I commemorator my daughter, who died, an opiate addict, her life, she felt, unlivable due to depression, anxiety, despair, and the use of opiates and alcohol. On this day tomorrow August 12, 2010, she jumped off a very high bridge into a large river. Someone saw her and so she was retrieved from the river within a few hours. She was one of the worlds admired, charming, souls, someone whom everyone looked up to, even when she was walking into an AA meeting. Obviously, she had to have a problem, walking into an AA meeting, but she kept up her act, like she had it all together, and people were convinced. It was unfortunate that she convinced herself over and over that she had it all together, because she could not bow down and receive the help she needed, whatever it was. When she finally decided to go to a rehab, she left for home the next day “because they treated me like a drug addict.” She stopped going to AA because the people were not of her class – even though she loved it and them when she was going. She took refuge in sex and love addiction fantasies, chasing one man after another until she had a whole string of them. When she found one that she thought was HER savior, he saw her vulnerability and immaturity, and broke off the relationship. She could not understand. She said HE was afraid of intimacy. But she was so trapped by that addiction that she said she was giving up hope – she had found The One, and he didn’t want her. Oh, the romantic fantasies, how misleading they are! The lies we tell ourselves about “I can do this, it will be okay, I am strong.” Until one day, they feel so weak, they take too much, just wanting that escape-feeling to be sure to be strong this time, or they kill themselves, by their own hand or by that overdose they know is going to do them in. She told a friend she confided in while using that she hated lying to me, her mother. I would say “I don’t think that sounds like the truth” and she would list the elements of her story, as if a detective going over the elements of a case, and say, “so why don’t you believe me? It hurts me so much when you don’t believe me.” All while she was lying to me, cutting off the emotional support that was there for her.
Much as I didn’t like to admit it, she was my favorite child, because she helped me feel good. She looked me in the eyes the day she was born. I think she was a young soul, full of that glow of heaven, feeling she could do everything, nothing could stop her. But putting herself into a emotionally unwell family, she could not survive the lack of support which her unhappy parents presented to her. How hard it is not to blame myself—but did I not do the best *I* could?? And she was such a lovely mother, I never saw a mother love a daughter more.
And she left behind that young daughter, just entering into rebellious, bratty teen-hood. I say it was not her fault to her, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t anyone else’s fault, but it sure didn’t help that she was mean and rude, the way teens these days are, when her mom was in withdrawal. Yes, she was waiting for her Suboxone doctor to return from vacation. But she had missed her first appointment with him, yes, deliberately missed it. She was so, so miserable, in withdrawal, and me back at work after I had been out sick for 3 weeks and couldn’t be there for her. I bleed for her as I remember the pain she was in. This is what happens with opiate use and opiate withdrawal. And the drinking did not help.
When she comes back to the earth (I believe in reincarnation) I hope she brings with her what she’s learned from this, and I hope she retains all the compassion and understanding she had for others. She was studying to be a counselor—what a good one she would have made. If she only could have hung on “until the miracle happens,”
I love you and miss you, my dear daughter.
Posted 12/08/2018
Judith
