I finished watching the Netflix series Maid (based off of Stephanie Land’s Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive). Yes, the situations that the young woman goes through were triggering and difficult to watch, but I found the series to contain so much truth and hope.
There’s a scene in which the little 3-year-old is waiting to be picked up by her father (who struggles with alcoholism) and watching that scene brought me back to when I was 5-years-old waiting for my father to pick me up after my mom and he divorced.
I remember how I dreaded him picking me up. It was like a weight that hung around my neck and I couldn’t find the words to express how I felt. I just wanted him to go away, but I was told that the courts granted him time to see me and my mother complied.
What hit me personally about the show Maid is seeing the generational aspects of alcoholism and dysfunction. Seeing patterns repeated and the affect it has on not just the abused but those being abused.
When I look back at my relationships, I’m ashamed at how I clung desperately to broken and bad relationships because “I was in love.” I feared being alone more than the damage that the relationship was doing to me. But worse, I feared who I was becoming in those relationships: controlling, angry, dominating, forceful, distrusting. I didn’t drink, I didn’t do drugs, but I was replicating the same dysfunctional behavior patterns as I saw played out between my mother and father.
I didn’t know how to fix things. I didn’t understand what was wrong. I just wanted someone to love me and for me to love them. The anger, fear, and confusion became all-consuming, and the patterns played out like from a book.
I’ve felt shame for some of the things I’ve said and done in relationships—like I was a cornered and wounded animal who would do anything to not be abandoned.
I think I was 21 or 22 when I first went to therapy and then to an Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting. Months later, I remember being at my job at a department store and a woman in her 30s, who I had met at an ACOA meeting, recognized me and came to say hello. With a passion that I still remember all these years later, she told me: “Stick with the program. It works.” I could tell that there was a story behind what she was telling me, a personal one, and that she was trying to show me a sign to help me.
I think what is most difficult for me when I look back is on admitting how close I came to repeating the patterns of my father. Not with drinking or drugs, but my obsession with being in love with love and the dysfunctional behaviors I repeated in relationships. Chasing after people who couldn’t be there for me emotionally and not understanding that I needed to love myself first. I really didn’t get that at a core level. When no one was around, I started to see that I couldn’t control whether someone loved me or not. I couldn’t fix other people’s problems. And no matter how hard I tried (and boy, did I try), I could not cut out the hurt child within me.
What worked was accepting me. The hurt, the wounded little kid in me, and making time to help him. When I write and use words, I found that it allows me to help come in contact with all who I am. The road of the past, the future, and who I am today.
When I finished watching the show Maid, I see how much unsaid there is in the show. I understand how long of a journey the young woman will be on as well as her ex-husband who is struggling with alcoholism. But I most identify with Maddy, the 3-year-old, who will grow up with memories and trauma that I can so relate with.
All my life, I’ve been made fun of because I’m not like a “typical male.” There’s a streak of empathy wider than a river within me. I learned that from my mom and her mom.
And what I’ve realized over the last few years is that I’ve used that empathy is so many ways, but not for myself. What would happen when I realized that I couldn’t change the past? That I couldn’t fix any of the things that I said or did. That I only have the power to forgive myself and to make amends with those I have hurt.
I don’t remember my father ever hitting me and I don’t remember hitting my mother. But I lived through the emotional abuse and those scars are with me. The dangerous thing is that you become what you learn.
To have the empathy to know that I have emotionally abused others and to realize how much damage I’ve caused others is my truth. I never understand the cost of growing up in an alcoholic and dysfunctional home.
When that woman told me to stay in the ACOA program, now I understood what she meant. All those years later. So now, when I work on the steps, I realize and accept that I need to take care of myself first. It’s not often that I hear people talk about their real problems and fears. There’s a lot of sugar-coating going on these days. But I realized that there’s nothing left for me to hide. I truly believe that the way I find healing is by telling my story. It’s why I write my books. It’s become part of who I am. I even did my Master’s thesis on studying the Color Purple and defended how the main characters in the book found healing by telling their stories.
“I am and will always be here for you.”
It’s acceptance of my most hurt and scared part of me, shining a light on him, that I find peace.
Embracing, holding, loving, and simply saying: I am and will always be here for you.
I hope these words can help just one person. There is always hope. And there is always light. If only we keep trying to reach for them.
Like what I wrote? Be sure to check out my book Let Go and Be Free: 100 Daily Reflections for Adult Children of Alcoholics. Filled with personal stories, meditation tips, and an intimate look at living as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, this book (232 pages) is an authentic daily resource to guide you on your journey.
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