I’m enjoying some alone time after a busy week in Georgia and waiting for the rest of my family to come home from their vacation. That means that I get to indulge in some guilty tv pleasures like Dr. Drew Celebrity Rehab… don’t judge… 🙂
It’s family week where the families get to talk about how they are feeling about their loved ones’ addictions. Some of the things the families say are hard to hear. I don’t claim to understand addiction at all, but I still related to some of the things the families were saying about their loved ones. The sister of one of the addicts said things about the world revolving around the addict, that she was tired of everything being about HER… that she was selfish, that she was unwilling to compromise or meet anyone halfway, that everything was ALWAYS about her and never about family. It was hard to listen to the families say these things. Dr. Drew pointed out to the sister that all of the things that she disliked about her sister were parts of her in her addiction that had never been treated and NOT who SHE was.
It made me think about many of my friends in pain who have rough relationships with friends and family and even my own family who HAS been beyond supportive. We make choices based on our physical limitations that others can’t see. I can see how the people in our world see us like the family member see their addicts…. self-absorbed, selfish, unbending like we don’t care about anyone but ourselves. But it’s not us… it’s our physical dysfunction. It’s not who we want to be. We are loving, caring, people who WANT to participate in the world… it’s just we can’t. We become inconsistent as our pain ebbs and flows. When it’s not caught early enough we eventually end up prisoners to our bodies and life is NOT what we signed up for.
As I continue to heal and become more and more a part of life I find that I see a NEED to recognize my husband for all he has done for me and all the time he has spent helping me deal with my dysfunction and pain. Asking him to talk about how it has affected him and our family. Sometimes the answers are hard… sometimes they are sweet and endearing, sometimes simply enlightening. I am grateful for all the insight he gives me. I like being able to give back more and to recognize my family in more ways than I used to. But it is something I do need to be aware of because as sad as it is to say, I can see how easy it would be to make it all about me. But that would no longer be my disability… that would really then simply be me being selfish. I don’t want that to be part of the new me. I hope that your loved ones understand the parts of you that are YOU and separate that from your dysfunction and disability. and I also hope that as we heal and recover that we remember who we are and that our dysfunction does not define us unless we let it.
Aug 3rd 2011
