How I Contributed to My Daughter's Pain

Michelle:  Well, Hey everybody. And welcome back to Qualified - The place where incredible people share their stories of overcoming great adversity and loss to inspire you and give you hope!  I'm Michelle Heaton.

Today's guest is Susan, a woman who has been through many different kinds of loss in her family life over the years, yet she persevered and is here to share the lessons she learned with us today.

Welcome to Qualified Susan!

Susan:  Well, thank you, Michelle. I'm glad to be here. 

Michelle:  Susan, you're going to share the story about the relationship you have with your daughter Christina today and how you arrived at that place, but before you do, can you give our listeners a little insight into your life for background?

Susan: I met my husband and we were married for five years, traveling around quite a bit and having a wonderful time.

And at 30, I became pregnant for the first time and I was so hopeful that I would finally have a child.  But it wasn't to be - it was just the beginning of 15 years of devastating loss.  As I had six miscarriages, due to an autoimmune disease, which I later found out was Lupus and circulating anticardiolipin antibodies that cause my body to attack the placenta of the baby. And they would all die at 14 to 16 weeks. And several of them I had to deliver and held in my hand and just, it was so, so devastating 

Michelle:  I'm sure. And also at that time, there were some issues that began to surface in your marriage with your husband. Can you talk a little bit about that?. 

Susan:  We always had a lot of difficulty in our relationship and we had been to counselor after counselor to psychologist to family therapist and they would just say, “Oh, he's very eccentric.” And we would go on for a little while and then end up getting to another low point and go back and try to seek help. And finally, one day we went to a psychologist and they gave us a diagnosis of Asperger's, which is a type of autism for my husband.  There was finally an answer. It might not have been the answer that I wanted, but it wasn't, it was an answer.  I was just struggling, trying to make things better when it wasn't.  It was never going to get better in my efforts to change him to be something that he could not be.

Michelle:  So, you had been through this horrible trauma of six miscarriages, and then you both received your husband's diagnosis, but shortly thereafter you discovered you were pregnant again. But, the good news was this would be a viable pregnancy. 

Susan: Well, finally that day came, I delivered a baby girl. I held her in my hands and I thought. Life couldn't get any better. I stayed home with Christina for two years when she was an infant and then went back to work when she was three. And because I had been raised with a strong work ethic. That's where I found my value and I believed that the harder I worked, the better things would be. 

So, I left care of Christina and my husband's hands, but he could not be a father to.  And she needed a father. She needed a mother, but her mother was a workaholic and she didn't have the mother that she needed.  

Michelle:  So it was a bad situation all around for Christina, because you needed to work to support the family now, and dad wasn't in the best place to care for a young child. You said this went on for many years, and then you began to see a breakdown in Christina's behavior in her early teenage years, and then to make matters worse. You ultimately got a divorce. You said Christina started drinking heavily and also got involved in a dangerous relationship and dangerous behavior. Can you describe Christina's mental and emotional state as you observed it Susan?

Susan:  She was suffering from depression and anxiety at that time and her physician prescribed an antidepressant. She was masking her pain by drinking alcohol. She was in a disastrous relationships and she even was contemplating suicide at the time.

Michelle:  Well, you were obviously scared and worried about Christina at that time, because you knew that she was acting out in her pain and depression, but you told me you didn't know why. And you said you just wanted to see her get better. You wanted her to be happy and for things to be normal in both of your lives. 

So, what happened next that would be the beginning of a solution to her problem? 

Susan:  The beginning of the solution for us was when she finally agreed to go to rehab.  I don't think she would have been alive very much longer she hadn't gone. 

 Michelle:  So, tell us about the experience you had in her rehab program that helped you come to an important realization.

Susan:  I was in a family meeting and there was another family member -  called me on the fact that I was  part of the problem her words just hit me.  I didn't stop and look at myself and look at how I was contributing to the problem by trying to mask everybody's pain by trying to put band-aids on it, instead of letting everybody be honest about what was going on and put light on what was going on in the family and get help. 

Michelle: And I know that you're a person of faith and you looked into a program in your church community that helps people who are struggling with life. And you said that that program had a spiritual component you learned about that would now come into play. Tell us about that.

Susan:  One of their big priorities is the need for forgiveness. And I remember it was close to Mother's Day and I got these smooth river rocks and I decided to paint them. And I wrote on these river rocks things that I wanted Christina to forgive me for, as a mother, because I had hurt her so much.  And so on Mother's Day, we went to the beach, and I showed her all these things of being a workaholic, of leaving her to her dad, of throwing material possessions on her so that she wouldn't cry.

I wouldn't let her cry because I knew all the pain that she was having to suffer being in the family that we had. And so, I said, Christina, if you could forgive me of these things, just throw them into the ocean, throw them into the sea. And we'll never remember them again. And that became the beginning of our healing because she was able then to ask me to forgive her of all the things that she had done.

And I was able to say, okay, we're going to start a new. And we're not going to look back, and this is going to be the beginning of a new season of our lives to not hide the pain that we're feeling to not pretend that we're the happy family, that everything is okay when it's not okay.

And that was a big, big step to bridging our relationship and to have a relationship that was built on honesty and not just covering things up to make things look good. 

 Michelle:  So that was a huge realization for you for the first time ever. You were willing to examine yourself and your role as a mother to your daughter to determine your part in her depression. And that wouldn't have happened if not for that family meeting.  All those different experiences that you've had, all the losses that you've had in your life, you're now at a place after many years of pain and disappointment, you have peace. 

Susan:  Yes. 

Michelle:  Your daughter, Christina is now sober and loving her life and her new job. Can you share some of the lessons that you learned over the years with someone who's listening that might need to hear them right now?

 Susan: Well, I think one of the biggest mistakes I made was trying to shield Christina from the pain of life. When we got a divorce, I tried to give her things and take her on trips and try to smooth the hurt and the pain rather than allowing her to go through it, to communicate with her about it, to work through the issues of what that meant. I wouldn't allow her to feel the emotion and pain. 

So, when your kids are suffering, from what life is going to bring them and you can't prevent it. Don't keep them from crying when they need to cry. Be there, listen to them, hold their hand, walk through it with them, allow them to feel the sadness and the pain that life will bring.

The most important lesson that I learned here is that I was taught early on to make everything look good on the outside.  My dad was not a warm  person. There was never an “I love you” or a hug or an acknowledgement of one's individual value in the family. Our value came in our work ethic. My dad was squadron commander and he ran our house like we were his soldiers.  And I knew that my parents cared about us and they took excellent care of us. But as far as valuing us as individuals and saying, I love you   that just wasn't a part of the picture. 

 Even if you were raised in a certain way by your parents, you can break the cycle. You can live life differently.  You can choose to do things different. So that not only your family is healed, but you can touch many other lives with the healing  that you've experienced in your own family. 

 Taking responsibility for our own part that we play in the family dynamics can be a big step towards healing. The hardest thing for me was to admit how I contributed to my daughter's pain.

 One of the most important events in our healing was when I was able to really go deep and realize the part that I had played. And I was able to write on those rocks what I needed to be forgiven for. And was able to forgive myself and ask my daughter for forgiveness, and that brought us healing because if we hadn't done that, we would still be living a lie.  

And it was so difficult, for me to look inside of me. At how I contributed to my daughter's pain. And when I was able to do that, when I was able to write on those rocks and confess to her all the things that I had done to contribute to her pain, it was the key that unlocked the chains that were keeping her bound in depression and anxiety and  self-destructive behavior.

 Michelle:  Susan. Thank you so much for sharing this inspirational story with us.  Your life, like many of ours, had its share of challenges and hurts, but because of your love for your daughter, you were willing to take a hard look at yourself in an effort to ease her pain .  So often we just want the ones we love to get better after they've been hurt deeply. We don't want to see them in pain, but how many are willing to do the hard work to walk through the suffering with our loved ones?

So, for those of you listening, it is my hope that Susan's story resonated with you in some way.  And you may not be wired to be introspective or even be willing to do some of the self-examination in an effort to bring healing. Living on the surface only may seem safe and comfortable, but when someone you love has a need to go deeper, take that journey with them. You may discover like Susan did that forgiveness may be the missing piece to finally finding the peace that you both have been missing.

 Thanks for listening.