Tag: parenting

Halfway through 2025: Less reading, but hope for the future beyond the page

Somewhere in the city last night there must have been fireworks, officially that is, I’m sure illegal sparklers were also fired. It was Canada Day, after all. July 1. This same holiday back in 1987, marks the day I finally quit smoking for good. I’m quietly hoping that this year July 1 will be remembered as the day my son quit drinking. We’ve stood at this precipice so any times before, I’m almost afraid to believe it might be true. I’ve said it before, I know, but this time really feels different.

The last few months have been especially difficult. In May my son’s computer was hacked. We stood in horror and disbelief, watching as the hacker systematically and openly carved his way through programs while outside no less than five firetrucks descended on the building next door. The excitement at the neighbours’ subsided, but in our home the damage was done. A text to my daughter, whose boyfriend is a computer tech, provided guidance for the initial security steps, and by the weekend the virus was isolated, the hard drive wiped, and rebuilding was underway. But for my son, a tidal wave of anxiety had been unleashed. And it continued to build. His preferred remedy, as it has been for the past fifteen years, was to drink more than ever. He is thirty-five.

Over the years, I’ve learned the hard way that it does no good to confront him or to overreact. Begging, bribing, and passive aggressive accusations are counterproductive. Or worse. Now that his other parent has been diagnosed with high blood pressure, diabetes and, after repeated small strokes, early onset dementia (and this without a history of alcoholism), the medical risks of his addiction have taken on a new intensity. But the thought of facing panic attacks “alone” and the very real nightmare of withdrawal have long stood in the way of any true desire to quit. Each time I’ve suggested he seek support (something that he has tried over the years, of course) I see that the legacy of his abysmal experiences in the child and adolescent mental health system run deep. And I cannot blame him at all, I’m still angry about the way he was mistreated.

However, something changed in the past few days. Suddenly beer no longer tasted good. No longer provided relief. Made him feel ill. Frightened by the symptoms, he finally agreed to call the public health nurse and after assessing his condition she recommended  he go to the hospital emergency. So that’s where we were when fireworks rang out, and where we were until after three o’clock in the morning. At one point my son insisted we leave as no one had been called in to see a doctor since our arrival, but I insisted he inform the triage nurse and when she saw him he was experiencing serious symptoms of detox. She convinced him to take some medication to help him relax and before long his name was called.

I stayed in the waiting room, hoping to finish the book I was reading. I only had about 20 pages to go when we arrived (in fact, I tucked several books in my pack figuring I would be moving on to something else before the night was out). But then a couple arrived and the woman started listening to an evangelical sermon aloud, on her phone. Stressed and tired, I could not shut it out. I thought, God gave us headphones, surely you could use them. Fortunately, it was not too long before I could go back and join my son.

Now, the road he has ahead will not be easy. He has been drinking so heavily on a daily basis it is no less than a miracle that his blood work came back as good as it did. He has been prescribed medications to reduce cravings and protect against seizures, but he doesn’t seem keen on the side effects (which unfortunately are not unlike the withdrawal symptoms). For someone who has admittedly self-medicated for so long, my son is skeptical about anything that comes from the pharmacy. All I can do is support him with patience and love. This is the first time he has sought medical support, fully and openly admitting to his circumstances, and I am so proud. And cautiously optimistic.

The strain of living with an alcoholic takes a toll. Over the last month and a half I have been distracted, stressed, irritable. I could see that things were escalating, that my son was not coping, but I knew that he had to be ready to take things into his own hands. Meanwhile, I’ve struggled to focus on reading and writing, moving through words at a glacial pace, picking up and putting down book after book after only a few pages. Funny, but only the dream-filled madness of Zuzana Brabcová’s novel of detox, Ceilings has consistently cut through my own anxiety. If I can see my son safely through the next few days of early detox, maybe things will finally be back on track for me—and on to a new future for him.

Note: I debated whether I should write this or not, but decided I needed to put it out there.

Reflections on the Day of the Dead

For years a small sugar skull sat on one of the bookcases in our house. Eventually it had yellowed and aged to a point that its value as a keepsake was minimal. One day with a last glance I tossed it out. There were two originally so somewhere in the accumulated detritus of twenty years in this house, another little skull is probably decaying.

Inician la temporada de alfenŽiques2_0The skulls were mementos of a special Members-only preview of an exhibition which passed through our city in November of 2002. ¡Viva Mexico! featured a selection of the glorious huge colourful murals of Diego Rivera, striking photography of Day of the Dead celebrations by Graciela Iturbide and a display of shaft-tomb figures. As a family event, there was also a wide range of hands on creative activities for the kids.

I had been, at the time, a single parent for a year or so, my children would have been coming up on 10 and 13 years of age. It was an era of fundamental change and transition in my own life, but it was also a time when my kids were young enough to really enjoy this type of outing. I had a family pass and the museum was a common weekend destination.

However, until that day I had, somehow been unaware of the importance and spectacle of the Day of the Dead. Hallowe’en was fun of course, and a highly anticipated event for the children in their younger years. But the magic and energy of the the Day of the Dead celebrations captured in the photo gallery left a deep and lasting impression on me.

Many years later it all came back when tackled Malcolm Lowry’s classic Under the Volcano. I read it with The Guardian Reading Group, a three or four week monthly on-line opportunity to tackle a book with fellow readers. It is a challenging work to fully appreciate and before the month was out I found myself reading the text on an e-reader with the paper copy open beside me on the sofa so I could readily flip back and forth to cross reference and the link open on my computer to a brilliant website, The Malcolm Lowry Project, which provides chapter by chapter guidance and assistance to the humble reader along the way. Simultaneously long conversations were unfolding on-line within the Reading Group.

Now I can no longer divorce the Day of the Dead from the tale of Gregory Firmin, the alcoholic British consul in a small Mexican town, and his slow, tragic unraveling and demise throughout the course of one November day. Impending celebrations lurk in the air, but his desperate mental waltz with the push and pull of liquor, the reasoning and rationalizations he plays with himself held my greatest fascination. I have been lucky that alcohol has never held a serious allure for me, and my tastes tend to be above my discretionary budget anyway. Dedicated alcoholics don’t care and my family history has known its share. Especially on the side through which the mood disorder runs.

By the time I sat down with Under the Volcano, my son had been a heavy drinker for several years, although there is a long time before he finds himself in a state of crawling across the lawn toward the vision of a half empty bottle like the poor consul. I should hope. The struggle is a delicate matter for us to balance. He is almost 25, gifted and anxious to an extreme and over the years he has been on his own, on the street and now for the past few years increasingly isolated at home. Over a month ago he had a break of honest self recognition and quit drinking. But for many and complex reasons, especially some particularly horrific experiences in what passes for an adolescent mental health system, he has a complete aversion to any counselling or support.

Today, on the Day of the Dead, he is working a couple of beers back into his routine and I am trying to maintain the boundaries. Our relationship as father and son is complicated, we are close, share many character traits and insecurities. With a history working in social services I am also acutely aware of the limitation of practical services out there. And the cost of living in this city currently precludes even his younger sister who has a profession from moving out. But I know I cannot own his issues.

So with this November 1, I will honour the Dead with hope and ambition for all of us trying to pull together and move forward with Life.

Myself included.

Time – too much or never enough

During the past year, I was haunted by an overwhelming pressure that I needed to be able to slow down, take stock of my feelings. I was becoming aware of a wall coming down between myself and my emotional grounding.

At work a toxic environment was brewing as our director became increasingly paranoid and unstable. My daughter was trying to impress an unreasonable employer at her own workplace while, at home, my son who has long struggled with his own mental health and addiction issues was going through an especially difficult, potentially violent series of conflicts with friends. Just to keep my head above water I was going through the paces. A familiar process. Single parents tend to develop this coping skill.

It is strange how life gives you time to reflect when you need it the most.

Summer grassAlthough I have lived with the ups and downs of a mood disorder for most of my life, a full manic break and diagnosis did not come until I was in my mid 30s. Until that time I felt like I was lost at sea, battling waves I could not put a name to, but hanging on and, as much as possible, faking my way through the years. After all, unless you know better, you figure that everyone else is essentially doing the same thing.

With the diagnosis and other critical underlying issues that subsequently came to light, my life started to make sense. I felt I had some answers, some sense of a guideline. It was not an easy prescription and there were costs, including the end of a long marriage, but I prided myself that I had persevered, that I had survived. Although I was late to the game I was able to build a career that allowed me to support my children, buy home and start to put away some money for the future.

Now the reality of the diagnosis has cruelly returned to confront me leaving me unable to know if returning to the job I had is either possible or even desirable. I find myself re-evaluating what I want for myself.

Something that haunts me this go round is the notion that people with mental illnesses, bipolar in particular, have a shorter life expectancy. Although the reasons, methods of study and populations under consideration is not clear this is not a factor I ever considered before. Funny thing, we are bombarded with the message that we have to be prepared to support ourselves financially for longer than previously expected and yet we see people die prematurely – of natural or unnatural causes – all the time.

Fact is, life offers no guarantees.

Read. Travel. Write.

Either everything has meaning or nothing has meaning.