I am experiencing ambiguous loss

Two summers ago, after a year of shameful drinking behavior, I ran away from my hometown and quit my job via drunken text message. I wasn’t willing or able to show up for the shit show of a life my drinking had, once again, created. Acknowledging the pain I had caused my loved ones was unbearable. So rather than dealing with the situation, I fled.

Ever since then I have been experiencing an unexplainable sense of grief. My family is still alive and well. Why does it feel like I experienced multiple deaths? Does everyone think I am just a cold-hearted addict? Am I even allowed to feel this way after causing so much pain?

Recently I stumbled upon a term coined by Pauline Boss in the 1970s called ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss occurs when a person suffers a confusing loss that they are unable to process. Boss describes two basic types of ambiguous loss:

1. Person perceived as physically absent, but psychologically present.
2. Person perceived as physically present, but psychologically absent.

One of the hardest parts about recovery, for me and possibly most addicts, is coming to terms with the first kind of ambiguous loss. One of Al-Anon's main principles is detachment, for goodness sake. Al-Anon teaches folks to physically remove themselves from the addict's life as a form of self-preservation. It’s not uncommon for addicts to lose all communication with their families. My family has been physically absent from my life for two years, but sometimes psychologically present through my iPhone. The distance between us has created what feels like a large frozen mass of grief hovering above my heart.

Additionally, there is no doubt in my mind that families who deal with addiction first hand also experience the second type of ambiguous loss. While I was engaged with my eating disorder and alcohol addiction, I was physically present, but dead on the inside. My addictions worked as numbing agents, freezing all emotion. My family was not living with me, they were living with a hollow frame fueled by shame.

Understanding ambiguous loss helps me normalize and understand the gut-wrenching grief that comes with sobriety. I have been grieving my life before, during, and after addiction without proper language in a society that stigmatizes and looks down upon me for years. The cards have not been stacked in my favor. It makes sense that this is hard.

Pauline Boss’s work finally put language to my experience. Her work has helped me understand my emotions and, as a result, has helped lift some of my “runaway addict” shame. Next time I feel that pit of ambiguous loss in my stomach, I can welcome those emotions with open arms knowing it is perfectly normal to feel this way. 

I am experiencing ambiguous loss.

I use my anger to fuel change

Lately I have been doom scrolling and reposting angry words to my Instagram story more often than I’d like to admit. Embarrassingly, I have even picked a few angry fights with people in the comment section. Due to the current state of the world (and the American political system), it’s been easy to get sucked into the chaos.

The main emotion I am experiencing these days is fear. It’s a type of fear that shows up in my life as red hot fiery anger. I have spent my entire life trying to be a nonreactive “good girl.” No one taught me how to healthily cope with fear that manifests as anger. My go-to strategy has been stuffing my anger deep below the surface and praying I don’t explode.

For me, social media is like a drug. It's good for distracting and numbing my emotions in the short term, but ultimately, it makes me feel like garbage. Social media causes a feeling of anger that skyrockets my heart rate and makes my armpits sweaty. Social media, I have learned, is not a safe place for my anger or my nervous system.

One of my favorite quotes on anger comes from Glennon Doyle:

“Anger delivers important information about where one of our boundaries has been crossed. When we answer the door and accept that delivery, we begin to know ourselves better. When we restore the boundary that was violated, we honor ourselves.”

This quote leaves me wondering if social media is one of the things violating my boundaries. Is this highly addictive app helping or hurting me? What would happen if I spent time away from Instagram? How else can I release some of the anger that has been living in my body for decades with no escape?

As much as I dislike feeling angry, I am learning how to use my anger and pent up negative energy to fuel change. The first change I am making is limiting the amount of time I spend on social media. Unfollowing triggering accounts also helps. Next, I can ease my political fears by educating myself on future candidates. The time I used to spend doom scrolling can be spent advocating for myself.

Additionally, I can channel my fear and anger by creating art, meditating, speaking to a therapist, listening to podcasts, engaging with a like-minded community, and participating in local peaceful protests. I can release pent up anger from my body with movement; yoga, bike rides, dancing, boxing, and long walks in nature all do the trick. I can also practice somatic therapy and deep breathing exercises to calm my nervous system.

The world around us is on literal fire. Everyone is afraid, everyone is angry. Answering the door and greeting the delivery of my anger with doom scrolling won't fuel change. Change happens when I restore the boundaries social media has violated and honor myself by choosing endless self-compassion.

I use my anger to fuel change.

I release the idea that things should be different

A few days ago we celebrated one of my favorite days of the year - the Summer Solstice. It is the day of the year with the most daylight in the Northern Hemisphere. This kick off to summer is what I look forward to all winter long. My favorite flowers are in full bloom and my vegetable garden will soon follow. I feel surrounded by magic and wonder.

While at the park with my dog, Teddy, I gathered a handful of dying dandelions; the fluffy type that have lost their yellow pigment. Did you know dead dandelions are a symbol of hope, healing, and renewal? When blown into the wind, their seeds are dispersed, bringing new life wherever they go.

One of my favorite ways to celebrate this change of season is to shed aspects of my life that are no longer serving me. This is a season of rebirth. I want to release the idea that things in my life should be different.

I am currently 34 years old. I do not have a driver’s license or kids or a husband or a full time job or a mortgage or any of the other things society says 34 year olds should have figured out by now. I have been struggling with FOMO and intense resentment everytime my family posts photos from their fancy, booze-infested summer vacations. I have been allowing comparisons to be the thief of my joy.

But on the day of the solstice, with my dead dandelions in hand, I experienced a mental shift. I might be missing out on “typical” 34 year old things, but that doesn’t mean my life isn’t full or worth living. I still get to spend time each day engaged in my joy practices: Tempest calls, bike rides, gardening, writing, reading, learning, contemplating, baking, dog mothering, blasting Taylor Swift, and napping. It’s almost like l have been given space to create my own rehab, my own way of recovering. I have been given space to get to know my truest self, with minimal distractions from the outside world, for the first time in my life.

I celebrated the solstice by sitting next to a small stream at sunset, making wishes (a.k.a. releasing shit), and blowing each of the dead dandelion leaves into the wind. 

I release the idea that I am behind in life

I release the FOMO and the resentment

I release the fear of being different

I release the self-doubt

I release the comparisons

I release the idea that my sensitivity is a weakness

I release the idea that my recovery needs to be perfect

I release the fear of letting my parents down

I release the idea that I am crazy

I release all of the shoulds

Most importantly, my dead dandelions and I are releasing the idea that my life needs to look differently than it does at this very moment.

☀️🌞😎 Happy belated Summer Solstice ☀️🌞😎

I practice imperfectly

Ten summers ago, in 2012, after spending 28 days in a 24/7 lockdown hospital psych ward, I was admitted to a longer term, partial inpatient eating disorder program just outside of Toledo, Ohio. It was the second of the six treatment experiences I have had and I will never, ever forget it.

At the time, I was under the age of 26 and still included in my parents upper-middle class health insurance coverage. This allowed me to experience a holistic, woman-led program rooted in compassion, psycho education, exposure therapy, DBT, mindfulness, and actual scientific research. Even though I was in treatment, it was still one of the most magical summers of my entire life. The intensely vulnerable nature of treatment allowed me to form deep, healing friendships with my fellow patients.

One of my favorite parts of this program was its step-down process. This meant during the final few weeks of treatment, I would drive home, spend a few days with my parents, and then come back to treatment and process how the home visit went. My therapist understood that returning home after being held in the confines of treatment would be difficult and triggering. I was given space to practice, even if that meant I had a slip.

There was zero expectation to practice this new skill perfectly. There was no punishing. My treatment team and I were simply collecting data points. No shame necessary.

Fast forward to the summer of 2016. I was on probation for my second DUI, no longer covered by my parent’s fancy insurance, and had just completed 4 different state-funded, Twelve Step based inpatient rehab programs over a nine month period. This time, instead of being treated for a much more socially acceptable eating disorder, I was being treated as a low-life alcoholic. Financially, I was forced into a traumatizing and dehumanizing system that believes shame, powerlessness, and criminalization are the path to healing. If I didn’t recover perfectly, I would be sent to jail for years.

For the past decade, I have always wondered why humans who struggle with substance abuse are punished so much more harshly than those who struggle with eating disorders. The root causes of my eating disorder and my addictions are exactly the same. It doesn't make sense that my eating disorder was given way more grace than my alcohol addiction.

If I learned one thing in treatment ten years ago, it’s that I am allowed to normalize imperfections as I begin practicing an alcohol-free life. With Tempest, the addict shaming involved in slips or relapses has been replaced with holistic compassion. I am proud to say that I have only slipped with alcohol 4 times in the past 16 months. I have not been perfect, but I am practicing something brand new - in a culture obsessed with my drug of choice - at a 99.18% success rate. What a fucking miracle.

In my experience, the most effective way to start building an alcohol-free life is to allow myself the grace of imperfection.

I practice imperfectly.

Freedom Has Been Found

A couple of weeks ago I was included in a cousin group text that said, “We’re at a wedding doing pictures and (the song) Family Tradition comes on.. We need a party!!!!! A good old [our last name] party with drinks, food, drinks, a dance floor, and drinks!!! Love you all!”

Let me be clear, I am not writing this as a diss or a jab at my family. It is possible that my cousin was drinking when she sent this; and I am the queen of sending damaging drunk texts, so I can’t judge her. I am writing this because I don’t think my story is unique. I think many of us come from families that bond, commiserate, and celebrate with alcohol.

When I was a kid, my family was everything. I looked up to my cousins and used them as the blueprint upon which I built my life. They influenced everything from my hair color to the way I dressed to the people I dated. And like it or not, my family’s normalization of alcohol was also highly influential on my adolescent brain.

For about a week after I received that text, I felt fueled by anger, resentment, and a deep-seeded sense of inferiority. But yesterday, while crying and biking around town with my dog, Teddy, I saw a sign outside a Methodist church that said, “Freedom has been found.”

Yes, it’s extremely painful to feel left out of family traditions because of alcohol, but what if I am actually the one who has found freedom?

My journey to sobriety has not been easy. I desperately tried to quit drinking for about ten years before it finally clicked. Instead of building healthy relationships, starting a career, and planning a family during my 20s, I was forced to survive the criminal justice system and all of the trauma our society places on us “alcoholics.” I felt like I was crazy, doomed, and forever chained to alcohol. There was zero freedom in my life.

Now, 16 months into imperfectly practicing an alcohol-free life, I can see there truly is freedom on the other side of our society’s normalization of alcohol.

Freedom is found in my daily hangover-free sunrise walks with Ted

Freedom is found in feeling and learning from all of my emotions

Freedom is found in silence

Freedom is found in Quitting and Doing Hard Things

Freedom is found in educating and advocating for myself politically

Freedom is found in creating a life I do not want to escape from

Freedom is found in my garden

Freedom is found in holding down a job and not having to call in hungover

Freedom is found in being in control of my finances because I am no longer spending all of my money on alcohol or blackout online shopping

Freedom is found in not obsessing over where my next drink will come from

Freedom is found in no longer poisoning myself

Freedom is found in learning to ask for help

Freedom is found in being fully present for my life

The next time I experience a family-related drinking trigger, I can step back, breathe deeply, and remember that freedom has already been found. The world around us is going to keep drinking for the foreseeable future. However, I do think we are on the forefront of an alcohol-free progressive era. I do think, as Holly Whitaker would say, someday soon-ish seeing people drink at the airport will be just as taboo as seeing people smoke at the airport.

I truly believe freedom has been found on the other side of the alcohol.

I release childhood burdens

Between 1985-1988 my dad played AAA baseball in the Chicago White Sox organization, one step below the Big Leagues. I was born in 1988; the same year he suffered a career-ending shoulder injury. He was forced to move back to his small hometown and work a 9-5 office job. Just like that, his dreams were shattered.

As you can imagine, I spent all of my childhood freetime on a ball field. Baseball was almost like a religion in our home. It makes sense that I created a story in my head that said I wasn’t good enough unless I was the best player on the team.

When I was a freshman in high school I made the varsity team and a summer team that traveled the country. It felt like I was doing everything right. I was living up to my family name. Except, as the competition steepened, I began breaking out into uncontrollable sobs on the field every time I struck out or made an error. And once I started crying, it felt impossible to stop.

I became so enmeshed in living out my dad’s dream life, that I completely lost myself in the process. I chose to spend so much time in the batting cages during the offseason that my hands bled, blistered, and calloused. I thought I was a failure if my name didn’t make the local paper for hits or RBIs. I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect that it eventually drowned me.

By the time I was a senior, my softball career had crumbled into a full blown eating disorder. I was no longer present. No longer able to focus on softball. No longer good enough.

A few years ago when I stumbled upon this Carl Jung quote, it stopped me in my tracks: 

“The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents.”

That quote made me feel seen for the first time in my life, like I wasn't crazy. Maybe as a highly sensitive infant I absorbed some of the career-ending grief my dad was experiencing. Maybe I’ve been carrying this burden my entire life. Maybe this is the birthplace of my not good enough schema.

Last week I took my dog to a local high school softball game, only to find myself sitting in a puddle of all too familiar uncontrollable tears. When I got home, I wrote my teenage self a letter:

Dear KelsiBelle,
I see you, sweet girl. I see how hard you’ve been working and the intense sadness you feel. I see your fears, your anger, and your insecurities. But I also see your dedication, your huge heart, and your smile. I see the warmth and the light within you even during this difficult time. You do not need to shrink, mold, or mask yourself in order to be accepted. There is life beyond the softball field. It is perfectly normal to grieve your past; but remember, you have the power within yourself to create a beautiful life you don’t want to escape from. You are good enough just the way you are. I love you.

One of the best parts of my sobriety journey is learning to create a life where I am okay on my own. Where I don’t need to look to anyone or anything for approval. I can create a life that feels true and joyous for me. Sobriety gives me the freedom I’ve been searching for beyond the ball field. 

Most importantly, sobriety is teaching me how to, as Jung would say, release my own self-made childhood burdens. I am learning that it is possible to develop my own sense of agency, my own voice. The cloud of inferiority that has been weighing me down for 20 years is finally starting to lift as I rethink, reframe, and release childhood burdens.