April 1, 2024 • 43 mins
Shortly after Laura Cathcart Robbins had her second child, she developed a crippling anxiety disorder and severe insomnia. Within a few years, she was addicted to sleeping pills. Laura was ashamed because she felt like motherhood came so much more easily to her friends. And so, for years, she kept her addiction a secret. Then one day she reached a breaking point.
If you enjoyed this episode, try this one from the archive: “Jason Isbell Finds Peace With His Past.”
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
All I think about besides my kids, are these pills?
How many can I take? When can I take them?
Where can I get them? How can I keep it
a secret? I was a full blown attic and I
was a full time mom.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Shortly after Laura Cathcart Robins had her second child, she
developed a crippling anxiety disorder and severe insomnia. Within a
few years, she was addicted to sleeping pills. Laura was ashamed.
She felt like motherhood came so much more easily to
her friends, and so for years she kept her addiction
a secret, until one day she reached a breaking point.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
The mom that I imagine myself to be that I needed
everyone to see me as failed. That image shattered.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
On today's episode when the mask of perfection falls away,
I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans,
a show about who we are and who we become
in the face of a big change. Laura wrote a
(01:51):
memoir called Stash My Life in Hiding, and in it
she describes a difficult childhood and how she eventually worked
her way into an entertainment publicist job in Los Angeles.
That's where she met her husband, a film and TV producer,
and they became a sort of Hollywood power couple. Laura
loved the glissy, fantastical world of entertainment, a world where
(02:14):
she could hang out on TV sets and catch a
ride with celebrities on their private jets.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I was new to this world.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
The world I had grown up in was very poor.
My mother was on welfare, like shoplifting groceries on welfare
kind of thing. So this very lux world was new
to me and very glamorous. And I had grown up
in front of the TV. Everything that I wanted to
be was on television, and so now here I was
immersed in this world that I had grown up watching,
(02:45):
and I embraced that.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Moment you mentioned that everything you wanted to be was
on TV, tell me a bit more about that. What
do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I mean, that's how I knew what adults were like.
That's how I knew what adults did. Like all these
different aspects of who one could be. One could be
someone who worked for the city, or you know, when
the Cosby Show came along, you could be a doctor
in a lawyer, even if you were black. You know,
like all these things opened up, all these possibilities for me.
(03:15):
But I also loved the shows themselves. I loved the actors,
I loved the idea of the costumes and what went
behind them. I was able to really enjoy both sides
of it, the fantasy aspect and the reality of what
it took to make the shows.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And I mean, I know you had a really challenging childhood.
You had a verbally abusive stepfather, and you mentioned getting
swept up in the fantasy of TV. Was TV and
these visions of adult life a form of escapism for you?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
One hundred percent? I absolutely went there to escape from
the reality of what was going on in my home,
which was emotional abuse. Like you said, so.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You're living this really glamorous Hollywood life and your husband
are living it up. And so tell me a little
bit more about what motivated you to become a mom.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I don't ever remember being that child or that teenager,
that young adult who was like I want to have babies,
like I can't wait to have babies. That was really
never me. I never really took much interest in other
people's children. I was not the babysitting kid, but I assumed,
you know, again, going back to television, this is what happens, right.
(04:27):
You fall in love, you get married, you have kids.
So that was going to be next for me. I
wasn't at verse to it. I just didn't want it.
I didn't want it the way I wanted the other things,
like the glamour, my career, the stability, the romance and it.
You know, I have a peer group and they were
all getting married and excited about having kids, you know.
(04:51):
And part of my deal growing up in my house
was that, because it was a violent home, not standing out,
keeping myself small allowed me to survive in my home,
and I carried that with me into adulthood. I didn't
want to stand out from my peers in that way.
I wanted to want the same things they wanted, or
(05:12):
at least I wanted it to look like I did.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So you mentioned the context around your stepfather and never
wanting to stand out right because that might come with
punishment towards I mean verbal punishment for you, and then
from what I've read, physical violence towards your mother. Were
there any other factors based on how you grew up
that led you to not want to stand out?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I think really it all kind of stems from the
way that it was in my home, and the way
that I was in my home is just like you know,
who I was authentically just rubbed him the wrong way,
so I could be another version of myself, an edited version,
and be okay. I certainly took that out into the
world with me, right, So I learned to edit anything
(06:00):
that either didn't blend in or made me stand out,
or that seemed to not be met with enthusiasm, you know.
And I was the only black kid in my entire
school for a long time. My day to day was
I was surrounded by all white kids, and that's another
reason for me not to want to stand out. And
(06:21):
I have an undiagnosed language based learning disorder. Is what
I believe. Can't do math, can't figure out numbers, never could.
By the time I got to Hay School, I was
hiding my inability, you know, my confusion around math and
the inability to even just do a simple problem. So
I dropped out in the tenth grade because I started
(06:42):
failing all my classes and didn't really tell people about that.
I kept showing up to campus like I was still
going to class for a while and I wasn't. And
so all these things, right, this the way that I
was being the only black person in my school, being
the only one who dropped out, being the only one
(07:02):
who never went to college. All these things were things
that I felt like I needed to contain somewhere far
away so that no one would ever discover it.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, it makes so much sense. You're hiding, and you're
also you're playing the part, yes, of what you feel
other people expect of you or are performing themselves. And
so as we discussed the next correct step for you
was to have kids, and you ended up having two
boys within a two year timeframe. Laura, what was the
experience like for you after your second was born and
(07:37):
what role did your expectations play in all of this
around what you thought it was going to be?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Like, Yeah, so you know, I I told you all
the things that I wasn't just now that I wasn't
a college graduate. I wasn't a high school graduate. But
because I had hustled my whole life, and because I
figured things out, and because I had done really well
in my career, I was just going to slay motherhood,
(08:01):
like for sure, that's a given. This is the next
challenge to bring it on. Like I didn't have any
experience with it, but I had been and I had
seen other people doing it. So I was told it
was going to be hard by my peers. I was
told it was going to be hard by my mom.
(08:21):
I did not believe any of them. I just felt
like I have the whole package to be able to
really do great. And I was really surprised by how
not great. Now I shouldn't say that I wasn't great,
but how ill equipped I felt, And especially after my
(08:42):
second son was born, I remember that whole time period.
Is like I remember the first time I went under
the water in the ocean and the waves were kind
of moving me around and I could see like the
bubbles going up, and I really was just like I'm lost,
Like I was scared, right. I remember that feeling of
(09:04):
kind of being clobbered by it and taken under, And
that's what it felt like to me. I was doing
everything that I was supposed to be doing. I looked
like I was okay, but I felt like I was
underneath the waves getting cloppered. Being a new mom among
other new moms, was or just other mothers? Was I
(09:28):
mean that I'm going to use the word humiliating, And
I don't know that it's quite accurate, but that's the
way it felt at times, and I needed desperately to
hide my ineptness around them. I didn't know how to
do what they did. I was always comparing what I
(09:48):
was doing with them, and I felt like I was
always coming up short. But I wouldn't let anybody see that.
It just wasn't anything that I had imagined it would be.
It really wasn't. And as I had prepared for a
lot of things in my life, I wasn't prepared for this.
I have kids that it just really didn't sleep well
(10:12):
unless I was near them, which you know, maybe my fault,
maybe not my fault, maybe just how way they were designed.
But they would only really knock out when they were
in my presence. So putting them to bed meant, you know,
two hours later, one of them starts crying, wakes the
other one up. Toddler comes running in. He's wet is bed,
(10:34):
So now I have to change that. I put him
in mind while I'm changing his so maybe he can
stay sedated, you know, like and and he hops up
and down. The other ones up and so it was
like that. It was like, you know, all night long,
I was changing sheets, I was changing beds. Eventually, at
the end of the night, I was bringing them both
(10:54):
into bed with me. That's the way it went. I
didn't know what else to do yet, know how I
was going to get the three hours of sleep I
was going to need in order to start the day
over the next day. Because my husband was usually working,
he was out of the house, you know, and he
was back late, and so I was on again come
(11:15):
seven am. It wasn't like I had the day off
after being up all night.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Basically, yeah, you know, it's so interesting when we think
about ideals of motherhood and models of motherhood, because I
still heard in the language you use culpability. You said,
I have two kids that just didn't really sleep, and
like maybe it was my fault, maybe it wasn't. And
I think that's part of the challenge. And I see
(11:39):
women especially, I think maybe parents do this across the board,
but they feel this sense of moral responsibility and blame
no matter what the outcomes, and it just strikes me
that it can really set everyone up for failure. It's
an unreasonable goal.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I heard myself say that too, and I I think
that that fault finding, especially with parenting. It feels like
everyone feels like that's their job. Yeah, totally into what's
going on with you and your kids, and then they
want to be able to diagnose it, say whose fault
(12:18):
it is, and then give you the solution, right, Yeah,
and usually unsolicited. So this is another reason, and thank
you for bringing that up. Why I didn't let people
see that I was struggling. I didn't want that invasion
into what I was doing. I didn't want the unsolicited advice.
I didn't want to try what worked for them.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, when you when you had images in your mind
of the perfect ideal mom, the perfect Laura in her
role as mother, what did that look like to you?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So it definitely looked like getting myself together before I
left the house, looking like a together person when I
dropped off my kids, being interested in, being involved in
whatever they were doing, being the type of parent that
other parents could count on, being the person who had
the house that everybody's kids wanted to go to, being
(13:16):
the field trip parent, you know, being like those were
the parents I saw and emulated. I wanted to be
like them. The missing ingredient, I think from you, because
I did all that stuff was cheerfully. I wanted to
cheerfully be the mom who showed up. I wanted it
to be genuine. I didn't want to just go through
(13:38):
the motions doing that stuff, which is what I was doing.
I really wanted to do it cheerfully, and I didn't.
That was the ingredient. I couldn't figure out how to
source it, Like where does that come from? When you're
exhausted from the night before and you're exhausted all day long?
I didn't understand.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It strikes me that it's a really tall order for
Laura to be telling herself, you not only need to
do all these things that embody perfect motherhood, you need
to want to want to do all those things right.
And I'm just so curious to know. I mean, where
did those high expectations come from? Like? Why were you
expecting this of yourself?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
The best I can figure is that because my ex
husband and I were were this interracial power couple in Hollywood,
we enjoyed this status, you know, and I did enjoy it.
I very much enjoyed it and the status of you know, obviously,
no one's perfect, but it felt like people always said
(14:39):
that to us, you guys are the perfect couple. You
guys had the perfect marriage, you had the perfect wedding,
and it was like perfect, perfect, perfect, And it just
followed to me. It tracked that I should then be
the perfect mom, right, the mom who hears all these
same compliments. You're the perfect mom. I wish I could
(15:00):
be more like you. You're always here, You're always there, You're
always doing this. And I did see women doing the
things that I was doing before I started doing them.
I was watching and observing kind of like, this is
the path for the dope moms, right, All the cool
moms are on this path. The ones that are off
(15:20):
that path aren't as well regarded. The ones who openly
talked about having postpartum anything were secretly judged by small groups.
I'm sure I was included in those groups. Yeah, So
like things like that, I didn't want to be that knew,
I knew what it was like. I wanted to be
on that path toward being like the epitome the cool mom.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
So you mentioned, you know, by the end of the night,
every night your boys end up in the bed with you,
and you were full time caregiver at this point because
your husband's either working or traveling. You ended up developing
pretty debilitating insomnia.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I had this anxiety that's not the typical anxiety I
hear new parents talking about. I wasn't like worried they
weren't breathing or were something was going to happen to
them all the time. That wasn't my worry. My worry
was that they were going to meet me and I
wasn't going to hear them. That killed me. The idea
(16:20):
that they would wake up and say mommy or cry
and I might not hear them, or they might cry
for too long. So I didn't know what was going
on with me, but I I was on edge. I
was irritable, I was anxious. I was just short tempered
with everybody, and I just wanted everybody to go away
except for my kids. And I wanted to cry maya
(16:44):
in the middle of those nights, like you know, the
second change of sheets. Most of the time, I would
sit there just almost like you know, like dry heaving
to throw up. I would be like dry crying, like
just like it wouldn't come out. I was so depleted,
I wouldn't even have tears. And so I saw a doctor,
and you know, I told him what was going on,
(17:04):
and He's like, so, how long has it been since
you haven't slept? And I told him and he's like, okay,
we got to get you sleeping first. I can't even
diagnose you until we've gotten you sleeping for a little bit.
And he gave me a pill that I had never
heard of at the time. You know, this was in
the early two thousands, called Ambion, and I took it
(17:29):
that night. You know, I'm sitting there waiting for this
pill to take effect, hoping for sleep, and then this
heat starts rising behind my eyes. And at first it's
a little scary because I hadn't experienced anything like that.
It feels like warm oil is just entering my body
(17:53):
and flowing through me. It was the most incredible feeling
that I've ever had. But the thing that followed was
even better. Everything clicked off. The alarm bell that had
been ringing in my head for two plus this year
is stopped ringing. The first time it was silenced, And
(18:15):
I mean, I can't tell you what that meant like,
to not know that there's an alarm bell ringing in
your head for two years, to not know that your
nerve endings are frayed and on edge and then it
was just, ah, this is what's been missing. I felt
freed in that moment in a way that I hadn't
been before, and I realized, oh my goodness, with this,
(18:40):
I can be that mom that my kids deserve, you know,
not the one who's just going through the motions every
day doing what she needs to do. I can be
the mom who wants to do this stuff. And I
wanted to just grab up my kids and say, I
am so sorry I've been this crazy mom. Things are
going to be different, We're all going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, So how did your relationship then with Ambion evolve
over time?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So after that first night, that blissful sleep, I woke
up and the first thing that popped into my head
two words again please. Like I said, I had this
kind of new lease on life and I wanted to
go and experience that with my kids because I felt rested.
And you know, for anybody insomnia or not, when you
(19:31):
have a good night's sleep, yeah, feeling of being rested
and ready to tackle the day is like if we
could bottle that, put in a little pill. No, but
it's just the best feeling. So I had that feeling.
I didn't feel like I needed to take another one
right away, but I wanted to, but I didn't feel
(19:52):
like I needed to. And at that point where I
was and in my addiction, I think that my ability
to distinguish what you need and want was clear. Like
I didn't run through a bottle really quickly, not until
the second year, when I I was taking them every night.
(20:12):
As things progressed, it was like, not just one to
get to sleep, but one and a half and then
one half in the middle of the night when I
woke up, because the wake up was now inevitable. The
ambient just didn't do what it did to me earlier
when I first started taking it. So this progresses over
the years, and then approximately six years later, I am
taking them every night. I'm taking them in the middle
(20:35):
of the night when I wake up, and all I
think about, besides my kids, are these pills. How many
can I take? When can I take them? Where can
I get them? How can I not be discovered? How
can I keep it a secret? This is my every
waking thought besides my children. And it's an obsession. It
(20:57):
was an obsession. I believe I was fully addicted at
that point. It's around this time that I start washing
these pills down with vodka. I wasn't able to recapture
that feeling of euphoria the way I had in the
early days, and the booze really helped. You know, Benadryl
came into play at some point because benadryl actually boosted
(21:19):
the effect of it. I was a full blown at it.
A junkie is what I thought of myself as in
my mind, and I was a full time mom.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
How many ambient pills were you now taking?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I was taking up to ten pills a day, which
most most people don't get up off the floor after
I say that, they're like what, they just faint because
it's way too many pills. It's it's a lethal dosage, right, Yeah.
I was not taking ten pills at one time. I
was being very strategic and I would write down, you know,
how many pills I had to pick up, how many
(22:01):
refills I had. For someone who wasn't good at math,
I became very good at math, and I calculated out
what I could take. The thing was during the day.
Even though I couldn't knock myself out with ambien because
I would go to sleep, I couldn't be entirely without
it either. I needed to have some of it in
my system so that I would avoid a debilitating withdrawal.
(22:24):
And if I can just tell you a little bit
of what that would look like, it's like the worst
stomach flew, body aches, headache, sweating, lack of appetite, not
being able to make eye contact with anyone, visibly, trembling,
shaky fingers, rapid heartbeat like dying is what it looked like.
(22:46):
It looked like I should have been admitted to an er,
but I wasn't. I would kind of chip away at
a corner of an ambient here, a corner of an
ambien there. It wouldn't take away the withdrawal, but it
would make it a manageable amount of withdrawal. And I
could time it. If I take this chip, which is
like a corner of an ambien before lunch, then I
(23:11):
can do an hour and ten minutes for lunch without
it becoming unbearable. But then I got to get myself
out of there and get myself back home.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
So you can take another little Yeah, if.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
I had enough, I would take another one. Otherwise I
would just basically just endure the withdrawal at home. Oh, gosh, okay,
because I needed to have enough to go to sleep
at night. That was my biggest fear.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Did you confide in anyone during this period of time, Laura,
or like, did anyone just know what was happening?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Well, not only was my husband traveling a lot at
this point, but we were getting a divorce, and you know,
so for him, I'm sure there was a huge sense
that something was wrong. But it's hard to know, especially
if you have an idea the person that you're engaged
(24:01):
with as an addict, Right, you haven't seen this behavior
from them. No one was checking for me to be
an addict at this point, right. So the withdrawal, not
the physical withdrawal, but the withdrawal from society, the isolation,
the sadness, these are all things that can be attributed
to getting a divorce. So it was in a way
(24:24):
it was lucky for me, or at least that's the
way it felt, because it masked what was really going
on from the outside world. It shielded me.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
of plans. At the peak of Laura's ambient addiction, she
was taking ten times the recommended dose to avoid withdrawal symptoms.
(24:57):
She even needed ambient during the day, she'd cut up
the pills into tiny pieces and ration them out. Still,
she remained determined to play the part of the active,
engaged and happy mom and to hide her situation from
her community.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
So when I showed up to my kids' school, I
brought Starbucks in the morning to all the guards. I
came back at ten fifteen to do snack for my
younger son. I would do hot lunch with everybody, and
then I would volunteer in the library or like I
was on campus with them almost as much as they were. Wow,
(25:34):
I was in these little pockets, right, I'm a half
hour here, I'm thirty minutes here. Everybody had this impression
of me that one I was happy, and two I
was doing the thing. I was also someone that everyone liked,
but no one really knew at school. I was someone
who would be invited to all the different stuff, but
I hadn't really had like a deep conversation with anybody.
(25:56):
No one really knew me. That was that was you know, intentional.
And so while I was able to show up on
campus and kind of skirt any deep conversation and get out.
Now it was getting harder. And I remember this one
time I was there to volunteer in one of the classrooms,
(26:18):
I can't remember which one, and I was needing a
corner of an ambien. And I went into this bathroom
and I was opening my pill bottle to get the
corner of an ambient out so that I could go
and do whatever it was I was scheduled to do.
And my hand slipped and the bottle spilled, and all
(26:40):
the pills went all over the floor, not just in
the stall where I was of this girl's bathroom, and
maya something else took over. Then I didn't care how
I looked. I didn't care. All I cared about, oh
my goodness, was getting those pills. I didn't even care
that they're probably on a urine stained floor. I just
needed those pills back in that bottle. So instantly, I'm
(27:04):
on my hands and knees on this floor, picking up
each pill so carefully and putting it back into the bottle.
And I'm about halfway through this process when my kid's
art teacher walks in, and the way I remember it
is she looked at me. I looked at her with
(27:25):
a terrified look on my face. Because I felt busted. Yeah,
and then she quietly turns around, goes the other way,
and walks out. I don't know she read the bottle.
I don't know if she recognized the pills or she
was just recognizing the state that I was in, you know.
And so that's that's how captive I was.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, So now let's visit the summer of that year,
July fourth, two thousand and eight. Tell me what happened
that day.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So it's the afternoon of July fourth, creeping into the evening,
and I am in what I remember as one of
the most debilitating withdrawals I ever had, where my teeth
were chattering. It was so bad my headache I thought
it might kill me. This headache that I had, it
(28:16):
was blinding, like literally I lost my peripheral vision. And
so I was like, I can't take my kids to
the fireworks tonight. I can't do anything. I have to
get them out of here so that I can knock
myself out, because that's the only thing that's going to
help this. It's not going to be a corner of
a pill. I'm going to have to take a full dose.
(28:36):
And now you know, this is what I've been trying
to do is wait until after my kids go to
sleep to knock myself out. But at this point I
could not wait, and I knew it, but I didn't
want them to witness that. So I sent them to
watch the fireworks with a neighbor and I went to
my stash and I thought that I had, you know,
(29:00):
a two day supply of pills in there, which for
me would have been around twenty pills, but there were three,
and three wouldn't get me through the night. And it
was like being slapped across the face when I opened
that bottle and found those three pills, and the world
crumbled around me, and I just didn't what am I
going to do? What am I going to do? I
(29:20):
don't have anymore, I have a finite window of time.
My kids have gone to see the fireworks, they're going
to be back. What am I going to do? And
so I took them, went to the freezer, got the vodka,
drank some of that, went to the bathroom, got benadryl,
took two of those, and nothing, not a thing. I
(29:43):
didn't feel any of that familiar heat rising behind my eyes.
I didn't feel any of the indicators that this was working,
and my withdrawal was as excruciating as it had been
when I walked in the door. And you know, eventually,
like it, they worked for a very short period of time,
less than an hour, and then I was stone cold
(30:04):
sober again, and then withdrawal again and dry crying again.
And you know, I had this moment where I was
just like, I can't get loaded anymore. I took everything
I had and I didn't get any relief, and I
can't be like this. I can't be this shaking, headachey
(30:28):
fluey mess all the time, right, And so I was like,
I'm going to have to get help, as I can't
do this. I can't do this on my own. The
mom that I imagined myself to be that I needed everyone
to see me as failed. That image shattered because I
(30:48):
couldn't take my kids to the fireworks because of my addiction.
I couldn't take them to this very simple thing that
you know, millions of Americans around the country were doing.
I could not do that because of this addiction. In
my mind, it was the worst possible thing.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
You realize you needed to ask for help, and I'm
so curious what it was like for you to reveal
your secret. That was your biggest fear for so long
that this moment would happen. And so what was it
actually like when that secret was revealed.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
The first person I told was my mother, who was lovely.
She didn't pry, she was warm, she was supportive, and
I hung up the phone feeling like I just wanted
the earth to swallow me. I couldn't believe that I
had said it out loud. And you know, that's the
(31:46):
thing with addicts is we don't want to We want
to leave that back door open. Right, Oh, maybe it
wasn't so bad. If I don't tell anybody, then maybe
it's not so bad. I can still believe that lie. Yeah,
but once I've confessed to somebody that back door shuts
and locks, I don't have anywhere else to go. And
(32:06):
I knew that when I told her that she was
going to tell other people. But the secret was out.
I couldn't go back to pretending. And you know, in
each person who I told, each one felt like that
I was desperately afraid of being id'd as the mom
who went to treatment.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, you've said that the impact of your time in
treatment didn't really hit you until towards the end when
you heard a comment from one of the nurses, Can
you say more about that?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I mean I hated it there. I was there
for thirty days. I hated every minute I was there.
I never leaned in. I did not feel safe there
like a lot of people did, and I didn't feel
like I had changed. In fact, I was planning to
pick up a refill about, you know, nine miles from
(32:59):
where the treatment center was, on my way back to
Los Angeles. I use my phone time, which is a
privilege that you get at the end, to call in
that refill, take prescribed and go live my life. And
as I was checking out the nurse who had checked
me in thirty days before, she said, the lights have
(33:20):
come back on in your eyes and she started crying.
Oh wow, she started crying, and I felt I was
so just like solid stone. I didn't want any part
of this emotional exchange with her, but I felt my
body warming, and then I felt the tears in my
eyes despite myself, and I felt something that I hadn't
(33:42):
felt before. I didn't stop me from wanting to pick
up that refill, but something got in. Then, something penetrated
that armor, and I felt something which I can now
identify as hope, but I didn't know that's what it
was then. I was just like, it doesn't have.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
To be this.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
It's going to be this. I'm going to go pick
up that refill and go do this. But it doesn't
have to be this, because look what just happened. Thirty
days later, I'm off of it entirely, and the lights
are back on in my eyes.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
See, you said you didn't realize that it was hope
in the moment, but that yeah, and I love this refrain,
like it doesn't have to be that way. And there
is this experience about two months after you leave treatment
where now I mean, now that I hear you say that,
it seems like it's a it doesn't have to be
that way situation, right, Like, can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, I should start by saying that I didn't actually
pick up that ambion on the way back from treatment.
And I had been sober at this point where you're
talking about for about two months. And so my kid
is sick and I called to get medication delivered for him, antibiotics,
And when the delivery comes, I opened the bag and
(35:07):
I can tell already that the bag is too heavy
for just a bottle of antibiotics. There's also a bottle
of cough medicine, which is the most delicious orange elixir
for coughs ever invented. And this would be like a
little treat for myself when I was sick, Like, you know,
I would get it when I was sick, and I
(35:28):
really enjoyed the warmth that whatever narcotic is in there provided.
And I hadn't ordered it. I had only ordered the
antibiotics for my son, and so I was very surprised
by the appearance of this cough medicine and delighted that
it was there. And I really quickly did the math.
You know, I have two days with my kid at home.
(35:49):
My younger son was with my now ex husband. I
could enjoy the contents of this bottle and no one
would know, And so I kind of figured I would
wait till the end of the day. And you know,
I kind of rushed through his dinner, like hurry up
and eat eat your soup. We watched a couple of
shows and I waited for him to fall asleep, and
I went into my claw with it. I had had
(36:10):
a kind of a big closet and so I was
pacing around in there with this bottle, and I was
imagining how it would feel when I drank it, and
I was imagining how it would feel in my body
and when it hit my bloodstream, and what it would do,
and the warmth and the wonderfulness of it. And I
feel these arms around my waist, these hot, small arms.
(36:34):
Of course they belonged to my son. And he puts
his arms around me and lays his head against my back.
I'm still holding the bottle out in front, and he says, Mommy,
I need you, and that made me emotional too. I
went and put him back in bed, but he wouldn't
let me go, and that bottle was calling me from
(36:58):
the closet. But my son's voice was louder, and it
was like there was a mirror in front of me.
At that moment, I could see myself being reflected back.
Am I the mom who chooses her son over the
(37:18):
cough medicine? Or am I the mom who chooses the
cough medicine over her son? And I observed myself choosing
my son. And it's all about choice. I didn't always
have choices when I was in the throes of the addiction.
I don't care what people think about it. I didn't
have choices, but I had a choice in that moment.
(37:43):
And we woke up and the birds were singing and
it was bright out, and I gave the bottle to
my ex husband. I'm like, get this out of here.
I can't have it in the house. I couldn't go
through another night like that. Yeah, I do that back
and for it. So he was kind of like, okay,
but he took it, and that was truly the last
(38:06):
temptation I had.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
You've now been fifteen years sober, Laura, and I'm curious
to know how this experience has changed how you think
about ideal motherhood and how you carry that label.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
It's change everything about the way that I view myself
as a mother, as a person, everything, because I had
never been completely honest about everything. I always told some truths,
but there were always versions of the truth. In the
(38:43):
twelve step recovery that I chose, one of the suggestions
is that the first principle is honesty. So I started
to be more vulnerable, which was really hard for me,
and let people into the fact that I had this
(39:04):
abusive childhood, that we were poor, that I dropped out
of high school that you know, I didn't lead with
those things, but I didn't hide them anymore. And I
have a woman that guides me through this twelve step program,
and I call her my Master Reel because I have
told her everything. She knows all about my life. She
knows the humiliation, she knows the relationships, she knows where
(39:28):
I was dishonest, and she knows about the harms that
I've done to others and myself. And there's just no
flinching away from those things for me anymore. I can't
sugarcoat them. The way I was living before, even before
the addiction, was terrifying because I had all these secrets
that I was afraid that everybody was going to find out,
(39:51):
and I was going to be exposed in this way
and either be cast aside or cast out. That was
my thinking. And I didn't think I had any fears
when I came in. I really didn't. I didn't have
my finger on the pulse of any of them. And
once I was able to enjoy sobriety a little bit,
there's a freedom there where I'm able to think in
(40:11):
my best interest and in the way the best interests
of others. It's a much different way than what can
I get away with or what can I present myself
as I love that freedom that I have in sobriety
of not having to hide anything.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, what has it been like sharing your story with
people after so many years of those secrets feeling threatening
when I was a mom.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I'm looking around and I'm thinking they were all given
the manual and I wasn't given the manual, Like what
did I miss? So that everybody knows how to do
this except for me? And now I realize these women
didn't get the manual either. They were running around watching
what everybody else did and trying to imitate. They were
keeping secrets the same way that I was, you know,
(41:04):
hiding their quote unquote ineptitude because they didn't want it
to be revealed that there was stuff they just didn't
know how to do or worse couldn't handle. And so
in hearing my story, they felt like they could share
theirs too, which you know, that's the best thing. Ever,
That's why you tell a story.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Right, Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed
(42:00):
my conversation with Laura, you might also like my episode
with musician Jason I Isbel. It's called Jason Isbel finds
peace with his past. We'll link to the episode in
our show notes and join me next week for our
conversation with the developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik. She says that
when it comes to creativity and problem solving, children actually
(42:22):
have a lot to teach us. See you next week.
A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive
produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes
(42:42):
our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan,
our producer Trisha Bovida, and our sound engineer Andrew Vestola.
Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith
helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is
a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there,
(43:03):
and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram
at doctor Maya Shunker. See you next week.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
All I think about besides my kids, are these pills?
How many can I take? When can I take them?
Where can I get them? How can I keep it
a secret? I was a full blown attic and I
was a full time mom.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Shortly after Laura Cathcart Robins had her second child, she
developed a crippling anxiety disorder and severe insomnia. Within a
few years, she was addicted to sleeping pills. Laura was ashamed.
She felt like motherhood came so much more easily to
her friends, and so for years she kept her addiction
a secret, until one day she reached a breaking point.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
The mom that I imagine myself to be that I needed
everyone to see me as failed. That image shattered.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
On today's episode when the mask of perfection falls away,
I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans,
a show about who we are and who we become
in the face of a big change. Laura wrote a
(01:51):
memoir called Stash My Life in Hiding, and in it
she describes a difficult childhood and how she eventually worked
her way into an entertainment publicist job in Los Angeles.
That's where she met her husband, a film and TV producer,
and they became a sort of Hollywood power couple. Laura
loved the glissy, fantastical world of entertainment, a world where
(02:14):
she could hang out on TV sets and catch a
ride with celebrities on their private jets.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I was new to this world.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
The world I had grown up in was very poor.
My mother was on welfare, like shoplifting groceries on welfare
kind of thing. So this very lux world was new
to me and very glamorous. And I had grown up
in front of the TV. Everything that I wanted to
be was on television, and so now here I was
immersed in this world that I had grown up watching,
(02:45):
and I embraced that.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Moment you mentioned that everything you wanted to be was
on TV, tell me a bit more about that. What
do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I mean, that's how I knew what adults were like.
That's how I knew what adults did. Like all these
different aspects of who one could be. One could be
someone who worked for the city, or you know, when
the Cosby Show came along, you could be a doctor
in a lawyer, even if you were black. You know,
like all these things opened up, all these possibilities for me.
(03:15):
But I also loved the shows themselves. I loved the actors,
I loved the idea of the costumes and what went
behind them. I was able to really enjoy both sides
of it, the fantasy aspect and the reality of what
it took to make the shows.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And I mean, I know you had a really challenging childhood.
You had a verbally abusive stepfather, and you mentioned getting
swept up in the fantasy of TV. Was TV and
these visions of adult life a form of escapism for you?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
One hundred percent? I absolutely went there to escape from
the reality of what was going on in my home,
which was emotional abuse. Like you said, so.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You're living this really glamorous Hollywood life and your husband
are living it up. And so tell me a little
bit more about what motivated you to become a mom.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I don't ever remember being that child or that teenager,
that young adult who was like I want to have babies,
like I can't wait to have babies. That was really
never me. I never really took much interest in other
people's children. I was not the babysitting kid, but I assumed,
you know, again, going back to television, this is what happens, right.
(04:27):
You fall in love, you get married, you have kids.
So that was going to be next for me. I
wasn't at verse to it. I just didn't want it.
I didn't want it the way I wanted the other things,
like the glamour, my career, the stability, the romance and it.
You know, I have a peer group and they were
all getting married and excited about having kids, you know.
(04:51):
And part of my deal growing up in my house
was that, because it was a violent home, not standing out,
keeping myself small allowed me to survive in my home,
and I carried that with me into adulthood. I didn't
want to stand out from my peers in that way.
I wanted to want the same things they wanted, or
(05:12):
at least I wanted it to look like I did.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So you mentioned the context around your stepfather and never
wanting to stand out right because that might come with
punishment towards I mean verbal punishment for you, and then
from what I've read, physical violence towards your mother. Were
there any other factors based on how you grew up
that led you to not want to stand out?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I think really it all kind of stems from the
way that it was in my home, and the way
that I was in my home is just like you know,
who I was authentically just rubbed him the wrong way,
so I could be another version of myself, an edited version,
and be okay. I certainly took that out into the
world with me, right, So I learned to edit anything
(06:00):
that either didn't blend in or made me stand out,
or that seemed to not be met with enthusiasm, you know.
And I was the only black kid in my entire
school for a long time. My day to day was
I was surrounded by all white kids, and that's another
reason for me not to want to stand out. And
(06:21):
I have an undiagnosed language based learning disorder. Is what
I believe. Can't do math, can't figure out numbers, never could.
By the time I got to Hay School, I was
hiding my inability, you know, my confusion around math and
the inability to even just do a simple problem. So
I dropped out in the tenth grade because I started
(06:42):
failing all my classes and didn't really tell people about that.
I kept showing up to campus like I was still
going to class for a while and I wasn't. And
so all these things, right, this the way that I
was being the only black person in my school, being
the only one who dropped out, being the only one
(07:02):
who never went to college. All these things were things
that I felt like I needed to contain somewhere far
away so that no one would ever discover it.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, it makes so much sense. You're hiding, and you're
also you're playing the part, yes, of what you feel
other people expect of you or are performing themselves. And
so as we discussed the next correct step for you
was to have kids, and you ended up having two
boys within a two year timeframe. Laura, what was the
experience like for you after your second was born and
(07:37):
what role did your expectations play in all of this
around what you thought it was going to be?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Like, Yeah, so you know, I I told you all
the things that I wasn't just now that I wasn't
a college graduate. I wasn't a high school graduate. But
because I had hustled my whole life, and because I
figured things out, and because I had done really well
in my career, I was just going to slay motherhood,
(08:01):
like for sure, that's a given. This is the next
challenge to bring it on. Like I didn't have any
experience with it, but I had been and I had
seen other people doing it. So I was told it
was going to be hard by my peers. I was
told it was going to be hard by my mom.
(08:21):
I did not believe any of them. I just felt
like I have the whole package to be able to
really do great. And I was really surprised by how
not great. Now I shouldn't say that I wasn't great,
but how ill equipped I felt, And especially after my
(08:42):
second son was born, I remember that whole time period.
Is like I remember the first time I went under
the water in the ocean and the waves were kind
of moving me around and I could see like the
bubbles going up, and I really was just like I'm lost,
Like I was scared, right. I remember that feeling of
(09:04):
kind of being clobbered by it and taken under, And
that's what it felt like to me. I was doing
everything that I was supposed to be doing. I looked
like I was okay, but I felt like I was
underneath the waves getting cloppered. Being a new mom among
other new moms, was or just other mothers? Was I
(09:28):
mean that I'm going to use the word humiliating, And
I don't know that it's quite accurate, but that's the
way it felt at times, and I needed desperately to
hide my ineptness around them. I didn't know how to
do what they did. I was always comparing what I
(09:48):
was doing with them, and I felt like I was
always coming up short. But I wouldn't let anybody see that.
It just wasn't anything that I had imagined it would be.
It really wasn't. And as I had prepared for a
lot of things in my life, I wasn't prepared for this.
I have kids that it just really didn't sleep well
(10:12):
unless I was near them, which you know, maybe my fault,
maybe not my fault, maybe just how way they were designed.
But they would only really knock out when they were
in my presence. So putting them to bed meant, you know,
two hours later, one of them starts crying, wakes the
other one up. Toddler comes running in. He's wet is bed,
(10:34):
So now I have to change that. I put him
in mind while I'm changing his so maybe he can
stay sedated, you know, like and and he hops up
and down. The other ones up and so it was
like that. It was like, you know, all night long,
I was changing sheets, I was changing beds. Eventually, at
the end of the night, I was bringing them both
(10:54):
into bed with me. That's the way it went. I
didn't know what else to do yet, know how I
was going to get the three hours of sleep I
was going to need in order to start the day
over the next day. Because my husband was usually working,
he was out of the house, you know, and he
was back late, and so I was on again come
(11:15):
seven am. It wasn't like I had the day off
after being up all night.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Basically, yeah, you know, it's so interesting when we think
about ideals of motherhood and models of motherhood, because I
still heard in the language you use culpability. You said,
I have two kids that just didn't really sleep, and
like maybe it was my fault, maybe it wasn't. And
I think that's part of the challenge. And I see
(11:39):
women especially, I think maybe parents do this across the board,
but they feel this sense of moral responsibility and blame
no matter what the outcomes, and it just strikes me
that it can really set everyone up for failure. It's
an unreasonable goal.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I heard myself say that too, and I I think
that that fault finding, especially with parenting. It feels like
everyone feels like that's their job. Yeah, totally into what's
going on with you and your kids, and then they
want to be able to diagnose it, say whose fault
(12:18):
it is, and then give you the solution, right, Yeah,
and usually unsolicited. So this is another reason, and thank
you for bringing that up. Why I didn't let people
see that I was struggling. I didn't want that invasion
into what I was doing. I didn't want the unsolicited advice.
I didn't want to try what worked for them.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, when you when you had images in your mind
of the perfect ideal mom, the perfect Laura in her
role as mother, what did that look like to you?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So it definitely looked like getting myself together before I
left the house, looking like a together person when I
dropped off my kids, being interested in, being involved in
whatever they were doing, being the type of parent that
other parents could count on, being the person who had
the house that everybody's kids wanted to go to, being
(13:16):
the field trip parent, you know, being like those were
the parents I saw and emulated. I wanted to be
like them. The missing ingredient, I think from you, because
I did all that stuff was cheerfully. I wanted to
cheerfully be the mom who showed up. I wanted it
to be genuine. I didn't want to just go through
(13:38):
the motions doing that stuff, which is what I was doing.
I really wanted to do it cheerfully, and I didn't.
That was the ingredient. I couldn't figure out how to
source it, Like where does that come from? When you're
exhausted from the night before and you're exhausted all day long?
I didn't understand.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It strikes me that it's a really tall order for
Laura to be telling herself, you not only need to
do all these things that embody perfect motherhood, you need
to want to want to do all those things right.
And I'm just so curious to know. I mean, where
did those high expectations come from? Like? Why were you
expecting this of yourself?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
The best I can figure is that because my ex
husband and I were were this interracial power couple in Hollywood,
we enjoyed this status, you know, and I did enjoy it.
I very much enjoyed it and the status of you know, obviously,
no one's perfect, but it felt like people always said
(14:39):
that to us, you guys are the perfect couple. You
guys had the perfect marriage, you had the perfect wedding,
and it was like perfect, perfect, perfect, And it just
followed to me. It tracked that I should then be
the perfect mom, right, the mom who hears all these
same compliments. You're the perfect mom. I wish I could
(15:00):
be more like you. You're always here, You're always there, You're
always doing this. And I did see women doing the
things that I was doing before I started doing them.
I was watching and observing kind of like, this is
the path for the dope moms, right, All the cool
moms are on this path. The ones that are off
(15:20):
that path aren't as well regarded. The ones who openly
talked about having postpartum anything were secretly judged by small groups.
I'm sure I was included in those groups. Yeah, So
like things like that, I didn't want to be that knew,
I knew what it was like. I wanted to be
on that path toward being like the epitome the cool mom.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
So you mentioned, you know, by the end of the night,
every night your boys end up in the bed with you,
and you were full time caregiver at this point because
your husband's either working or traveling. You ended up developing
pretty debilitating insomnia.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I had this anxiety that's not the typical anxiety I
hear new parents talking about. I wasn't like worried they
weren't breathing or were something was going to happen to
them all the time. That wasn't my worry. My worry
was that they were going to meet me and I
wasn't going to hear them. That killed me. The idea
(16:20):
that they would wake up and say mommy or cry
and I might not hear them, or they might cry
for too long. So I didn't know what was going
on with me, but I I was on edge. I
was irritable, I was anxious. I was just short tempered
with everybody, and I just wanted everybody to go away
except for my kids. And I wanted to cry maya
(16:44):
in the middle of those nights, like you know, the
second change of sheets. Most of the time, I would
sit there just almost like you know, like dry heaving
to throw up. I would be like dry crying, like
just like it wouldn't come out. I was so depleted,
I wouldn't even have tears. And so I saw a doctor,
and you know, I told him what was going on,
(17:04):
and He's like, so, how long has it been since
you haven't slept? And I told him and he's like, okay,
we got to get you sleeping first. I can't even
diagnose you until we've gotten you sleeping for a little bit.
And he gave me a pill that I had never
heard of at the time. You know, this was in
the early two thousands, called Ambion, and I took it
(17:29):
that night. You know, I'm sitting there waiting for this
pill to take effect, hoping for sleep, and then this
heat starts rising behind my eyes. And at first it's
a little scary because I hadn't experienced anything like that.
It feels like warm oil is just entering my body
(17:53):
and flowing through me. It was the most incredible feeling
that I've ever had. But the thing that followed was
even better. Everything clicked off. The alarm bell that had
been ringing in my head for two plus this year
is stopped ringing. The first time it was silenced, And
(18:15):
I mean, I can't tell you what that meant like,
to not know that there's an alarm bell ringing in
your head for two years, to not know that your
nerve endings are frayed and on edge and then it
was just, ah, this is what's been missing. I felt
freed in that moment in a way that I hadn't
been before, and I realized, oh my goodness, with this,
(18:40):
I can be that mom that my kids deserve, you know,
not the one who's just going through the motions every
day doing what she needs to do. I can be
the mom who wants to do this stuff. And I
wanted to just grab up my kids and say, I
am so sorry I've been this crazy mom. Things are
going to be different, We're all going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, So how did your relationship then with Ambion evolve
over time?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So after that first night, that blissful sleep, I woke
up and the first thing that popped into my head
two words again please. Like I said, I had this
kind of new lease on life and I wanted to
go and experience that with my kids because I felt rested.
And you know, for anybody insomnia or not, when you
(19:31):
have a good night's sleep, yeah, feeling of being rested
and ready to tackle the day is like if we
could bottle that, put in a little pill. No, but
it's just the best feeling. So I had that feeling.
I didn't feel like I needed to take another one
right away, but I wanted to, but I didn't feel
(19:52):
like I needed to. And at that point where I
was and in my addiction, I think that my ability
to distinguish what you need and want was clear. Like
I didn't run through a bottle really quickly, not until
the second year, when I I was taking them every night.
(20:12):
As things progressed, it was like, not just one to
get to sleep, but one and a half and then
one half in the middle of the night when I
woke up, because the wake up was now inevitable. The
ambient just didn't do what it did to me earlier
when I first started taking it. So this progresses over
the years, and then approximately six years later, I am
taking them every night. I'm taking them in the middle
(20:35):
of the night when I wake up, and all I
think about, besides my kids, are these pills. How many
can I take? When can I take them? Where can
I get them? How can I not be discovered? How
can I keep it a secret? This is my every
waking thought besides my children. And it's an obsession. It
(20:57):
was an obsession. I believe I was fully addicted at
that point. It's around this time that I start washing
these pills down with vodka. I wasn't able to recapture
that feeling of euphoria the way I had in the
early days, and the booze really helped. You know, Benadryl
came into play at some point because benadryl actually boosted
(21:19):
the effect of it. I was a full blown at it.
A junkie is what I thought of myself as in
my mind, and I was a full time mom.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
How many ambient pills were you now taking?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I was taking up to ten pills a day, which
most most people don't get up off the floor after
I say that, they're like what, they just faint because
it's way too many pills. It's it's a lethal dosage, right, Yeah.
I was not taking ten pills at one time. I
was being very strategic and I would write down, you know,
how many pills I had to pick up, how many
(22:01):
refills I had. For someone who wasn't good at math,
I became very good at math, and I calculated out
what I could take. The thing was during the day.
Even though I couldn't knock myself out with ambien because
I would go to sleep, I couldn't be entirely without
it either. I needed to have some of it in
my system so that I would avoid a debilitating withdrawal.
(22:24):
And if I can just tell you a little bit
of what that would look like, it's like the worst
stomach flew, body aches, headache, sweating, lack of appetite, not
being able to make eye contact with anyone, visibly, trembling,
shaky fingers, rapid heartbeat like dying is what it looked like.
(22:46):
It looked like I should have been admitted to an er,
but I wasn't. I would kind of chip away at
a corner of an ambient here, a corner of an
ambien there. It wouldn't take away the withdrawal, but it
would make it a manageable amount of withdrawal. And I
could time it. If I take this chip, which is
like a corner of an ambien before lunch, then I
(23:11):
can do an hour and ten minutes for lunch without
it becoming unbearable. But then I got to get myself
out of there and get myself back home.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
So you can take another little Yeah, if.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
I had enough, I would take another one. Otherwise I
would just basically just endure the withdrawal at home. Oh, gosh, okay,
because I needed to have enough to go to sleep
at night. That was my biggest fear.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Did you confide in anyone during this period of time, Laura,
or like, did anyone just know what was happening?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Well, not only was my husband traveling a lot at
this point, but we were getting a divorce, and you know,
so for him, I'm sure there was a huge sense
that something was wrong. But it's hard to know, especially
if you have an idea the person that you're engaged
(24:01):
with as an addict, Right, you haven't seen this behavior
from them. No one was checking for me to be
an addict at this point, right. So the withdrawal, not
the physical withdrawal, but the withdrawal from society, the isolation,
the sadness, these are all things that can be attributed
to getting a divorce. So it was in a way
(24:24):
it was lucky for me, or at least that's the
way it felt, because it masked what was really going
on from the outside world. It shielded me.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
of plans. At the peak of Laura's ambient addiction, she
was taking ten times the recommended dose to avoid withdrawal symptoms.
(24:57):
She even needed ambient during the day, she'd cut up
the pills into tiny pieces and ration them out. Still,
she remained determined to play the part of the active,
engaged and happy mom and to hide her situation from
her community.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
So when I showed up to my kids' school, I
brought Starbucks in the morning to all the guards. I
came back at ten fifteen to do snack for my
younger son. I would do hot lunch with everybody, and
then I would volunteer in the library or like I
was on campus with them almost as much as they were. Wow,
(25:34):
I was in these little pockets, right, I'm a half
hour here, I'm thirty minutes here. Everybody had this impression
of me that one I was happy, and two I
was doing the thing. I was also someone that everyone liked,
but no one really knew at school. I was someone
who would be invited to all the different stuff, but
I hadn't really had like a deep conversation with anybody.
(25:56):
No one really knew me. That was that was you know, intentional.
And so while I was able to show up on
campus and kind of skirt any deep conversation and get out.
Now it was getting harder. And I remember this one
time I was there to volunteer in one of the classrooms,
(26:18):
I can't remember which one, and I was needing a
corner of an ambien. And I went into this bathroom
and I was opening my pill bottle to get the
corner of an ambient out so that I could go
and do whatever it was I was scheduled to do.
And my hand slipped and the bottle spilled, and all
(26:40):
the pills went all over the floor, not just in
the stall where I was of this girl's bathroom, and
maya something else took over. Then I didn't care how
I looked. I didn't care. All I cared about, oh
my goodness, was getting those pills. I didn't even care
that they're probably on a urine stained floor. I just
needed those pills back in that bottle. So instantly, I'm
(27:04):
on my hands and knees on this floor, picking up
each pill so carefully and putting it back into the bottle.
And I'm about halfway through this process when my kid's
art teacher walks in, and the way I remember it
is she looked at me. I looked at her with
(27:25):
a terrified look on my face. Because I felt busted. Yeah,
and then she quietly turns around, goes the other way,
and walks out. I don't know she read the bottle.
I don't know if she recognized the pills or she
was just recognizing the state that I was in, you know.
And so that's that's how captive I was.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, So now let's visit the summer of that year,
July fourth, two thousand and eight. Tell me what happened
that day.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So it's the afternoon of July fourth, creeping into the evening,
and I am in what I remember as one of
the most debilitating withdrawals I ever had, where my teeth
were chattering. It was so bad my headache I thought
it might kill me. This headache that I had, it
(28:16):
was blinding, like literally I lost my peripheral vision. And
so I was like, I can't take my kids to
the fireworks tonight. I can't do anything. I have to
get them out of here so that I can knock
myself out, because that's the only thing that's going to
help this. It's not going to be a corner of
a pill. I'm going to have to take a full dose.
(28:36):
And now you know, this is what I've been trying
to do is wait until after my kids go to
sleep to knock myself out. But at this point I
could not wait, and I knew it, but I didn't
want them to witness that. So I sent them to
watch the fireworks with a neighbor and I went to
my stash and I thought that I had, you know,
(29:00):
a two day supply of pills in there, which for
me would have been around twenty pills, but there were three,
and three wouldn't get me through the night. And it
was like being slapped across the face when I opened
that bottle and found those three pills, and the world
crumbled around me, and I just didn't what am I
going to do? What am I going to do? I
(29:20):
don't have anymore, I have a finite window of time.
My kids have gone to see the fireworks, they're going
to be back. What am I going to do? And
so I took them, went to the freezer, got the vodka,
drank some of that, went to the bathroom, got benadryl,
took two of those, and nothing, not a thing. I
(29:43):
didn't feel any of that familiar heat rising behind my eyes.
I didn't feel any of the indicators that this was working,
and my withdrawal was as excruciating as it had been
when I walked in the door. And you know, eventually,
like it, they worked for a very short period of time,
less than an hour, and then I was stone cold
(30:04):
sober again, and then withdrawal again and dry crying again.
And you know, I had this moment where I was
just like, I can't get loaded anymore. I took everything
I had and I didn't get any relief, and I
can't be like this. I can't be this shaking, headachey
(30:28):
fluey mess all the time, right, And so I was like,
I'm going to have to get help, as I can't
do this. I can't do this on my own. The
mom that I imagined myself to be that I needed everyone
to see me as failed. That image shattered because I
(30:48):
couldn't take my kids to the fireworks because of my addiction.
I couldn't take them to this very simple thing that
you know, millions of Americans around the country were doing.
I could not do that because of this addiction. In
my mind, it was the worst possible thing.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
You realize you needed to ask for help, and I'm
so curious what it was like for you to reveal
your secret. That was your biggest fear for so long
that this moment would happen. And so what was it
actually like when that secret was revealed.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
The first person I told was my mother, who was lovely.
She didn't pry, she was warm, she was supportive, and
I hung up the phone feeling like I just wanted
the earth to swallow me. I couldn't believe that I
had said it out loud. And you know, that's the
(31:46):
thing with addicts is we don't want to We want
to leave that back door open. Right, Oh, maybe it
wasn't so bad. If I don't tell anybody, then maybe
it's not so bad. I can still believe that lie. Yeah,
but once I've confessed to somebody that back door shuts
and locks, I don't have anywhere else to go. And
(32:06):
I knew that when I told her that she was
going to tell other people. But the secret was out.
I couldn't go back to pretending. And you know, in
each person who I told, each one felt like that
I was desperately afraid of being id'd as the mom
who went to treatment.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, you've said that the impact of your time in
treatment didn't really hit you until towards the end when
you heard a comment from one of the nurses, Can
you say more about that?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I mean I hated it there. I was there
for thirty days. I hated every minute I was there.
I never leaned in. I did not feel safe there
like a lot of people did, and I didn't feel
like I had changed. In fact, I was planning to
pick up a refill about, you know, nine miles from
(32:59):
where the treatment center was, on my way back to
Los Angeles. I use my phone time, which is a
privilege that you get at the end, to call in
that refill, take prescribed and go live my life. And
as I was checking out the nurse who had checked
me in thirty days before, she said, the lights have
(33:20):
come back on in your eyes and she started crying.
Oh wow, she started crying, and I felt I was
so just like solid stone. I didn't want any part
of this emotional exchange with her, but I felt my
body warming, and then I felt the tears in my
eyes despite myself, and I felt something that I hadn't
(33:42):
felt before. I didn't stop me from wanting to pick
up that refill, but something got in. Then, something penetrated
that armor, and I felt something which I can now
identify as hope, but I didn't know that's what it
was then. I was just like, it doesn't have.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
To be this.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
It's going to be this. I'm going to go pick
up that refill and go do this. But it doesn't
have to be this, because look what just happened. Thirty
days later, I'm off of it entirely, and the lights
are back on in my eyes.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
See, you said you didn't realize that it was hope
in the moment, but that yeah, and I love this refrain,
like it doesn't have to be that way. And there
is this experience about two months after you leave treatment
where now I mean, now that I hear you say that,
it seems like it's a it doesn't have to be
that way situation, right, Like, can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, I should start by saying that I didn't actually
pick up that ambion on the way back from treatment.
And I had been sober at this point where you're
talking about for about two months. And so my kid
is sick and I called to get medication delivered for him, antibiotics,
And when the delivery comes, I opened the bag and
(35:07):
I can tell already that the bag is too heavy
for just a bottle of antibiotics. There's also a bottle
of cough medicine, which is the most delicious orange elixir
for coughs ever invented. And this would be like a
little treat for myself when I was sick, Like, you know,
I would get it when I was sick, and I
(35:28):
really enjoyed the warmth that whatever narcotic is in there provided.
And I hadn't ordered it. I had only ordered the
antibiotics for my son, and so I was very surprised
by the appearance of this cough medicine and delighted that
it was there. And I really quickly did the math.
You know, I have two days with my kid at home.
(35:49):
My younger son was with my now ex husband. I
could enjoy the contents of this bottle and no one
would know, And so I kind of figured I would
wait till the end of the day. And you know,
I kind of rushed through his dinner, like hurry up
and eat eat your soup. We watched a couple of
shows and I waited for him to fall asleep, and
I went into my claw with it. I had had
(36:10):
a kind of a big closet and so I was
pacing around in there with this bottle, and I was
imagining how it would feel when I drank it, and
I was imagining how it would feel in my body
and when it hit my bloodstream, and what it would do,
and the warmth and the wonderfulness of it. And I
feel these arms around my waist, these hot, small arms.
(36:34):
Of course they belonged to my son. And he puts
his arms around me and lays his head against my back.
I'm still holding the bottle out in front, and he says, Mommy,
I need you, and that made me emotional too. I
went and put him back in bed, but he wouldn't
let me go, and that bottle was calling me from
(36:58):
the closet. But my son's voice was louder, and it
was like there was a mirror in front of me.
At that moment, I could see myself being reflected back.
Am I the mom who chooses her son over the
(37:18):
cough medicine? Or am I the mom who chooses the
cough medicine over her son? And I observed myself choosing
my son. And it's all about choice. I didn't always
have choices when I was in the throes of the addiction.
I don't care what people think about it. I didn't
have choices, but I had a choice in that moment.
(37:43):
And we woke up and the birds were singing and
it was bright out, and I gave the bottle to
my ex husband. I'm like, get this out of here.
I can't have it in the house. I couldn't go
through another night like that. Yeah, I do that back
and for it. So he was kind of like, okay,
but he took it, and that was truly the last
(38:06):
temptation I had.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
You've now been fifteen years sober, Laura, and I'm curious
to know how this experience has changed how you think
about ideal motherhood and how you carry that label.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
It's change everything about the way that I view myself
as a mother, as a person, everything, because I had
never been completely honest about everything. I always told some truths,
but there were always versions of the truth. In the
(38:43):
twelve step recovery that I chose, one of the suggestions
is that the first principle is honesty. So I started
to be more vulnerable, which was really hard for me,
and let people into the fact that I had this
(39:04):
abusive childhood, that we were poor, that I dropped out
of high school that you know, I didn't lead with
those things, but I didn't hide them anymore. And I
have a woman that guides me through this twelve step program,
and I call her my Master Reel because I have
told her everything. She knows all about my life. She
knows the humiliation, she knows the relationships, she knows where
(39:28):
I was dishonest, and she knows about the harms that
I've done to others and myself. And there's just no
flinching away from those things for me anymore. I can't
sugarcoat them. The way I was living before, even before
the addiction, was terrifying because I had all these secrets
that I was afraid that everybody was going to find out,
(39:51):
and I was going to be exposed in this way
and either be cast aside or cast out. That was
my thinking. And I didn't think I had any fears
when I came in. I really didn't. I didn't have
my finger on the pulse of any of them. And
once I was able to enjoy sobriety a little bit,
there's a freedom there where I'm able to think in
(40:11):
my best interest and in the way the best interests
of others. It's a much different way than what can
I get away with or what can I present myself
as I love that freedom that I have in sobriety
of not having to hide anything.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, what has it been like sharing your story with
people after so many years of those secrets feeling threatening
when I was a mom.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I'm looking around and I'm thinking they were all given
the manual and I wasn't given the manual, Like what
did I miss? So that everybody knows how to do
this except for me? And now I realize these women
didn't get the manual either. They were running around watching
what everybody else did and trying to imitate. They were
keeping secrets the same way that I was, you know,
(41:04):
hiding their quote unquote ineptitude because they didn't want it
to be revealed that there was stuff they just didn't
know how to do or worse couldn't handle. And so
in hearing my story, they felt like they could share
theirs too, which you know, that's the best thing. Ever,
That's why you tell a story.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Right, Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed
(42:00):
my conversation with Laura, you might also like my episode
with musician Jason I Isbel. It's called Jason Isbel finds
peace with his past. We'll link to the episode in
our show notes and join me next week for our
conversation with the developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik. She says that
when it comes to creativity and problem solving, children actually
(42:22):
have a lot to teach us. See you next week.
A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive
produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes
(42:42):
our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan,
our producer Trisha Bovida, and our sound engineer Andrew Vestola.
Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith
helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is
a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there,
(43:03):
and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram
at doctor Maya Shunker. See you next week.
Host
Dr. Maya Shankar
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