Lisa's Story

Hello, my name is Lisa Root, I am 43 years old, and I am in the midst of conquering/overcoming the mental impact growing up in an alcoholic home has had on me.

 Sometimes I would lay awake at night wondering if she would come home.

Sometimes I would be in class wondering if she would be home when I got there.

Sometimes I wondered if life would be better somewhere else.

April 4th, 1978 I was born.

Born to Jim and Sherry who at the ripe age of 19 and 21 were on their second child.

It was early on in my childhood that I noticed there was a problem, I just didn’t know what it was at the time.

Mom would be there, then dad would be there, then mom and dad would be there.

As I reflect on this as an adult I now know, it was the alcohol.

The older I got, the more I became aware of the alcohol. The drugs. The lack of money.

Don't get me wrong, there was always food, and a roof over our head, but was the power going to be on? Was the heat going to be on?

Thoughts a child should never have.

I remember being dragged all over town to the next place while in my pajamas, and sleeping in the back of the car, while my mom partied?

There was a particular time I remember quite vividly.

My brother and I got off the bus from school, we were 6 and 8 at the time. no one was home, and the door was locked.

It was winter.

This was way before cell phones existed, so we had to sit and wait.

It was getting dark, so we trudged up the hill to our neighbours and knocked.

They let us in and warmed us up, and then tried to find out what happened.

My dad was at work, and my mom was out getting drunk somewhere, and had forgotten about us.

My dad had to leave his shift at work to come and get us from the neighbours.

How do you forget your kids?

That was always my thought. How did she forget me?

But alcohol is a powerful stronghold on someone, but I didn’t know that at the time.

There are many stories like this that happened throughout my childhood, but that would fill my whole story.

Fast forward to my early teenage years.

Well, that's when I really noticed the drinking.

The fighting.

The leaving and then coming back.

The boyfriends of my moms.

The role reversal of me becoming the parent so to speak.

Family holidays would come around, and I would have to run around, hiding all the empty bottles of alcohol, clean the house and then help with whatever needed to be done elsewhere.

I thought I was hiding it to protect my mom, but I now realize everyone knew.

The abuse was far and few between, but it happened.

My mom was a sloppy drunk, an angry drunk and in her drunkenness, she would lose a piece of herself and become someone she did not know. That never made it easier on me to know that she did not really mean it, as much as she apologized, it never made it easier or go away.

This continued until my late teens.

It finally came to a point that my grandmother and I got the courage to stand up and tell my mom she needed to go to treatment.

It did not take much convincing. She knew that she needed help and accepted it with open arms.

 At the young age of 37 my mom went to treatment.

It started with detox, as at that point she needed it.

And then she went into a 30-day rehabilitation program.

I was never prouder of my mom then the day she came home and had 35 days of being sober under her belt.

I think it was the first time in my life that I saw a sparkle in her eye. A real sparkle. That a whole new life was ahead of her.

The first thing she wanted to do when she got home was take a shower.

That was the day the 2nd part of her life started.

She found a lump.

If she had not gotten sober, she never would have self checked, but that day she did.

And yes, that was the day she was diagnosed with cancer.

 She went through surgery, chemo, radiation, and "beat" cancer.

Within that time, I got accepted to college, moved to Toronto, and went to culinary school.

My mom's cancer had brought us close. Now I am not saying we didn't have a good relationship, we did, but growing up with an alcoholic mom can do a lot of damage.

It was about a few months shy of my moms 5-year cancer "free" which is somehow the magic year, she started to complain about her hips being sore.

So, her doctor decided to do a full body scan.

Her hips were like honeycomb.

She was never cancer free....

It was growing elsewhere, going unnoticed.

Together with her doctor we got a game plan of pain control and for her to live her best life.

Metastasized bone cancer has no cure and can only be managed, but, we were positive.

She had her scheduled treatments to keep her pain down, and since she was a patient at Princess Margaret, it was time for us to be together.

Throughout this time, I met my now husband.

I will never forget the day she met him.

He picked up her bag to carry it, and he was walking a bit ahead of us, and she whispered, you're going to marry that boy.

Fast forward 5 long years suffering, I got to walk into her hospital room with a ring on my finger and tell her that he was going to take care of me for the rest of my life.

A few months later she passed.

At the young age 47.

She never got to see us get married, and the best day of my life, was also the worst day of my life.

I'm telling my story because as much as it is sad, and hard.

I became who I am because of my mother.

Her struggle with addiction. (Made me hyper aware of not becoming an alcoholic)

Her battle with cancer. (I am now in the Breast Screening Program)

Her drive for me to make something of myself....... 

I live with her voice inside me every day.

Her voice has been whispering in my ear for the last 15 years to keep going, be strong and make the world take notice.

I'm just sad she hasn't been able to see what I have made of myself.

I do not think I ever associated my body issues with my childhood until the past 2 years.

I had so much control on things growing up that it was jut natural for me to have control over what I did or did not put into my body. The more weight I lost the more control I felt I had. When all I was doing was starving myself. And I thought I would feel better when I was the perfect size.  I was what I thought was the perfect size, more than once and I never felt satisfied.

To be honest, it was not until the past year that I finally realized that controlling the size of my body did nothing but cause me stress. I am in a place with my body right now that I move to feel good not lose weight, I eat what makes me happy at the time, and I do not have to earn or burn my food. I know that I am not better when I am thinner, I am the same. Nothing changed about me, other than the size of my clothes.

Not my dreams.

Not my passions.

Not my relationships.

Nothing. Else. Changed.

My one piece of advice for anyone going through what I went through is the need to talk. I did not let anyone in. I tried to hide it as much as I could. Talk to family, talk to friends, talk to a counsellor, talk to anyone you can.

I know when I was growing up mental stress was NEVER talked about. It just was not a thing. And oh, how things would have changed if there was accessible help.

I did make use of kids help phone a few times, but that was the extent of “help” or “counselling” that was available, or even talked about.

And if you can not talk, write.

Get it out.

Do not hold things in.

However you choose, just let it out.”