My mom passed a way a few weeks ago. My life has turned upside down and I hate even thinking of this world without my sweet mother in it. So much emotion, so much pain, so much missing her. It's all still so very raw. But the world doesn't stop because I'm grieving.
The the day after Mom's services, I had to have a medical procedure that required me to be sedated (essentially asleep). They also gave me a sedative in pre-op that's in the same family as Ativan. On top of that, I was prescribed narcotic pain killers for after the procedure.
When I was home and basically resting, letting the meds wear off, I realized I wasn't feeling much. Not like being in shock or shutting down, where you can feel all the emotion is under the surface but aren't really touching it. It was more like the bulk of the emotion just wasn't there. It was an unexpected reprieve. I remember glancing over at those pill bottles and thinking, "I get why people get addicted to this." And soon after I thought, "no wonder drug addiction changes a person so much."
We've all been through things that cause us to feel so much that it can be overwhelming. And some people can get overwhelmed more easily or more often than others. So when it's all too much and there's this drug you can take that makes you not feel all the hard things? Wow. That is incredibly tempting.
Imagine reaching for the numbness anytime you feel something big.
Imagine doing that for months or years.
Constantly escaping those hard feelings by taking or doing something that makes you not feel.
You wouldn't feel the pain, the happiness, the compassion, the sorrow - none of it. Not deeply enough to matter, at least. And when you're numb all the time, you might forget who you are when you do feel and you would make different choices, treat people differently.
Of course that changes a person. They could go from otherwise being "normal" and kind, to being the selfish addict whose only real focus is the next high, the next way to find the numbness.
Sadly, the addict chasing the high is often all people see. They don't see the depth of emotion and pain, the trauma, the seemingly brokenness in a person that caused them to turn to drugs or alcohol (or whatever) to begin with. Something a lot of people don't understand if they don't deal with addiction in some way - addiction is almost never about the thing you're addicted to. It's an unhealthy coping mechanism, an escape, a substitute to fill a void you don't know how else to fill.
While this experience of mine is pretty minimal, it has given me a whole new level of understanding. I can believe that there are people who feel like they NEED that numbness in order to function. Maybe their pain or trauma is just too big and they never really recovered or learned how to deal with it. That breaks my heart.
I didn't like that numbness - emotion makes up such a huge part of my personality and character. I prefer to feel what I feel and to be aware and in control. But the numbness I felt the other day was definitely a reprieve - one I wasn't looking or asking for, but the relief of it, in the middle of all this raw grief, was undeniable. I can see why someone would seek it out.
I hope I can hold on to that memory and see people with addiction with more compassion and understanding than maybe I have in the past. Because broken minds and broken hearts need healing, too.
