My name is Effie and this is Real Effing Life. Last post I ended saying I feel responsible for Jack. What do I mean by that? Am I responsible for his addiction? No. Am I responsible for his actions or decisions? No. But I do feel a certain amount of responsibility as his wife…for several reasons. One, you know the whole in sickness and in health thing? I took that seriously. Addiction is a disease. It’s a disease that has control over the person living with it. And two, I mentioned before that Jack is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse remember? Well, when Jack told his mother about the abuse you know what happened? NOTHING! She put her hand on his shoulder…on her child’s shoulder and said “I’m sorry that happened to you” and then nothing. It was business as usual. It was like he never spoke the words. As a matter of fact, they were never spoken again. There was zero action taken. No legal action, no therapy, NOTHING! What do you think that does to a child? So, I think this is where my feeling responsible comes in. No one helped him when he was a child who needed it. So I don’t want to abandon him now. But when is it time for him to start taking responsibility for himself because I have another responsibility.
Max. When Max was much younger it was easier to keep all of this from him. At least that’s what I thought. Apparently our kids hear far more than we intend for them to. I call it selective hearing. If I’m talking about chores no one hears me but if I even whisper the word ice cream, it’ll be heard on the moon! Anyway, now that Max is 16 there are no secrets. He grew up with an addicted father. It’s not like I had to sit him down and tell him. He knew from hearing and witnessing all the things I never wanted him to. When I look back I get so mad at myself. I stayed because I didn’t want Max to be a statistic and come from a broken home but by doing so I caused far more damage (and truly there’s a statistic for everything now so I’m sure there’s one for children of addicts). I’ve enabled Jack by NOT forcing him to take responsibility and stand on his own two feet and I’ve kept Max in an environment he never should have had to deal with.
Then there’s me. I’m not trying to have a pity party but this is effing stressful. So, on my 1 or 2 days off a week sometimes I don’t want to get out of bed. I would rather just sleep it all away. This is a big part of depression. When I was younger I thought I was such a strong person and things like depression were just an excuse week people used. Now I understand completely. Sometimes all of the feelings are completely overwhelming and the tasks seem insurmountable. All I can say is I’m trying. I’m very self aware which can be a curse. Sometimes I’d rather walk around in complete idiotic bliss! So what now?
Until next time, XOXO Effie
Real Effing Life 