448 SelfWork: Watching My Mother Disappear

The SelfWork Podcast

Margaret Robinson Rutherford PhD

Education, Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Self-improvement

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today's episode is about watching my mother disappear.

She wasn't a magician; she didn't physically leave all of us. She disappeared after she very bravely went into rehab and got off the massive amounts of prescription drugs she'd been taking for decades.

My mother would've been 100 years of age this week, a feat she wouldn't have liked as she hated aging. I think of her a lot but decided that, in an episode that I hope honors her, I wanted to describe how addictions to prescription drugs can happen so easily.

She was beautiful, very thin, and smart - all the things women were supposed to be in the 1960's. And when she sought help for what were panic attacks, she was handed her "nerve pills." And that was it.

This is a repeat episode. And her story bears repeating. She once said, "I wish I'd known what these meds were doing to me."

And I want you to know. Please share with anyone who might be struggling.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is self-work, and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford.
0:10.3	At self-work, we discuss psychological and emotional issues and what you can do about them,
0:15.7	whether that's learning self-acceptance, taking action, or seeking therapy or treatment.
0:21.3	Eight years ago, I extended the walls of my practice to reach those of you who might already be
0:26.1	knowledgeable about mental health treatment, but also to those of you who might say you'd never
0:31.3	darken the door of a therapist. And yet, you are here. I'll answer your questions while I invite
0:37.1	you to take a few minutes for your
0:39.1	own self-work. Thus began my mother's prescription drug addiction. As she went from doctor to doctor,
0:48.2	her anxiety only growing and causing other problems, other drugs were prescribed. One was called
0:53.9	equineal, which was a minor tranquilizer.
0:57.0	There was another or barbiturate, fiorinol.
1:00.0	She took Librium and she used them daily for over 30 years.
1:04.0	Welcome to this week's edition of Self-Work.
1:09.0	My mother would have turned 100 this week, a feat that she would
1:13.5	have hated, actually. Even on her 50th birthday, she left our hometown coming to visit me in Memphis
1:19.2	as I was moving into an apartment off campus. I'll never forget her showing up in a sparkling
1:24.8	white shirt and silk pants, hose, and most likely wearing a girdle.
1:29.7	She wasn't much help, but she bought fried chicken for everyone, as I recall.
1:34.2	She was a mother and wife during the 1950s and 60s who didn't have her own career, who got an allowance from my dad,
1:42.1	and who I bet my father never saw without makeup. She was beautiful,
1:46.4	very thin, and smart, all of which she was supposed to be as a woman in those years,
1:51.4	an excellent organist and pianist who rarely played, and a wife and mother of three. And she was
	...

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