This post was written in early May, 2021. My emotions were too raw at the time to post but re-reading it today, it feels OK to go ahead and push 'publish'.
Loving someone with addiction and mental health issues is incredibly hard. Answers aren't easy. Action plans aren't either. Loving someone with a love that's bigger than the cosmos doesn't solve the day to day stuff that happens.
When I share 'stuff', I'm mindful that it's H.'s challenges I'm broadcasting into the cosmos...but I'm a family member of someone with these issues and I can say that if I don't write about them, if I'm not honest about all the feelings that happen, it just makes me feel even worse.
Thank you for reading.
It's so easy to think the worst of someone or something, you know? So many times in recent weeks, my feelings escalate to being completely pissed off about a situation or a person. Launching immediately into assuming the absolute worst in any situation never helps. It sends me down a rabbit hole of emotions that are really hard to crawl back out of.
Having a family member with some mental health issues happening - fighting against a current they can't scramble out of fast enough - feeling broken, lost, exhausted, sad. Those words also describe me on a fairly regular basis, too, because it's hard to know what to do, really. Trying to remind them to pick one thing - no matter how small - and see it through. Sometimes just taking that first step will lighten the load and help the person see that even in the darkest, hardest times when your psyche is trying to crush you, you are still capable of so much. You just have to drag yourself there sometimes to see that.
H. has a lot of positive things happening around him- finally qualifying for some state programs to help with living expenses; medical care. All those things will help tremendously in ensuring he can get medication if needed; have assistance with food and lodging expenses. He's working regularly but the job isn't 40 hours a week guaranteed so in weeks when the work is light, the struggle to survive is overwhelming.
We encourage him to go to the unemployment office and look at job posting boards. He says he's applying everywhere - he does get text and email messages about jobs - but I get lots of those, too, since I retired and a lot of times, you click on the job and it says 'this job has expired - check out this job instead'....and the 'this job instead' is doing pizza delivery or something. (No, I'm not looking for a job).
H. hasn't figured out (yet, still) that the lapses that end up with him using drugs again keep rebenching and restarting over trust that has been dramatically destroyed over and over again. Do I think his mental health issues are an excuse to use heroin? Absolutely not. But I think his mental health issues overshadow virtually every part of his life and without addressing those root causes (anxiety, depression), it will always be like climbing Mt. Everest to keep him from using a chemical to feel better. Or to feel anything, maybe.
He's not in a good living situation - and he is the first to admit his current situation is entirely his fault. Had to move from where he was due to his drug use and is now living in a house with 8 other people, including 3 kids under the age of 3. On the phone earlier this evening, he shared how he never has any down time. Never has time to rest, regroup - people and kids in and out of his room constantly. It really hit me how hard that is for him - because he's wired so much like me. I need alone time. I crave it. If I didn't have the ability to create alone time for myself daily, I couldn't survive, really. I can't imagine how it would feel to just have days stretch into work and going 'home' - only 'home' isn't where you want to be and you aren't able to do the self-care you need because 8 other people and all the stuff that goes with having young kids around isn't really conducive to finding some 'time for myself quiet time'.
H. had committed to doing something for me last Friday - it's Monday evening and he hasn't done it. Gave me scenario after scenario - driving here so will do it then. Had to do something else but don't worry, I'll do it when I do [insert something else]. Over and over. Today, realizing it still wasn't done, I gave him an earful. He says 'I'm not jerking you around - I intended to do it but couldn't because [insert whatever]. I told him 'if you tell me five different times that your plan to take care of it is [insert whatever] and you repeatedly still don't do it, that IS jerking me around, H.. There's absolutely no way in a 24 hour day times four that you couldn't arrange to wedge in 20 minutes to do it. It's just about priorities. You don't make doing things you've promised you will do a priority - so yes, that's you jerking us around. It's disrespectful and rude, takes advantage of us repeatedly.
He was emotional. And in that moment, I realize that he is struggling a lot more than he wants us/me to know. He always calls to say how things are going and makes everything sound fine - only he's not fine. Sometimes he says that 'I'm not in a good place'. But I don't really equate it to what he's trying to say - he's going through a period of getting out of bed and getting through a day of work is just about all he can do. When he explains about how there are little kids popping into his room; 8 people and all the noise that goes with that - he isn't getting anytime to focus on his mental health and some quiet time.
I called him back a couple times - talking through some steps to take. He can put a lock on the bedroom door - that will prevent the little people in the house from coming into H.'s room. He's going to talk to the homeowner to confirm it would be OK to put a 'flip lock' on - way less expensive than a doorknob. He finally made it to DMV and got a Texas ID card so now he'll be able to apply for State aide programs including Medicaid. Food stamps will help with his food budget and he will also get rent subsidies. He knew all these things were available but didn't have an ID card and because of COVID, had a very hard time getting an appointment at DMV to get the card.
He also found out that he would have qualified for unemployment when the gas station job ended - and he can apply for that and be paid unemployment for that time period. Those funds coming in will help him build a cushion in savings -
I tried hard to remind him of the things he can do and things that will help - tax refund arriving soon, too. He started sounding better....and I ratcheted back my pissiness as fast as I could. I never intend to be hard on him - truly, I don't - but so many times the situations and issues just feel never ending and overwhelming for me, too.
I think he desperately wants to 'come home'. Home being here with us in a house he's never seen. But I can't do that. We won't do that. It's a free country and he can certainly live anywhere he wants - when he's got the funds needed to get here and have somewhere to live that doesn't involve us supporting him. Moving to Texas was his fresh start that he said he desperately needed. We gave him that - including quite a bit of financial support (all in the form of 'loans' with the associated expectation of repayment at some point) - and it sure hasn't gone well. While we'll probably never know for sure the true, real timeline, he started using drugs again while in Texas thus making the 'fresh start' no start at all.
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