Kill the Secret
“You either go to REHAB or back to live with your father!”, I screamed at my son on his sixteenth birthday. He chose rehab, convinced in part by my ex-husband of fourteen years that I was the worst mother and human on Earth.
Wishing it would be a drive-by drop-off where I just open the car door and kick him out, I had to walk him in and wait an hour next to my own child as he detoxed off a cocktail of Xanax and meth. My foot was tapping as I sat there sweating for what felt like forever.
“Shhhh, keep this a secret,” whispered a voice inside me as I looked down to avoid any kind of eye contact. The secret was a shame, and it wrapped its arms around me like a familiar warm blanket on a cold day. The place smelled like a foul body odor and a convalescent home. It was older and I heard kids laughing, joking, and playing. How in the hell are they were going to help my son, I wondered to myself, but I would have given my son to anyone at that point.
When we finally got checked in, they told me I would need to participate 2 nights a week. I would need to spend 3 hours each night with other parents and family night. I felt defeated, I felt scared and exposed. Who, me? I thought, because I taught Yoga/Pilates as my own business, I ate well, drove a BMW, lived in an affluent neighborhood. My husband traveled for business, and we flew first class everywhere we went. We had fancy dinners, I grew organic food in my back yard, and made delicious dinners every night. I didn’t belong in a place like that; my son did. The secret shame was back, less of a whisper, and more like a shout. It was a bad guest that lived in the basement of my home until eventually, I was the one who felt like the guest.
As I sat in the rooms every Tuesday and Thursday, I listened to the horror stories of what drugs/alcohol were doing to the lives of these people. Jails, Institution, or death was the mantra, and by 9 pm I wanted to RUN out those doors. My children had gone to Christian schools up through eighth grade, were “saved”, and their lives and mine were beautiful… on the outside. It was awkward to watch my son making friends, staying sober, and doing better while I still felt like a hardened piece of candy stuck to cement. These aren’t my people, this can’t be my life, I arrogantly thought to myself, because the shame was so painful and I was too afraid of the truth.
After several months inside the rehab, I created my own friendships and allowed my guard to come down. Slowly I began to absorb the philosophy of recovery and how families continue to make the addict sick. No one mentioned me by name, but I heard every word on a personal level. It was a shame that whispering I could still keep my secrets.
Things changed the night my husband showed up at the rehab meeting, along with the other parents and my ex-husband. From where I sat, I could see how he fumed and jerked around with judgment searing from his eyes. He’d given me the same looks- ones festered with deep anger ready to tear into the room.
“Where are you?” the group therapist asked my husband in front of everyone, noticing the same behavior.
“A rehab, for that drug addict,”, he said pointing to my son, then he ranted about how he ran a five-million-dollar company and didn’t have time for this. “I’m only here for my wife,” was his final statement. The room gasped.
As much as I wanted to crawl under my chair, I sat there feeling all of my shame driving up to scream, I am a bad person, only a bad person is with someone like this, only a bad person has kids that do drugs, I AM BAD, I AM BAD. The entire night I continued with that mantra in my head, and as the days wore on I wanted to live in the sewer drain. I couldn’t un-see the truth.
For as long as I could remember, I carried a fundamental belief that I was a horrible human being, so I stayed small in my relationships for others to feel big. I covered up my doubts and failures with fancy men and things so no one could see the real me. My own shame was the thing that kept me from supporting my sons when I saw the beginnings of their addiction. How could I help them when I couldn’t even face the problems within me? I was terrified for my children and scared for myself, but I could not see that amid my own struggles. Shame turns the lights out and has you blindly looking for the keys.
The secrets about my shame became the truth I had to own. Shame lived inside of me. It was the thing that whispered sweet nothings in my ears loudly, it was the thing that kept me from looking into people’s eyes, and it was the thing that weighed me down as I carried my children, breastfed, and walked to school with them.
We’re taught as parents to have our proverbial stuff together so our kids can grow and flourish. We hold space for them to make the mistakes but when I looked back, my personal pain kept me separated from my children’s struggles. I could only see my suffering, but when the pain of my children was under siege, all the lights came on and I knew what scorching the earth meant. It meant facing myself. For them.
Killing the secret is the key to unlocking the cage that we created to keep us safe. Our secrets save us temporarily, but they keep us sick in the end. They rob us of the intimacy that we want with our husbands, families, friendships, and jobs that we desire. Eventually, our secrets create fractured families and filtered conversations even with the God of our understanding. It’s when we begin to tell Him and others about our secret shame that we begin to live a life of freedom and purpose.
My children’s addictions, rehabilitation, and many months in jail were the “thing” that allowed me to break my shame cycle. They were the precipice that allowed me to state out loud my children had struggles, which opened the door for me to kill my own secret. My children are on their own journeys to their truth, greatest, and wisdom. Today, I’m proud to say I am on a similar path.