Foggy Thinking

Ever since I blew up at my daughter, I have been trying to sort out how my brain is coping with this experience with addiction.  What are my stages of recovery.  I know there is a public list some where, but in between those lines and wrapped around those words are additional experiences that are individually felt and lived.  I think I've come up with five of my own stages, though I haven't put them into words, yet, at this point I've listed them as feelings.  I am going to try to work them out here.  The most prominent for me is feeling like I'm in a fog.  I'm going to explain it as a picture. I work best with similes and metaphors.

I mentioned here before, how after my divorce, there were still a lot of issues to work out at home with my son and daughter.  Divorce is a process that unfolds way before and far past signing papers.  My one friend, who was a counselor, told me it was like we had all been in a car accident where one walked away with a few scratches and the remaining three (my children and myself) were left bleeding and broken, trying to help each other up at the same time we were trying to patch our own injuries.  That vision of stumbling around a dark, accident scene, three figures crawling toward each other, fit.  It's mentally what I felt like.  That feeling was more clear, though.  It was focused on one source and that source I knew I could (and would) eventually be able to move away from. I did help cause this accident. I wanted the divorce and that caused the life we were on to wreck, so I do take some responsibility--I just forgot to put on our seat belts.  It took a while, but I eventually bandaged everyone, left the scene of the accident, and we went on with our lives.  At least I did.  I wanted normal back so badly, I didn't pay close attention to the scars that were developing on my children.

Fast forward.  Leaving the divorce accident, I decided to drive the family train and put everyone on board.  I could drive this train and steer it in the right direction for all of us, while we were getting back to our 'normal.'  At some point, I let go of the controls and pushed the automatic button.  The direction we were in looked good, the scenery outside the window was beautiful.   We were back on track.  I was starting to feel good.  At one point, though, during a stop, we took on an unseen passenger, and as I was enjoying the ride, I didn't notice when the track clicked, and our train was guided to another track.  Outside the windows began to look foggy.  The direction was grayer and less focused.  In the midst of the ride, going at full speed, we jumped the tracks, and I found myself and my children, once more, sprawled and bleeding at the scene of an accident, though this accident has left me in a fog.  I'm still in a fog that I couldn't leave.  I carry it around with me.  I tried to help my children this time, too, but as it turned out, my son figured out how to help himself.  He gave us a rope, said he was going to get help, and told us to hold on, while he walked away, into and out of the fog.  He got the help he needed.  He has never let go of the rope, but he was able to get clear of the accident and has moved on to a good life for himself.  I am so proud of him.

Though on the outside, I have moved on. I have a good job. A home. Friends. My mind is still in the fog of the accident. I'm mentally still stumbling around.  There are moments of clarity were I can look around me and see how far I've come, but then I turn back to find my daughter still sitting in the haze and fog, berating herself and her life, and it breaks my heart so, I sit down with her and the fog envelops us.  We are huddled in the fog.  There are times when she takes hold of the rope and I tell her not to let go so she doesn't get lost on the way through the fog, and she does for awhile, but then I feel the slack on the rope, and look behind me and she's lost, again.  I do try to trudge forward, alone, but I get worried because the rope she should be holding onto feels much too loose, so I follow it back to find her huddled, again, afraid to move forward, finding (I'm afraid) a kind of comfort in the fog, so I stand with her, watching her.  Looking back toward the path out of the fog, but not able to leave because of all of the ties I have to her.  I love her so much. My heart hurts for her so much.  My sadness anchors me in the fog. 

It is in this fog that I am living.  Going through life, wanting to appreciate fully what I have, but stopping just in time and I'm not sure why.  If I leave the fog, will I lose her?  Will she not be able to follow the rope?  So, that is my first personal stage: Living in a Mental Fog.