict", "all my problems are because I am just an addict", etc. Oh the abusive I got for that txt! I hit a nerve, that is for sure. However, I should quietly listen to being called lazy, stupid, crazy, bitch, whore, cunt, pathetic without a reaction. Such is the nature of mother/child relationships? No, definitely not the normal parent/child relationship here! Is it the normal conversation of addict and non addict? Possibly. Once again I think I can say that it IS the way dysfunctional relationships work.

Years of dysfunction and lack of control and lack of support has finally taken it's toll on me. I have almost always been able to cling on to a bit of hope, see something positive and hold on to the belief that the world is essentially a good place. Watching my life slip through my fingers and years stolen from me with nothing to show for it but grief and sadness is not a recipe for positivity. I have said it before that it is difficult for my children to be positive about their lives and their future when they see my life has been a struggle riddled with disappointments, heartache and obstacles.

Ironically however, amidst all the mutual depression wrecking havoc with our lives, that txt message sent in the middle of a txt message war did seem to provide something positive, even if it was fleeting.

A few days later we engaged in a long conversation via e-mail and these are some of my son's insights, which I can not help but wonder if it was a result of the "addiction" comment I made.


         " ... it gave me a new perspective, made me realize what I am doing is just stupid, that I am wasting my life and will be dead if I keep it up, and made me consider what I could do to change it, and reinforced the Ideas I already had (because I had one weak and one strong trip) from earlier  when I just took half, and the issues I had started to work through from the MDMA. "

        "  ..how stupid I have been/being and how I need to change ASAP or I won't have any sort of live whether I 
die or just continue like this."

        "What makes me really sad and ashamed is that, after reading the hospitals leaflet on I.M. (inter muscular injection) Lorazepam (a not so strong  benzo)  that they use to knock people out/sedate them, well, I wouldn't even feel it, and when I I.M. them (I.M.'ing Etizolam is the only thing that helps my back, does fuck all if I don't I.M. It) 

Anyway I am ashamed that what I IM, or just take daily, would have almost anyone knocked out for the duration of its effects. but me, I just get up after shooting 10-15mg (on top of my oral doses) Etizolam, as if I hadn't done anything, apart from a minute or two I feel pretty good (only if I am already real buzzed off just drinking them) or just have it relax my muscles and so help my back a lot.

Other people, what I take in a day, or more accurately, what I CAN take in a day, would have most people dead. Poppy Tea + Promethazine (v. sedating antihistamine that potentiates the opiates and stops me feeling sick on them) + alcohol + benzos + pregabs or Kava Kava, which is a pretty standard day for me, not always with the pregabs/kava, and I don't do the Poppies everyday, I'm trying real hard not to become physically dependant (I bought WAAAY too much)

anyway I bet that would kill 90% of non-tolerant people or just recreational users, and I don't even get much off it and am fine and am never falling asleep or having any signs that I might've had too much, I wake up the next day feeling absolutely fine (after a great nights sleep though!) and do it all over again, just probably with a slightly different combo/

It's disgusting and makes me ashamed of myself (so I take more to forget about that :| )

Thats why, now, I want to go to rehab."

That would be wonderful if my son could hold on to those thoughts, no matter how he eventually got to thinking about them. We continued to talk about the possibility of rehab and also how he would like me to help him find one. It was wonderful, though I knew not to get too excited and put my hopes up too high, it was a very good conversation indeed. My son actually found a ray of light in his darkness. He say the damage he was doing to himself and desired change.  

That conversation and moment of clarity and motivation for positive change took place on Saturday evening; however, by Sunday evening everything had change and my son just wanted to take a lot of drugs and drink vodka until he passed out. All because "friends" on Facebook were "taking the piss" out of him, though he did not want to elaborate. It beat him down and made him feel as he usually does; defeated, deflated, rejected, unliked, unloved, unsuccessful, lonely, pathetic, depressed, worthless and so on. In regard to "fixing" things and moving forward with rehab, well "there are no rehabs that would be accustomed to dealing his type of drug use". Also rehabs would require work, he does not want to do work. The doctors at rehab would take away the useful prescriptions he is on if he would be 100% honest about how he takes his medications as well as other drugs. He thought the only options for him was overdosing or making himself go crazy and going back into the mental hospital. When I tried to say that the mental hospital wont help because when he gets out he will have to adjust to a normal life all over again, he was very quick and very honest in his response, "I do not have a normal life now, I do not know how to live a normal life". Sadly that is very true.

My son is an addict. He is not the proverbial street junkie, but he is an addict. He is not and has never been a "functioning addict". My son does not and never did hold down a job or go to school or maintain friendships while taking drugs. He has never learned the life skills to live in our society. He has, I am ashamed to say, lived a very abnormal life since probably the age of  14 or 15. So at the age of 21 now, after living without friendships or social interactions since he was 16, being homeless twice, having a criminal record, three mental health hospital admissions and a serious drug problem, no he does not live a "normal" life and more importantly, has lived a very unhappy life. A person can live a life that is not considered "normal" or conventional and be very happy, my son has not been happy since he was a very young child. What a very sad realisation for the both of us.

So life goes one, day to day without change, without the knowledge of how to cope daily let along look at long term plans or change. Every now and then I see a flicker of hope in my thoughts, and maybe, just maybe he and I will get more and more flickers of hope until the flicker grows into a bright light fuelling us towards a brighter and indeed happier future because have both been beaten down too many times and we need, no we DESERVE happiness. My daughters need that happiness in their mother's and brother's lives because the cycle continues too much and they also become trapped in the darkness.    

Drugs Brought Us Together

I have had the realisation that I began this blog a few years ago, and though there have been slight changes in our lives, fundamentally our lives are not that much improved.

The last few months have been a very introspective time and it has resulted in me being more severely depressed than ever. Some rather significant events have happened. My son was evicted, made homeless, had another psychotic breakdown and was in the mental health hospital for several weeks, he was released whilst homeless, I worked hard to get him accommodation while he spent every bit of savings on shitty B&B's, spent every bit of my savings to create a "normal" Christmas, arguments, drugs, broken family relationships and poverty. I was becoming more isolated and depressed only to have my hopes lifted and than shattered when the man I love reconnected with me and came to be with me and my children on New Year's Eve.

The man who entered my life as a drug worker, became a friend, then a lover and we fell in love with each other has a very troubled past. Not only was he a heroin addict who managed to recover and build himself an impressive and respected career in the field of addiction and recovery, he was also a victim of sexual abuse for an extensive part of his early childhood. No father, and emotionally abusive mother as well, it is not surprising he turned to drugs. He is intelligent and a survivor and though he continues to battle with self worth and mental health issues he managed to pull his life around, but was still suffering emotionally in a loveless marriage, the inner conflict of wanting to leave his wife but not wanting to "abandon" his children, therefore opting to live at home "for the children" which eventually created more damage, as is always the case in such decisions. He plays the tough but sensitive guy very well, he spreads himself thin trying to do for others in order to feel good about himself. He is a tortured soul, with an intelligent mind, a good heart yet has been damaged too many times in life. In a way he reminds me of my son, and actually he has even commented before that my son is a lot like he "was".

My son looked at this guy as someone who "gets" him and someone he liked, which is saying a lot because he rarely likes people connected to services and he has had very few friends and even fewer male role models in his life. Even after their professional relationship fizzled out and my friendship grew with this man, my son knew we were friends but did not know how often we saw each other and I never told my son when the relationship grew into more because things were "complicated". I did not want to get my son's hopes up, as he said to me a few times how he would like it is we got together because he really likes him and it would be nice. My son has been disappointed too many times to let him be disappointed again, so until things were more stabilised I did not tell him. In fact the way things worked out, I never told my son, because my friend struggled too much with his feeling, his own baggage and what is the right thing to do. Even once my friend admitted his love for me, left his wife, he could not embrace our love because he still struggled with his feelings of self worth, not being able to accept that he was entitled to happiness and that it was wrong for him to involve me in his messed up life. Through all our ups and downs, he always came back, but the struggle remained. I managed to keep a lot of our interludes secret from my daughters and but they were privy to my feelings for him and they knew we were involved, but they were not involved, if that makes sense. However, it was very clear to my kids, I think even to my son, that I loved him very much.

New Year's Eve was the happiest time I have had in a long time. My friend did come, nothing had changed between us even though we has not spoken since August and had not seen each other for nearly a year. We hugged, we talked, we drank, we laughed, we acted really silly. We stayed up till 4 am talking and went to bed only to fall asleep when the sun same up. He was grateful and thankful and told me how things are different now because he has accepted that I am the one who has always been there for him and he is no longer scared of his feelings.

My youngest daughter was thrilled to bits and could hardly contain her excitement that I was going to get a kiss at midnight. I even thought, that maybe this was a good omen and it will be the beginning of a new year, a new life, new happiness. My youngest daughter adores him and thinks he is so crazy and cool, I was delighted to finally have life in our home again and see her joy.

New Year's Day came around and we decided it would be nice for my son to come over, as he was in a dingy B&B, across the street from the prison, all alone. It would be difficult with my middle daughter, as she still refuses to have any contact with her brother. But with or without my friend here, she had to accept that over the holidays I need to include my son as well. She retreated to her room, where she decided she would stay until he left. We went to go pick him up and I made a cooked breakfast. Well what a day we had. My son stayed until 9 pm and if my daughter would not have been excluded (her own decision) it would have been perfect. We played games, we laughed, my son and my friend played guitar and made up their own song. I cooked, we ate, listened to music. My friend spoke of wonderful plans for the future, especially once he gets his compensation from the abuse he suffered which would potentially be quite a lot of money. He said he would take me on holiday, we would get married, then send for the kids to join us. He talked to my son about helping him get his own flat so he wouldn't have to live the way he is any longer. He talked about how much he loved me. When my son and him went out to buy tobacco he asked my son for his blessing and my son told him of course he gives his blessing,  because we seem really happy and good for each other. At the end of the day what would be the best motivation for my children to keep striving is to see that I have finally found happiness and that you should never give up because you can get what you want one day. I think parents want to see their children happy, but even more so, children want to see their parents happy, really happy.

There was lots of "stuff" going on in this man's life and even though we spent 4 days together, I never really delved too much because I didn't want to spoil things.  He was now unemployed, he had no place to live, he was back on drugs, he is in trouble with people, bad people, "after him" and though he seemed to be more focused in some respect, it was clear his life was falling apart. Things were getting so desperate for him that he recently attempted suicide, twice. I wanted to hold him and never let go, though there was a voice inside saying, "oh shit".

He spent the day with my son on January second, for what I though was going to be some good old fashioned male bonding going to the pub and having a beer. It turns out that after spending the entire day and evening together, it was a day that they stayed in the B&B and did a variety of drugs, as my friend was eager to score as soon as he arrived, as well as try out some of my son's more unusual drugs. While they spent the day together he was on the phone a lot trying to "sort out" something because these "bad people" were threatening his children. I spoke to him at 8 pm and all seemed fine, though I knew nothing of what was going on until a few weeks later when my son confessed all. Then at 10 pm I get a call from my son saying that my friend has had too much (I thought that meant alcohol) and can't drive home, so I needed to pick him up. He was quite out of it and babbling all sorts of things.

The next couple of days was my friend staying mostly in bed sleeping but every time he was awake he always told me how much he loved him. He also talked about dying and that he is not afraid to die. I knew that something was not right, but I was so happy he was in my home and we were all together.

That day when he went to see my son, he asked if he could stay a few more days, and I said yes, so he went to get a few things. He came back upset and said he had a run in with his father in law. A few days later he was going to get a few more things, very early in the morning. It was Monday, after the Christmas holidays and one of my daughters were going back to school that day, the other would go back on Tues. I thought that once both were at school and their lives go back to the normal routine, giving us the day alone with each other, then we can sit down and have a serious conversation about what is really going on. We rolled out of bed, he threw on some clothes and I offered him tea and toast but he said no, we would eat together when he gets back. He told me I should go back to bed because it was cold and dark and too early. I gave him a set of house keys in case I was out when he got back. I gave him a little kiss and off he went....never to return.

What followed was agony. I tried contacting people, no one knew anything, no one had seen him. I started getting emails from a stranger looking for him. He no longer had his phone and was borrowing a phone, I had never thought to ask for the number. I gave him my phone number but he left it in the pocket of his other trousers. He had lost his wallet on the day he was with my son so he didn't even have ID on him. I tried to find people who would know, but no one knew where he was or what happened just that there were people looking for him. I managed to locate the aunt he had stayed with before coming to me and luckily she was sympathetic and asked me to phone her. My heart sank because I feared she had bad news but she knew nothing of him since he had left, they are all in the same small village and no one knew. I had a friend drive by his mother's house, to see if his car was there, I asked her to call his dad. Nothing. He wasn't at the family home either. I called hospitals, the police, nothing. Weeks have gone by with no news and yet I feel it is not my place to get the police involved, in retrospect maybe I should have.

I have not cried like the way I cried since my father died. I could not stop, no matter how I tried. As soon as my mouth opened, the words were chocked on and tears flowed instead. While driving in the car, hearing songs that all seemed to touch me, shopping in the grocery store, talking to random people....EVERYTHING made me cry and I could not stop thinking about him. I still can't. I feared the worse, that I will never see him again because he is dead, I still fear that. I wanted to know what had happened, had is happening. Of course I missed him but my worry for him was greater. I cried, morning noon and night. I dreamt of him. I started to question his motives and became insecure and suspicious. Was it all a lie? Was he only using me to have a place to hide for a few days? Did he have any feelings for me at all? Was he just playing me? But then I would always return to the thoughts of his safety, that I really didn't care so much of his motives or anything else, I just wanted him to be alive and ok!

About a week or so after he left I received a phone call from his aunt that he had made contact with her. She told him of my worry, she told him she felt sorry for me (probably because I could not not stop crying while on the phone to her the first time). She said she had no idea where he was calling from, her phone only showed "private number" calling, that he said he had to go father away until things settle down. He told her tell me he is really sorry but he will be back. Nothing since then and I have checked every so often and no one knows a thing.

I was hurt and worried and pissed off. I was hurt that he has not found a way to contact me. I am worried for his safety. I am pissed off for the universe tempting me with promises of happiness and then pulling it away from me with such viciousness.

I had always hoped that one day my son will also give up the drugs, go back to studying, and create a good career and perhaps a happy life for himself, like my friend did to a certain extent. My friend also used to compare my son to him and assured me that one day he will get bored of the drugs, as he did, and clean himself up. After New Year's however, the similarities between the two no longer gave me hope for my son's future, it made me see how fragile these damaged souls are and how strong the seduction the wonderful feeling only drugs can provide in their damaged and dysfunctional lives is too great.

What hit me very hard as well was the fact that I will never ever be completely free from worry about my son's future. No matter how much he may one day get his life in order, perhaps even live a drug free life for many years, we will never be certain that he has escaped his demons forever. No matter what he has, how may obstacles he has hurdled, will he always be tempted to get back into drugs when life gets to a point in which he thinks he can't do it any more, he needs the warm fuzzy blanket of opiate and benzos to mask away his pains and problems?

Even a greater upset in this sea of upset and complex emotions my friend's presence and disappearance brought, was the fact that he let me children down and particularly my son, who I feel is quite vulnerable to getting hurt. My son admitted to me that he told my friend that he better not hurt me, nice to hear that my son was being protective. Also he told me how much he enjoyed having someone to hang out with and play guitar with and was hoping that it would become a regular thing. When remembering  how we all played games (well unfortunately except my daughter, but maybe if things had turned out differently she may have been tempted to join in eventually), my son said, "we were like a family". Those are very painful words indeed. It makes it all very real how much all my children desire a happy family, no matter how old they get. My children were told by this man that he loves me and wants to help us. We were all gobbling up these promises and images of happiness because we are all starving emotionally for some happiness. What a shame that these dreams were more than likely destroyed because of the power drugs have over an addict. I am not doubting that he ran away from some trouble he is in, this once respected professional, but I do not know that the trouble was not drug related as it could have been, but I am nearly 100% sure that he is (assuming he is still alive) existing on drugs to escape all the problems. Drugs seems to have brought us together and perhaps torn us apart forever.

Friends and family think I should not be involved with him if he has regressed back into addiction, especially with such baggage and issues and troubles. I completely understand and appreciate that. However, that also makes me think of my son. Is that what people will tell his friends and lovers if he ever gets any, that he is not worth it because he has too many issues and problems, he is an addict? Is that the future for him, people not wanting to give him a second chance, or third chance or how many chances it takes?  In my support group we occasionally have guest speakers talking to us on their addiction and how it took years of struggling and burning bridges and rebuilding those bridging, not once, but many times for them to live a better life. We applaud these people and admire them for going through the years of chaos and having one or two people who stood by their side no matter what. Yet when it comes to "real life" is that how most people really think? People are not glad that I am not willing to give up on my friend. If a miracle happened and he appeared at my doorstep what would I do? Would I turn him away because he is "just a man" and I should put my family first and tell him he is too destructive for our well being as a family? Or would I support him and show him that he is worthy of a life with people who will not give up on him or emotionally abuse him and continue to love him? People tell me to be angry, not to ever have anything to do with him again if he should resurface. Well it is not because he is a man. It is not about sex or having to feel I am not complete without a man. It is about humanity and friendship and love. If he comes back to me, isn't that what all these addiction success stories have in common? Someone in the addicts life that is not willing to give up on them? And in fact, if that would ever happen, though I honestly think that is very unlikely, wouldn't that be a great example for my son to see that I will never give up on the people I love (including him), and if this man can do it, not once, but twice despite the severe damage done in his life, than he can too?

My depression began a long time ago but has become severe since these unfortunate series of events took place at the start of the year. Showering, cleaning, going out are all very challenging chores that I hide from. I hide my depression well on the rare occasions I need to go out. I do not think people can tell I have not showered for over a week or have worn the same clothes for over a week. I have not cleaned my house since just after Christmas and even that was not a real cleaning job. I have clothes in the laundry pile (a pile that has over taken the entire utility room) that were last worn in September. I have unopened mail, unpaid bills etc. It is really bad, but I am hoping that purging my feelings here, and perhaps getting back to the cathartic and healing process of writing, I may start to tackle my depression, because it will have to be done, one small painful step at a time. I have to face this depression of my own misfortunes but also depression from watching those I love be destroyed by drugs.