Introduction

I am an adult daughter of an alcoholic. I have learned that this is a thing. In fact, there is an entire organization dedicated to people like me referred to as Adult Children of Alcoholics. ACoA or ACA.
I have been angry for a long time, but the thought of writing a book about my life never occurred until I began writing down my memories.
I had legitimate reasons for my anger, the greatest being the death of my son Nicholas. I have journaled through the years, writing about my feelings, life events, and placing my thoughts on paper rather than outwardly voicing my pain and fear to the outside world. Keeping my thoughts to myself and non-confrontation were easier for me. Although, I have learned I could only keep the hurt locked away inside of me for so long. Looking back, I wish I would have addressed my feelings at every crossroad I’d ever encountered; the frustration, hurt, sadness, all my crazy, and whatever emotion I had at the time and as it occurred.
We all have ways of dealing with our pain. Twice I’d thought of suicide. I wanted to destroy myself, just like my dad did to himself.
Once when my husband Ray and I were building our home. Everything was overwhelming to me. We’d been uprooted from our cute modest home in Michigan to a state I’d never imagined living. At the time, the chaos of building a home together made me feel crazy. Ray and I argued a lot. I felt the builder had not lived up to his contract and he sued us, we counter-sued, and we lost.
Then almost two years before moving into our new home, a drunk driver killed my mother. My father was also deceased. Everything felt out of control. I felt defeated, stuck, overwhelmed, tired, and very sad. Worse, I hated everything about myself. At the time, I didn’t quite understand why because it wasn’t only about what was happening to me in the present, but it had been what had happened to me in the past as well.
I walked out of my house one afternoon, leaving my twin ten-year-old sons with Ray. I remember standing nearby watching my boys playing happily with their Legos. They were oblivious to how I was feeling and the stupid thing I was on my way to do. I’m glad they didn’t know what their mama was about to do that day.
I spoke a silent goodbye to each of my sons before I walked out of the house and got into my blue 1994 Camaro Z28. I tore out of the driveway, looking up to the sky. I was angry.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes!” I cried out.
I drove on Highway 50, the main back road that goes north and south. I was headed for the I-65 exit. I remember that the road was clear of traffic that afternoon. The speed limit is 50 M.P.H. but I stepped down on the accelerator. I watched the speedometer needle race higher, 60, 85, and then ninety miles an hour.
Out of the corner of my eye, a wooden telephone pole came into my view on the right side of the road. But before I turned the wheel toward the pole, I saw stars. The flashing lights were crashing into each other. I could feel my head and heart pounding hard before a peaceful calm came over me, and inside my head, I heard myself say, “Slow down, Judy. Slow down.” It seemed strange to me at the time, but I immediately calmed down. I pulled my car over to the side of the road and I cried hard. My mood had changed fast. It was as if someone had flipped a light switch on and off. I hung my head down over the steering wheel, sobbing. My entire body was shaking.
After I had settled down and stopped crying, I drove home, only this time, much slower and way under the speed limit.
What I saw when I walked through the door of my home were my precious boys standing at the door with wide grins across their faces. They had been waiting for me to return. They were happy to see me. I melted. The thought of what I’d almost done has haunted me for years.
The second time, years later, was when my son Nicholas relapsed from Leukemia. Ray had taken him to the hospital for a procedure. Nick was on his way into the operating room to have a Medi port implanted in his chest for the second time when he called me.
Now he would be getting even more chemo treatments since his relapse. My son was in his twenties, and he was crying out to me. “I don’t want to do this, Mom. I’m tired,” he said while hospital staff continued to wheel him into surgery. I fell to my knees hanging on to the phone, trying hard to sound calm. I was trying to be brave for him. But I wasn’t even close to brave. I was upstairs in my bedroom, wrenched over dark blue carpeting, breathing fast. A heavy feeling of morbid gloom overwhelmed me. I felt horrible unworthiness; I was evil and couldn’t stop the bad from happening to my son. I couldn’t take the pain from him. I felt like I had failed him and caused him to get sick.
I was sobbing while I crawled into my bed. “Help my son, God! Please, help my son!”
I hated me. My entire life, I felt like I had caused only pain to others. I wanted to end my life.
Seconds later my phone rang again, this time it was my sister Rita. I cried out to her.
“Judy, do you have something to help you sleep? You need to sleep.”
“No.” I said.
“Do you have Benadryl?” Rita’s voice was calm.
“Yes. I have Benadryl” I said.
“Take two so you can rest. Please don’t do anything.”
I can’t believe I’d ever contemplated suicide, especially after my dad’s devastating death and how it had affected me, my siblings, and my mother so horribly.
After a parent dies by suicide, statistics are high for their children to do the same thing. Had I gone through with killing myself, I would have hurt my children and my husband terribly, but at the time, I wasn’t thinking about anyone other than myself. I hated me.

Memories

I remember getting on my knees and asking God so many times, pleading with him for answers, especially since my son Nicholas died ten years ago, “Why am I so angry?” I mean, anger was a normal emotion for me, or any parent for that matter, after their child dies. It’s part of the mourning process. I know that, but I have been angry at times to the point of depression. I don’t want to be this angry.
So, while I waited for answers, I started to write, and while I wrote, I could see my prayers being answered. I felt like God was showing me why I had been so angry through memories starting to emerge—memories that I had not forgotten but had hidden away.
My memories can be triggered by a song, a scent, or a chance thought; the recollections can happen anywhere at any time.
The fragments of my life that I am about to share with you are not in chronological order. They are random memories that come to mind as I write. I share humorous yet vulnerable, embarrassing, raw, and poignant moments portraying how traits of an ACoA and adult survivor of child abuse can be acquired due to environment. I believe it’s time for all of us to tell our stories. This is mine.
The loss of self and the loss of a child are traumatic journeys no one ever wants to experience. I am one of many who knows all too well the suffering these horrific events can bring to our lives. Because not only physical and mental chaos can result from the trauma, but autoimmune disorders can also develop in our bodies. I’ve heard the body doesn’t forget.
Through the years, I have tried to be positive. I had hope. There is always hope, but there were times I found myself diving, surging crazy into deep valleys of grief, anger, and depression while at the same time portraying a fake smile across my face for the world to see.
To be honest, I didn’t start to acknowledge the anger I had until a few years ago. Throughout my life I pushed my emotions aside. I didn’t have time for them, because it hurt too much to go back and revisit those painful places.
Through the years, I had been busy stuffing my past away, desperately hoping that at some point, the horrible memories I had would just leave. But they never went away; instead, they remained on a random shelf, gathering dust somewhere in my brain where I had placed them long ago. I felt a lot of resentment, and my distressing, messed-up experiences only seemed to multiply for me rather than go away.
I remember standing hunched over peering into the water. My hands gripped tight, holding onto the railing, a segment of an old rickety, wooden pier. I was somewhere in Michigan overlooking Lake Huron that day. I was twelve, and my parents had just separated. . . Again.
The brisk, northern wind blew harsh against my skin while white caps formed and built as far out as my eyes could see. On that overcast day, the horizontal waves stood one behind the other but in staggered rows.
I swear I watched every wave set take its turn crashing onto the shoreline that afternoon. My red tear-filled eyes zeroed in on a swell that scattered, dissolved, then started its build all over again. The surges seemed strong, determined like soldiers going off to battle, colliding, slowing down, diminishing then repeating. These breaking waves were something I could identify with because, for me, the surges represented times in my life where I had felt so defeated.

Can't wait until tomorrow for the next two chapters? Get the full sample here.