So you probably noticed I’ve been inactive for 2-3 months. I’m really sorry. I avoided writing a post about it, but a few things happened that kept me from writing actively. I’ll explain below:
Basically: my dad, had a relapse. I never even knew it existed until he was sent to the hospital from an overdose, and it was a shock to me. Because for all my life I’ve known him as the most anti-drug, anti-alcohol, straight laced guy. There was nothing indicative of him being depressed or needing to turn to something like drugs to feel better. He’d always been the most rational one out of our family. It came out of nowhere. However, I was informed by my mother that he’d been clean for over a decade… but kept his past from me, for fear of my sister and I seeing him in a bad light.
It was a train wreck of a month.
He’s an amazing father. I still don’t think differently of him. He’s been nothing but amazing, but it was hard to see him in a bad place like that. I struggled to understand why. So after he was released from the hospital, I went through every stage of grief. I got angry, and depressed. I tried to reason with him. I threatened him to stop. I begged. Cried. Shouted. I saw him at his worst, followed him around for days to try to prevent him from doing it again, and was constantly hovering over him, only making him more anxious and more angry with himself on his road to recovery.
I’ll admit, I didn’t know how to handle it, and I didn’t handle it well. Because he had always been the foundation that kept me grounded, seeing him fall apart made me fall apart. I was worried for his health, his mental state, and that caused me to be depressed for a while, thinking that there was something I could have done to have prevented something unpreventable. My mental health was really bad; and though I wanted to write Shadows in the Sand, I found it difficult. However, things are better now, and he recovered.
It’s a lingering fear in the back of my mind, honestly, that he might do it again. He looked terrible. He’d never aged more in that hospital then he had in the past ten years. But I realized that his addiction isn’t something that he can be blamed for. I know my dad. He’s a genuinely good person, with a big, warm heart– and he never meant to hurt anyone, much less himself. His addiction is a disease, a mental illness; and if he falls again, I hope that our family can piece him together once more. So with that in mind, things have gotten better. He had a relapse, and he fixed it, and that’s all that matters. He’s been clean for a month now, and I’m confident that pattern will continue with another 14 years of sobriety.
All that said, I do plan on updating Shadows in the Sand this coming month. It is my TOP priority. School ends this week (thank god), so I will have nothing but time. I just ask, for anyone who’s waiting, for patience. Finals has been killing me, but I’ll try to be quick.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
-CapturedByNoodles
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