I have a heavy heart, today. Over the past two weeks a lot has happened on the personal side, including a heartbreaking situation wherein I have a ringside seat to someone losing everything they have. They've already lost the big things, the material trappings and such. But now they're faced with the loss of the remnants - those little, last things that are all that's left, when we spin out of control. Housing. Pets. Dignity.I received an email at 5 am from said person this morning, begging - pleading - for assistance. It hurt, to read. It launched off in me one of those inner battles of selves, one of those go-nowhere, lose-lose dialogues.
The first thing that went through my mind was, "Never do for an addict what they can do for them self," followed by questions of whether I was feeling spiteful, or revengeful.
Said person has been grinding their ass to a pulp, working their sobriety. It's not like they're active in their addictions, which would make the decision cut-and-dried to me. Said person has done everything asked of them, stayed clean, and taken all the shit that comes in early recovery. Said person has turned around and helped others, while in the midst of their own crisis. And I have to feel some compassion, for that.
I considered what assistance I was capable of providing. And then I considered if I should. And from every angle, it was a lose-lose situation. Well, I shouldn't say that. God has a plan for said person and has it apparently in full swing right now, but, damn, it sure is painful to watch in motion, and know I could intervene, to ease the pain.
The question is, should I?
The interesting twist is that said person is my nemesis. There is a hatred, a resentment burning within me that I've spent the past year working my program to deal with. And I will keep going, until the poison is gone. But we have this bizarre sort of relationship, where said person tried to destroy me back then, and I didn't respond as they thought I would, but rather responded with compassion. And so they hang on to me, because I was one of the few back then that had a kind word for them, even in the quagmire of their toxicity, and after their assault.
Said person has told me they hang on to me, because I'm one of the few people who have ever told them they could make it. That I saw through all the carcinogens in their heart, and life, and knew there was a person in there worth the effort of recovery. Believe me, I didn't feel it in my heart when I said it, back then, but I was under strict Executive orders from my HP not to act out my hatred, on another of His. I held my hatred in, and faked it, and will continue to fake it, until I make it to love. I wanted to lash out in hatred, and still do, at times. That's why I work my program so hard, this year, because I know the poison in my heart, and I know I need to rid myself of it, give it over.
Said person had a hard early life. Parents with acute psychotic mental illness and alcoholism. Broken families thrice over on each side, each parent, all re-matches alcoholic and abusive. A bevy of mis-matched, rotating half-siblings and step-parents in and out of their life. Said person endured serial abandonment, physical abuse, and sexual abuse as a child, and later found addictions.
So today, I'm left heavy hearted, trying to decide what to do, and why. If I do not offer assistance, it looks hard-hearted, cold, and revengeful. If I do, it looks manipulative - as though I'll want something in return, my pound of flesh, later. And it would break the cardinal rule against enabling - relieving them of the consequences, but of not only their transgressions, but of their family of origin's.
Grey.
I've spent the day trying to turn it over, asking God what to do. I still don't know.
And so I write about it. And after that, I will listen, carefully, to my HP.
I know God wants me to feel compassion. I'm just not sure what He wants me to do about it.
-The Traveler
