A dear friend of mine is trying to make sense of her son's mental illness. A while back she accepted the reality that his darkness of mind was a sickness and that he needed help. But it hasn't been simple: he is now trying a series of medications without much success. He is stumbling darkly through the years that could be the most carefree of his life.
I have resented God for allowing my kids' brains to be sick. Mental illness in my children has brought me to tears and to my knees. It baffles me. God has given us the wonderful gift of free agency, and at the same time, He has created our brains to be subject to conditions that handicap our ability to be truly free in our choices. What kind of gift is that? It's a confusing gift.
It's hard for me to understand that we are expected to choose well despite the earthly trappings of a mind that is sick, or a body with chronic pain, or a terminal disease such as cancer. I think this expectation that I will learn to choose the good, no matter my struggles, is what keeps me humbling searching for help from God.
Even though I am sometimes resentful toward and baffled by God, I do believe that He knows me and is aware of the way my life is unfolding. I believe I can never pretend to know the struggles of another, and that the atonement of Jesus Christ is the great equalizer.
John 16:33 says, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
Don't each of us inhabit our own little world? No other human can actually know what it feels like to be me. Only God and Jesus Christ can judge me with their perfect empathy and compassion.
I think the above scripture can mean that the Savior can help me overcome my world: with all it's sinkholes and typhoons and droughts. His help can come as often as I choose to let it in. I'm learning that it's possible to be of good cheer in the midst of tribulation, even when I don't have all the answers.
Over the past months, as my husband and I have simultaneously worked our recoveries from the effects of sexual addiction, some things in the Wildflower household have changed for the better. Here are some ways recovery is helping our family:
1. Mr.W has an unprecedented amount of energy. What I thought was his natural energy level before recovery was only what he had left over after his addiction. Since recovery, he has tackled home projects, some that have remained undone for years, and finished them. He is downright proud of some of the things he's accomplished, and I am too, like tiling the bathroom floor. I see my kids paying attention to his hard work.
1. He is mentally present when he is home. This means he is a part of the happenings. Sounds obvious, but addicts withdraw from others and live in their own head. My kids don't have to act poorly to get his attention, they still do sometimes, but they don't need to. His head is in the game, if ya know what I mean?
2. He holds the kids accountable with school work and jobs at home. Every parent knows it is far easier to do a job yourself than to teach your kid to do it. Pre-recovery I was often beaten down emotionally and exhausted physically. I was inconsistent when it came to my expectations for my kids' help around the house. We can still do better, but my husband is now an actual partner with me when it comes to parenting.
3. He now values family time, so I don't feel like I am intruding on his "unwinding from work time" when I suggest something like family dinner. And not only does he have the patience now to sit through dinner, he attempts to instigate meaningful conversation at the table.
4. We practice sharing feelings. For several years, at the dinner table we've played a game called Good Thing/Bad Thing, in which we each tell a high and low point of our day. Since recovery, in an attempt to practice sharing feelings, we now play Good Thing/Bad Thing/Vulnerable Thing. In addition to a good and bad thing, we now relate a time during the day when we felt vulnerable. It doesn't always go well. Teenage boys aren't always able to be vulnerable, but it gives us as parents a chance to model expressing tough emotions.
5. An addict in active addiction views the world around him as inherently hostile and the people in that world as enemies. I don't feel like my husband's enemy anymore. He often has to remind me, "Wildflower, remember I am on your side. I'm not against you. We're in this together." I'm still not used to it, but I try to do my part and appreciate this new togetherness.
6. There is more affection and love in our home.
7. Our family feels more stable and less stressed. The definition of addiction is being out of control, and I feel more peace about finances and church responsibilities and bills and activities.
8. We have consciously simplified our lives by doing less in our community and focusing more on our marriage and family. When things start feeling crazy, we think about what is really important and we try to do less.
Addiction recovery is changing our family for the better. Though there are still many negative repercussions of addiction present in our family, tonight I am celebrating the progress we've made!
Happy holidays, dear friends. Have hope.
There are people in my life that are easy to love. They are pleasant and sincere. I don't have to try to love them. Without thought, as if by gravity, my love flows forth, and I feel connected to them.
Conversely, there are people in my life who are not easy to love.
These people may do stupid, impulsive things or say mean things. They may make choices that I see will cause them pain, and they won't listen to reason. They may be defensive and prideful, and they may ignore me. They may often do all of the above! At times I subconsciously view them as enemies, but these people are related to me; some even share half of my chromosomes.
Even with all the agency we have, we did not choose the members of our family. God "assigned" me to my parents, my siblings and my children. But that must not have been difficult enough, because then I married and added to my family a husband and the whole party of people God "assigned" to him.
And now I have the overwhelming task of LOVING all these people: this combo platter of personalities and strengths and weaknesses and quirks.
Love one another as I have loved you sounds like a piece of cake, but I am terrible at it.
Mother Teresa said that the people we live with and see every day are "Jesus in a distressing disguise." I think it's distressing because day in and day out, my love can wear thin with the people in my family. They bug me, and I grow weary from the effort it takes to truly love them for who they are.
In Corinthians Paul has said, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."
So even if I spend my life speaking different languages and understanding all mysteries and all knowledge? Even if I have all faith and I move mountains with it? Even if I give away every possession I have to the needy? Even if I volunteer myself to be burned as a martyr?
I can do all those things and more, but it does me no good (profits me nothing) if my heart is devoid of charity. This truth hasn't sunk into my being yet. I want to say, "But look at all the good things I'm doing!" And yet, I know what I lack. I lack the kind of love that never fails.
Ultimately it doesn't matter what else I do in my life……my number one life-job, my career here on earth, is not to be a mother or a sister or a wife. These roles are just vehicles for me to learn how to love completely, without judgment or selfishness. Thank you Paul and Mother Teresa for reminding me.
