Alcoholic parents - the traumatic reality

Growing-up-with-an-alcoholic-parent---the-traumatic-reality

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By Annongirl20

My own experience transcending into young adulthood was struck with a disheartening truth. That the one woman in your life whom, without doubt, should always care for you, your own mother, drastically was the complete opposite for me.

Growing-up-with-an-alcoholic-parent---the-traumatic-reality-pin - Alcoholism clearly doesn’t only affect the person involved, but the very people who love them dearly. It causes considerable emotional turmoil.

Cherished childhood memories of sobriety. Laughter bursting its way through my content mouth. As though to heighten my youthful innocence that the damaging effects of witness to substance abuse corrupted so abruptly.

Aged thirteen, everyone suspected she lived a lavished life of love. Everyone so unaware of the hell she lived once she stepped from the school gate. Returning home to her mother revealed her once strong, female role model, left drowned in alcohol. A reckless river of tears flooding down her half-unconscious face, the voice of a Samaritan volunteer streaming from the phone. My mum always said she wanted to kill herself when she was drunk.

Role reversal actuality

My hero on ground zero. I would snatch the wine glass from her hand that she grasped so tightly, for this was the only thing she truly cared for. By doing so, I would feel this infinite control for once. Stupid, I know. One of the absolute certainties of attempting to cure a loved one so forcefully attached to alcohol, is that you can’t control it. I would replace it with a weak squash (just how she liked it). Desperate for this to be her preferred choice over that poison she chucked down her throat.

With multiple layers, I’m tucking her in now. I don’t want her to freeze on the sofa. I’m restraining the tears from dropping so vigorously from my exhausted eyes, my throat hurts from doing so. I’m leaving her to sleep it off, in dire hope for my mum back. I running to my room for security, a place to let these hysterical tears release so hysterically. I’m unable to speak out, my friends wouldn’t understand, people wouldn’t believe its severity. I don’t want her in trouble. I was the one caring, she hardly did.

This occurrence lasted four years, amongst many other damaging experiences. I gave up. No one could save her in the end. She never changed. She, herself, never had any dedication to do so.

The two C’s

Coping

So how, through all of the upset and embarrassment of being related to an alcoholic, do you cope? Well luckily, although hard, there are ways to cope in order to maintain mental tranquility in times of, quite frankly, dreaded chaos.

Anger was an emotion that would eat at me. The feeling of warm blood rippling through my body, and my inability to disconnect it just tempted the anger even more so. A great establishment to let off years’ worth of steam was the gym. Yes, the very compact, humid, inevitably sweaty gym in the heart of the countryside town that I call home was the answer to this incredibly therapeutic cleanse. Heart thumping, accumulations of sweat that dribbled continuously from my strained temples. Best of all, the attempt to push yourself, exceed your physical limits, if possible, was fuelled by the anger which leaves you fuelled with racing endorphins, a complete shift in emotional dynamics.

Other ways

Another way, simple and accessible, is baths. Who doesn’t love to indulge in the milky, heated water that provokes enchanting goosebumps upon the now moisturised and purified skin? This relaxation influences a new awareness of peacefulness and calm that your mind may often be foreign to, as well as encouraging deep breaths to really enhance this relaxed state. Interestingly, for me, baths became this place of safety in a household of turmoil. A place I treasured dearly in that I was away from my mother’s drunken condition, despite the reality that it was a tub full of water.

On that note, go run a steaming bath, put on a playlist crammed full of chill music, light some candles, and have the most supreme relaxation possible.

Social media, in spite of its downfalls, was a way for me not only to look up others’ experiences and the similarities of these that I faced coping with an alcoholic, but also for me to speak out to people about my situation. Let’s face facts, speaking in real life about something that at first seems terrifying, giving a sense of underlying betrayal of the person involved, is so much easier to do online. The ability to confide in someone hiding behind a screen seems so much more obtainable. Doing this will enable you to have knowledge that you’re not alone in this journey, and that there are people out there to support and help you, offering you a virtual shoulder to cry on.

Counselling

Something I realised was that reaching out for help was one of the smartest and most influential things I have ever done in my life. Not only does it give you a safe institution to detach a suffocating secret, but also empowers the profound bravery that comes with being related to an alcoholic at the same time. I realised that it was OK to cry, to be angry, to be stuck in the cycle of hope that one day everything would suddenly change. That life would return to the ‘normality’ of the past. I realised that every distinct feeling that pulsated through my entire body was OK to feel, even the unexpected emotion of grief.

If you were, or still are, in my position, then I urge you to not feel disheartened by these uncontrollable feelings, and most of all to talk them out. How can secrecy and denial be the answer to all your problems? Well, let me tell you this now, it’s not.

Alcoholism clearly doesn’t only affect the person involved, but the very people who love them dearly. It causes considerable emotional turmoil and can, fearfully, affect the mental health of these people. The secrecy needs to change, the ability to confide in others need to change, the awareness of management needs to change. Here’s my attempt to cause change.

Reproduced with permission, originally posted here: palpitation.health.blog