BREATHTAKING HEARTACHE

Being a parent has to be the hardest thing one can do. If it doesn’t pain you then I don’t think you’re doing it right. The older your babies get, the harder it is and the more you realize you have no idea what you’re doing.

When they are little, the worries are kind of simple and common sense. Make sure they are fed and clean and safe. I have two boys and four girls. The early years were about the boys not killing themselves with their rough and tumble behavior and the girl’s friendship dramas. As they grew into teenagers it became more of a challenge. Learning to listen to them while teaching right from wrong and praying to God that they heard you. Trying to instill the importance of education, hard work, kindness, compassion and inclusion.

The next thing you know, you blink, and they are adults out on their own and worrying you every single day. It is so painful to watch them make mistakes and do things the hard way knowing that they have to learn on their own and they aren’t going to listen to you anyways. Seeing your child suffer is one of the most painful things to endure. For me everything is magnified because of how much I failed them as they were growing up.

I would give literally anything to go back and do it all again with my children. I swore to myself when I was having kids that I would never ever be my mother. In a million ways I wasn’t but in many ways I was. I was able to give them the things I never had such as enough food, clothing, any and all extracurricular activities, toys, sleepovers and birthday parties. I attended absolutely everything they ever did and provided the opportunity for each one to go to college and I never ever laid a hand on them. Sadly, because of my unresolved severe trauma which led to my addiction, I was not available to them on an emotional level. I did not build the bonds with them that I desired and that they needed.

My children mostly saw me as a very sad person that on most days struggled to get out of bed. My children would be without me on several occasions when I was hospitalized for harming myself. They would also be on the receiving end of my angry outbursts in which I would be yelling. That happened far too many times. It is almost unbearable for me to think about how I behaved with my children when they were young. The pain that I feel when I allow myself to go there literally takes my breath away. I know that I caused my oldest four children a great deal of pain and on many days, I find that difficult to live with.

When I got sober seven years ago, my youngest was in middle school and the next one up in high school. They were living with me and watched me get sober, work the steps and change my thinking and behavior. Although, they too, were affected by my addiction, it was not to the same degree as the older children. I have had to work very hard to build relationships with my children and although those relationships are much better than they were just prior to getting sober, they are nowhere close to being the way they should be or what I desire them to be. My relationships are very different with each of the six of them. I have closer relationships with the youngest two, but I also have a good relationship with the second oldest as he has watched me grow and has forgiven me.

I have strained relationships with two of my girls and what’s the most painful is watching how my failures have caused them to struggle to make life decisions that provide them health, happiness and stability. Two of them are repeating a lot of the mistakes I made, and it kills me to stand on the side and watch this, but I have not put in place close enough relationships for them to take what I say and do things differently. I realize that there is nothing I can do but remind them I love them, and I will always be here for them. I have to continue working on my healing and become the best version of myself showing by behavior and example that not only have I changed but that there is a different way to live.

I have found myself really struggling lately because the immense amount of guilt and shame I feel for failing them has been causing me to want to withdraw from them and everything else, but I know that is not going to be of any benefit to anyone. I realize that I am heavily grieving the relationships I wish I could have had with my children, and I am mourning their childhoods because they were not what they should have been. And I think I am also grieving their present and futures because I realize that my parental failures changed the course of what their lives could have been.

My heart is so heavy and hurts so much that it takes my breath away, but I know that I have to be strong and continue to take each day as it comes and show them how much I love them and that they can trust me. I know that I am still making mistakes. My desire to fix everything often does not come across very well and I have to continue to remind myself that they are all adults and I have to let them go. I think that what makes this such a struggle is that I feel like I have to make up for their childhoods and although I have been trying to do that the last seven years, I have to step back and allow space between us to grow and heal.