As much as I dislike the title, it is what it is.

Time to make the best of my ‘new’ title and find the hidden rainbow- right?

I was at work yesterday and had just ran to the cafeteria to grab lunch. I had the privilege of being able to eat alone in my office at this job. However, in my haste to get through lunch while doing some work on the computer, my plate had tipped, sending white rice all over the floor.

I fervently scanned the scattered pieces to find any glimpse of color. There didn’t seem to be ANY rainbows.

I stared at it.

How ironic. I had just told the housekeepers to stop straightening my desk in my office because they never actually cleaned it, they just shuffled all my papers together so I couldn’t find anything.

So now I had to sheepishly go ask them to please vacuum up my mess. I contemplated if I could possibly pick up every little piece of rice myself to avoid that.

It’s such a simple problem right?

No one will be the wiser!

Then no-one needs to cry over spilled milk. Or Rice.

But these days I seem to cry over everything.

My son was in full active addiction after a couple years of tragic downslide from having it all. Business, new house, family, money. All gone, of course. He now faced many charges of possession to feed his addiction, a few being felonies. His disease was telling him there was no way out, despite many options for recovery.

Basically just getting help would solve half his problems.

But as in true addiction- He couldn’t see a way out except to keep trying to work a few little jobs to save for a lawyer.

Which never happens. Keep in mind that’s been his story from the beginning of time. He just needs a little bit more money and everything will be alright.

So how, staring down at that rice imbedded into the doctor’s office- type old carpet; I became an addict. I became an overwhelmed hijacked brain.

I saw every one of those teeny tiny rice pellets as a HUGE problem. There was my failed business. That one is my ex-wife. There’s my kids I haven’t saw or supported in months/ years. There’s my IRS debt over there. Each one of my felonies stared back at me with such white rice starkness, I could hardly keep my gaze.

Trauma specialists say that when a traumatic event hits us at whatever age, it gets stored in the cells of our nervous system and time becomes frozen at the age we are. We shut down emotionally, in a sense, to stay at that place for self preservation. We refuse to listen to solutions or to people who remind us of that place that hurt us. There is virtually no way for the brain to move out of that place until it ғᴇᴇʟs sᴀғᴇ enough to.

That’s why jail, shame, threats, people telling them how ineffective they are or what a mess of their life they’ve made- DOESN’T work in FIXING it.

Furthermore, when people lose their pride, their sense of purpose, their identity (if their identity was wrapped up in their job or their relationship) they feel like they need justice from that first and foremost. Before a resolution.

So basically, everything is just too overwhelming for their frozen-in-time brain.

That rice was too overwhelming to clean up.

I snapped out of it and my healthy brain scooted each piece of rice together until I got a pile to throw away. Again and again until all the rice was gone.

My son, however, in his very hijacked brain keeps staring ( or avoiding) his pile of rice. He wants to run. He wants to hide. He says, Mom there’s no use, they (the cops) aren’t going to stop until I’m put away for good.

My tears flow on days like this.

My strong smart entrepreneur son is going to jail for satisfying his cravings like a smoker buying his ciggerettes, like me buying my chocolate chip cookies. He has a disease that sent him down this dark path of destruction and chaos and there’s not a damn broom or vacuum thing I can do about it.

This is my day.

A͎ D͎a͎y͎ i͎n͎ t͎h͎e͎ L͎i͎f͎e͎ o͎f͎ t͎h͎e͎ M͎o͎t͎h͎e͎r͎ o͎f͎ a͎n͎ A͎d͎d͎i͎c͎t͎