…we arrive at places like this ill equipped, desperate, messed up in our own right the majority of the times or really would we even be here…
Hindsight…
I am not the product of alcoholic/addict parents. I had a loving albeit codependent dad and an abusive controlling mother who was way more normal if she happened to drink … and I was the one using drugs so of course it was all my fault and I asked for the beatings and made her do it and I will always come back to what did I do so wrong before the drugs to be deserving of … it really makes so much more sense now since I worked on me…
I didn’t leave, I stayed, and will not say if it is right or wrong. As I see it now I did the best I could at the time and grew from there…
But surely we were all effected, how could you not be even without abuse present….but that doesn’t mean that the children will stay that way and are incapable of growing and learning and just doomed for life to repeat our cycle…
I don’t find anyone all that healthy when it all hit’s the table. And I do still believe in leaving or staying not meaning much of anything if you don’t back either up with working on yourself…There is no way around it we must work on ourselves!
It is so obvious who is still struggling and in all those cases they haven’t committed to finding why they are as they are, still so compelled to make sense of why the addict is as or what I did for a long time trying to make sense of why I was beat as I was … holding on to the pain for far to long, but then that pain, those memories always served to keep me in bad place. I can’t speak for anyone and won’t, but I was sick, and I changed that, and everything changed…everything.
That is one gift we can give to our children that will carry a lifetime, getting healthy, healing our scars, forgiving for our soul, and sanity…that seems to be the only thing that brings change and helps break the cycle.
I do advise all parents who stay to make sure their children know exactly what is going on in the home and give them a voice, be open, honest, no secrets, no lies no cover-ups…and if they want the addict in the home out, then make it happen.
Everyone take good care and love yourselves because you can’t truly love anyone else until you do.