Two things I tend to mention a lot when I’m talking about my personal life are my mom and my recovery from addiction. They’re both prevalent forces in my life and quite frankly, they are intertwined more than you might think. Losing my mother was what shoved me from a social drinker into drinking alone in my bedroom until I passed out. Incidentally, my mother was the same power that helped me stop drinking. Let’s talk about it!
Cynthia Marie, my mama, was diagnosed with Stage IV Lung Cancer in 2012. Stage IV is bleak. It’s not good news. She was going to die. It was just a matter of when. A year later, she would pass and transition to the other realm. When I got the phone call from her, then, significant other, I collapsed onto the floor at the news. My mom and I were what psychologists would refer to as enmeshed. We had a very inappropriate relationship with absolutely no boundaries. At the time she was living in Virginia, and I was living in Ohio with my husband. I flew to her side immediately. I walked into that hospital room terrified of what I’d see, and when my eyes met a clearly defeated mother, it was like watching Superman lose his powers. I knew I had to be strong for her.
I spent two weeks in Virginia helping my mom adjust to her new normal. Over those two weeks, I watched her get her “fight” back. I stayed by her side for the entirety of her hospital stay. I was in the room when a Catholic Priest came and read her last rights, and while that should have been a somber and sad moment, it was a moment I will never forget. During the process, my mom’s phone went off. Her ringtone at the time was a barking dog. The Priest was a professional and got through the whole thing without cracking a smile but mom and I were snickering the whole time. I helped her walk with a walker when her entire left side became paralyzed due to a tumor on her brainstem. I snuck her in good food to the hospital. I kept her laughing as much as I could. I never left her side. Occasionally, I’d go out for lunch and come right back, and that was when I did my crying and screaming at the universe.
That’s when the heavy drinking really started. Mom’s boyfriend, who, to this day I am still not a fan of, was probably an alcoholic, and always had a stocked bar. On the nights where he wanted to stay at the hospital, I’d go back to the house and drink myself to sleep. At the time I didn’t think anything of it all. It was a stressful time. I needed a drink. I’d also grown up around a lot of alcoholic drinking without having known that’s what I was witnessing, so it all seemed normal to me.
When mom came home from the hospital, I was her sidekick. She still wanted to be able to do all the things she had done before, and it was important to me that she have as much autonomy as possible. She was used to cooking dinner for the household, so despite my absolute disdain for cooking, I was the chef, with her guiding me, of course. She still wanted to look gorgeous and stunning, so we went and got her nails done. She still wanted to enjoy the country roads, so I took her for rides in her Expedition with the rock and roll blaring. We were inseparable. Until it was time to leave. My husband at the time, Jay, would drive down to Virginia to pick me up. We didn’t listen to a single song on that ride home. I had a lot to process, and lots to say. Listening for the whole drive is probably the one and only thing Jay did correctly for the duration of my mom’s illness.
Approximately one year after the passing of my mother, Jay and I would sign divorce papers.
To say that he was distant would be an understatement. It was like I wasn’t even married. Why are men like this? I actually started to have an emotional affair with my good friend Alan, who lived on the West Coast at the time. This was perfect for my persistent inability to sleep. While I was up commiserating, Alan was providing me an ear, a shoulder, if only from a distance. It was the emotional closeness I longed for from my husband. Obviously, nothing physical had ever happened between the two of us during that time period, but the emotional affair was very real.
I never learned how to manage my emotions, because neither of my parents ever learned how to manage their emotions. If one of my family members felt any type of way, the rest of the family knew about it, and it became our problem. So, when I had been prescribed Vicodin for the first time, it was like a warm rush of all the love I never got during my childhood. I loved it. I was prescribed it for the
first time at age eighteen when I complained of shoulder problems. The doctor never did any kind of testing on me, simply said I had arthritis, and wrote script after script of pain medicine. From that point on, I would look for, and even produce (by self-infliction) reasons for docs to give me drugs. It wasn’t until my mothers illness that I found myself needing a little something extra, and I found a way to buy drugs ``off the streets``.
It wasn’t like it is now. Pressed pills are being manufactured out of fentanyl and killing thousands of people. I would never touch a drug purchased from a dealer in today’s world. A friend of mine, who is also an addict, we’ll call him “Johnny” used to live in Cleveland (I’m from a small suburb south of the city). He made friends with some people who were prescribed a large quantity of pills each month and sold them for extra money. On a number of occasions, I actually drove the person to the drug store to pick up their script in order to purchase some, so I always knew what I was getting, and that it was authentic. There was a point when I had called up Johnny and asked him to come with me to
Cleveland and he had said no. He told me he thought I was buying too much and that he would no longer accompany me. This was terrifying, as I hated being in Cleveland alone, but I was addicted. I needed my drugs. I continued to get a hold of my seller without Johnny. Each and every time I drove there, I was apprehensive and disconcerted. This person was a known dealer. They had vehicles in and out of their driveway at all hours of the day. It was highly probable that the house was being watched. I practically held my breath for the entire drive down Interstate 71 until I crossed the county line.
My husband knew what was going on because I was spending his paycheck. Every time I had to admit to him that I was buying pills, I begged him not to tell his parents. We had already had a strained relationship and I didn’t need their judgment cast upon me. In reality, I wanted him to tell
someone. I clearly needed help and wasn’t ready to admit it. At one point, my mom was prescribed straight oxycodone, with no pesky acetaminophen. My addiction took over, and I stole pain pills from my dying mother. I took about two pills before the guilt ate me alive… but then I popped the pill and the guilt, shame, and remorse seemed to melt away.
My mom eventually decided she wanted to come back to Ohio and be with her family. A decision she likely made because Ken Lamb is a worthless piece of shit who did absolutely nothing to help my mom when she was sick. He left the house at 7am and didn’t return sometimes until after 9pm. My mother was unemployed without health insurance and prescribed hundreds of dollars worth of cancer medications. He was a business owner with acreage and illegal immigrants working for him. He could have afforded to help her out. Mom knew she needed to be with her family. So once more, I got myself down to Virginia, got her all packed up, and moved my mama home. I’ll never forget driving down our street with my Mama in the car. A few of our neighbors were outside and I honked the horn. They all started applauding when they realized it was me with Cindy in tow. She was a very loved individual.
Meanwhile, I was trying to face my mother’s mortality, and the drug use increased. It was one thing to have glimpses of my mom’s mortality through phone calls every night, but it was quite another to be faced with it every single day. I needed an escape. I was running to Cleveland twice per week, spending money that wasn’t mine. The distance between Jay and I was growing. He had no idea how to handle my mother’s sickness… so he just didn’t. He wasn’t there for me emotionally. I was spending all of our money on drugs, so we didn’t have a social life. Resentments were being formed.
Mom’s health started to decline. One time that will haunt me for the rest of my life was when I was helping her go to the bathroom. We were just standing in the bathroom together and I was just to get her to turn around. She couldn’t understand what I was saying. I was speaking as clearly as day. She had asked me several times to repeat myself and after the forth time I did, my mom yelled back in frustration, “I don’t understand what the fuck you are saying!”. I took a deep breath and just turned her around. I told her I loved her and then proceeded to help her as best as I could. As soon as she was tucked back into bed, I immediately went into the garage and just bawled hysterically… the kind of ugly crying where you’re hyperventilating. I don’t know what was happening, physiologically at that moment, but she couldn’t understand me, and I hated that it was happening. But I never showed her. I never cried in front of my mom. I always escaped to my room or to the garage where she couldn’t see me.
Towards the end, she didn’t really get out of bed. She was asleep for most of the final days. I imagine my grandma and grandpa came and saw her.
The morning it happened will be in. my memory forever. Everyone was living at home, including my husband and I. My dad had yelled up to the bedroom at about 6am that I should come down and say goodbye to my mother. I looked at my husband who was lying next to me in bed. He just looked at me, blankly. He didn’t say a word. I remember thinking to myself, “Say fucking anything right now. Anything at all”. But he didn’t. He just sat up in bed while I went downstairs, by myself to say goodbye to my mother. It took a long time to forgive him for that. The least he could do was get out of bed and walk me down there. But no. Couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed for his grieving wife.
When I entered the room, she was shaking back and forth, gasping for air. I knew I couldn’t stay long. I wanted to. I wanted to be by her side in that moment, but I just couldn’t. I went up to her and rubbed her arm and said, “Mom, it’s Jess. I’m here, and I love you”. I stayed for as long as I absolutely could, but then I had to leave. I went right up into my room and just fell to the floor like it was me who had all the life kicked out of her. I was sobbing. Even then, did he come and comfort me? No. He just sat. One could make an argument that he wasn't sure what to do in a moment like that, and to that I would say, literally anything. It doesn’t matter what you say, just say something. Not knowing what to say is such a cop out excuse. You didn’t want to be uncomfortable, so you avoided the topic. I did not have such luxury.
I drank my way through the service. Before I even got there, I traveled to Cleveland to secure some Vicodin to help me cope. I showed up to my plug’s house in my suit, literally on the way to the funeral. Nothing was going to stop me from getting the medicine I needed for that day.
The thing I remember the most about the service was my husband being somewhere in the background. As the daughter of the deceased, a lot of people wanted to come and share their condolences. It would have been nice to have had my husband by my side. My friends were there, though. I will never forget how many people showed up for me when my mom passed away. The morning of her passing, my best friend, Doc, showed up to my house before she even went to work. Doc arrived with gifts in hand, and literally just sat with me. Thank God for her. So many of my friends showed up at the funeral, too; people I hadn’t spoken to in years. It was beautiful. I knew Mama was loved, and I knew I was loved.
I have referred to the time after my mom’s passing as a whirlwind of men, pills, and booze… and that’s exactly what it was. My husband had decided to move in with his parents, and if I wanted to, I could come with him. I chose not to leave. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to uproot my life for at least a year after a major change. And quite frankly, I was resentful at him for giving up and abandoning me.
I’m so grateful to this day that I didn’t go to Florida. Number one, I hated my in-laws, so that would have been miserable. Secondly, the drug problem at the time was significantly worse in Florida than it was in Ohio. I would have had a needle in my arm in no time. Thankfully, intravenous drug use by self-administration was never part of my story. Thirdly, I just didn’t care anymore. We were supposed to continue to work on it from a distance, him in Florida, and myself in Ohio, but I was checked out the moment his car left the driveway. Hell, if I’m being real honest, I was checked out months before he actually left. Jay left on a Wednesday, and by Saturday I was in bed with an ex. And not just an ex, but like the worst possible ex that there was in my past. But he was cute. And he was here. And he was giving me attention. There was a massive mom-sized hole in my soul that I just tried filling with men and alcohol.
I talk about this part of my life as a whirlwind, because there’s a lot I don’t remember. I did a lot of partying, but only on the weekends. I tried really hard to be a functioning alcoholic. One of the things that made me slow down with the alcohol was my mom.
I had gone to see a psychic medium because I was in an ungodly amount of pain from losing my mom, and I was desperate to make contact with her. That experience changed my life. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was communicating with my mother. She knew that I told my mom it was okay to let go… which I didn’t even think my mom had even heard. She knew that my mom sends me seashells, and she told me that my mother hovered above my bed at night to make sure I was waking up the next morning. I was drinking myself to death and my mom was keeping me alive. She also showed up in my dreams, telling me I was drinking too much. After that, I tried really hard to slow down. I needed to do better…. For Mama. And for the most part, I was pretty good at it. It was the prescriptions that sent me over the edge. I knew how to perfectly fake a kidney stone. I knew how to fake a back injury, and I knew how to hurt myself intentionally. I knew how to get what I needed to get by. I was barely holding my life and job by a string when I got fired from my part-time job for stealing pills from a coworker’s bag. I knew I was on camera. It didn’t matter. I needed them. I got help for a brief period of time, and it did help in that it allowed me to see and admit that I was an addict. I just wasn’t ready to face it yet. I wasn’t done having fun. And by fun, I mean empty nights of partying that felt more lonely than actually being alone. I just wasn’t ready.
The suicide attempt is what changed everything. It didn’t work. It was supposed to work. It didn't work. Something was keeping me here. I’m sure my mom played a large hand in that moment. I’m certain of it. But the point was… I was still here. There had to be a reason. I was so miserable. I was facing a license suspension with my first OVI. I was so afraid. My family would find out. Then I’d be just another Orlick who didn’t amount to anything. That was a fate worse than death in my eyes… Being just another Orlick. I was a Sicsko, dammit! (Mom’s maiden name). I was so empty. Life just didn’t seem to matter without her here. And I couldn’t shake it. I wanted to… but I just couldn’t… until I didn’t have to anymore.
Along with getting sober, came getting in touch with my spiritual side. I wasn’t trying to make that happen, but it happened organically with getting sober. Part of a twelve step program dictates that you pray and meditate every morning. At first, this sounded like an absolute joke. Praying was fine, but meditating? Absolutely not. My little ADHD brain was not going to meditate. But I tried it. I started off with a guided version of the St. Francis prayer, which I believe is the 11th Step prayer. It just walks you through the prayer and guides you with various images and sensations. The first time I tried it, I remember feeling wonderful afterwards. It worked! So I kept doing it. The idea is that praying is talking to one’s Higher Power, and meditating is listening.
During my meditations I started listening. I began incorporating my Angel cards into my morning routine. Almost on a daily basis, I was getting the Archangel Michael Card. I began to understand that I was working closely with this angel. He is my protector. I started calling on him all day, everyday… and he would be there for me. He responded when he needed to and guided me when it was appropriate. He still is my protector, and I still call on him to this day.
Being clairvoyant means you can see images from spirit… or the Universe… or Angels… whatever the “it” is that you believe in, clairvoyance is seeing images. About a year into my spiritual journey, I began to get glimpses of scenes in my third eye and then somewhere between 24-48 hours, that scene would play out… or someone would call and tell me about something that happened to them, and that was one of my visions. I was getting a lot of the phenomenon where you think of someone/something, and then the next day they’re on the radio for some reason. Those were happening daily. A lot of it was through TikTok… because I was miserable in my own life, and escaped through TikTok and Spirit knew how to get a hold of me. I would get a random vision in my head and then I’d be watching a random TikTok and that exact scene would play out. It was odd at first, but once I started to understand what was happening, I started to enjoy it.
I remember the most painful vision I had… I had hoped so desperately that it was just my own insecurities seeping through… I was trying to envision my wedding day and all I kept seeing were empty seats. No one was there. There was no wedding. If you read any of my other blogs, you know that I was engaged to be married… miserable, but engaged. I didn’t realize how unhappy I was at the time. I genuinely thought I was the happiest I had been in a long time… because I had it all. We had the cute little house we were renting, we had our little family of kitties. He had the good job, while I had the recovery job. And we were adorable together. Everything was the way it was supposed to be. Fortunately that relationship came to an end. But the vision will be etched in my memory forever.
Most importantly, I was able to communicate with my mom again. I started having deep meditation sessions where I could feel her presence. I started talking with her every night. I knew she was there because on multiple occasions, she “blew” out one of my candles. She guides me as if she is still here. Plus I have Doc. Doc has always been a conduit to my mom, and sometimes she still gets downloads and relays them to me. There are days, too, where I just want a hug from my mommy, and I cry, feel it, and let it pass. But I don’t have to be sad anymore. I don’t have to hurt. She’s here. She is always right here, and I can talk to her any time I want. The mom-sized hole has been filled and repaired.
Today, I try to keep myself grounded as much as possible. I’m still an addict at my core, and I still have Borderline Personality Disorder. So, I don’t do it perfectly, but I do it to the best of my ability. I meditate every morning, sometimes multiple times per day. Generally speaking, I meditate before doing any kind of energy work. So, if I’m about to hop on a live stream, I’ll do a quick meditation before, and sometimes after. It’s important for me to ground and cleanse after working with a client on an individual basis, or doing live streams.
One of the biggest takeaways I want people to know about practicing spirituality, is that there’s no wrong way to do it. When I started out, I had no idea what I was doing. I just lit some candles, threw some crystals around me, and started meditating. You don’t even need to do that much. Just start. I literally just started playing around with what I had and what I felt. Trust your intuition. That is your guide through this universe. It will pick up on frequencies that you don’t even know are affecting you. For example, for about eight months before that ex and I broke up, Spirit had two songs stuck in my head on a loop : “Just Give Me A Reason” by Pink and Nate Reuss, and “All Apologies” by Nirvana. If at any point in my life I had stopped to ask my Angels why those songs were playing repeatedly in my head, the relationship would have ended a lot sooner. Your Angels are always trying to get your attention. You have to be willing to listen… And you need to ask them for help. They cannot intervene without your permission.
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