What is my work

 What is my work......well if you asked me this question when i dropped my daughter off at Turnbridge i would have said what do you mean? you are going to fix her right? like a month or so and then we will be good to go right?

That was the beginning of my work. Everyone's work is a little different and that is the interesting part about this.....everyone's situation is different but emotions shared are the same. and somehow even though the experiences are different from family to family or child to child the tools, knowledge, emotions and validation i can apply to my own experience. I can be on a meeting where the first topic comes out and i think oh this wont apply, somehow 15 minutes in, the topic morphs into something that resonates for me and it becomes something i can apply to my own experience.  the experience, the journey of having my daughter in treatment was where i began to unravel the root of how we got to where we are. That was my work.  i mean how could i have thought i did not influence or contribute to the position we were in? Why had i made the decisions i had made? that was my work. How was i going to show up differently now? That was my work. I would say the combination of the parent support group, the Brad Reedy podcast and the book the parallel process were what helped me realize how much work i had to do. I can say with certainty that realization was accompanied by so many emotions, grief, sadness, anger, hopelessness, fear, and just deep deep emotional pain that i could not run from but the only way out was through. Unpacking that emotional suitcase and getting familiar with my own work, the areas i needed to recognize and be aware of, that unpacking for me required a lot of vulnerability and pain. I let myself feel it, because i knew i did not want to ever experience what I had experienced before. I could not go back to what we were doing. just like my daughters recovery, mine too was a 1,000 piece puzzle, thrown on the floor and i had to put all those pieces together. so many of the pieces overlap it is hard to really break down the specifics, the process was happening simultaneously realizing how i had been showing up, was related to my history, my childhood, my wounds, how those choices impacted her life and her decisions everything really is a compound effect. Rhe only option was to do that work and learn the new path so that I didn't end up in the same place. 

i have always been a hurry up and fix it person, lets make the decision, button this up so we can move on. My daughter and i actually laughed together the other day reflecting back, she said "mom remember when you thought i was all better after Maclean". i now know that this journey is never complete, there is no finish line. the work is lifelong which when  i think about it feels daunting but then i remember to stay in today. As a recovering control freak that has been and continues to be my daily work, stay in today. I look back on all the progress we have made. are we where we need to be, no. we are right where we need to be for today. the days/weeks when we take 2 steps back are the days we have to choose recovery. On the days/weeks when we take a step forward i want to repeat tomorrow what we did today. Brad Reedy has become my guru, again one of the many tools i acquired from the parent support group. one of his episodes he said "if its going good, good, if its going bad, good" and that is my work, not controlling the outcome because i cant. i am just not that powerful. That is and continues to be my work, releasing the control. My recovery is truly the only thing i can control. My daughters recovery is for her to control and choose. Remembering that i have no control over her recovery or my husbands or my other children's is and continues to be my work.  the days that are good, I embrace them, hold onto them and remember them on the days that are not good. just as quickly as the good days come and go the bad days also come and go. that has been my work, accepting the bad days and the darkness as just what it is. learning to allow myself to feel that because i had been trying so hard to prevent it and all that "if i just.... if i just....." did nothing.  Feelings fully felt will pass, and feelings are not facts, those reminders continue to be my work. 

 prior to treatment i was just reacting in the way that a mother would, i can handle this, i can fix this, i can navigate this. I should be able to handle this i am her mother, and i'm not a quitter. the more i tried to navigate and maneuver, the bigger the problems became. It was like a snowball that just kept getting larger and larger until we broke, WE BROKE. standing the in trauma bay, as my daughter lay on the stretcher overdosed and so close to death i was numb, this was so much bigger than i thought. after weeks of inpatient at the psychiatric hospital and lots of research and phone calls and tears i knew home was not an option. when i dropped her off at Turnbridge i had no idea how this would go. that is when my work began. she was no longer in my hands, her challenges were too big for me. i am a nurse and i know a lot of things but mental illness was not my wheelhouse. i was grateful for her team who took over and began her treatment and healing journey. i did the only things i could do, my energy i had invested in my daughters problems and fixing would now be allocated to my recovery. wait what? what was my recovery? this was about her wasn't it?

looking at myself, looking at the past, all the wrong decisions when i went right and should have gone left. i couldn't see. How could i have known? hindsight is 20/20 though so looking back, once the bonfire was now smoldering coals i could see so much more. Every support group, every pod cast, every book helped me begin to unravel the paths in which we took to get us to this point. 

instrumental for me were 1st and foremost the parent support groups. I'll never forget hearing about "the tools" and i was screaming inside someone tell me where the tools are. and if that wasn't just like me to want the answer immediately....i began to recognize all the areas in my life that this journey was opening my eyes too. my impatience, the need to just button it up, put the bandaid on brush off the dirt and keep going. Well sometimes it cant happen like that. The pace in which healing and understanding happens is deeper than that. that is my work, to stay in my lane, and not be a fixer.

my need for control and that i thought i had to have all the answers contributed to my position. my answers were right of course, is what i thought at the time. This process has humbled me to how much i actually do not know. i am not certain of anything actually. Recognizing that i am not in control of the future, there is an element of relief. so many times during this journey through treatment i realized i didn't have to have an answer or a solution for anything. it was ok to say i actually do not know, or that i could say to my daughter i don't know how to help you with that. those were the opportunities i robbed her of so she could learn to trust her own judgment and intuition, and to build her confidence and resilience. That became my work, to sit back and let her navigate it. Even in those few moments i do know the answer, to just shut my mouth. obviously the solutions and answers i had given had not served either of us. the decision to send her to extended care was also where i really recognized it was ok to not know. I it was ok to admit i actually was not ready for her to come home, i still had more work to do. I needed more time to learn how to change direction. i needed more tools of how to stay in my lane and create boundaries were essential for me. It is ok, to not be ok, and that is my work. i don't have to have the answers, i dont have solve all the problems.

I am continuing to identify my blind spots, as this journey is never complete, and that is overwhelming and beautiful at the same time. What if i never grew? what if i never had the opportunity to learn perspective, empathy, compassion and how to truly recognize that ultimately i have zero control except over myself, in every aspect of life. how am i going to show up? and what is it that i need? i love the topic of boundaries because when Lauren makes the statement "what is it that i need to feel safe" prior to this experience i never asked myself that question. it was not about safety for me it was about whatever it took to make everyone happy and alleviate emotional discomfort and that too is my work. sitting in the discomfort allowing my daughter to sit in the discomfort and not rescuing. In an one episode of Brad Reedy, he said "be aware of your reaction to your child's reaction", that was my work, to control myself in times of her distress and resist that urge to fix or alleviate it. When I have been operating like ET and Elliot for 18 years (truly 45 when i really observe my interaction with my own mother) its going to take some time to break that enmeshment. I no longer want to be only as happy as my unhappiest child, that is my work. 

Radical acceptance is my daily work- that this is bigger than what i thought, i will not allow there to be shame around mental illness, and accepting that this a thread in the fabric of our life. accepting that my daughter sees things differently, accesses the world differently, and that allows me to have compassion for her and what she feels and experiences. 

I didn't cause this, I cant control this and i can not cure this is my daily work- my guardian angel told me "this is the lens in which she sees herself and the lens in which she sees the world" and that has helped me to realize how difficult and how internally based this is. The gift of treatment has been truly that, a gift for her and me.

time takes time is my daily work- i look back on when i began the parent support group;s, i couldn't wait to be further along ( i know i know...rushing the process because i'm impatient) but i now can look back and say wow, it took a long time, a lot of tears, a lot of meetings, a lot of therapy, to get where i am now, and i still have to keep going but time is not something i can rush, so trust the process. its like going on a diet and expecting to have 6 pack abs 2 days into not eating oreos. time takes time and its nothing i can rush through. this journey is continuing to teach me the art of patience, that is my work. 

nothing changes if nothing changes is my daily work- if we had sent her to treatment and i did nothing, well nothing would have changed. i can only be in charge of the changes i make but without that, i am certain we would slide right back to where we were. i have to continue to change and grow in my recovery, that is my work.

this journey is not linear is my daily work- we have good days and hard days. i have hard days, days i am overwhelmed or feeling defeated and that is ok. She will have good days and hard days and those hard days are usually followed by some growth. as long as i handle myself in my new ways and the moments i revert to old patterns, acknowledging the slip up continues to be my work. 

This experience is never one i would have asked for, yet i am grateful. i feel as though it has given me the secret to peace and gratitude in my life. those practices require the choice daily. the work is daily and yet i don't think of it as work but conscious decisions to be present and show up differently from old patterns. I feel less hurried, no decision is urgent unless the house is on fire. i can pause, not have all the answers and it will all work out. Some days this mindset is easier than others. the hardest days are what really brings light to the good days. I am beyond grateful for my parent support group, the vulnerability and and support it has offered me has been one of the true gifts of recovery, and although my work will continue i know i am never alone.