Mother's Heartbreak

A Story of Addiction & Loss

Category: grief and your brain (Page 4 of 4)

This Roller Coaster Ride Called Life

October 29, 2017 /

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Matt,   The reality of your loss sucks.   There really is no pretty way to put it.   You are dead.   The order of my life has been altered beyond repair.   Everything has changed.   I have a deep pain that can never be fixed.   There is nothing that can be done to make this right.   Your death was out of order throwing my life into a place that makes no sense.

I feel like I’m back on that roller coaster.   The one we rode together during your active addiction.   One day things were great then the very next moment that unexpected sharp turn came out of nowhere throwing us off course and breathless.   I’m a mess.  Turned inside out.   Struggling to get through the next sharp turn.

This month has been brutal.   First, flying to Florida to defend your life.   I felt like my already broken heart had been drug over shards of glass.   Left torn and bleeding in my chest.   Being in the place you lived.   Walking the beach you walked knowing you were gone hit me with an ugly dose of reality.   You really died.   You are gone.   In that moment you took your last breath I was counting down the days left before I would see you again.   All the plans I made, the things we would do.   Lunch together.  Walking on your beach.   Me getting a glimpse into your new life.   Gone with your last breath.   Like a puff of smoke on a windy day.  Here for a moment, then gone forever.  That roller coaster once on the upswing, now forever twisting and turning leaving me unprepared for this gut punching grief.

My next event where I felt strapped to that horrible coaster was Beau’s wedding.   Your best friend.   The man who sat and sobbed in my kitchen after hearing the news of your death.   His tears broke my heart.   We shared our grief over your incredible loss.   I remember hearing his voice.   I’m getting married.   I want you to be there.   Oh God,  that punch hitting again.   How can I feel joy for this man who deserves so much happiness when I will never hear those words from you.

I remember feeling that familiar throat tightening pulling up to the church.   The ride was beginning and I was holding on for dear life.   My mind kept telling me that life does go on.   This was life and I must participate.   I felt the jolt as the coaster started upon entering the church.   The first twist was seeing Beau. So handsome as he approached holding out his arms to welcome me.   A second jolt as I felt his arms wrap around me.   For a brief second my fantasy won and it was you.   The hug my heart craves.   I closed my eyes hoping to stop the flow of tears.   Reality broke through as the car sped up hurling my heart to the ground.   You are gone.

I remained strapped in the mixed emotions of joy and grief.   The ride to the reception was filled with small talk.   What a nice wedding.   How handsome Beau was.   How he and his beautiful bride only deserved the best in life.   You were the elephant in the car.   Knowing if I spoke your name my coaster would hurl off the tracks and implode into space.   Seeing Beau standing with Mike hurled me into another unexpected curve.   That twist took my breath away and left me holding onto my sanity.   The missing musketeer.   You are gone.

My wedding anniversary.   Nine years on the 25th of October.   Married to an incredible man.  A man who stood by me as your addiction wove its way through our marriage pulling us through the hell you lived.   This man who never once gave up on either of us.   Your crazy mother who was slowly losing her mind fighting to save her addicted son.  Or you the man with the horrible disease.   He rode that roller coaster hanging on for dear life as our world was thrust into the unknown of where the ride would finally end.

This man and our day should have been number one on my mind.   Instead all I could think of was you.   How handsome you looked.   Your incredible smile as you took my hand and walked me down the aisle of our tiny church in the woods.    I remember your laugh watching the kids on the dance floor.   Our picture frozen in time.   You walking me into a new life.   I stare at us.   Both glowing with joy and happiness.

You are gone.  We will never walk into a church together again.   I will never feel the joy of watching you begin a new life.   I will never see you standing next to Mike or Beau as you take a bride.   The roller coaster of emotions has become my life.   One day I think I will make it.   The ride is climbing to a new height.   Feeling hopeful that one day this overwhelming pain will start to release its grip on my heart.   Just as suddenly an event, memory or smell sends the coaster crashing toward the ground leaving me holding on wondering if I will survive this unpredictable ride.

I’ve always hated roller coasters.  But you knew that.   You tricked me into getting on one and cracked up telling me how all you could hear from the ground was me screaming.   Matt,  I’m still screaming.   Silent screams as a new day begins without you.  I scream everyday as I try to navigate this life.   I scream not knowing where the twists and turns will leave me from one day to the next.   I scream your name in my mind as I’m whipped around so many unexpected curves continuously slapped with my reality.   You are gone…….

 

My Life Before & After Losing You

September 2, 2017 /

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Matt.  I wish I could tell you that things are getting better.  That after 32 months my grief has become manageable.  That it no longer holds the power it once did over my heart and mind.  I wish I could say time is helping to lessen your loss.  I wish I could lie and say the days of gut punches, struggling to breathe and the uncontrollable flow of tears after a song, a smell or a memory hit my heart are gone.  I wish all those things people say to make things better were true.

The reality is my life doesn’t follow any path or pattern.  My reality continues to be one of unexplainable loss and unrelenting grief.

I remember me before the loss of you.  A smart girl who loved life.  Always finding joy in the little things.  Always able to turn lemons into lemonade.

I had a large circle of friends.  My home filled with laughter and love.  Holidays were full with friends who had no family.  The more the merrier.  We laughed until our faces hurt and then we laughed some more. Happy hours on the weekends with whoever was in town.  Crabs and beer.   People and pups.  Life always full of plans and adventures.  Exploring new places in a kayak or on a bike.  I was called the clown, the practical joker.  Always ready to put myself out there at the drop of a hat.  Old pictures show smiling eyes and happiness.

Today, I struggle to find peace.  To accept who I have become since you left.  Joy is something I briefly remember but no longer feel.

Our house is quiet.  Many Friends have moved on.  I’m no longer that smart girl.  Saving babies is a beautiful memory.  Holidays once so cherished and looked forward to are now something I fight to struggle through. Once celebrated now survived.

I never knew the incredible power of grief.  I would never believe how it changes who you are from the inside out.  I remember holding a screaming mother as she said goodbye to her precious infant. I never in a million years though I would be that mother screaming for my precious son.  Experiencing the heartbreaking loss I witnessed many times in my nursing career.

This grief so much like childbirth.  Until you live it you could never imagine the pain.  My life is in two parts now.  I call it the before and the after.  I no longer recognize the face that stares back at me from my mirror. Grief has taken its toll.  My light is gone.  My eyes show a soul that’s shattered.  I’ve forgotten how to smile. My laughter is a thing of the past.

I look at pictures taken before you left and it hits me that in reality we are both gone.  Pictures of happiness and joyful occasions.  You and me our faces covered in smiles.  Eyes filled with light and life.  From simple everyday stuff to you walking me down the aisle of the tiny church in the woods when you stood by my side as I said I do.  Those pictures encompass our before.  Bittersweet and what I have left of our life so precious, so cherished.

Time is now counted out in the months and days since you left.   I remember the last conversation.   The exact time we spoke.   Our last sharing of the words I love you.   Before I never counted time.  Days, weeks and months flew by unnoticed.   Today everyday that passes is a constant reminder of how long its been since I’ve heard your voice or seen your face.

I now wear a mask.   It protects me from the world.  I’m so tired of defending my grief.  Defending the person I am today.   Wearing my mask is easier.  I’m protected from a cruel world where grieving has an expiration date.  Where grief has overstayed its welcome but refuses to go.

Some days my longing to have you back walks hand in hand with my longing to have me back.   We left together on the very same day hours and miles apart.

Denial Is My New Best Friend

July 1, 2017 /

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Matt.   Denial is defined as a refusal to accept a past or present reality.   It’s a self defense mechanism  that comes from the subconscious mind in an attempt to protect both the psychological and emotional wellbeing of the person struggling to accept the harshness of the thing we call reality.

Denial is used to protect our minds from a painful reality repressing the truth to guard our mental health.   In other words, denial keeps me from losing my mind.

I think my denial started very early in your addiction.   Like most parents I just never thought that dirty word would ever come crashing into our perfect family.   How could it?   I was a nurse.   We lived in great neighborhoods and you went to a private school.   You went on to trade school.   You started a business, lived at the beach.   You were living my dream life.    How in the hell did addiction creep into our fairy tale and shatter it to pieces?

I remember the call.   You hurt your back.   You needed help.   The injury required surgery.   You stayed with me for weeks to recover.   I drove to the pharmacy and got your script filled.   Those poison Percocet would one day lead us down the road through hell.   As a nurse, I knew post-op pain was tough.   As a nurse I should have known the dangers of giving you those pills.   As a mom, I wanted you to feel better and go back to living your life.   Little did I know how much your brain was changing right before my denying eyes.

Denial kept me in my safe place for years.   Visiting you at the beach, my denial kept me from clearly seeing the subtle changes in you.   The unkept house, the unpaid bills.   My denial allowed me to believe everything that came out of your mouth.   You worked late.   You forgot about deadlines.  Of course Mom I’m fine.

Denial is how I survived those horrific seven years as we rode the rollercoaster of your addiction.   Never once did my denial let me believe you would not survive.    I denied the ugliness as it swirled around our beings.    The words spoken, the lies told, the yelling and screaming weren’t real.   We were both just stressed and so damn tired of how your disease wrapped it’s chains around us and refused to let go.

I denied that I was an enabler.   No way, not me.   I’m a mother trying to help her son.   I denied that those pills would kill you.   After all they were just pills and they were prescribed over and over again by a doctor! A doctor would never overprescribe and watch his patient self destruct.   No way…..

My denial kept me so protected from our reality.   I was wrapped so tightly in my shell nothing could penetrate unless it hit me like a rock splitting a can wide open.   You calling the police after I hid your pills was that first split.

Denial fit perfectly.   I could poke my head out for a bit.   Deal with what I could and slip easily back into my cocoon.   The reality of our lives was harsh.   Denial was easy, denial was soft.

Denial was my first reaction upon hearing those words I denied would ever come.   “It’s Matt”.  “He’s dead”.   No way.   The first reaction was NO.   Matt promised me he was ok.   He promised me he would never hurt me like this.   He Promised.  I refused to believe you were gone.   Those bastard pills, those f…….. doctors.   No it had to be a mistake.   Someone stole your wallet.   It’s another mother who should be called, not me.

I denied it was you until my cocoon shattered as I saw you laying so still.   You, my Matt were gone.   My denial slowly slipped away as I ran my fingers through your hair still soft in death and laid my head on your chest to hear nothing but the echoes of my sobs.

There are days I allow myself to slip back into my safe world.   Days I walk by your urn and tell myself to breathe.  Days I deny reality and allow myself the luxury of denial.    You are living in Florida.   Spending your days by the sea we both love.   You are in recovery and very much alive.

Denial is how I get through those days when I feel my mind starting to break.   It’s how I keep myself from falling into a million pieces and blowing away in the harsh winds of my reality.   Denial is a friend I call upon to survive when survival is nothing I want.    Denial is that warm blanket holding my broken pieces together as I learn to live life without you.

 

The First Year Fog

June 7, 2017 /

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Matt.   The professionals call it grief brain.   I call it being hit in the head by a tornado.   I used to call myself a smart girl.   Once a capable human being.   Able to care for the tiniest, sickest infant.  Functioning at my highest capacity.   Being a wife.   Being your mother and fighting your battle like it was my own.   Never missing a beat.   Being able to rattle off a diagnosis and calculate the most complicated drug dose while working in the NICU.    Today my brain is scrambled.  Like an egg thats been dropped from the counter.   My brain in pieces all over the floor.   Shattered like the town that was once whole but now nonexistent.

All I remember is being wrapped in a fog.   After hearing the words I’ve dreaded throughout your struggle with addiction.   “It’s Matt, he’s dead”.   I remember feeling like my body was no longer attached to my being.   I was in another dimension.   Unable to hear or feel anything.   I felt a protective cocoon envelope my soul and I heard the door shut with a slam.   My brain protecting itself from what would become my harsh reality.

I feel like I’m walking around in a soft, warm fog.   Everything I used to be now a distant memory.   I feel safe here.   My grief cocoon.   Surviving  the first year without you has been excruciating.    I try to break free of the fog.   In my psyche I know I must come to a place in time where I can face reality.   I just don’t know if I can survive.    I’m told the brain protects us from overwhelming, crippling grief.    I say thank God it does.    I would have lost my mind months ago if my fog hadn’t settled over me like it does over the harbor on a humid night.   Protecting my heart from the harsh reality of what has become of my life.

My nightmare keeps trying to break through.   Reality continues it attempts to seep through my fog like blood soaks through a cloth.    My brain continues to resist knowing I am consumed with disbelief and I’m struggling to accept my new reality.

There are days I feel like I’m losing my mind.   Days I just cannot allow myself to believe there will be no more you.    I’m having trouble believing I’ve survived a year without hearing your voice or seeing your smile.   I go through the motions of life.   I get up and crawl through the grief punches.   I put on my mask to face the world but in my mind I’m gone.   I’m told I made it through all the firsts.    Like I should be given that purple ribbon of grief and put your loss behind me.    It’s time to live again.    What no one understands is that living is the most painful thing I do.

My grief has become a part of who I am.   This first year has been the hardest time of my life.   Brief memories find their way through my fog.   Memories of us on the beach.   Life before your demons took over.   Memories of a mother and her son fighting for his life.   Those struggles seem like a walk in the park when compared to the reality of my life.   I go there briefly knowing that if I stay I will be lost forever.

Everyday is a struggle.   I battle my demons now as your demons took you away.   The guilt of the what if’s and I should haves spin out of control threatening to crash into my fog with a blazing light exposing me for who I really am.

Learning how to breathe.   Learning how to pretend that I feel.   Learning that I must go on without you.   I feel like an infant needing to learn how to navigate a new life.     A broken mother searching for the pieces of her mind.   Settling back into the protective fog when grief whips her heart.

I’m told life goes on.   I’m told the grief changes.   I’m told it gets easier.   For now my fog is a welcome place.   I’m not ready to see the future without you.   My fog wraps me in the warmth of loving hug.   I will emerge when I’m ready.   Until then I will allow my mind and heart to heal at their own pace.   For now my fog is a where I need to be………

 

 

 

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