There is so much I want to say on this subject. So many directions I can go with this. There is so much here to address…and yet so little. It comes down to one thing only for me today.
Unconditional Love
When we have children, we believe we are to teach them right from wrong. We do this the best we know how, with whatever it is we have to work with. Many of us or perhaps most all of us have learned how to shame our kids or guilt them into the path we think they should be walking. This is not because we believe it works, and in fact most of us will contend that it does not work. We just fail to have the tools that do work. In some cases there may not tools that work.
What our children hear from us is that they need to be different than they are. They hear that they are not good enough. They hear they need to change. They hear our fear. They have their own fears.
When a child begins using drugs, it may be to fit in with their peers. It may be to escape their own fears. It may be to numb out all those thoughts of this and that.
Parents, me included can go crazy trying to fix or save this child. I have, I went so crazy I exhausted myself, my friends, and my family. I got so depressed I became suicidal. I felt there was something I must of done to cause it, and I needed to fix it.
What I have come to learn is that what I need is to not waste one more second looking at the problem, I need to love this child. The bible says we need to love. It is the greatest of all the commandments. To love. I thought loving my child meant helping her get better, I thought it meant fixing her. I thought it meant a whole lot of other things. She use to say to me, “you don’t love me”. I would think is she crazy, look at all this stuff I am doing and sacrificing for you, this is love!
Today, I know she was right, that wasn’t love and it wasn’t loving to always view her as a problem. To always be looking and wondering how high she was, and how to fix her. It was not loving or kind. It was judging her and telling her she wasn’t good enough.
Today the greatest thing I can do for her and for myself is just simply to love her, no matter what. Not to waste one more second on judging her. To be open and completely honest in sharing good things, in being loving towards her.
Unconditional means NO CONDITIONS! Just as it is, just as she is, just in this moment, I get to practice the art of loving. The more I practice, the better I become as with any skill.
Being a mom of a heroin addict is in hindsight one of the greatest gifts, it is teaching me how to love another human being, no matter what!
Cheryl Frei
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