Another effing setback...

Part 2 from yesterday's post.

Man...I am so so sick of myself!

I took my time getting home, played some chill music on my ipod on my way home to get myself in a good headspace, walked in the door and BAM!!! I am greeted by a junkie jonesing and an alcoholic half in the bag. Still, I tried really really hard to keep my composure...but I was doomed to fail.

My husband kept taunting me, my son pacing, I could feel my tension begin to build. I took an atavan and tried to stay calm...but I wasn't successful. I flipped out a bit and then took off for a breather so I didn't flip out even more. While I was out, I made the mistake of answering my phone. It was my husband egging me on, creating drama, telling me he had my son's dealer coming to our home to confront him. Seriously? He's half in the bag and he thinks this is the best way to solve the "issue at hand"? I became quite concerned that my husbands half-witted attempts to set this guy straight would result in our son being in serious harms way...you don't know who these dealers are? At minimum they aren't reasonable or safe people.

I raced home and threw money at my son and said just get it over with...go get high. Then I threw money at my husband and told him to go away, go to a bar, just get out...Only my son left, my husband just did a berr run and came back to torment me.What a fucked up way to solve a problem. I am such a mental case.

I barely slept from anger, stress and anxiety. Before I left this morning for work I left them a shared note. I said I was leaving them both this weekend if this house didn't sober up. I think it's time. I'm in danger of hurting myself if I stay in those circumstances. I had thoughts of suicide again last night, I was contemplating what a box cutter might feel like if I dragged it across my throat...screwed up thinking, right?

I might just need to do what I said...just go away. I need a hero and the only one looking at me is me...so maybe I have to be my own hero?  There is no prince charming, there is nobody coming to rescue me, there is no "high road". There's just choices and it all comes down to making one.

A good day

I'm feeling pretty good at the moment even though both my addicts are "using" today. Isn't that great progress? I decided to have a good day and not worry about them!!!

I do have a bit of a pain in my stomach wondering what my night might look like,but I am not going to focus on that...that is just simply suffering over a problem that I don't yet have.

I'm not a victim

I'm still working really hard on self-awareness, personal responsibility and my own identity. Interestingly, it has felt quite freeing. I look inwards, not outwards as to why I'm not feeling good at a particular moment on any particular day.

I am looking at my life much lime embarking on a weight loss program. To loose weight, it all comes down to calories in vs calories out...if you burn more calories than you consume, you will loose weight, right? You can achieve this by reducing what food you eat, make better food choices, exercise more, etc...pretty simple right?

So, I'm trying to loose some emotional weight. I need to intake more positive emotional experiences than I expend in order to loose emotional weight. I am not looking across the room and blaming my bad day on what negative experiences other people are creating, I am looking at creating the happy ones for me. At the moment, it seems to be working but I have to be super careful about what interactions I let come into my head. An example of a test I had this morning was talking to my husband. Sitting there talking to him over morning coffee, we often run the gamut of topics. In his mind, because I have been emotionally unavailable (wonder why?), it made perfect sense that he should seek out a relationship with someone else. Seriously? Typical addict, they want to create the chaos and blame someone else for why they "had" to make the poor choices they did.

This was a great exercise for me. Much like being passed a giant piece of chocolate cake, I had to turn down the opportunity to devour that experience. If I had gotten into it, I would have felt bad about myself, felt the hopelessness of trying to convince him of the flaw in that thinking and gone back into feeling like I was victimized. Fuck him. He is welcome to create any type of relationship he wants with anybody he wants, but he will eventually need to deal with the consequences. One of those consequences is that I may one day apply that logic right back to him. He hasn't got the first clue how lonely it is to be with a guy like him. He sucks up all the emotional energy in a room and he isn't ever there for me. Or...the other potential consequence is that I'm just not that interested in him anymore. Or...that he creates a dynamic he can't get himself out of? I have no idea what the consequences will be, but there will be some eventually. That is just how the universe works.

Oops, I digressed. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm creating happier experiences for myself. I went out with my friends the other night, I drank nice wine, ate nice food, and enjoyed being around people who like me. It felt good and I want to feel more good feelings like those. While that may sound small and insignificant, it has been a couple of years since I did that. I have been cocooning myself in trauma and drama, cut off from the world. I am beginning to peek out of this sadness to see what's out there.

Personal Analysis

I'm thinking quite a bit about why I stay in this vortex I call my life. They say that we only repeat behaviour if we benefit somehow. Clearly I must be benefiting on some level...but what level could that be?

The best thing I can come up with, if I'm really, really honest with myself (and you of course) is that acting the role of victim and martyr must provide me with some sense of purpose, identity and attention.

My husband especially, and my son in recent years, have all treated me very poorly. They say crude things, lie, steal, cheat, completely disrespect who I am in their lives (wife / mother). They do this over and over again and I just try harder to be what they want me to be, or what I think they ought to be...

Perhaps if I were not to be so busy with this drama and chaos, it would become imminently clear that I am not much more than a puff of smoke in this universe. I would have no higher purpose (my addicts NEED me to control damage, pay bills, provide food and stability...and so on, right?) in my day to day existence. I would just wake up each morning, feed my cat, drink my coffee, go off to my job, come home and watch TV, and repeat each day. I hope you are noting my own personal sarcasm...seriously, they don't really need shit from me. It would appear that I need them a lot more to validate my own existence than they need from me.  If I weren't there to do those thing, they would find another way. It is really that simple.

If I weren't constantly comparing myself with these dysfunctional characters, I would really have to evaluate myself based on my own merit, not as a comparison to something else. If I weren't there to do those thing, they would find another way. It is really that simple. What excuse could I possibly have to justify the ways in which I have behaved?

So, the hard question is what hard work am I going to have to do to create an identity for myself, a healthy sense of self / purpose and a do I really have the strength of character to see this change through? Or...would I just prefer to keep whining about what somebody else is doing to me? Which one provides me with the true benefit and which one just gives me an easy fix?

Hmmm...some things to consider.

Not dead yet

I'm still here...hanging in. One minute at a time. Nothing tragic to report in the last couple of days. I feel a bit like I'm stabilizing emotionally. I'm not really sure though. Every meltdown I have catches me by surprise and its intensity shocks me. I'm sure one is just around the corner.

I have only spoken to my son once in 7 days. His presence gives me chills of pain and sadness. The person who taught him to inject has reappeared in his life, calling our house. If there is one person on this earth I think I could actually kill, it would be him. He is patient zero in the decimation of my family. For months after I found out about my son's habit, I would drive my car around the neighborhood looking for this person...stalking him, hoping to hurt him. I never found him, I had hope he died or left town. Looks like cockroaches have persistence.

I don't even know what to do about my husband. He seems insane to me. His touch makes my skin crawl, his words feel like insincere lies, his face seems entirely unfamiliar. I wish for awful things on him too. Yet...still I am intoxicated by him.

So, even though everything has changed, everything is still exactly the same...just plain sick. 

Wedding ring truth

Last night I came home from work, my husband bitter, demanding that EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE, ONLY THE TRUTH IS ACCEPTABLE!!! He badgered, bullied, and I just ignored him.
I went to bed, slept alright and he left for work today...the work where his mistress is. He called in sick yesterday and didn't go in and I had a feeling he either quit or got let go. I guess I was wrong...he was just avoiding it.

I tried to control my anxiety and insecurity about him going to work where "she" is...and I did OK. He left and I didn't show any emotion. About 2 hours later, I realized he left his wedding ring here. Nice huh? Who needs to tell the truth? Me? It feels so shitty. She is 12 years younger than me...and I'm not even that old. She's pudgy and an ex-meth user. She has 3 small children and a husband of her own. So, that package has more to offer than me. I know I'm not the first wife to feel this way but it kind of feels like he sucked up the best years of my life and when the weight of time / problems / life / etc... started to take it's toll on me, I became so unworthy of even fidelity. However, I am useful enough to provide a vehicle, pay all the bills, groceries, cigarettes, fuel,  and so on...He's got a pretty good arrangement going, doesn't he?

Well, fuck it. Two can play this game.

Mayday! Mayday!

I don't know how to turn back time, un-ring a bell or have any idea where to even begin to put this shattered family back together.

My family is made up of 4 individuals who are each struggling in their own way. It would seem that we all display the following traits:

• Liar
• Angry
• Intolerant
• Physically / Emotionally / Verbally abusive
• Disloyal 
• Not accountable for our actions
• Self victimizes
• Insensitive
• Addictive (heroin, alcohol, food, rage)
• Denier
• Fearful
• Anxious

So, how does one go about fixing this? Is this family even salvageable? I see history repeating itself.

Do I just abandon ship and save myself, save them from me? Do I stay on the sinking ship because I am a captain? My children were born perfect, I was a key influencer to fuck them up. I can't solely blame addiction on where things have ended up. I have a role, maybe a much bigger one than I ever thought.

When my mother got pregnant with me she was a teenager. My grandmother hated and resented the shame that it brought on their upper middle class military family. I was never accepted by her, she died ignoring me. Just my existence has been a blight on my family's existence. My father never wanted me and I don't think my mother ever loved me. What do I do about this? I never had any say on being born? I didn't mean to ruin so many lives, I didn't mean to fuck up my kids. I didn't mean to be all the awful things I have become. How to I change this? 

Shadow

...and still it gets more painful.

I came home last night to find my husband passed out on the couch, cigarette buts on the carpet, empty vodka bottle, kitchen trashed, plates and half eaten food everywhere, my son nowhere to be seen. I decided to take an Atavan (first time ever) and try to be low key. My emotions couldn't take much more and I was just trying to avoid any confrontation of any sort. I quietly sat in the bedroom, TV on the lowest volume and hid.

About an hour later my husband woke up and began fighting with me, so drunk he couldn't stand up. He then called me a fat unattractive pig that nobody wants. After that jab, he picked up the phone and called his mistress. I decided to pick up and listen in...it broke my heart. I heard them chatting like lovers.

I hung up the phone, packed my bag and left. I tried to reach my daughter to stay at her house but she had plans (I'm paying a dear price for asking her for help..I should never have called her). I had nowhere to go. I walked into the hospital emergency room and they said they were full, would take at least 7 hours to see someone. I left, again with nowhere to go. "The only place I could think of to go was  back to my apartment building and in the "games" room. I slept there last night, in the basement of my apartment, in the common room. Homeless, my entire family turned on me. I have never felt more alone in my entire life. My husband emotionally abusing me, my daughter turning her back on me and my son...well, nothing actually, he could care less if I was dead. Not even the hospital would help me.

So, at the end of the day, what is left? The addicts get to have / do whatever they want and I am the one who breaks down. I really don't matter to my community, to my family and I basically have no real friends. I am invisible and have no value or worth to this world. I am just a shadow. Seriously, without sounding overly dramatic...would it really matter if I were to die today? Nobody really wants me around anyways.  

Just when I thought I was feeling better...

I saw my son after 3 days of peace and I lost it on him. I am fucking certifiable. I can't even tell you how bad it was, I'm so ashamed and our relationship is irrevocably destroyed, on both sides. For his own safety, he must leave.

 I told my husband I wanted to go to the hospital, check myself in and he got angry at me. Who gets angry at someone for saying they need a psychiatric intervention?

I'm so fucked on so many levels and my home is like something off a shock-reality TV show.

Bearing witness

I'm still reflecting, trying my very best to keep my wits about me and literally take it one moment at a time. Several times over the past 3 days I have set mini-goals for myself. Stuff as simple as "I am not going to loose it for the next 90 minutes". Taking such small steps have actually given me 2 1/2 days of peace and even a bit of joy.

A lot of what has consumed my thoughts and was even the reason I started this blog was because I was really stuck in my suffering. Why me? How can they do that to me? How can they not want better? What did I do to deserve this? And so on...all of these questions about my own suffering. I  have been really stuck in self-victimization. Asking myself these questions over and over again were self-perpetuating. Seeing that family running after the addicts in the street from my building the other day was such a changing moment. It took me a couple of days to process what it meant to me but in the end, I realized that none of this is being done to me, while I may be suffering many consequences as a result of my addicts actions, they aren't doing it to me. There are really so many of us...families and loved ones of addicts. For every one of them, I'm certain there is at least 3 of us...I wasn't singled out because I am not a worthy person.

Last night, after a really lovely day, I saw a segment on 60 minutes. It was about the Lost Boys of the Sudan. There were 4000 innocent young boys and men who had suffered inexplicable indignities and inhumanity. Their parents were murdered, their villages destroyed, starving, dying, and more. They walked 1000 miles to get a second chance at life, more than half died along their journey from malnutrition and exhaustion. The story did a recap of what it was like when they boarded the planes to the united states, and then 12 years later...what were they doing, feeling, etc. The one that hit me the deepest was the one who had faith in God. He said that even though everyone and everything had left him, God never did. He profoundly felt that his experience, his journey and his suffering was so that someone could "bear witness".

I can't even tell you how his statement, how he made sense of all the terribleness, violence and sufferening just by accepting that his higher purpose was to bear witness. I felt like a puzzle piece just clicked in my head and that everything suddenly made sense. I still don't believe in God but I don't need to. I believe that everything that lives on this earth has it's own inherent purpose.Possibly my purpose is to bear witness to two addicts suffering and to observe how it affects me. If it affects me in all sorts of insane and desperate ways, surely there are others like me.

Maybe my higher purpose is to coordinate or offer some comfort to those who are hurting like me? Maybe there is a way to survive this and that something good can come from us? Not by doing the same old crap, like creating obstacles for our addicts, managing our addicts, retaliating against our addicts, etc...but really digging in deep and wrapping our arms around ourselves?

I don't know, maybe I'm still crazy...maybe I'm seeing something that isn't really there but I do see necessity as the mother of invention, and I really feel that comfort and organized support for the families of the addicts is a genuine necessity out there. Something that isn't affiliated with churches and doesn't cost $170/hour?  Plus, it helps to have a purpose...something to work towards.

That's all for now...I plan on doing my best to continue to make this a good day.