Neglect

Addiction is one of those words that carries a lot of weight. It’s often misunderstood, judged harshly, and simplified into labels like “weakness” or “bad choices.” But the truth is, addiction isn’t that simple. It’s not about someone being “too weak to stop.” It’s about a tangled web of biology, trauma, environment, and emotions that pull people into a cycle that feels impossible to escape.

At its core, addiction is the result of the brain’s reward system being hijacked. Substances like alcohol, opioids, or even nicotine flood the brain with dopamine, creating feelings of relief, pleasure, or escape. Over time, the brain learns to crave that rush, and everyday joys—like laughing with your kids, eating a good meal, or finishing a project—don’t feel the same anymore. It’s not that the person doesn’t care. It’s that their brain has been rewired (Nestler, 2005; Volkow & Li, 2005).

But biology is only part of the story. Trauma plays a massive role. Many people struggling with addiction carry heavy stories—childhood abuse, neglect, loss, or pain they never got the chance to heal from. The famous ACEs study (Felitti et al., 1998) showed that people with adverse childhood experiences are significantly more likely to develop addiction later in life. Substances often become a way to cope, to silence the memories or feelings that hurt too much (Sinha, 2008). For a moment, that drink or hit can feel like relief. But the relief never lasts.

Addiction is also shaped by the world around us. Growing up in a home where substances were present, being surrounded by friends who use, or living in an environment where stress and survival overshadow peace—these all make someone more vulnerable. And when you combine those factors with genetics—research shows 40–60% of the risk for addiction can be inherited (NIDA, 2018)—you get a perfect storm.

Mental health struggles are another piece of the puzzle. Anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder, PTSD—these don’t just increase the risk of addiction; they often go hand-in-hand with it (Kessler et al., 1996). The pain of living with an untreated mental illness can make substances feel like medicine, even though they end up worsening the very symptoms someone is trying to escape.

The hardest truth is this: no one wakes up and says, “I want to be addicted.” Addiction isn’t a choice—it’s a disease. A disease that changes the brain, warps thinking, and feeds off pain. And yet, behind every person struggling is someone who still loves, still hopes, and still dreams of freedom.

Finding Hope and Support

While addiction has many causes, recovery is possible—and it starts with hope. Healing looks different for everyone, but no one has to walk that road alone. Here are some places where support can begin:

Therapy & Counseling: Working with a therapist, especially one trained in trauma and addiction, can help untangle the deeper causes and provide healthier coping skills.

Support Groups: Programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), or SMART Recovery connect people to a community that understands (Kelly & Hoeppner, 2015).

Treatment Centers: Inpatient or outpatient programs provide structure, medical support, and therapy to start the recovery journey (Laudet & White, 2010).

Holistic Healing: Exercise, mindfulness, journaling, faith practices, and creative outlets (like writing or art) all help rebuild a sense of self.

Reaching Out: Sometimes the bravest step is simply telling a trusted friend or family member, “I need help.”

Addiction may take hold of a person’s life, but it does not erase their worth or their capacity to heal. Recovery is not about perfection—it’s about progress, about reclaiming moments of peace, and about rediscovering joy beyond the substance.

If you or someone you love is struggling, remember this: addiction is not the end of the story. With support, compassion, and persistence, a new chapter is always possible.

Crisis Hotlines & Resources

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please reach out to one of these resources:

Canada: Call or text 988 for the Suicide Crisis Helpline (24/7).

United States: Call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (24/7).

United Kingdom: Call 0800 1111 (Childline) or 0800 915 4644 (Addiction Helpline).

Australia: Call 13 11 14 (Lifeline).

International: Visit findahelpline.com to locate support lines in your country.

You are not alone. Reaching out for help is not weakness—it’s one of the bravest things you can do.

Bigmommaj

#mentalhelath #Awareness

Life has a way of moving in circles. No matter how far we think we’ve come, sometimes we find ourselves right back where we started — the same pain, the same mistakes, the same emptiness. It can feel exhausting, like we’re trapped in a cycle that will never end.

But often, what we’re really circling around is our inner child.

The inner child is that hidden part of us that remembers everything — the joy, the innocence, but also the wounds we never fully healed. It carries the weight of neglect, abandonment, rejection, or abuse. And until we turn inward and tend to that child, we find ourselves going in circles, repeating patterns without understanding why.

Maybe you’ve noticed it in relationships. You keep attracting the same kind of love, even if it hurts. Or maybe it shows up in addiction, where you go back to the same coping mechanism that promised escape but delivered only deeper pain. Sometimes, it’s in the way we treat ourselves — constantly criticizing, sabotaging, or hiding behind masks.

These circles are not random. They are calls for healing.

Our inner child keeps bringing us back to these familiar places, not to punish us, but to remind us of what still needs our attention. Each cycle is another chance to stop, to notice, and to finally break free. Healing doesn’t happen in a straight line; it spirals. Every time we come back to a painful pattern, we have the opportunity to face it with more wisdom, more awareness, and more compassion than before.

The truth is, we can’t shame our inner child into silence. We can’t numb it away forever. What it needs is what we needed back then — safety, love, patience, and someone to listen to us. And often, we are the ones who must finally become that safe person for ourselves.

So the next time you feel yourself stuck in a circle, ask:

What is my inner child trying to tell me?

What wound is asking to be healed?

How can I show up for myself differently this time?

Circles don’t always mean we’re failing. Sometimes they mean we’re still learning. And healing, even when it feels repetitive, is progress.

Step by step, round by round, we move closer to wholeness.

Because when we finally sit with that inner child, the circles that once trapped us can become circles of safety, circles of healing, circles of love.

Bigmommaj
#innerchild #MentalHealth

Chronic illness isn’t just what happens inside your body. It’s what happens around it too. It’s the maze of mirrors the world builds around you. You try to walk forward, but in every direction, there’s a disordered reflection of yourself. Not the kind you laugh at in a mall funhouse, but a warped, dizzying trap where every door leads to another hallway, another dead end, another gatekeeper pointing you the wrong way.

And the mirrors don’t just make you look shorter or taller — they show you as lazy, dramatic, hopeless, beyond fixing, too sick, not sick enough. And sometimes, even when you know your own truth, those mirrors convince you they’re real.

You spend months. Years. Decades. Wandering the maze. Bumping into glass. Begging someone to break it. You bump into the medical industry that silences you in polite language:

“We didn’t find anything.”

“Let’s wait and see.”

“It’s probably anxiety.”

You bump into caregivers who mean well — but trap you in their fear. Into insurance companies that tell you your survival isn’t cost-effective. Into doctors who send you down another hallway because they don’t know what else to do. You even bump into yourself — the part that whispers, Maybe it really is all your fault.

The system is built to look like it’s working, but inside it’s rotting. And people outside the maze can’t see that while they imagine you’re being “cared for,” you’re actually crawling, crying, begging anyone to stop the damage. You are surviving — barely — in a system that wasn’t designed to save you.

I’ve been bumping into mirrors for seven years. I survived neglect that so many others didn’t — not because the system saved me, but because God did. He kept me here for a reason. Maybe I don’t fully know what that reason is yet, but I do know I have a story to tell.

So I write. Even when my screen intolerance threatens to steal my voice.

I write for that people who didn’t make it.

I write for everyone still crawling through this maze, wondering if anyone sees them.

And if you’ve never stepped inside this maze yourself, maybe you’ve walked right by it, oblivious, — do you see me now?

👉 I even turned this piece into a spoken word poem. Here’s the video:

youtube.com/shorts/PpQ5dn1xCqE

#ChronicIllness #ChronicPain #ChronicFatigue #POTS #Dysautonomia #BrainInjury #MedicalTrauma #chroniclife #InvisibleIllness #chronicillnesscommunity #chronicwarrior #chronicillnessawareness #chronicpainawareness #PoetryCommunity #poetryvideo #spokenwordpoetry #chronicillnesspoetry #InvisibleIllness

It is so easy to be caught off guard. Last Thursday should have been just another nice summer day. July 29th just another regular day. Although the week before I started feeling a sense of unnamed dread. Then I was reminded of an upcoming anniversary date.

Last Thursday was the 4th memorial of my father’s passing. I thought I had come to terms with it. Unfortunately there was still so much anger and resentment that came to the surface. This was in addition to the regular sadness of loss. Oddly enough the anger and resentment is not directed at my father. It is directed at my mother and 3 older siblings.

I have come to accept that my father is in a better place. Where he no longer has to fight the symptoms of diabetes and all the complications that came with it.

While my father had a grandiose narcissistic personality style. I have come to forgive that while he was alive he did not have the capacity to know how to show and express unconditional nurturing love. He was an emotionally broken man who managed to accomplish quite a bit in the 81 years he was on this earth. I’m still working on forgiving that he did not figure out how to heal enough to at least try learn healthier ways to love his wife of 59 years, 4 children and 2 grandchildren. I’m starting to focus on the more positive memories than the negative ones.

What I’m still so angry and resentful about is how the rest of my family of origin behaves, especially towards me. I did not receive even one direct message from my mother or 3 siblings to check in last Thursday or in the last 3 years. You see my family does not know how to communicate or show emotions in healthy ways. I had to see WhatsApp pictures of my mother, sister and 1 brother at my father’s grave site. You see they did not even think to communicate with me and let me know. Even in this I blame myself. It must be my fault since I did not go out of my way to find out if there was going to be anything specific going to take place. A part of me wanted to see if even one member of my family would take the initiative to reach out to me.

Seeing another example of how I’m always excluded within my family is the norm. If I do not always take the initiative I would never know what is going on. This was just another example of how I’m always made to feel separate and isolated. It took a friend to mention and validate that this behaviour is cruel continually excluded me in these physical and emotional ways.

I still need others to point out all the unhealthy behaviours my family of origin continually exhibit towards me. For what I take as normal behaviour others around me help to validate how unhealthy they really are. How their emotional abuse and neglect is unfairly cruel and unjust. Supporting me to understand I truly do not deserve this unjust treatment.

A few years ago I believed there was something so fundamentally wrong with me that I somehow deserved their continual criticisms and judgements. Deserving of their unprovoked attacks of my character. You see I have been the family scapegoat since the day I was born. I was continually gaslighted at every turn. I’m always in the wrong. I had been so conditioned to believe I was the common denominator to being always the problem. That I was the one who never made sense and did not know how to communicate. I’m too “sensitive”. That I continually blow things out of proportion and bringing up uncomfortable situations and emotions for no reason. Always trying to make everything about me because I’m so selfish and self absorbed. I was so convinced of their opinions of me that I doubted my own mind, I had almost no self-esteem, self-worth or self-confidence.

So that would mean my anger I still hold for the past 4 years is completely unwarranted. Feeling anger for being made to sit outside of the hospital by myself for 5 hours while my father was connected to tubes, was not a big deal. That for 3 days I watched my 2 brothers and 1 sister be allowed to see and talk to dad while he regained consciousness. That by day 4 when he passed I was not supposed to feel resentment and hurt for not being given the opportunity to say goodbye. I had to accept the conversation I had on Father’s Day was going to be the last 1 on 1 connection we had. At least I had made my peace during that conversation. I accepted that while he spoke about his legacy of his work, even though he had been retired for years at that point. I accepted he was not capable of seeing his wife of 59 years or his 4 children and 2 grandchildren were not part of his legacy. I could accept my father for his limited capacity to show and express love. I forgave him for only being able to be who he limited himself to be. It was not my fault for his limited capacity.

I’m learning my feelings are valid in spite of the rest of my family deny my perspective and lived experiences. It still takes others to validate that my feelings make sense based on how I’m unfairly treated by my family. I have come to understand when there is never any repair for each emotional wound they remain open to fester. I can say almost every single emotional wound from my family of origin has been left to fester since the day I was born. I only beginning to learned the complexity of being raised by emotionally immature parents. This has left me with so many festering wounds which have become so infected and extremely hard to heal. I have been struggling to figure out how to heal from decades worth of blood poisoning. How does one heal from so many wounds that had been left untreated and unattended for decades. By 56 it has become so complicated in figuring out how to treat and recover from these wounds. That there is not a straightforward treatment plan.

It is only because of my years of therapy. My determination to keep going inspite of my latest diagnoses of #complexposttraumaticstressdisorder #ptsd #majordepressivedisorder #dysthymia #anxiety #adhd #autism #highlysensoryperson . The clarity I have gained with understanding my diagnoses has finally allowed me to begin to heal.

I’m learning to become my own loving parent. Taking on the responsibility that I have to find it within me to heal. Internal Family Systems (IFS) has helped me find the tools to accept all my parts. I’m not perfect, I’m human and deserve to be seen, heard and understood. I can learn to to see hear and understand myself first and foremost. I also now know I love myself enough to only look to, and surround myself with people who see, hear and understand me. Right now none of those people are my mother, sister or brothers.

I can love my family but hate their behaviour. I have even come to terms of the grief and physical loss of my father. I’m now learning to grieve and accept the emotional loss of what will never be. My mother, sister and brothers do not have the capacity to express unconditional love. I have proven to myself I have the capacity to learn to love myself. That I’m worthy to only surround myself with those who prove in their actions and behaviour that they love me and have my back no matter what. I will no longer waste my energy begging to be seen, heard and understood. I’m worthy to just be. To live by my own values and principles.