What if control, the thing that once made you feel safe, is keeping you from the freedom you actually want? Growing up in a family shaped by addiction, Katy learned to manage the people and circumstances around her in order to survive. Her story explores what happens when we begin to recognize our own patterns, release what was never ours to control, and discover a different way of showing up in the world.

Mending Divides is a production of Global Immersion.

Hosted by Jer Swigart

Produced by Andrew Brumme

Audio post-production by Great Feeling Studios

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Today you'll hear from Katy. Growing up in a family shaped by addiction taught her that survival often meant staying vigilant and trying to control what felt uncomfortable. It was a strategy that helped her endure until she realized the very thing that once protected her had quietly become its own kind of captivity.

After her story, Katy and I will explore the relationship between fear, control, and freedom, and what her journey might teach all of us about showing up differently in the conflicts we carry. Here's Katy.

My mom had checked into a rehab center. I just remember thinking that whatever this alcoholism thing was, I didn't know, I didn't understand it, but I was told it was a disease. So my little nine-year-old self sitting in this room with all these people, and they say, "Well, Katy, you know, how do you feel about this?

What are you experiencing?" And I said, "I just want my mommy to be better."

I was somewhere early kinda adolescence, pre-adolescence, and there was a therapist whose name was Tippy, of all names that it could've been. But Tippy sat us down, and she was sorta listening to us, and I was probably doing my traditional song and dance of, "Everything's okay, and I'm okay, and it'll all be okay."

And she just looked me square in the face and said, "You're not fooling me, girl" I just remember breaking down into tears, feeling both the overwhelming rush of emotions that I had been holding back to try to pretend everything's okay, but also the deep sense of being seen. When you're fooling people, you don't feel seen.

You feel like you're successfully fooling them, but you don't feel like anyone actually knows you or what you're going through, and this was probably the first time in my life that I felt like somebody, somebody saw through the facade. Somebody actually could see me

I was around about eighth grade. I just remember that my dad told me we all needed to get in the car 'cause we had to go pick up Mom. We had to pick her up from the jail because she had been arrested. And at first, my middle school brain just couldn't understand. You know, there must be some kind of mistake.

And that's when it came out that Mom had been utilizing doctor prescription pads to write herself prescriptions for narcotics. She was arrested at the pharmacy where she was using these prescription pads, and, uh, they picked up on it. I think a pharmacist called the police, and that's when she was taken away.

And for me, the experience was, "Oh, she's not here

At that point, adolescent Katy became enraged. I was so mad. Whatever that little inkling of an understanding that addiction is a disease did not matter in that moment. What mattered was the sense of betrayal

How could you do this to our family? How could you do this to yourself? And a sense of being duped This is somebody that you spend every day with, you see every day. How could they have been participating in these addictive behaviors, taking medications and narcotics and things, and me to have no idea? So I think that's another thing that fuels the rage, is, like, the sense of unknowing, the sense that you've been made a fool of

I think it's a fairly common experience for children of alcoholics or in growing up in a house with alcoholism to just sort of not really know what's real or not, because there's certain deception happening in the household anyway, and that sense of being fooled or feeling like you don't just fully know what's going on with another person.

It always seemed like some ailment was plaguing mom. Me as a person, a young person, was very suspicious and never really was able to know what was drugs and alcohol making mommy sleep on the couch kind of thing when maybe she should be making dinner or, or taking us to practice, or whether she was sick.

You just never knew what was reality, and you couldn't react or respond appropriately. So it sort of stunts your emotional growth to just never know what's fact and what's fiction

Growing up in a house where things felt very out of control, I sought every opportunity to be in control that I possibly could. To control circumstances, to control other people if I could, to control my own outcomes. Control felt like safety. I didn't wanna be like my mom, basically. As harsh as that sounds, what that meant was, how can I make sure that I am healthy?

'Cause that was one of the things I was told, "She's not healthy." That I am good, that I am not an addict, that I am successful, that I am educated. Like, how can I gather evidence and gather skills and tools that will help me not become like what was so disorienting for me as a young person So the way that I primarily coped was by over-functioning and overachieving.

Often that meant making good grades, but it also meant not only would I make good grades, but I'd make good grades while going to all the cool parties, while also holding a job, while also doing my chores, while also going to church every Sunday. I was gonna do it all and be it all because it was the only way I could figure out how to not become what I didn't want to become, which is a very sort of anxious space, but it's also a space that is highly affirmed externally.

Wow, look at all that girl can do. Look at all she's capable of. Wow, she's got a bachelor's degree and two minors. Did it all while working my way through school and joined a sorority and da, da, da. I mean, just on and on and on. I needed to always be carrying around this big resume of achievements so that I might thwart the voice in my head that says, "You don't know what you're doing, you don't know what's real, and you're gonna end up being somebody that you don't wanna be."

Watching my control issues play out as a young mom, to this day, brings up emotion, because all I wanted was to get it right. I read every book I could possibly read, and when my first child came along, I had spreadsheets. I had reminders. I had apps. I knew every poop, every pee, every nursing, which side for how many minutes.

I knew every single possible detail in an effort to measure and control as much as I could. I have this visceral memory of being up in the middle of the night, trying to nurse my baby and rock my baby, and make sure my baby's sleeping right, and it just hit me all of a sudden. My baby's about three days old, and I have measured everything, but I have not kissed my child

It's just such a powerful example for me of my desire to get things right interfering with my ability to be in relationship

It began to become clear to me that I just wasn't happy. I was doing all the things I was supposed to do. I had all the things, the husband and the two kids and the house in the neighborhood near the beach and the da, da, da. I had all the things, and I wasn't happy. And part of me felt like that was another betrayal.

Disney sold me a lie, man. TGIF Friday TV told me a lie, man. Like, I've got it all together that I can imagine getting together, and I'm not fulfilled. I'm not happy. I'm not serene, I think is a thing I wanted in the face of all the hustle and bustle. It was about then that a friend invited me to go to an Al-Anon meeting I really couldn't identify a specific alcoholic that was active in my life, but knew I had this history.

This woman had helpful bits of advice and wisdom that I was drawn to. She invited me to go back to my first Al-Anon meeting since I was nine years old. It was in that room that I think I once again had one of those moments like I had with Tippy, the therapist in my childhood, where I felt really seen, where the story I was living, I was hearing echoed out from other voices around the table.

And I thought, "This might be a place where I can actually learn something about the person that I want to be and how I want to live my life." Al-Anon is the support for families and friends of alcoholics. To be a member of Al-Anon means to go to meetings. They're similar to AA meetings. We follow the 12 steps, just like AA members do.

Every single meeting, they do some kind of brief reading from approved Al-Anon literature, and then people go around the room and share, if they choose to. Nobody has to. What is unique about that from other experiences I've had of sharing is that people don't respond to the sharing. It is part of the ethos of how Al-Anon works, that you listen to other people's stories, and that's how I will learn and grow, not by either giving advice or receiving advice.

I just know for me, for my first few meetings, I basically cried through all of the sharing. I think you're just so overwhelmed by the possibility of healing, by the possibility that there might be some kind of help for how you're living life and what you're experiencing. I also remember feeling disappointed that nobody was gonna respond to me and just tell me what to do.

I probably would've rejected it if they had, but I think in the moment, what you want is just somebody tell me what to do and I'll do it One of the key aspects of Al-Anon is to get a sponsor. My sponsor and I would talk every day at 6:00 AM, and I would go out for a walk around my neighborhood in the dark, and we would go over each of the steps in turn.

Soon enough, when you're working these steps with a sponsor, it becomes clear and clearer that the internal journey of recognizing your own powerlessness and that my best efforts were creating, contributing to my unmanageable life, my life where I was displeased, unhappy, and uncomfortable

When people come into Al-Anon rooms, they are looking for how to fix the person they see as a problem. So for me, Mom, other alcoholics in my life. But there's a big sign on the wall in Al-Anon rooms often that says, "It's not them." And I think step four, as you start to examine yourself, that's when you start to realize the truth of it's not them, and instead start to think, "How do I change myself?

How do I become more of the person that I wanna be?" Mom was in the back of my mind from the beginning, but only as a place of blame. I think in the fourth step is when the blame of Mom for the issues I was dealing with could start to transform into something I could actually do something about, which was my own behaviors.

We arrived at step eight, to make a list of all those we had harmed. This is not what I expected when I came into Al-Anon. I wanted everybody to name the harms they had done to me. Huh. So the invitation to name the ways in which I was complicit and to name the harms that I had done w- was really a gift, and makes space to actually make some honest amends, which is step nine.

We make amends to those we have harmed, except when to do so would injure them or others.

When I got to step nine, Mom was already gone. So fortunately, the program Al-Anon provides some ways, some thoughts about making amends to folks who aren't around anymore. For me, it included writing a letter to my mom and trying to be as honest as possible about the role that I played and create a space of grace in that relationship, even when one member of it's no longer around

I found myself in a rented condo, largely in the dark. It was one of those that didn't have a lot of overhead lights. I had a candle lit. My heart was pretty broken in this season. I'm separated, and I'm feeling very lonely and very tender and very vulnerable, and meanwhile, walking through these steps that are exposing all of my character defects and challenges.

In that dark and vulnerable moment, it felt like the space where I could write a really honest letter to my mom of amends, really owning my piece of our challenging relationship. I just snatched a piece of paper out of a spiral notebook somewhere nearby and grabbed up a pen and poured out my heart and some tears into a letter owning my part, the only thing I'm actually responsible for, owning my part of our broken relationship

Can I honestly make amends to that person who failed me? You were supposed to be my mom. You were supposed to carry me through hard times, not the other way around. You were supposed to be nurturing. You were supposed to show up at practices and dances. You were supposed to hold me while I cried about a boy that broke my heart, and she wasn't there for any of that.

And I think I even, honestly, after she died, I carried a piece of that because there's a part of me that felt like her choices are what led to her death. So she opted out of even that piece of life, of helping raise my babies, of walking me through my divorce, of getting to know my first husband, of getting to know me as an adult

Dear Mom, I wish it had been different. I made harsh boundaries and treated you as less than when you fell victim to your disease I was convinced that if you just tried harder or cared more about me, then you could overcome it. I thought empathy was dangerous, that I would somehow get sucked in and become consumed by the disease.

Instead, I started a private competition with you in my mind. I would be strong in all the places I thought you were weak. I would do it all, be it all, and hold onto my anger and judgment. This seemed better to me than feeling the pain of the disease. It seemed safer. But at the same time, it left no space for relationship.

It squeezed out unconditional love all along the edges and built a fortress of judgment I'm sorry, Mom. I would've done better if I had known how, and I intend to do better going forward. I'm trying to forgive me and to lean into the dangerous world of empathy and love. Love, Katy

After I finished the letter and wept over it for a time, what I wanted to do was burn it, but I was in this dark rented condo, and that wasn't an option. So I grabbed some big plastic bowl and filled it with water, and I submerged the letter and just held it under until the ink started to run and the words became blurry, and a sense of release came over me.

It was almost like as those words washed away, so did at least some of my judgment and resentment and anger, and behind left in its wake a new space to hold some grace and some empathy for all that I had held onto, all that anger and frustration

I think one of the beautiful but also difficult things about a recovery program like Al-Anon is none of these revelations, none of these healing moments are one and done.

I still wanna control. I still have resentment. I still wanna judge, but I can navigate them with more grace. I have more tools. I have practice under my belt, particularly when it comes to my mom and navigating that relationship and taking some steps towards healing and towards grace. It's like it gives you a well of compassion and grace within you.

If you can find grace for one of the most challenging relationships of your whole life, where can't you find forgiveness and grace? I think that's one of the huge gifts that continues to unfold as I continue to practice my program and try to live into these principles, or as the 12th step says, "Take this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

It's continued becoming. To this day, I continue to attend at least two Al-Anon meetings a week. So I'm now a sponsor for someone else in addition to continuing to meet with my sponsor regularly to walk and talk the program and continue to grow

It doesn't have to be an either/or of Mom was all right and I was all wrong, or I was all right and Mom was all wrong. I think the complicated truth about relationships is that there's never a, an all good guy, an all bad guy. I think it'd be very satisfying if that were true. That's why we all watch Marvel movies, 'cause there's always a very clear like good guy, bad guy.

But I think maturity invites us to consider that it's more complex than that, that humanity is more complex than that, and I think by owning my own piece, it doesn't dismiss anybody else's piece And it relieves me from a responsibility that was never mine in the first place of being judge, jury, and executioner of everyone around me.

And that leads to my own peace and serenity. That fuels the person who I intend to be in the world

And you are someone who creates an environment of peace for others because you've done the hard work of interior integration, of making peace within. So thank you for that. As I listened to your story, I had this I don't know, this realization that vulnerability is strength. And I had this, this notion of in the early days, it was like you were hiding in plain sight.

You were high control. You needed to get it right, and then you realized that you were successful but lonely, and that you had gotten it right, but you had realized that you hadn't kissed your baby yet. And so I wanna chat about vulnerability with you because it is such a necessary ingredient to not only making peace within, but holding space for peace to m- emerge around us.

And so when I say the word vulnerability, I wonder for you, like, what does that conjure up for you? In maybe the, the younger version of Katy, how did you think about vulnerability, and how do you understand it now?

So there's a big difference between sort of trauma dumping or just dumping out everything that you're feeling all the time everywhere and real vulnerability. You know, one is actually a coping skill to protect yourself that's disguised as, "Well, I've got nothing to hide." You know, and I think in our highly social media world, our highly visible world, there's a sense that you think you know people, but they're crafting the story that they're telling you.

And I would say that until I got into Al-Anon rooms, where people shared, but there wasn't a response, which eliminated the possibility of sharing to get a response. And so I think the false vulnerability is characterized by sharing to get a certain reaction, whether it's to seek comfort or validation or whatever it is, and I would contrast that with the real vulnerability that I've learned about in Al-Anon rooms and I feel like I have access to at this point in my life as I don't have to dump out everything I'm feeling all the time at everyone anymore.

And I have enough access to the tender parts of myself that in trusted spaces where it's appropriate, I can open up and, and share pieces of who I actually am, not just who I hope to be perceived as.

And so what I learned early on was, "I'm gonna give you just enough honesty that makes you think that I'm being vulnerable, but in reality, I'm not really telling you that much." And I recognize that while that made an impact with people, I still I would walk away from encounters and I'm like, "God, I'm not any more known by you."

And in being fully human with people, it opens them up to be fully human in return, and that's where actual connection begins to happen. I think that lies at the heart of mending divides or making peace or building peace or building the beautiful world. However we wanna talk about it right now is it's all based on real, authentic relationship.

And so I'm curious as, as we're talking about vulnerability, talk to me about it from your point of view as an ingredient to actual human connection. And what have you seen happen in the nature of your relationships because you've taken a journey into a, a deeper vulnerability?

Because I think just as much as we're often sort of putting on a show of strength or whatever else for other people, we're doing it for ourselves. I want to believe I am a certain kind of person, and I am telling myself or crafting a life that looks like that. But until I accept myself fully, including my faults, which going back to the Al-Anon program, there's steps that specifically invite you into looking at your woundedness and your parts you're not proud of, and, um, coming to a space where I can say, you know, "Those things are true about me.

I also don't have to feel ashamed of them because it's part of being fully human." That creates a space both where I can accept myself, and if I accept myself, warts and all, gives me space to be more compassionate and empathetic to others, and that crafts fertile ground for authentic vulnerability and is also what is the cue for when it's not safe to be vulnerable.

Who haven't been through some version of that process will often try to take pieces of your story and use them for their means. It's a totally human thing, and we all do it to some degree, some version of manipulating or trying to turn it into a transaction. And so I, I think there's just some wisdom in being thoughtful about how and whom you're sharing with And how tender those wounds are.

Henri Nouwen talks about wounded healers. And wounded healers aren't just walking around with gaping wounds, and then anybody who has a reaction, you're just wounded all over again, right? There has to be some level of healing within yourself for your woundedness to be able to talk about it and not be setting yourself up for more w- wounds or pain.

The conflicts that we have interpersonally, much less institutionally, I think vulnerability is a necessary ingredient to that. But it even seems, as I'm thinking, there's this step before self-acceptance that you talk about, I think, in really brilliant ways in your story, and that being self-awareness.

And there's this moment where you're invited back into an Al-Anon meeting, and at that point, it seems like you had done some self-diagnosis already. Like, you were aware to a degree of some of the ways in which you were controlling your environment. You accepted a unique invitation into a space that you knew was gonna be costly and uncomfortable, and in that environment, it seems like your self-awareness grew substantially.

As I'm working with folks, especially folks who are trying to understand their contributions to the fractured or interrupted relationships around them, c- let's talk about self-awareness and the journey of self-awareness. What did self-awareness and your growth in becoming more aware of yourself, what did that actually require for you?

And eventually, I think if you're doing any level of self-evaluation, for me, I'm a big proponent of therapy. I've always sought that out. I'm a big proponent of spiritual study, which Richard Rohr talks about that the journey inward to know yourself is the exact same journey to know God, if we believe we're made in the image of God.

So I think naturally, if you're engaging those kinds of journeys, you're gonna bump up against opportunities to see yourself more clearly. And if you engage other folks in conversation, in deep relationship and connection, it's gonna hold up a mirror at some point. Now, you can choose not to see it and put those blinders back on.

I really think this is the kind of blindness Jesus was talking about healing, right? Is that kind where we hide from ourselves, where we put the blinders over our eyes. I think that it requires some effort on our part, but I also think that it's more like accepting an invitation than it is sort of corporate hustle and grind.

You know? It's, "Here's an opportunity to see yourself," and I, I think that we're given that over and over again. I think throughout our lives, as we slowly mature, that invitation grows. It becomes harder and harder to deny who you are and what your actions are leading towards, just for the sake of maturity.

So I think life will over and over again gently invite you to learn certain lessons. Not everybody wakes up. Some of us just keep running harder, you know? "How can I outrun this?" But at some point, I think most people experience some kind of invitation like, "Hey You're not happy with who you are. You're not happy with your set of circumstances.

What can you do about it?

And I'm a huge proponent, like you are, Katy, to having a constellation of skilled people, uniquely skilled people, to help me peer under the boulders in my life where stuff lives that I don't want to live there anymore. And so in your journey of self-awareness, talk to us a little bit about companionship and accountability and where those have played in your growth in this regard.

But nobody can tell you anything about yourself that you're not willing to look at. And for my experience of walking with a sponsor, she was never forcing anything on me. It was up to Katy to make Katy's choices about going to her, listening to her, calling her. You know, she would say, "Here's the plan.

It's up to you." You know, if I didn't call, she didn't call me and say, "Where are you?" If I didn't reach out, if I didn't do my readings or whatever, there was never, like, repercussions. It was all kinda wrapped up in grace. But in that way, it was able to be my journey, not somebody else forcing me on a journey, me taking the steps of my own journey.

And another one of our wonderful Al-Anon sayings is, "Let people have the consequences of their own choices." You know, and it's because codependent folks, religious folks often I find, you know, helpers, we wanna do anything we can to try to save people from pain But sometimes it's that very examination of self, that very pain that that can bring up, that can start to foster some of these other spaces of peacemaking and compassion and companionship.

You know, so it was not a gentle journey, but it was at my pace.

That comes with the territory.

And I know you to be somebody who out of this experience is companioning others as they become more fully integrated wounded healers themselves. And so as you look at your life right now, I wonder how you draw some threads from that story and how it informs the way that you actually companion people now as they make peace within.

And then as I have conversations or sense a calling to walk with others, it's not about my own fortitude, ability, or intelligence. It's about a real reliance, a, a sometimes kind of a scary reliance, on a power greater than myself that has the ability to do what I cannot.

Thank you for the gift of the story. Thanks for this conversation. Thanks for the friendship. Keep living this. Keep living it out loud.

In our final episode, you'll hear Steve's story. After decades of leading in the church he loved, a painful season of conflict left him wondering where he belonged. His story is an honest reflection on loss, faithfulness, and the unexpected ways God continues to meet us when the places we've called home can no longer hold us.

I'll see you then. The Mending Divides podcast is a production of Global Immersion, produced by Andrew Brumley with audio post-production by Great Feeling Studios. This season is made possible by generous listeners who support Global Immersion's work. To learn more or become a monthly supporter, visit globalimmerse.org/donate.

Thanks for listening.