Please pray

I'm pretty sure you all know this by now, but I am stuck in a depressed rut right now. All I've wanted to do the past 2 weeks is cry. I hid it very well from everyone, but last week I couldn't keep the fake happy life I was leading. I went to a supervisor at work and told them what was going on. She suggested I take some time off to get myself out of this rut. I came to Anchorage last week with my sister and her quarter of a million kids. Sad to say I've regretted that since I walked into my childhood home. This is the place where all my troubles began. I guess it's fitting I come to the one place I feel pain and love at the same time. I will be seeing a counselor on wednesday to help sort out my thought. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

The temptation of drugs and alcohol have been very prominent in my life the past few weeks. So much so that I even had a few drinks. That temptation can be easily squashed once I get certain people and substances out of my life. One temptation I have though I'm terrified of trying to relive again. Thats the floaty feeling I had when I overdosed. Your brain becomes so detached from the rest of you and you can't feel anything. There are many days I just want to feel that feeling again.

When I start to have that craving I go surround myself with life loving people. I'm so happy to have peole I can turn to in Kotzebue and listen to me. They make sure I'm doing aliright. I want to thank my "cousins" Maija, Saima and Elsa for letting me be a part of their family and listening to me when I need to be heard. I would also like to thank Bree for being like an older sister to me and giving me advice and letting me know I am only human and I will make mistakes.

This family what I need right now most in my life. And when my sister Morg and the kids get here I won't have time to think about drugs or alcohol and other things. Life is hard but that is why we have family like I do. Sobieski don't have to face these times alone.

Not so great stuff

I've had a crazy couple weeks. You know that I had broken my pinky weeks ago. And when you break a bone, they give you pain meds. Being an addict, I told myself that I can handle taking those meds and not get hooked. Well, turns out, I am not as strong or a super human as like to think I am. I went back to the hospital and got more meds because I was "in pain". Those meds opened up the flood gates to my addiction and the craving for alcohol took over my life, and I had to drink. Well, you know, I didn't have to, but really wanted to. So I was given some money to get a permit and booze for some friends. Turns out those friends were just a bad infulance on my life and brought me down to where I didn't ever want to be again. Drinking. Alcohol is not good for me. I don't want to come to work, or take care of myself when I am drinking. I don't talk to my family because I am ashamed of what I am doing while drinking.

I am very affraid of what my sister is going to say about all this. Maybe that is why I am writing it on my blog and not telling her in person. She is my dose of reality, and when I called her about some dude I fell for and crying over him, she just laughed at me and told me not to cry over him. Of course she used harsher words than that. But I am playing nice here and not repeating everything she said verbatum. But my laps in judgment is over. I am happy to say I do not have any chemicals in my system any longer and will not be taking anything other than ibeuprofrine or tylenol. I do not want to get back to where I was. So I will no longer be chillin with people who can't stop drinking when they know they need to.

I can't believe what I put myself through. But I am only human, and part of recovery is relaps.

Begginings....

Wow, I never thought I’d have to tell how I got into counseling. I never knew what I wanted to do in life. I just knew I liked helping others, and I am really good at multi-tasking and organization. I’ve always appreciated others who help people. I loved being admin support, and I thought I would be doing admin support the rest of my living life. But, my supervisor asked me if I wanted to become the JASAP counselor. I was really reluctant and didn’t think I had what it takes to become a counselor. But I soon found out it doesn’t take much of life experience to being a counselor. It’s the ability to reach people on their level and getting them to tell me their story.

Growing up, I had an alcoholic mom, who didn’t treat me and my sister the same. She really favored my sister and treated me like crap. But I persevered and learned to live through the pain and once I was able, I moved to my biological mom in Hooper Bay. She listened to me, and told me stories of then she was my age, and how life for her wasn’t always easy. She was addicted to Coke-A-Cola, and then it went to beer. She, like my adopted mom, started to drink alcohol. But my biological mom was able to quit drinking by herself and hearing her story made me realize I have the same strength she does. I like to tell my clients that they have the power to change their life as they want. Just like my mom and I have been able to.

Also, having an alcoholic mom, there was a lot of other abuse I went through. I will not go into any details, or say what kind of abuse, but I will say it was bad. Bad enough for a 12 year old to want to take her own life. I remember watching the anti-suicide commercials and thinking, these are really good ways to die. Maybe I’ll try it. But I never got enough strength or courage to actually go through with it. Those hard times made me so much stronger than I ever thought I would be. I can be empathetic to abused people, and know where they are coming from with thoughts of suicide. I tell them, life will get better once they are able to make decisions to live.

 I got into drinking and drug use when I was a teenager. I hid it very well in Anchorage, and Hooper Bay. Both Mom’s didn’t know I was drinking or drugging. I thought I was living the perfect life. I was “happy” and had a bunch of friends. But it turns out drinking is not all what it’s cracked up to be. I got pregnant at 18 and had my baby at 19. I did good the first year of her life, but soon after she turned one I started drinking again, that’s when I moved back to Hooper Bay. I stayed sober for those three years I was there. Moving back to Anchorage in 2004 wasn’t easy. I was living with my mom and had no job and didn’t know how to drive. But in spring 2005 I put myself through driving school and then was accepted for a Cook Inlet Housing Authority house. The rent was almost too high for me to pay, but I was able to live in it.

 After I moved into my place, I started thinking I had freedom and started drinking once again. I didn’t have Adya living with me because I couldn’t pay for food, rent, gas, ect. with her living with me. So she lived with my sister during the week, and on weekends I would get her. It was like my sister had custody of her and I had visitation. I didn’t want to admit it, but I started to drink more then I wanted. I thought I was truly happy and didn’t think I needed her to live with me to have fun. I was so wrong. I started drinking on weekdays and not getting Adya at all on weekends. That’s when I decided I needed to change my life for the better. And once again I quit drinking. And have been sober since 2008.

That brings me to Kotzebue, and how I became a counselor. My first client, I was very nervous and made my supervisor sit with me during the assessment. I was just asking the questions off the assessment, but my supervisor was able to ask the open ended questions, and I soon learned that if you show the clients that you are in the moment, and listening to what they say, they will open up more than they had wanted to. It took a few times before I was able to do the assessments by myself, and I found myself forgetting how to ask the open ended questions until I went to a Motivational Interviewing training with the rest of the ASAP/JASAP offices in the state. That training really opened my eyes and taught me to listen to the clients.

I’ve had another form of Motivational Interviewing in February 2010, but I had no idea it was MI. ASIST really teaches you to open your eyes to the world around you and hear what the client is saying. ASIST is a really important aspect of counseling and I think every region needs to learn it. Suicide is very painful and not a permanent solution to a hard situation. My Aana is always telling us grandkids to not ever do it. It hurts not just the family, but the community. She used to tell me stories of how they used to work together and learn from one another. Looking back, I see that she was counseling us and teaching us about life and how not to take advantage of anyone or anything.

As a counselor I felt like I had to always do the right thing and say the right thing. But I have to remind myself that I am just a human like anyone else, and I make mistakes. I think if I had left this field weeks ago, that would have been a mistake. I was really contemplating quitting and never looking back. But I’ve worked so hard getting the JASAP program up and running again, and really love the way I am able to help the youth of this region learn how to be responsible and make the right choice. I will take what I learn here in Kotzebue and use it in other regions of the state that don’t have substance abuse counselors. Like the YK delta. I also want to show the young people that there is more to life than just drinking and drug use.

Getting the youth into my office is a challenge, but I am willing to take the challenge head on. Youth in general do not think they need to do treatment, and feel invincible, but they also need someone to ground them, and I feel I do a good job of that. I tell them that if they want to get a job, and their future employers see they have MCA’s on their record, they won’t get hired as fast as someone who doesn’t have a record. I also mention that if they complete their treatment, and those same future employers see they were responsible enough to start and finish their treatment, they are responsible enough to hold a job.

One thing that bugs me about the whole court order treatments is the clients don’t see they have a problem, and are firm practices of, “tell me to do something, and I will do the exact opposite.” Once I get them to realize they are starting to form a problem, most of the youth are willing to do whatever it takes to right their wrongs. But the ones that don’t feel they have a problem are the hardest to reach. So I tell them a little about my life story and they see how drinking and drug use isn’t as fun as it others make it seem. And once they figure that out they find life is much easier and the courts appreciate their compliance.

I haven’t really experienced traditional healing because I grew up in Anchorage. But watching the elders deal with life’s ups and downs, I am starting to see how traditional healing is very beneficial to everybody. I once saw the traditional healer in Kotzebue, and she said I should become one. I might one day, just not now. I feel I need to become a counselor for now, and then see where life takes me from here. One day I will find where I am meant to be.

Troubled thoughts

I can't get the reason why I started this blog off my mind; my childhood. I have said before, it wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst either. Like many of you out there, I grew up in a post boarding school generation. I know that my grand parents didn't beat or be mean to my mom growing up, and for years I wondered why she treated us like that. As it turns out, she was treated like that at the boarding school. I'm sure not everyone was beaten or for that matter my mom was either, but she saw it. She watched her classmates be treated like dirt. So naturally she treated us no different. For a long time I resented my mom. I didn't even want to be alive because of some of the things she said and did to me. She don't think she knew that she was treating us the way she was treated. And that really hurt us, specifically me. My sister has come out of our childhood like nothing happened. She also has a normal brain and doesn't suffer from depression like I do. So her point of view is different than mine.

If I remember our childhood, I have to force myself to remember the good because the bad is predominate in my mind. Unless I'm with my sister, then we talk about EVERYTHING, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I remember our mom always kissing and hugging and telling Morg she loved her, and then she would turn to me and say bye Lorna. I've always known I am adopted, and when I was really young the family would ask me who my mom was, and being a shy little Yupik girl, I would just sit there and smile. I consider both my mom. I confuse everyone when I say my mom. I have to say Tina or Abatch. After my junior year of high school I got really close to my Hooper Bay mom, Abatch. For the longest time I wondered why she didn't keep me. I thought she didn't want me, and hearing the words Tina said to me, I thought Tina didn't want me either. But as it turns out, Abatch and Tina were really close, and Abatch told Tina she would give her her first daughter, which so happens to be me. I know for a lot of you out there, this makes no sense at all. But in the Yupik ways, it's totally normal for one family to adopt their niece or nephew and share the children.

I thought Tina resented me, and regretted adopting me after our dad, Danny, past away. He always told her that I was his baby, and Morgie was her baby. She says I went everywhere with our dad. They had been trying to have a baby with no luck, so they were told to adopt. Once they adopted me, she got pregger's with my sister. I have little glimpses of our dad, but not enough to create a full memory. My sister doesn't understand why our dad did what he did, but I do. That's why I feel a bond with him even after all these years. I remember sitting on the couch late at night, watching TV, looking at Morg and Tina and wondering why I was so different, but the same from them. I've always known my brain was different then theirs. Now I understand why I had those thoughts of suicide while my sister did every sport she could in high school. My brain is just wired differently.

There was a time in my life when I was really sick. I mean in the hospital hooked up to IV's and oxygen, and SPo2's to measure my oxygen levels every single month. For almost a year. Can you imagine spending your childhood in the old Native Hospital? That place was freakin scary, and I practically lived there my 5th grade year. But my life had a different purpose, and I finally was able to get my Asthma under control. Don't ask me how because I really do not remember. During those years, I was on Prednisone. All. The. Time. I got all the classic side effects; moon face, weight gain, insomnia, irritability. I did not like being on Prednisone when I was a young girl. My body had gone through "the Change" at a very early age. I blame the Prednisone. When I was 10 my brother was on leave for Christmas. In my eyes, he was the biggest, bestest, strongest big brother in the world. He used to have me sit by him, or on his lap and just hold me. Like a little sister should be. That year our uncle was staying with us. He used to stay with us before, and he stayed with us a few times after, but that particular time I noticed him watching me. I didn't think anything of it because at 10 there was no evil in the world. All grown ups were good to kids and didn't hurt us or be mean to us unless we were bad and were being punished.

That night, after everyone had either gone to sleep, or were out partying the night away, my uncle asked me to sit by him. I went and sat by him, and he put his arm around me. My brother had done the very same act hours before so I thought he was just showing me the same love my brother showed me earlier. As it turns out, he had other intentions. He put his hands on me, and being a little Yupik girl, I did not fight him. I did not tell him to stop, or that he was scaring me. We do not tell our elders what to do. They tell us what to do. That has been ingrained into our heads since the beginning of time. So I just sat there, scared, wanting to cry but couldn't. Finally after I have no idea how long, I said I had to go to the bathroom. I went to the bathroom and cried. I remember going into our messy bedroom after and trying to hide thinking he won't be able to find me, but I thought I would get into trouble if he couldn't find me. So I laid on the bed. Crying. Shaking. Thinking that my little world had just shattered. He came upstairs and went to the bathroom. After that he found his way to my bed and tried to lay down. I remember him running his hands through my hair, then he said, "let's see how it feels." I didn't know what he was talking about, but I knew I had to get him away from me and not let him be near me anymore. I don't know how I convinced him, but he left my room and I didn't sleep that night.

I have been terrified of older men since then. I remember at 12 holding a knife to my wrist pressing so hard it hurt, just wanting to end it all. At 12! But my sister was in the same room with me, sleeping. I knew I couldn't leave her alone in this world. So I suffered these thoughts all by myself for years. I went into counseling for a while, but quit once my mom, Tina, asked if I was done yet. So I quit going to the counselor. I drank my way through the later part of my teens, and almost drank Adya's childhood away.

Writing this part of my life has me really scared. But I know that once someone knows that they aren't the only one who had it happen to them, they will be able to tell their story. I know this is a very sad, scary story. But my life has turned around and I do not have those thoughts in my head and am on anti-depressants. I promise I will write about a more uplifting subject next time. I had to get this out of my system though.