 Jane started junior high in 1976 at Western View, which I just discovered was immortalized in the 2004 movie, The Incredibles, by its writer who once went there too. Neither of us can remember anything about it. In the families of drinkers, there is a well known hierarchy of roles: (1) chief enabler - spouse or parent; (2) hero child - tries to give the family self-worth by over achieving; (3) scapegoat - since the hero child has that role locked up, gets the family to focus in destructive ways (being stubborn, acting out); (4) lost child - stays under the radar to provide relief; and (5) the mascot - uses humor to survive and lighten the damn family up. They say an addict of any kind is like a prizefighter who keeps getting knocked down but continues to get back in the ring. The family and friends close to that person all fall together until one day something happens and the addict gives up the fight. Then the falling of all of them can end.So Jane kept her nose to the grindstone academically, Josh turned his focus to excelling in sports and before long would find ways to get in scrapes, and I continued to plummet. It was kind of like having an autoimmune disease where the body attacks itself. It was part of the very beginning of a reach for help that I'd made the decision to return to live so near my parents because, while they enabled me to postpone the inevitable, they also helped to keep my children safer than I could have on my own. |