Hi, I’m Kandy!
I am the adult child of an addict/alcoholic but I am so much more than that…
I’m a flawed, compassionate, loving, hardworking, strong, independent, perfectly imperfect, empathetic person. I feel more responsibility for things than I should. I think too much. I judge myself without much mercy. I feel different from other people. I take myself way too serious. I’m a registered nurse by trade. I’m an introvert. I love deep, real, meaningful conversations. I believe you have to identify the root cause of a problem before you can find a solution. I love reminiscing in sweet memories. I love a great story where an underdog shines! I hate drama and lies. I believe you can show love while setting healthy boundaries. I love spending time with my family and friends but I also love my alone time. I regroup by taking “pajama days” and never leave my home/property all day long. No makeup or getting dressed. Pajama days are to focus on the inside. I lock myself in to think and process. Life is way too busy. I love being outside in my hammock swing under the shade tree. I believe you don’t have to be a statistic or allow your past to dictate your future. I struggle with balancing my need to be healthy and my love of chocolate and yummy (bad for you) food. I love to eat dessert first. I’m an animal lover and have two sweet dogs. I love to swim in the rain. I love the different seasons.
l live in a great Oklahoma town I’ve called home since the 8th grade. Before moving here, I had moved schools 15 times. Read more here… Surviving Crazy 15 schools in 9 years. I like having roots…a place to call home. I’m married to Scott (my high school sweetheart) and we have two boys – Mason and Madden. They make me laugh, smile and warm my heart. I love my family and I love being a mom more than anything. I love watching my boys grow into sweet, loving, compassionate, empathetic young men. I believe in our sweet savior, miracles, angels and God winks. I have huge disappointments and old wounds but I am blessed beyond anything I deserve. My greatest joy in life is being a mom. My greatest sadness was watching my mother miss out on the sweet joys of being a mom.
When I was young I was robbed. It wasn’t your traditional robbery. The thief wasn’t a bad guy that could be captured and locked away preventing any further destruction. No, this thief was much more dangerous…and the things that were taken weren’t things at all. They were much more important…my mom, relationships, security, time, dreams, sweet memories – you know, the really important stuff. The one who was taken from me well…she was robbed too and she lost the most.
My mother was powerless and controlled by substances most of my entire life. She died April 1, 2015. She was 61. I was 43. She did ugly crazy unbelievable things. She made me cry, made my heart hurt, made me mad, embarrassed me and made me laugh. But mostly she was robbed of being a mother, wife, grandmother, going to ballgames, graduations, school events, talks, snuggles and all the good stuff. My heart always hurt for her knowing she’d never know the sweet stuff like I did.
I never really had my mother. I was blessed to have great family who lovingly took care of me. I was born into the ugly world of addiction. I never got a choice. As mother was pulled deeper and deeper into the ugliness, I was pulled deeper and deeper into it too. I hated it. She was supposed to take care of me but instead, I spent most of my life either watching helplessly as others tried to take care of her or trying to help her myself. It was devastating and heart breaking but as difficult as it was for me…I can’t even begin to imagine her pain.
(Mother in her early twenties)
(me as a young girl)
Mother didn’t set out to be an addict. Her sweet dreams and hopes got shattered somewhere along the way. She traded a life full of sweetness for a life of survival, broken dreams and devastation.
Her crazy world affected me greatly. It shaped who I became but not in a bad way. With a little help from above and some awesome people…I chose to sift through the hard, ugly, crazy stuff and find the lessons that I needed to survive.
Drug Addiction and Alcoholism are heartbreaking chronic diseases that steal so much from so many. Moms and dad are stolen from their babies and kids are stolen from their moms and dads. Addiction is greatly misunderstood. Addicts and their families are met with judgment and unempathetic attitudes. Addiction doesn’t discriminate and can affect anyone – white collar, blue collar, kids, adults, Christians, non-Christians, college educated, high school drop outs, preachers…no one is immune from its reach.
I’m not a drug addict or an alcoholic but my life has been greatly affected by several. I don’t speak from the view of an addict. I speak from the view of a child (adult child) of an addict.
I share so minds can be opened. There are good decent loving people who struggle with addiction. They don’t need our judgment. They need love. But as much as they need it they make it almost impossible for us to give it sometimes.
By sharing my journey of heartbreak and craziness from my mother’s addiction, I hope to inspire others to see differently – through eyes of love, compassion and empathy. I hope to do my part to help stop the judgment and stigma of addiction which knows no boundaries. I share to let others know family cycles can be broken. I hope to help others be able to find the sweetness in the crazy. I share so minds can be opened and hearts can heal. Sharing helps heal my own heartache and brokenness.
Life is hard! Really hard. But life is also beautiful. Sometimes the beauty is buried so deep in the junk we have to get our shovels out to find it. But it’s there. It’s always there. We just have to look for it or sometimes dig for it.
What we seek is what we’ll find. So seek the sweet and savor the small things (hugs, kisses, snuggles, talks, time and such) because they’re really the big things and they’re not things at all.
I started this blog three weeks after mother died because my heart ached and I needed a way to share and relate to others living through or having lived through the tragedy of addiction. I’m not technically savvy. I don’t know much about blogs. Before starting this blog, I only read the occasional blog post that appeared in my Facebook newsfeed. I’m still trying to figure out what the heck I’m doing most days. Craziness!
This blog is dedicated to my mother who missed out on the sweet stuff of life but inadvertently help teach me the really important stuff and to all of those who have helped and continue to help me along the way. Mother passed away April 1, 2015. She was 61 years of age. I was 43. Mother’s death Because of addiction, I never really had my mother.
Finding the sweet side of crazy!
Kandy
And… I’m not a writer. I’m a nurse. In nursing school they taught us all of these funny abbreviations and documentation short cuts. We sort of unlearned all the wonderful things we learned in English. Be gentle with me.