Mother's Heartbreak

A Story of Addiction & Loss

Category: drug withdraw (Page 2 of 8)

Are you Matts Mom, Oh God Do I Want To Be

November 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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Matt, there is no sleep for me tonight.  I am physically shaking.  I want to puke until there is nothing left and I disappear into thin air.  Everything back fired in my face.  I thought I was just so cool.  Grabbing your scripts and reporting the pill pushers.  I really thought the medical community would support my whistle blowing shutting down the practice and cutting off your supply.  Never did I think you would be let in on my plan and turn against the mom who is fighting to save your life.  Ahh, what did the mad little pill pusher say to you.  Your mommy ratted me out and now I can’t poison you anymore cause she might come beat me up.  Why didn’t they just tell you that they were not the right place for you and you needed to move on.  Why bring me into it.  Just shows what true assholes they really are.  If they cared at all I would have been willing to meet with them and work out a weaning protocol, getting you safely off the poison.  But no, they just cut you lose.  WTH was I going to do now.  You and your 90 Percocet and God knows how many Methadone in you hot pissed off hands.

I blow up your voice mail with pleading message after message begging you to please come home and once again let me explain.  Your mailbox now full, I start texting.  I can’t believe this is happening.  I am slowly going out of my mind with worry.  I start calling your close friends.  Tell them there is a family emergency and I really need to talk to you.  I get in my car and drive by all your hang outs praying I will see your truck and at least know you are still alive.  I search until dark.  My phone rings, my heart jumps, oh  God please let that be Matt.  It’s Ray.  I’ve been so frantic I never looked at the time.  Where are you, he asks.  I’ll explain when I get home.  Too much to say and I am barely holding onto my sanity.

I’m shaking as Ray tells me to calm down and breathe.  I grab the letter and tell him to read.  He like me is in shock.  Seriously, they think pushing pills is ok.  I can’t believe it either.  I tell him what happened and that I’m so scared.  You have not answered my calls or texts and are no where to be found.  I imagine the worst.  I can’t stop pacing and crying.  Your phone going straight to voice mail with the message that has been playing all day.  No more space for my pleading for you to come home.

I call out for the morning.  There is no way I could keep my head clear enough to save a critical baby.  Your addiction has seeped so deeply into my life that I become crippled with hopelessness.  I replay all of it from the very beginning.  Your addiction movie etched into my brain.  Still trying to figure out the grip the demons have on your soul.  You have lost so much and yet you continue to let the drugs steal your life away and impact me to the core.  I will never understand how or why this happened to us.  I look at your smiling face and question every decision made.  I was the greatest enabler.  I loved you so much and wanted such a better life for you.  Always fixing you and saving you from yourself was taking it’s toll on me.  So here we go again.  The roller coaster ride.  I rode it up thinking I once again saved the day and now I’m stuck on the downward spiral not knowing how this will end.  God, I wish I was stronger.  I wish I was one of those moms that could just let go but every fiber of my being knew I would never give up on you.

I stayed on the couch that night.  I knew It would be a restless night and Ray had to work in the morning.  So as we’ve done so many nights before, the pups and I curl up and wait for a sign from you.  My phone is by my ear.  One eye opening constantly checking.  I look at all the texts I’ve sent to see if you read them  Nothing, nothing, nothing.  This is crazy I think.  I get up and grab a bottle of wine.  Hoping to calm my raw nerves.  The dogs follow sensing my stress.  Wine for me biscuits for them.  I sit in the dark and remember the conversations we’ve had about my wine and your drugs.  Hey Mom, you’re no better than me.  You drink.  Every night you have a glass of wine.  So really you’re just as bad.  Really Matt.  Let’s make a deal.  I won’t have my glass of wine if you don’t take your pills.  Well, we all know how that worked out don’t we.  I could feel the wine warming my soul and letting my beat up body and mind start to relax.  My muscles were finally unknotting and I could feel much needed sleep coming.  Please God, let him be ok was my last thought before sleep overcame my frantic mind.

The sun shining on my face and the sound of Ray in the shower wake me.  God, I was so sore but all I could think of was you.  Checking my phone again, nothing.  Ray greets me with a kiss.  His eyes showing his pity for me and what I live with because of your addiction.  He doesn’t even ask what I’m doing today he knows.  Coffee and a shower and I’m in my car again.  Repeat from last night. I Drive by every place I know you frequent and some places I just take a chance.  Still no luck.  Hours pass and I feel the dread creeping into my mind.  I keep reliving our fight.  Beating myself up for causing another rift between us.  I miss us.  I want a do over and go back before the demons came knowing what I do now.  Life the way it should be, not the way it is.  I give up and go home.  Grab the leashes and walk.  They are the only ones who listen without offering an opinion.  I can say the same things over and over and they just look at me with knowing eyes.  Constantly supporting as if to say It will be ok mom.  He will be back.

Night falls and still no sign or call.  Now I’m calling my friends in the ER.   Hey, by any chance have there been any accidents or admits for drug abuse.  I take a breath and call my friend the detective.  I tell him what’s happened.  He calms me and reassures me he will keep an eye out.   There is nothing more I can do.  I am defeated by your demons.  They won, just like the laughter I would hear in my head.  They have you and I don’t.   My phone breaks the silence and brings me back to reality.  I do not recognize the number.  Excuse me a voice I do not know says, are you Matt’s mom.  Oh God,  this is it.  The call.  My heart now beating so loud It’s the only sound I hear.  My hand is shaking.  I grab the counter.  Yes, yes, I am.  Please is he ok.  Oh God, please.  He’s with me.  He was in the parking lot of our NA meeting and he is high.  I drove him to Meadow Wood and I’m getting him admitted.  Can you come.  Oh dear God,  I’m shaking and sobbing grabbing my keys and run right into Ray as he’s walking in the door.  He grabs my keys.  Between sobs I tell him you are safe and I must go.  I’m driving.  You will get killed.  I sob all the way holding myself as the sobs of relief rack my body.  My brain screaming he is alive.  Thank you sweet Jesus.  We pull up and you are standing between two of the most beautiful men I have ever seen.  I run to you and wrap you in my arms.  All the grief and anger forgotten.  Matt, I’m so sorry.  Please forgive me.  You look at me as tears run down your face.  Sorry mom, you smile that cocky smile that I love so much.  It’s ok, Matt.  It will be ok.  You are taken back to be admitted.  I dissolve in Rays arms.  The sobs are now of relief.  Ray drives your truck and I drive mine.  No music just quiet prayer.  Thank you sweet Jesus for saving my precious child.  Please guide me in how to be an addicts mother.  I pull up behind Ray.   Your truck back in the driveway.  You in a safe place.   All is well in my world tonight.  I look at the stars and whisper a thank you……

 

 

Smart Moms Do Stupid Things

November 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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Matt,  I was a whole lot of stupid and a whole lot of smart all rolled up into one out of control mess.  So now I had everything I needed in my hot little hands.  The names and address of the poison pushers and all I can do is sob.  The image of your face, the hate in your eyes is branded in my brain.  You love your demons more than the mom who has loved you in all your ugliness.  The mom who will do anything to save you.  Who will fight you in a public parking lot, who will risk life and limb for her son.  Oh God, what got into me.  I am a desperate, crazed person.  Your addiction has changed me from a rational adult to this desperate nut case.  I look at myself in the mirror.  I take off the hat and let my hair fall, I stare at my reflection and I don’t recognize the person staring back at me.  Your addiction has taken it’s toll.  Baggy eyes from tears and lack of sleep.  Cheek bones sticking out, pain etched into my once happy face.  Eyes that no longer shine, a mouth that has forgotten how to smile.  The face of an addicts loving mother, full of pain and grief for something she can’t fix.  My heart is broken by the people we have become.  Our hugs have become punches, our laughter changed to shouting, pointing ugly fingers and saying ugly things.  I hate what we have allowed your demons to do.

Barking dogs bring me back to reality.  I see the scripts on my printer.  I grab them as I see you coming up the stairs.  Matt, I had to do it.  Matt, I love you and can’t sit back and allow you to destroy yourself.  Matt, let me help you.  Matt, I know you have back pain, but you are hooked.  Nobody needs this dose and volume of drugs.  They don’t care about your life.  You are nothing more than an income for them.  They are not doctors they are killers.  I realize I am screaming.  I hear my voice as I am becoming out of control.  I’m pleading for your life and you are staring at me with hate in your eyes.  I try to regain control, I need to get through to you, to break through the demon built walls and get into your drug damaged brain.  I have to reach you.  You continue to stare at me with that f**k you gaze.  Give me my scripts.  Matt, please I will give you a little more than I have been let me keep managing them.  I will be better.  Give me my scripts.  You come closer, the dogs stand between us.  They sense what I feel.  I am afraid.  My brain is screaming.  My son, I am afraid.  Your eyes are dead, shark eyes.  Looking right through me.  I feel like my soul has been stepped on.  I am sobbing as I give you those pieces of paper that are killing us.  You turn.  I am left in darkness.  The dogs comforting me.  I sob into their fur and pray.

I allow myself time.  I allow myself tears.  I allow myself anger.  Ok, now I’m pissed.  I grab the copies of your scripts.  Ok you f***ing doctor imposters.  You’ve pissed off the wrong mother.  I’m coming after you.  Ha, I’m a nurse.  I will do it the right way…I grab my laptop.  Delaware Board of Medicine.  I hit the file a complaint tab and feel such power and relief completing the form that will start the process of an investigation into the practice of these pill pushing pieces of s**t.  If I can’t go in there and beat the crap out of them for making you an addict then I’ll do the next best thing.  I will report their overprescribing to the doctors that oversee physicians in this state.  I hold back nothing.  I tell them how it’s a cash practice.  I send copies of the massive volume of pills you are given each month.  I report that there have been no scripts for physical therapy or any other means of pain control than the opiates you now live for.  I point out that Percocet and Methadone should not be prescribed together.  I report how they included a muscle relaxer into your mix of deadly drugs.  I am on a roll.  I feel my spirit lift.  The dread lifting.  I will do whatever I have to if it means saving you.  I hit the send button and do the happy dance.  The dogs wake as I am jumping around.  I have won the lottery.  The killers will be investigated and shut down.  Your monthly visits will stop.  I have saved us.  I am so happy I don’t realize how naive I was about the power of addiction.

Once again I am that cat.  The one that got the canary.  I can’t stop smiling.  I have a secret.  I tell no one. I am stupid with cockiness.  I have done it.  I don’t say a word to you as I continue to observe your behavior.  Now unemployed you spend most of your time underfoot.  I force you to walk the dogs with me.  I force conversation all the while knowing that your supply will soon disappear.  I suggest physical therapy,  acupuncture anything but drugs.  I sneak down when I hear you in the shower and search.  Pills, pills, pills, finding your supply and controlling is all I can focus on.

An unrecognized number appears on my phone.  I cautiously answer.  Yes, this is she.  Hello Detective.  You’ve received my complaint.  Hallelujah, my brain is singing as you watch from afar.  I walk outside to finish what I have to say.  Would I be willing to testify,  Holy Hell, Absolutely.  I will stand on the roof and scream about the no good pill pushers.  I am flying.  I am supermom.  I have pulled it off.  I saved you and all the lost souls who have become victims of this practice.

Weeks pass.  I hear nothing.  Your appointment coincides with your unemployment check.  Hey Matt, what are you doing today.  You look at me, I’m going out.  I’m an adult, get off my back.  Ok, now I know where your headed.  I wonder how much longer this will go on.  You are leaving as the mail is arriving.  Oh God, in my hand is a letter from The Delaware Board of Medicine.  My heart is pounding.  I run into the house ripping into the  envelope.  My eyes see the words but my brain is not comprehending.  What, are they F***ing kidding me.  We find no fault with the prescribing methods of this practice.  I am silently screaming.  Did you not see the dose and amount of killer drugs they were prescribing.  Did you not get the fact that it is a cash only business.  No paper trail of income, WTF…Are you in on the deal.  Do you f***ers get a kick back.  I hear you pull into the driveway.  You come at me like I am your prey.  WTF did you do Mom.  Who the F**K do you think you are .. They kicked me out.  You reported them.  Are you out of your mind you crazy bitch.  Now you are the one screaming and I am the one staring.   Matt, please I was trying to help.  You don’t need that poison, please I didn’t know what else to do.  Well you did it alright.  You push me out of your way.  I hear you throwing stuff, Matt please can we talk.  Get out of my way, get out of my life.  Hate pours out of you and onto me.  Matt.  I run after your car as you speed away.  Oh God, what have I done.  Why don’t I learn.  Please keep him safe.  this is all my fault.  I thought I was so smart and all I did was screw everything up.  I call your cell.  It goes directly to voice mail.  I leave you a pleading message.  Matt, I will fix this.  I will find you a real doctor.  I will find you real help.  Oh God, Matt if I didn’t love you I wouldn’t care about what you did.  Please Matt, please.  I hear the beep.  Time up.  Voice mail over.  I was pleading to a dead phone.  Oh God, what did I do.  I walk inside and see myself in the hall mirror.  My eyes are empty, my face full of sadness.  I stare at a woman I no longer recognize.   Oh God, Help…..

 

Truth and Lies

September 26, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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Matt, I lay on the couch all night willing my mind to be quiet.  To stop replaying the scenes over and over again.  Its always the same.  You using, me finding and fixing.  I just didn’t get how you could keep slipping back into the grip of the demons.  I remembered the week of detox.  Sitting on this very couch trying to calm your tremors, blankets off and on as your body rebelled against not getting what it now required to live.  The vomiting until there was nothing left, screaming and ripping the skin off your arms as you fought the imaginary bugs crawling over your body.  My wound, now healed but leaving a scar as a reminder of your anger.   I could not imagine wanting to go through that again.  I did not want to watch you go through it again but had the sinking feeling I would.  I felt so defeated.  I didn’t even have the energy to move.  My eyes still swollen from my night of crying greeted me in the mirror.  You look just great I thought.  The toll of your addiction showing on my face.  My body stiff from staying curled up, like I was trying to return to that fetal position where nothing could hurt me.  God Matt, how this hurt me.  Knowing that all this time you were just letting me believe you were clean.  I was so blinded by my own need for us to be normal that I felt this betrayal like a hard slap in the face.

The dogs raise their heads, listening.  I pray it is not you.  I am in no mood for you.  I make coffee, God, how I needed  that.  I grab the leashes and head to the sea.  I disguise myself in your hoodie. I’m in shut down mode and want no conversation with anyone except God.

Ok God,  It’s me again.  Yeah, you know Matt’s mom.  I just gonna put it out there.  What the hell is going on. Why do you keep letting this happen to us.  Why can’t you just answer my prayers and fix Matt.  You teach us that you can do anything so why not this.  Just put your hand on Matt and heal him from this horror that has become our life.  You who created the sea I love, please help now.  I’m so beat, so broken.  I need help.  I’m so lost in my thoughts I don’t see the dogs as they take off after a figure I know too well.  Even from the  distance I can identify your walk.  I tell God, ok you need to hold my tongue cause I’m ready to shoot some ugly out of my mouth.

The dogs reach me first as if to say take it easy on him Mom, he’s sorry.  Yeah, he’s always sorry.  He’s only sorry cause he got caught.  Ok Matt, I suggest that if you can’t tell the truth you keep your mouth shut.  I’m this close to punching you square in the face, and you know what I might like it and not be able to stop!  You look at me with that dam grin, you know the grin that always melts my heart.  You start to laugh.  Mom, I’d bet you’d do it too. I start to laugh as the image of 125lbs of me beating up on 230lbs of you forms in my brain.  Somehow we both end up hysterical at the very thought.  I guess the laughter was a release for me as I felt the anger I carried to the beach wash away with the tide.  Matt, you always got to me.  You my beautiful man with such a horrible, insidious disease.

We sit.  Ok Matt, it’s truth or dare time.  I will only accept the truth.  I really don’t care how ugly or hurtful I need you to tell me the truth.  I can’t stand a liar and after everything we have been through together you owe me the truth.  Geez Matt, I’ve seen you naked vomiting your guts out, you’ve puked on and punched at me so really how bad can telling the truth be.   You look away as if concocting a story.  I grab your arm to bring you back.  Matt, the truth.

I sit and will both my face and my tongue to not reveal or say what I’m thinking as you finally pour out your guts.  I watch the waves hit the shore and take little bits of sand back to the sea.  I feel like this is my life.  Your addiction keeps pounding at my heart and soul breaking little pieces off and washing me away.  Oh God, I asked for the truth now I’m sitting here listening and trying to make a plan to fix it again.  I will never learn.

So once again, I have my fix it plan.  I drag you to Charlie’s.  We talk.  He will not take you back but will let you collect unemployment until you can find work.  Thank you God,  He tells me how many chances he gave and how many times despite his warnings you showed up unable to function.  I thank him for caring enough.  He hugs us both as we leave and wishes us both luck.  Ok Matt.  Now you will not take advantage, you will find work. Right Matt, sure Mom.  Oh God,  why did I just get a very sick feeling in my gut.  Stop, stop I tell myself.  It will be ok.  He will get work and find a meeting for help and support.  Right Matt.  Right Mom.  You will pay your bills.  Right Matt. Right Mom.  You will stay straight. Right Matt.  Right Mom.

We walk back to the house.  We sit and open the neglected pile of bills.  I set up a payment schedule.  I balance your checkbook  Holy Shit, I take your debit card and cut it up.  Now you are getting ticked.  I shoot you my look and you calm down.  Ok Matt.  Here’s the deal.  I help with the mortgage.  Thank God, the lender still thinks you’re sick.  Yes, I know but I have to play that card until the mortgage is caught up.  Yes, I feel guilty but what else can I do.  I write everything down.  I’m thinking really, you are a grown man and I’m treating you like a teenager and you are letting me.  I try to keep the enabler thought out of my mind.  Helping or guiding fits what I’m doing better.  Yup, not enabling.  Guiding you in bill paying and helping you get on your feet so I can stay on mine.  Ok Matt.  Everything is set up.  You understand how important it is.  I can’t lose this place.  I love this place.  You understand, right Matt.  Right Mom.

Driving home I couldn’t shake the feeling of doom.  I kept remembering how you looked.  Your beautiful lying eyes.  Right mom, slipping out of your mouth like honey from a pot.  Honey in all it’s sweetness,  just what I needed to hear.  Right Matt. Right Mom……

A Calm Before the Storm

September 21, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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Matt, I must say I was pleasantly surprised.  You really kept your promise.  No drama, no chaos at least none that reached me.  Life was good as Ray and I got into the rhythm of married life.  I was finally back at work busy every day saving those babies.  My life found a rhythm again, a calm that I hadn’t felt in a long time started to settle in my brain.  So this is normal I would think out loud as a smile would find my face  and a lightness found my step.  Everyone noticed.  I felt so blessed.  Finally I was able to just concentrate on my life without the constant stress and worry about you.  I would remind myself that you were a grown man living your life and this was how it should have been all along.

Being back at work and having the ability to pick up extra shifts allowed me to get the mortgage caught up on our house by the sea. I felt so accomplished and once again felt that I was in control of how life was supposed to be.  God, I just didn’t learn that lesson.  So foolishly I continued down the road of denial believing that your addiction had left the building and we were home free.  I no longer worried about our dirty little secret and started to act like we had returned from a very bad place but were safe now.

Weeks turned into months.  We spoke nearly everyday.  You and Lisa seemed to be finding your own rhythm as you spoke of a more permanent future together.  Even though I still felt she was not your match I kept my opinion to myself as my only concern was for you to be happy and stay clean.  Whoever you loved I loved thats just the way it was.

Ray  had to travel for work so I took those days off and planned a trip to see for myself just how things really were in your life.  I had to admit I missed you.  I wasn’t used to you not needing me like you did in the past and was feeling kinda left out of your life.  I kept reminding myself that this is how a normal relationship was between a mother and her adult son, but you and I never had normal so I was having a difficult time adjusting.  Driving down I tried to keep my spirits up.  Tried to keep that anxiety at bay.  After all, you said you were fine and you sounded fine, so why in the heck was my body starting to react like the old days.  The throat tightening, the worry about what I would find, all the normal feeling I had in the past came rushing to my brain.  Oh God, what if I’m wrong and he’s lying, what if, what if.  Stop, for God sake stop, shouted my brain.  WTH is wrong with you.  Do you always have to think the worst.  Maybe, just maybe he is telling the truth and you will have the happily ever after you have been praying for.  For God sake take a break.  So once again it was me, myself, and I all battling back and forth reliving every horrible moment of your addiction.  I just could not get my brain to shut up.  So here I am, once again talking to myself in my car on the way to the beach just like the old days.  Groundhog day, yup just like Groundhog day.  Really Matt, I think my whole being knew that this was just a break in the storm and my body and mind were getting ready for battle.

I arrive.  The house is quiet, the dogs are gone.  I use my key and let myself in.  I long ago lost the feeling of guilt about coming in unannounced.  I was paying most of the mortgage and felt like I had every right to just let myself in.  It was getting dark so I walked around turning on lights.  I figured the neighbors would see my car and know everything was ok.  It was obvious you didn’t spend much time home.  I could have written you a note in the dust.  Matt, you weren’t raised to be a slob but this was crazy.  At least the sink wasn’t full of dirty dishes.  I opened the fridge and was greeted by the greenest food I’d seen since my college days.  Ok, so this was proof that you were spending most of your time at Lisa’s.  So that’s a good thing right, my brain is thinking.  After I grab a trash bag and clean your fridge, the old mom police starts to resurface.  I Try to tell myself not to do this, but I knew my brain would not relax until I did.  So just like the old days I went snooping.  All the time telling myself I was doing it for your own good.  I lifted your mattress. Looked in all your favorite nooks and crannies.  I kept listening for the sound of your arrival.  Dam, I wish the dogs were here.  They would give me ample time to run to the couch and grab a book, smiling my innocent smile if you came home during my search.  I really didn’t know what I would do if I found  anything.  Probably have a break down but that still didn’t stop me from snooping.  Nothing, absolutely nothing.  Do I really believe that this horror story has come to an end or have you just gotten smarter.

So now I see a big pile of mail.  Stay away, don’t look my mind is spinning like a top.  He’s a grown man.  He’s handling it.  I can feel the guilt running off me like syrup as I grab the pile and scan the addresses.  Electric bill, water bill, credit card bills all thrown casually in a pile like they were junk mail.  Slowly I open one figuring you wouldn’t notice a torn envelope in this mess.  Now my heart starts to sink.  Overdue, not by a month but months.  That familiar feeling of suffocating has found me.  I leave the pile and walk outside. I need to feel the sea air.  I need to breathe.  Calm down, there has to be a reason.  I start to walk and before I know it I’m a Lisa’s door.  I hear music and laughter.  Too much music and laughter for someone who needs to be at work in the early morning.  The door is unlocked.  I walk in.  You look like hell.  Cigarette hanging from your hand, a joint hanging from her’s.  You see me and look like you’ve been shot.  She jumps up, WTF.  Yup exactly, WTF.  I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest, I’m trying not to scream, to act like an adult.  I just can’t believe I bought your crap.  Here I am working extra shifts paying not only your mortgage but sending extra payments to get your cards paid off.  Working myself crazy to keep you from stressing over life.  Doing whatever I could to make your life as simple as possible.  I am the best enabler you could have ever asked for.  Someone please tattoo it on my forehead so whenever I look in the mirror I will see just how stupid this addicts mom really is.

I leave out the back door, the dogs wake with the racket of the slam.  They come running as if to say please get us out of here.  You follow, I can’t even look at you.  I am sick, so sick of your selfishness, so sick of being taken for granted.  I’m running as fast as I can with the dogs in tow.  You catch up, we are both breathless, I’m sobbing.  Matt, what are you doing.  You are with another addict.  Why are you doing this again.  How many times will it take before you get it.  Mom, I lost my job.  I felt my heart crack, just a little.  You what.  You heard me I lost my job.  You were so happy I didn’t want to burst your bubble.  I’ll figure it out.  I took a pill and came to work.  Charlie let me go.  Oh God Matt.  One pill or many pills.  You’re a mechanic for God sakes.  You can’t work on cars when you’re stoned.  WTH is wrong with you.  What were you thinking.  Now everything is screwed.  I can’t keep paying your bills and your mortgage. How can I explain this to Ray.   Oh God, I should have know this was too good to be true.  Addiction never leaves the building just hides in the shadows waiting and watching until it latches on again sinking it’s hooks into your soul.  Matt, I can’t do this now.  I’m sick of this life, this lie we live.  All I ever wanted was normal.  I leave you in the dark.  The dogs follow me and we don’t look back.  My heart once so happy now starting to break.  I know the path this will lead to.  I’ve walked it too many times.  The demons will not let go.  Our dirty little secret will surface.  This lie will continue to haunt us, to shatter us into a million pieces.  I curl up in the dark, the dogs lie at my feet.  I stay like this for hours.  I keep telling myself that you have a disease, that you are sick, that I can get you through it again, that I can fix it just once more.  I try to tell myself it will be ok.  But all I want to do is scream………

 

Hating The Waiting

September 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

IMG_0572Matt,  the O.R. waiting room is packed.  I look around and see the faces of family members, their eyes telling the story of fear.  The anxiety is palpable in this room.  I find a seat by the door so I can make a quick exit when my own anxiety hits and I need my space to breathe.  Ray’s family files in and we claim our corner in this place where no one wants to be.  We are given name tags to be identified as family of the patient.  Ray’s sister hands me one that says Cichocki.  Put it on she says, you’re already a member we just need you to make it official.   I stick it on my shirt and start to think about the wedding.

Everything is set except the date.  We need to get through this day before we can even think of a time frame.  I have been blessed with a very flexible group of people willing to work with us to pull off this crazy wedding. For now Ray’s mom is the priority.  I sit and watch Ray.  He’s nervous.  Stress is taking the light out of his beautiful eyes.  His face is lined with worry.  It breaks my heart to see him this way.  Then it hits.  There is no relationship more precious than a mother and her son.  Oh God.  I look at this man, now a scared little boy.  I continue to watch, unobserved by Ray who is lost in his own world.  Is he thinking about his childhood.  Memories of his mom, the love they share.  The stories he’s told about his childhood always revolved around his mom.  Now I observe the man and know that the little boy lives inside that grown mans body and he wants his mom.

My thoughts drift to us.  All the great times we shared before the demons found you.  The joy and laughter.  The peace and love that filled our lives.  We shared the love of the sea, the love of dogs, the love of family and friends.  Now we share your addiction and our dirty little secret.  How did we become who we are.  You, my precious boy.  My friend.  I watched you grow from a happy go lucky young boy to a somewhat troubled adolescent to a very trouble man.  A man who found his answer in a bottle of pills.  Pills that changed who you were and turned me into a mom I never wanted to be.  Pills that made you do and say things we would have never imagined.  Pills that have allowed you to rip my heart out while I watched you start to self destruct.  Still my love for you remains unchanged.  You are my son and I am your mother.  I know you love me as much as I love you.  I know it’s the demons that make you ugly and hateful.  I know as long as there is a breath in my body I will fight the fight to keep you free from the hell and chaos your demons bring.  This bond is like no other.  The cord is never cut.  Mothers stay in connection with their sons.  The love never stops.  Hate the addiction Love the addict.

I drift back to reality.  This is crazy.  I hate hospitals, yes I know I work here.  I hate being on this side.  The waiting side, the no control side.  You know I’m always in control.  Ok, I think God is teaching me patients.  I tell Ray I need to get some air.  I need to call you.  I need to hear your voice and tell you I love you.  I need to hear that you’re ok.  No chaos today.  I couldn’t take it today.  You answer quickly.  Hey Mom, whats up.  I listen closely now not liking the greeting.  Matt, where are you, are you ok.  Fine Mom, just fine.  Oh God, not now.  Not when I need to be here, not when I’ve asked you to stay clean.  Not after the promise. Matt, what the hell.  I’m in the hospital waiting to hear about Ray’s mom.  I can’t handle this now.  I’m trying to keep my voice down as the panic is rising in my chest.  How could you do this to me now.  I’m trying to reason with you as I feel a hand on my arm.  I turn to see Ray’s face.  His eyes full of concern.  Matt stop this now.  I hang up. Breathless.  Ray looking at me waiting for an explanation.  Oh God, I can’t do this today.  Can’t dump this on him now.  Need more time to sort this out.  Maybe Matt was just tired.  Maybe just stressed.  I was going to maybe myself right out of this one.  No way was I going down this ugly road today.  Forgive me God, but I’m going to lie.  Nothing big.  Matt just being Matt.

Rays sister appears.  A smile on her face.  Mom is fine. Surgery over.  We can see her soon.  Thank you God.  Some great news.  I see Ray relax.  The worry slipping from his face.  Our conversation forgotten.  We return to our corner.  A calmness now settles around us.  I put my I’m just great mask on.  Oh God, what now.  I’m smiling and talking but my mind is spinning.  Trying to be part of this happy family, sharing the joy of a mother saved.  One day so many emotions.  I’m beat.  My heart heavy with the burden of the unknown.  My dirty little secret buried for now…..No laughter just deafening silence.

 

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