I also want to first thank all the people who were involved in our auction for Cody's treatment. We were both so overwhelmed by people's generosity. There were some who donated large amounts of money that totally blew me away. And we had so many friends who were willing to donate and support us. It is a great experience to be able to receive help from people and so humbling.
Which leads me to the post I want to talk about today and it is how to help the needy. It has also been on my mind since all of the natural disasters and I know it has affected everyone with inspiration of trying to be more of service to people. We shouldn't wait until there is a large disaster like that. We should ask ourselves how we can be helpful to those around us.
When I think of being of service my mind automatically think of the homeless shelters, natural disasters, and helping people move. Maybe helping people move is a Mormon thing.
But we have visiting and home teachers for the reason that we may be able to help someone on a very personal level. To be helpful in many ways from being a listening ear, a person you can ask if you can borrow some sugar, or someone who can help you will a real life crisis and get you through it.
I know in previous posts I have talked about my visiting teachers and how awesome they were. I was too scared to ask for help and even though they didn't know my situation they served anyway.
The past couple of years we went from being totally independent to completely needy. And it was a very hard transition. Especially for me because I felt like it was totally out of my control. And always being an independent person it took a lot for me to ask for help. When I did there was so much weight off my shoulders. I could finally breathe and not hold it all in. The people around you that you believed would judge you or wouldn't understand, are the ones that are first to your aid. And it turns out to be a bonding experience with people when you allow people to share burdens with you.
So as I went through this experience I want to share with you my thoughts on what I found being helpful and what I felt was more problem for me than help. Now things can always get twisted, and I want to be clear that I was so grateful for ALL the help we got.
But there was things that I found was enabling Cody's addiction, and I also felt some things were discouraging on my end trying to be an mom of four kids and attempting at staying afloat.
number 1
Give fresh food that can make meals
Do not give someone needy your old groceries or cans of food. This was true for me, and I have also seen it be true for natural disasters. Sometimes it takes more stress and time to try to make a meal out of some random groceries. Or when we get random cans of different foods that we can't really make a meal out of, it is very disappointing. We have gotten moldy strawberries, or cheese that tastes kind of questionable, and when you are stressed about feeding your family this is seriously the worst. Just because someone can not help themselves it does not mean that they deserve your old food.
Also being LDS, we see often the relief society bring meals for after you have a baby. This is the best when we are able to receive so much love and support from our sisters. Most people are very considerate and helpful, and other times we have received things that my kids would never touch, or just not nearly enough food. When I am bringing a meal to someone I want to first make sure there are no diet restrictions, allergies, or things that they hate eating. It is not helpful if you bring something the kids are not familiar with and be too difficult for them to make a change in diet when they are already having a big change with a baby.
When it comes to canned food drives for homeless people or during the holidays, It is actually causing more problems with finding help sorting and organizing all the cans, and they have to be distributed out evenly so not one family gets 10 cans of green beans. It is hard to donate to charities because we have seen so many corruption and people who abuse peoples charity in stealing peoples money. but donating money to a charity that is able to buy fresh food that will be organized in giving to families it is more helpful than canned goods.
See this here to explain more about canned food drives.
The best thing you can do is find a reputable source that will make sure the money gets the right products for the right people. One charitable organization that I trust is my church's organization.
Latter day saint Charities
If you read through these charities and understand how the church is organized, you will also see that the LDS family services is there for members to get help with addiction treatment, and family counseling. I want more people to be aware of this because we shouldn't have suffered as long as we did. And even though there are many options for addiction help we should feel love and support when you are so vulnerable and needy when you have an addict in your family.
number 2
Do not use needy people as your dumping ground with your old clothing, toys, or unwanted items.
I am so grateful for my ability to thrift. Meaning find good stuff at thrift stores because clothing four kids is no joke. And they are growing every 3 months. When people found out that we were financially struggling they wanted to help and so they went through their old things and gave it to us. The people close to us knew us and our kids sizes etc so it was always so helpful to have donated clothing.
Other times when someone donated us toys, clothing etc they did not have our needs in mind it was more of a box of things going to a donation and gave it to us instead. This causes more stress on the needy person because if they can not use any of your clothing, like not the right season or size, then we are the ones who have to get rid of the items for you.
I also recently saw on the news somewhere about now people who were trying to donate to the natural disasters recently were donating things that we simply not helpful. Like winter coats to Florida, or old books. When you are thinking about people who are needy you must thing of what THEIR needs are. Not what you are able to get rid of. That is the thing I want to emphasis the most. It is not up to you to decide what is helpful to them. You ask, you hear, and you decide what in those areas you can help with. If you can't then you can ask someone else who would be able to help in the area of need. And do not tell someone that they don't need something. If someone needs help in a way that you don't agree with, it does not mean you can tell that person that they don't deserve that help.
Number 3- Do not enable someone to not help themselves
This is a hard one for addiction. Behind every addict is an enabler. In most cases, addicts can find multiple enablers to get what they want. And it is very tricky to understand because enablers believe they are being helpful and it is hard for them to see the help as problematic. And this also goes hand in hand in codependency.
When you get into a codependency relationship the enabler becomes over worked, and the addict becomes under worked. It is total unbalance and you can't have a healthy relationship. When you enable you feel like when the needy person is in distress you feel like it is your responsibility. And you do things you normally wouldn't do to help their situation. One reason why stopping enabling isn't easy is because the addict will get very upset. And they can blame you for their problems.
If you find yourself in having this type of relationship with your spouse, sibling, child, or whoever it may be, you have to stop immediately.
How you do that is put up your boundaries. There are lots of books and ways of understanding codependency and how to establish boundaries. And I would do that TODAY if you have this kind of situation. It will slowly crush you. But you first have to admit that your complete sacrifice and service is not really helpful at all.
You could be one helping act away from putting them into their grave. Sometimes they have to lose their job, lose their family, or live on the streets. When you love someone you don't want to see that happen. But you have to allow them to see their consequences. Becoming a person who doesn't enable takes a lot of faith and courage. You have to trust God that he will be the caretaker for that person in their time of crisis. And it is also important that we take care of ourselves and not become victims of the addicts behavior.
When specifically talking about enabling an addict here are some examples.
Do not give them money
Addicts ask for money quite often. Usually it is a very reasonable request. Like gas money for a job interview, or money for food to meet a boss or lunch. It will always be a reasonable request but if you know that this person struggles with addiction you should NEVER give them cash. Sometimes you justify that just this one time they are probably telling the truth. If you give them money you won't see it again, and you could potentially be helping them kill themselves. It is very important you do not give an addict money.
Do not clean up their mess
When they puke all over your porch, or come to your house drunk/high and need a warm bed, you are essentially enabling that person by not giving them consequences of their actions. They need physical evidence of what their addiction has led them and if it is being in the street throwing up all over the place ( I know this is gross ) or go to jail, they need to experience this. It feels like helping when you love the person and don't want them to suffer those consequences. But until they hit their bottom they will not get themselves back up. They will just continue to abuse you and take everything you've got.
The definition of enabling is : taking away the natural consequence of someone else's behavior.
Do not do things for them that they could normally do themselves
This is classic enabling is doing acts for people so that they can not do it themselves. Moms are notorious for doing their children's laundry, finding them jobs, registering their cars, calling for doctors appointments, etc and we all know the intentions are from pure love of a mother. However, it is making that person not be able to learn life lessons on their own. It is the old saying "If you give a man a fish he will eat for a day, if you teach a man to fish he will eat for a lifetime." We need to be helping each other learn how to be independent. Sometimes we do need help from family, and you must learn the difference between helping and enabling.
I am going to admit that I was enabling Cody. It was a freeing experience to understand that I was. So when I was giving all my energy to Cody's addiction I had not room left for myself and the kids. I was finding myself needing help because I wasn't using boundaries. This is the domino affect of addiction.
Your addiction affects your whole entire family!!!!!
So I hope that some of these thoughts will be helpful for the next time you want to be service to someone. It takes true charity to understand someone else's needs. You have to crawl down into their hole and really see and understand what that person's needs are.
thanks for reading!
Love you all.
xoxo
