I recently finished reading Cost, by Roxana Robinson. It is a horrific tale of a young man, Jack, and his family, who are torn apart by his heroin addiction. Most of the book is the story of the family's attempts to help Jack overcome his addiction.
After Jack is evicted from a half-way house for drug use, he returns to the streets. His mother, Julia, trying desperately to continue a life of her own, lives in constant fear of the telephone and the news that it will one day deliver to her. Each time it rings she is jarred with a rush of thoughts and the accompanying adrenaline.
As I read this, I remembered my own similar fear of the telephone, which lasted for several years while my mother was living on her own, coping in her own way with dementia. I lived in a constant state of worry, and the telephone was the device I shared with Julia in her situation.
My mother's psychiatrist, who refused to commit her to a care home, said that this worry was my "problem". I understood what he meant of course, that it was mine to deal with as best I could. He separated it from my mother's situation.
As I read these last pages of Cost, however, and the pain that Julia was enduring, I was comforted to learn that my reaction to the situation was probably "normal". Our lives are all entwined in relationships with those people whom we love and care for.
Don't get fooled into thinking that you have a "problem". It is more "normal" than you think.
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