I’ve said before that my daughter’s addiction brought me to my knees.
But it did more than that.
It cracked open something in me that I thought was long gone.
Empathy.
As a kid, I had it. I was it. I cared deeply, felt everything, wanted to help everyone.
But after years of abuse, of surviving and hardening and shutting down, I turned cold.
Stone cold.
No warmth. No softness. Just survival.
And I hated who I was.
I hated the way I moved through the world. I hated how numb I had become.
There were years where the self-loathing was so loud, I honestly didn’t want to be here.
The only reason I didn’t end my life?
Because I knew my girls would end up with their dad.
And I couldn’t let that happen.
They mattered more than taking the pain away.
But when I learned of my daughter’s addiction. When I really understood the depth of it…it wrecked me.
Brought me to the floor.
Not with anger.
With guilt.
Because I knew, deep down, that I contributed to her pain.
I didn’t cause her addiction. But I contributed to the wounds that led her down that path.
And that? That’s a kind of grief no one prepares you for.
It’s one thing to be humbled.
It’s another thing to be shattered by your own reflection, to see all the ways your best intentions still left cracks in your child’s foundation.
But somewhere in that hell, something happened.
Empathy came back.
It came through sitting in the dark, not trying to fix it, not trying to run.
It came through meeting my daughter where she was, even in active use.
It came through not turning away from pain…hers or mine.
And I’ll say something that might sound messed up to people who haven’t lived it:
If I had to go through it all over again…
to regain that kind of empathy…
I would.
Not because I enjoyed it.
Not because I’m grateful for trauma.
But because something in me came back to life that I thought was dead forever.
I just wish my kids didn’t have to carry the scars.
That part breaks me every day.
But I believe something now that I didn’t back then:
You can go through the worst kind of hell—
and come out either numb and bitter,
or broken open and awake.
You can ignore it.
You can deny your role.
You can keep yourself frozen in shame and anger.
Or you can say:
This hurt like hell. But I’m going to grow from it. I’m going to learn to love people better than I ever did before. Even strangers. Even people I used to judge.
That’s what healing looks like for me.
It’s not about pretending I’m whole.
It’s about becoming someone I can finally look at in the mirror and not completely hate.
I still live with regret.
So much regret.
But I can’t go back.
What I can do is make damn sure the future looks different.
For my daughters.
For my grandchildren.
For the people I now choose to see, to understand, to love because I finally remembered how.
And maybe, just maybe…
that was divine intervention.
Even if it came disguised as pain.
—
Brandi Mac
No shame. Just truth. And the kind of healing that starts when you stop running from your story.
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