Closer to Found: Unlocking Your Teen's Secret Life: A Reader's Guide to Loss and Found

By Karen Flyer and Judy Eldredge-Root

Closer to Found: Unlocking Your Teens Secret Life, a companion piece to Karen Flyers memoir Loss and Found, offers readers real-life and relevant insights on surviving childhood and adolescent traumas; diagnostic and clinical advice for parents and mental health professionals on how to help a troubled child; tips, tools and role play exercises for breaking down barriers of communication between parents and children; and resources available to families who may be dealing with these complex and life-threatening issues. Topics covered include the basics of loss and grief, sexual abuse, alcohol and substance abuse, eating disorders, sexual promiscuity, and depression and suicide ideation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 4, 2009
• ISBN: 9781450002028

Karen Flyer

Karen Flyer, M.B.A. and Executive Director of COPE, a grief organization for parents living with the loss of a child, is a survivor of parental suicide, substance and sexual abuse, a life-threatening eating disorder, and low self-esteem. She is the author of the memoir Loss and Found, which details her tumultuous life. Judy Eldredge-Root, M.Ed., CAGS, is a school psychologist and clinical mental health counselor who has worked since 1983 as a therapist, guidance counselor, instructor in an MA/M.Ed. program, and most recently as a school psychologist working with troubled children, adolescents and teens in and out of a school setting.

Book preview

Closer to Found

Unlocking Your Teen’s

Secret Life

A Reader’s Guide to Loss and Found

Karen Flyer and

Judy Eldredge-Root, M.Ed., CAGS

Copyright © 2009 by Karen Flyer and Judy Eldredge-Root, M.Ed., CAGS.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009911264

ISBN:   Softcover    978-1-4415-9271-2

             Ebook         978-1-4500-0202-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Forward by Christine

Introduction by Karen Flyer

Loss of Childhood

Growing up with an Alcoholic Parent

Children and Grief

The Impact of Sexual Abuse

Signs of a Secret Life

Alcohol and Substance Abuse

Eating Disorders: Anorexia and Bulimia

Sexual Promiscuity

Depression and Suicide Ideation

Tips for Parents and Teens

What Karen and Christine Did Right

Tips for Improving Relationships

Role Play Exercises

Other Suggested Tools

Resources

References

For Abby and Daniel. I love you both with all my heart. Every single day you make me proud to be your mother and eternally grateful for the wonderful life I live. May your own lives forever be filled with peace, prosperity, joy and happiness.

Forward by Christine

Concern. Worry. Fear. Terror. Guilt. Remorse. Impotence. Anger. Relief. Love. Trust. Pride. Thankfulness.

Christine is not my real name. But my life as depicted in my daughter’s gripping and oftentimes frightening memoir, Loss and Found, is real. And my feelings, those emotions that at times have threatened to suffocate me, to strangle the life out of me, are also breathtakingly real. Raising an adolescent girl is not easy. Raising a grief-stricken, rebellious, and defiant girl by yourself is even more difficult. And raising this type of child while crumbling beneath your own mountain of hurt, pain, loneliness, and sorrow? Well, that’s nearly impossible. But I did it.

I look back and wonder how—how I managed to not only survive my own losses, but to stave off the loss of my own child, my firstborn, the daughter I bore from my own body. And the only conclusion I can draw is that I did what I had to do. I got out of bed each and every morning. I went to work and earned a living so that I could support my two children on my own, without the love, support, and financial contribution promised to me by my husband on our wedding day. I tucked my son and my daughter into bed at night and let them know that I loved them.

I tried my best to make parenting decisions on my own, without a partner to aid me in my thought processes. I was mother and father. Disciplinarian and nurturer. Good cop and bad cop. I sat alone in my fear when my daughter came home after curfew reeking of alcohol. I wrestled my feelings of terror and impotence only within my own mind when my daughter began wasting away from her eating disorder. I had only my own guilt assigning blame for the childhood she had lost all too soon.

Unfortunately, I did not pick up on the early signs that my daughter needed help, and the type of help I was not able to provide. By the time I did realize that she was in trouble, it was too late—too late for me to play the type of role in her life I would have needed to play in order to save her from the self-destructive behaviors she embraced with nearly religious enthusiasm. I often think to myself, If only I knew. If only I’d intervened. But we cannot live on what if s.

In my own defense, many resources that are now available to bereaved and troubled teens were not available then, back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We parents were forced to navigate the minefield of our children’s maturities on our own. And children had to grow into young adults without the benefit of knowledgeable parents, a responsive school system, and empathetic role models. Neither Karen nor I had self-help books such as this one to enlighten us, educate us, or provide us with helpful tips for improving our relationships and our lives.

As such, it is with great pride that I now look at my daughter and what she has accomplished, and breathe a sigh of relief. I take comfort in the fact that she has come out on the other side of her grief and self-hatred a whole and happy person. She not only survived the traumatic life she led, but she thrived. She became an empathetic, independent, and self-confident young woman both despite her past and because of it. And, yes, I do take some credit for this miraculous feat. After all, I was there. For better or for worse. But mostly for the better.

Introduction by Karen Flyer

Loss and Found, a memoir, is the true story of my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. It’s the story of a little girl who is dealt a bad hand in life and has to grow up overnight, before she is ready. She has to deal with her father’s alcoholism, emotional neglect, and subsequent suicide. The suicide of her uncle three months later and the death of her beloved grandmother. The sexual abuse by her mother’s boyfriend’s son, and then the abandonment by that soon-to-be-stepfather.

As she reaches adolescence, this little girl then turns to her own rebellious behaviors as a way to cope with the pain, guilt, and remorse that consume her—in the form of her own substance abuse, anorexia, sexual promiscuity, and general self-degradation. She makes some poor decisions and poor choices. Fortunately, her story has a happy ending. You see Loss and Found is also a story of overcoming the odds, of surviving childhood and adolescent traumas that threaten to derail one’s emotional and physical development. It is a story of resiliency and a story about the search to find one’s true self.

Through trial and error, trials and tribulations, I managed to work through my troubled past and finally