Hello, World!
First, I have to apologize for not posting until now. My computer is in the shop, and I couldn’t get my keyboard on my ipad to work.
That being said, someone reached out to us, at ourfates, and my heart dropped when I read only three sentences of what she was going/went through. It reminded me of when I really truly understood what the phrase “one day at a time” really means. I used to hear it all the time when my husband was in his recovery. I always used to think “well, duh, I mean, how can you live BUT one day at a time? You can’t live tuesday and wednesday at the same time”. But that was a few years ago, before I really understood…
It wasn’t until my husband was into his addiction, full-blown that I even grasped the idea of “one day at a time”. I would clean the house, spotless, leave in the morning to go to work, have breakfast, lunch and dinner all ready for him (at the time he was at home all day, everyday because of surgeries), have the dog & cats fed, and would leave. What I would come home to would be a dirty house with crumbs on the floor, bowls,, plates, forks, all over the coffee table, bed unmade, his clothes on the couch, shoes all over the place, and him snoring on the couch in front of the TV. Then I’d have to clean up, make dinner, and do it all over again the next day. Sometimes when I got home, things would be missing. Or broken. In the beginning, and honestly, for months, I’d believe his “reasons”. Looking back, they were just lies and excuses, always followed with “I”m sorry, I’ll never do it again”. This went on EVERYDAY for MONTHS and MONTHS. I was so in love and didn’t want to see that there was a real problem. He was LYING to me. SOMETHING ELSE WAS GOiNG ON, but I didn’t want to see it. (denial)
I started withdrawing from my friends and family. No one really knew what was going on…because I didn’t want to deal with it either. I didn’t want to accept reality that my husband was abusing his prescription drugs. (later on it because worse – heroin….which again, I was in denial about) I stopped going out. I stopped calling and returning phone calls. I stopped painting, and scrapbooking, and gardening. My entire world revolved around making everything look “normal”, hiding the problem, pretending everything was okay, lying to people about why my husband was slurring his words, or still sleeping at 3:00 in the afternoon, or wobbling around and falling down, and cleaning up the messes (literally) that I came home to everyday. I felt like a shell of myself. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed, under the covers and hide until it just all went away. I felt like an animal that crawls into a dark corner and licks its wounds. I didn’t know what to do. I felt that if I ever told anyone that, they wouldn’t know what to do, say, or help me, or worse yet, just brush it off & say “tomorrow will be better”. So I didn’t say anything. To anyone. For months and months and months, which turned into years.
One day my mother called and asked me if I wanted to do something the next day. I remember saying to her “I don’t know. I can’t think. You don’t understand, I can only deal with what’s happening right now. Ask me tomorrow”. And then I broke down crying hysterically. THAT’S when I realized that “take it one day at a time” (for me) meant just that – I couldn’t cope with anything else but what I was dealing with at that exact moment, on that exact day. And what an awful place to be when you realize that.
It hit me like a ton of bricks…is this was how I was going to live out the rest of my life – by coping – one day at a time? The thought was unbearable.
But I did just that. I coped with what I could, and ignored the rest. Unfortunately, because of that, the mail piled up, the bills didn’t get paid, the house was a wreck, etc…..but I was able to somehow keep my sanity and struggle through the denial. It took another few months for me to finally break down and admit that there was a problem. A drug problem. And that my husband had it.
And that’s a whole new/different/same story.
But the point of all of this is…I believe, that if we’re dealing with our loved one’s addiction, we all at some point reach “one day at a time”. And it’s. O.K. It’s what we have to do to cope. It’s what we have to do to get through another day with “keeping everyone and everything together”. To be “superwoman” or “superman”. And it’s awful. Absolutely, terrifyingly awful.
But if you perservere…you CAN get through it.
baby steps.
One day at a time.
Hang in there.
-Brendalee