- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Mental Health
When I attended our Heroes in Recovery 6K at Leiper’s Fork near Nashville, TN, I met Jamie. She is a fabulous runner and is always in the top 5 it seems. I felt blessed that she agreed to give me an interview about her and her family’s recovery, a recovery that brought her to running.
Jamie described the problems her husband had. He was physically and sexually abused as a boy by his mother. He could not cope with this and found a solution in alcohol, drugs, sexual addiction and more drugs. He had nightmares every night and was always trying to forget and get rid of his pain. Jamie describes her husband as very compassionate, and it is a shame that he couldn’t share this personality trait with others and only tried to get numb.
They assume that there was also a sexual abuse going on between his mother and her father by the way they interacted, but they don’t know that for sure. His mother ended up in a car accident that may have been self-inflicted. Jamie is very glad that this abuse, which went on for generations, does not go on now. Her husband is a loving father and great with their daughter who is bipolar.
When her husband was 16, he started working with some of the family in a nightclub. This is when he started drinking. After coming home from work he got mean with his mother and even attempted to strangle her with a phone cord once when he was in a rage. Nobody knew why he was doing mean things to his own mother when he was intoxicated. Nobody realized that there was a history of being tossed around and sexually abused.
He was always pretty lucky regarding legal consequences. He got in trouble here and there, but nothing major, not even a DUI. If he got in trouble, somebody got him out of it. Nothing happened which means nothing made him stop what he was doing.
His sexual addiction started at a very young age. It was ongoing into his and Jamie’s marriage. The first time that Jamie caught him sleeping with another woman was right after she had her daughter. He was doing heavy drugs all the time as well. Jamie had no idea what to do about any of it. At this time she did not know anything about abuse or addiction and simply thought “cheating” and nothing else, but she still held on to him. She did not know about his past abuse, and she could not understand why he would cheat, when he loved his family so much and would do anything for them. He finally opened up and explained everything. People wondered why she stayed with him, but she had so much love and compassion for him, and she had faith that this situation could be stopped.
Jamie started overeating to mask her own pain. Her husband had his own company at this time which gave him the freedom to do what he liked and gave him money, time and freedom to use drugs. Her husband was also suffering from epilepsy and had seizures and her daughter struggled with bipolar disorder. It was a hard time for all of them.
Jamie learned that a high school friend of hers died from an overdose. She told her husband, and this event scared him so much that he decided to change his life. He was ready to go to treatment. They found him a place, and he went. While there he was upset that he could not have his phone. Jamie, who was always the enabler, brought him a phone, but after a week he left treatment anyway. Later he wanted to go back, as he saw his mistake, but they did not take him back into residential treatment because of the trouble he caused there. He did not want to go to a counselor. He found a doctor instead and found a way to wean off of illegal drugs through controlled prescription drug use. Today he does not take anything other than Melatonin to help him sleep.
Jamie had a lot of mental illness in her family. Both her sisters are diagnosed bipolar and her mother was mentally ill. She showed many symptoms herself, and everybody in her family had weight issues. It was hard for Jamie to control her husband, her daughter, and herself. She struggles with ADD and has a hard time staying focused, so work was hard for her and home was hard for her. She ate to cope. The doctor recommended Weight Watchers for her daughter, and, while her daughter did not stick with it, Gen did. She found running as her sport.
Jamie’s daughter is bipolar and has been on medication since she was five years old. They though she had ADD at first, since she was running before she was walking and always doing crazy things. Her disorder was mainly triggered by an incident at her daycare center where she cried for two hours nonstop. She started to develop OCD and would constantly tie and untie her shoes. She was mean to friends and got agitated easily. She was not diagnosed with bipolar disorder until a few years ago, and she is 16 today. She started cutting herself and eventually told her parents that she felt that she needed inpatient care. Her parents got her into Rolling Hills hospital where they took her off some of the medications that were too strong for her.
Today Jamie’s daughter is the most goodhearted and loving girl. She has anger issues at times but is overall stable. Jamie mentions that it is difficult to tell when her daughter is acting up at the result of being a teenager, an only child or bipolar. Jamie says, “We have a very good relationship. She tells me everything. A really good connection.”
Jamie shows that recovery is possible, if a family sticks together and works through their struggles. Recovery is never a single-person ordeal. It is a family affair, and everyone has to learn how to deal with it and live with it. Jamie had so many issues to deal with, yet they found a way through. I am so happy that I met Gen and that she shared her story with us. I learned a lot from her experience, and I wish the family all the best in life.