SURVIVAL LOG : 04.04.26.01
- deZengo M
- Apr 4
- 3 min read
2:10 A.M.: Praying, Waiting, and Loving Through the Fire
It’s 2:10 a.m.
The house is quiet.
But my mind is not.
I am wide awake—not by choice, but by calling.
I’m a mother sitting in the dark… writing, praying, waiting… for my son.
I’m caught in the Wondering.
Where is he?
Is he safe?
Is he even okay?
And then the questions start looping—louder, faster:
What do I do? What should I do? What shouldn’t I do?
How do I help him… without losing myself in the process?
I don’t have a polished testimony for you tonight. I’m not writing from victory. I’m not writing from the “other side.”
I’m writing from the middle of it. From the place where faith and fear are sitting in the same room—and neither one has left yet. I’m just a mom trying to do the best I can with what I’ve got. And right now… what I’ve got is a breaking heart.
The Weight I Carry, Too
This isn’t coming from a life that’s been untouched. My life has been marked by trauma—not just moments, but patterns. And only recently have I begun to put words to it. To understand it. To see how it shaped me.
I’m also navigating my own mind. Autism. The acronyms. The processing. The exhaustion that comes with trying to function in a world that doesn’t slow down. Some days, just existing takes everything I have.
So when I say this is hard… I don’t mean inconvenient.
I mean that I am carrying my own healing in one hand—while trying to hold onto a son who is slipping through the other.
The Space No One Talks About
Loving someone through addiction is a different kind of grief. It’s not clean. It’s not final. It’s not something you can explain in a sentence.
It’s the in-between.
He can look me in the eyes and tell me exactly what I need to hear… and then disappear into choices that contradict everything he just said. So I wait. I check my phone. I check the door. I check the silence.
And somewhere in all of that, I realize something that breaks me in a way I can’t fully explain:
In the moments he makes those choices—I don’t exist.
Nobody prepares you for that. Nobody tells you how to love someone who, in real time, is choosing something else over everything else.
Nobody tells you how to live between:
“I love you”
and
“I can’t keep surviving like this.”
The Shame We Don’t Say Out Loud
And then there’s the part we hide. The questions we don’t say out loud:
Did I do something wrong?
Did I miss something?
Could I have raised him differently?
Is this somehow… my fault?
Shame doesn’t scream. It whispers. It shows up in the quiet moments—like 2:10 a.m.—and tries to rewrite your entire story.
And if I’m honest? There are moments I feel like I have to shut my heart off just to survive the next hour. Because if I let myself feel all of this at once… I’m not sure I would stay standing.
So I function. I move. I do what needs to be done.
But inside… I’m asking: Is this what love is supposed to feel like?
What I’m Learning in the Dark
Silence is not protection. Silence is isolation.
Pretending everything is fine doesn’t save anyone. It just keeps us separated—each carrying the same weight alone.
So here it is:
I am dealing with addiction. Not mine. But someone I love. And it has touched everything.
If you’ve ever stayed up waiting…
If you’ve ever felt your heart breaking slowly, quietly…
If you’ve ever loved someone you couldn’t reach…
You are not alone.
You don’t have to explain everything. You don’t have to have the right words. Sometimes… a simple “me too” is enough.
Faith in the Middle, Not the End
I don’t have answers tonight. But I do have this: God sees the quiet.
He sees the waiting. He sees the nights no one else witnesses. He sees the love that keeps showing up—even when it’s exhausted… even when it’s hurting… even when it doesn’t know what to do next.
So here I am.
2:10 a.m.
Still awake. Still praying. Still loving.
Not because I have it figured out… but because I’m still here. And I refuse to let silence win.
Dj Penny found a way to express this pain via a song.
If this is your story too—come sit with me.
Let’s talk about it.
Let’s END silence.
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