Loving People Well

Chapter 4

An Awakening

So where did all this addiction come from? How did I get so unhealthy? Well, since I’m a counselor I am of course going to say it started in my childhood. But let me take that apart a bit.

As I revealed in the first chapter, I was the third oldest of fourteen, and I took on the role of caregiver in the family fairly early. In doing so, I did not get my own needs met, but even more than that, I came to believe that my needs were not important. I was not important. I learned much later in life that this is referred to as emotional abandonment.

But as I matured, I worked hard at trying to be important. I wanted to be approved of very badly, but I didn’t want anyone to know that I needed that. Hersh, in The Last Addiction (2008), writes that even though an addict wants approval, we don’t want others to know that we do. So we act very self-sufficient and self-confident and won’t let others get close enough for us to develop an intimate bond with them. But underneath, that is all we really want.

Joyce Meyer wrote a book entitled Approval Addiction (2005). She says:

Those who have been hurt badly through abuse or severe rejection, as I have, often seek approval of others to try to overcome their feelings of rejection and low self-esteem … they suffer from these feelings and use the addiction of approval to try to remove the pain. They are miserable if anyone seems to not approve of them in any way or for any reason and they are anxious about the disapproval until they are once again accepted. They may do almost anything to gain the approval they feel they have lost—even things their conscience tells them are wrong. (Meyer, p. vii)

After I bought my own place and was living alone for the first time, I began to try to put the pieces of my life, of me, back together. I did everything I could to find answers to what I had been through over the last five years. I began seeking out support and healthier friendships. I went to counselors to try to make more sense of what I had gone through and to grow from it. I continued to attend twelve-step programs and work the steps with the help of sponsors and accountability partners too.

I was determined to learn all I could about this addiction and how and why it had taken a stranglehold on me. I knew that in order to be free of it, I had to understand it. After all, knowledge is powerful, and we can’t fight what we don’t understand.

During my healing process, I struggled with some memories concerning my mother, but when she passed away in 2009, I wrote this memory about her because although we didn’t always see eye to eye, I still loved her and knew that I would miss her. Also, I know she’d done her very best as a mom, the same way I did. I made mistakes too, plenty of them! My sons can attest to that. We all do, so I do not judge her. Besides, she also had a ton of good qualities too.

Her Last Hours

As she lay there fading away from us, we often wondered, sometimes to ourselves, “Is she still breathing?” The hospital bed in the living room was partially reclined; the crisp white sheets were crisp no longer. The numerous medicine bottles sat upon the bedside table, reminding all of us that our mother was no longer the bass playing, oil painting, Gunsmoke watching, enthusiastic woman we knew.

There would be no more calls from her telling us of the next family reunion or camping trip. No more card playing or halloopsee making. As we sat in silence and waited for her spirit to be taken … these thoughts and more made us both smile and weep.

Dad anxiously hovered around her, like the hummingbirds outside her window … devoted husband for fifty-nine years. He had aged over the last six months as he watched his faithful mate slip away. His hair was streaked with more snow than before, his shoulders slumped over as if he were carrying a great weight, and the sparkle in his eyes had dimmed.

Finally, her last breath was breathed. We were released from the waiting but not the loss. As we prepared for her funeral, we had many opportunities to share our grief with each other, as we had one week earlier when our sister had died from the same evil. Now we had two loved ones gone from us.

As we walked away from the second funeral in ten days, we were quiet, lost in our thoughts. And we went our separate ways.

Questions for Reflection
or Small Group Discussion

1) What was your awakening? Or what awakening do you need?

2) What have you done to move in the right direction?

3) Did you draw closer to God through it?