A Universe Devoid of Meaning? Surely Not...

I was reading an article by Myra Partridgeover at The Psychiatric Times about "Helping Patients Overcome the Fear of Death". I thought it might be a useful POV for hospice volunteering. But this quote (by Irvin D. Yalom, MD) in the article stopped me in my tracks:

“We are meaning-seeking creatures who are unfortunate enough to have been hurled into a universe that is devoid of meaning,” he said. “And so we have to invent a meaning that’s sturdy enough to support our lives. And maybe then need to perform this acrobatic feat, that we need to pretend that this idea wasn’t invented, it was discovered; this meaning that’s been out there all the time.”

Seriously? The more I think about this, the more I can see what he may be trying to say. Humans look for patterns and connections between what they do and what happens to them. We look for them even when they aren't there - that is the root of superstitions and mythologies. And really, what is religion but a currently believed mythology? So maybe he was simply referring to why people turn to religion in the first place.

(For an AWESOME video on how superstitions are formed check this out: Derren Brown's Trick or Treat)

But saying that we live in a universe that is devoid of meaning is like saying there is no such thing as cause and effect because some things people believed to be connected turned out not be related at all.

I believe life DOES have meaning and purpose. But I believe it is up to each of us to find that purpose and meaning for ourselves. Some may seek it through religion or art or being good at their job. Others may look for it within themselves or out somewhere in the universe or in understanding history. But we all have the potential and the ability to find meaning in life and identify our purpose in it.

Breathe (2 AM) by Anna Nalick

This song (except the middle stanza about the alcoholic) reminds me of how my relationship with Uber-Bitch was when she first arrived here. I saw her through some tough times. And I had tough times of my own. But we faced them together. And now... well, it hasn't been that way for a while...



Breathe (2 AM)

2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,
"Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?,
I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season"
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize,
Hypocrites. You're all here for the very same reason

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

May he turned 21 on the base at Fort Bliss
"Just a day" he said down to the flask in his fist,
"Ain't been sober, since maybe October of last year."
Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while,
But, my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles,
Wanna hold him. Maybe I'll just sing about it.

Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button, boys,
So cradle your head in your hands,
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

There's a light at each end of this tunnel,
You shout 'cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out
And these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again
If you only try turning around.

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button now
Sing it if you understand.
and breathe, just breathe
woah breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe.

I Don't Care by Apocalyptica

I stumbled across this song after doing a funky-lame quiz over on Twitter. I went and looked it up on YouTube. It sounds familiar and I LOVE IT! Then I read the lyrics. This is where my head is at a lot. I'm going to keep telling myself that I don't care until I believe it.



Lyrics to I Don't Care
(feat. Adam Gontier)

I try to make it through my life
In my way
There's you
I try to make it through these lies
That's all I do

Just don't deny it
Just don't deny it
And deal with it
Yeah, Deal with it

You try to break me
You wanna break me
Bit by bit
That's just part of it

If you were dead or still alive
I don't care
I don't care
And all the things you left behind
I don't care
I don't care

I try to make you see my side
I Always try to stay in line
But your eyes see right through
That's all they do
I'm getting tired of this shit
I got no room when it's like this
But you order me
just deal with it!

So

If you were dead or still alive
I don't care
I don't care
And all the things you left behind
I don't care
I don't care

[Cello Solo]

(If you won't be there for me, You won't be there for me)
(If you won't be there for me, You won't be there for me)

[Piano Solo]

If you were or dead or still alive
I don't care
I don't care
And all the things you left behind
I don't care
I don't care

If you were dead or still alive
I don't care
(If you won't be there for me, You won't be there for me)
I don't care
And all the things you left behind
I don't care
(You won't be there for me)
I don't care
At all

No One Else to Thank

I busted my ass for her, watching her daughter so she could do this school stuff. She stole my thunder and dumped extra responsibility on us and stopped working so hard at her business. But she has no one else to thank but herself:

Today I got my grades from my summer session and I'm so happy to say I got the grades I expected. I got an A in my education class and a B in my Lit class. I did it in spite of numerous barriers, stresses, and changes. I busted my ass for six weeks and succeeded in spite of all the odds. There's no one else to thank or give credit to. I put in the hard work and can reap the benefits and satisfaction. And I'm so relieved because if I could do that, I can do almost anything.

Why oh why did I ever let her so far in? Why did I pick up the snake and bring her home? I can't even get mad at her for thinking this way because this is typical of her. And I knew it. I knew it from the first week she was up here. Now I am so spitting mad at myself that I can't decide whether to hurt something or cry or both.

Please, God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here.
Please, God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here.
Please, God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here.
Please, God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here.
Please, God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here.
Please, God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here.

I've Got to Let Go of This

I still find myself on a roller coaster of emotions. I am so angry with Uber-Bitch that I want to lash out and make her hurt as badly as she hurt me. I want to cry and hide in a dark room under the covers and pretend none of this ever happened. I want to dance on the tables from the joy of having so much of my life and my time back. I want to shake her and go through her blog line by line with her to show her how totally fucked up she is and how she is reaping what she sowed. I want to crawl under a rock and apologize to everyone I know for not believing them all these years when they told me what an Uber-Bitch she is and rewind the tape to erase all the MANY MANY MANY times I defended her, even after I had stopped believing it myself.

But it all comes down to the fact that I really need to let the situation go. I still obsess over the inaccuracies in her blog. I still plan in my head what I would say to her if I could get her to listen. I have nightmares about her. Almost everything I do these days reminds me of her betrayal. And it still feels like a knife in the back.

Does she know that she has reinforced most of my basic fears?

My biggest fear is that people are saying cruel (but often true) things behind my back and I don't know it until it comes crashing down around me. It happened.

I hate conflict because I am always worried the person will get so mad that the relationship will be destroyed in an ugly showdown. It happened.

I feel like a bad person because I am selfish and lazy. She said that I am.

I feel like a bad parent because I struggle with follow-through. She attacked my parenting skills.

I felt guilty for expecting her to become part of the family with all the goods and bads that come with it. She says I did it all for myself, to make myself feel better.

I make a point of never lying to people. She has decided I was lying the whole time.

Ever since she moved up here, I have felt she is my responsibility. (The whole "if you save a life, it is your responsibility to protect it" ideology.) And she accused me of deliberately sabotaging her at the worst possible time.

I refuse to keep score of the things I do for others compared to what they do for me. I can't bear the thought of it becoming a "You owe me!" situation. She tallied it all up on her mental scoreboard. (Even distorted beyond any resemblance of the truth, she was still keeping score.)

I hurt so bad. I know this is all my fault. I picked up the snake and brought it home and now it has bitten not just me but my family. The Shrink said it was her choice to bite the hand that fed her. He says she could have made a different choice, like the lion in the fable of the lion and the mouse, or Alex in Madagascar. But I cannot get the story of the woman and the poisonous snake out of my mind: "I am a poisonous snake. You knew this when you picked me up. What did you think I would do?"

How could I have let it come to this??? And how do I break myself out of this pain?

I Miss You (NOT!)

It's kind of funny. Uber-Bitch was so convinced that I would miss her when she's gone.

She thought we would realize just how much she did to keep the household running.

I tried to give everything I could possibly manage with the guidance of my therapist and still be true to myself and my goals. I refused to be a maid to a household that doesn't want to keep their house or themselves clean. I struggled to not allow my own feelings of guilt over being under their roof affect me and cause me to over-compensate.

Well, honey, newsflash: aside from not having your daughter's toys spread all over the place and her dirty dishes getting nasty on the table... yeah, I don't see a difference.

She also thought I would wake up and she'd be gone and I would be all alone:

However, years from now when her kids are grown and gone about their lives and her husband is tired of putting up with her mental illness, she will be the one who is sad and alone.

That was a joke, right? What am I supposed to miss? Her bragging about being so good in her parenting class, when I want to shake some sense into her and point out how she isn't putting what she's learning into practice? Her drama queen act about how busy she is how she just needs some time for herself? Her incessant demands to go do something with her when I am just not up to it? The way she is mean or cold to Kid-1 every time she speaks to him? Or maybe her stabbing me in the back by trash talking me to my own friends and family? Oh, yeah... I miss that.

I miss my writing buddy from Florida. She was awesome.

But I don't miss the self-centered, egotistical, self-important Uber-Bitch she has become. She has this victim mentality of "poor me! everyone's out to get me for no reason!" that gets old very quickly. She thinks she is entitled to having all of life's necessities without doing shit to earn them. And she has transformed this entire fiasco into a major case of neurotic projection that borders on delusional projection. I keep coming back to her one statement:

I no longer hate the world because I realize there's only one person to blame for this. I wish I could say it were me - then maybe the blame wouldn't be so huge. But I blame her for lying, for not communicating, for avoiding conflict in her typical fashion, for breaking her promises to tell me if something were wrong. I blame her completely for having a perception of reality so fucked up no one can make sense of it. As my therapist says, you can't make logic out of something irrational.

But hey - I'm gonna miss her when she's gone, right? ROFLMAO!!!

What's It REALLY About?

I've been reading a book on writing to move through grief and loss. It has lots of examples throughout it and personal anecdotes. I was reading about a woman suffering after the loss of her child. I read about grieving the death of a husband. All the stories of losing people and situations set me to thinking about the loss that led me to check out the book and the loss of Uber-Bitch and Baby shortly thereafter.

I've been a major part of Baby's life since Uber-Bitch told me she was pregnant and keeping the baby. I've been one of her primary caregivers the whole time, spending as much (frequently more) waking time with her than her mother. She has been an integral part of my life for over two years. And I miss her.

I miss the little things, like saying "Sure!" instead of yes or okay. I miss the big things, like hugs in the morning and stories in the afternoon. I hurt for all the things I won't get to be part of: first day of school, riding a bike, losing a tooth... prom, first kisses, graduation... I won't be there to cheer her on if she does sports or critique her stories if she writes. I won't be there to kiss boo-boos or sooth away nightmares. I won't be there to hold her when she is sick and watch her play when she is well. I just won't be there at all. I miss everything we've had over the past two and half years and I grieve for all the things I haven't had a chance to miss yet.

That led into thinking about the things I am grieving over the loss of Katy. Outside of the very real life she has lived inside my mind, I don't have all those little and big things to miss. I can't miss a smile I never saw or find myself using kidspeak words she created as a toddler. I can hurt from all the things I never got to experience with her. But really, having a baby at 17 would have caused so many complications and I never had to fight against those either. That's why they forced that choice on me in the first place.

Realizing the things I'm not grieving for made me wonder why, exactly, that event was so hideously traumatic for me. To the point of not being able to use the word. To the point of having a psychotic break where I was convinced she was real, alive, and part of my life as if it had never occurred. To the point that I fall apart from Easter until mid-June and walk a very fine line between choosing to live and allowing myself to die. What was it about that event that scarred me so deeply?

It's not that I am Pro-Life. I'm not - I believe a woman has a right to choose. I just believe it should be the WOMAN'S choice and not her family's. It's not because it ruined plans I had been making - I certainly did not plan to be pregnant at 16 and what happened allowed me to stay on track with the plans I had before I knew. It's not because I couldn't have children after her - I have four, exactly as I planned.

Is it just that I have allowed myself to get lost in a fantasy and I mourn the contents of that fantasy? Because I would never have generated that world if that "decision" hadn't ripped me apart. Why did that event break me?

My reflections on the topic brought me to the reason why I believe I the choice was wrong and I am dirty, evil, and unforgiveable. It wasn't MY choice. I didn't want that to happen but I wasn't strong enough to fight back. I didn't fight for that life that was growing inside of me. I let them control me and manipulate me to the point of not fighting and going along with them. To the point of marking NO the box on the form that asked if I was being forced or coerced into making the decision. And I will never, for as long as I live, be able to forgive myself for doing that.

Maybe the root of that trauma isn't so much about the life that was lost as about the reason for the loss. If it were just about the life, I would be crushed about the miscarriage I had between Kid-3 and Kid-4. I lost that baby too and that one was planned and fought for. It's not even about the procedure itself as I have no objections to women who who make that choice. It has to be about the reason I had it done.

Knowing Katy the way I do now may have come about because I didn't want to face that I had let things go that way. If I hadn't let them steamroll me, she would have been born and lived the life I remember so clearly. If I had been strong enough and good enough, I could have saved her.

Or I could be reading too much into that. Because being strapped to a table while faceless doctors painfully cut a baby out of me that I didn't want to let go of... that's pretty traumatic. Traumatic enough that the memory isn't mine but rather one of the Voices'. Traumatic enough that, combined with earlier traumas, I can't bear the thought of having a doctor do a female exam on me. I've had plenty of them while I was pregnant, out of necessity, but all of those memories are also from the Voices. I have most active PTSD symptoms from that than from my childhood situation.

It could be some of each, too. Or some other component I haven't unearthed yet. I dunno. Maybe some day I will figure it out, maybe I won't. Maybe it doesn't even matter.

Goodbye Baby!

Uber-Bitch came by this morning with her daughter so that the kids could say goodbye. Originally she said in her email that she would rather not see me, but in discussions with family and friends, I decided to say fuck her and come out to see her anyways. And I'm so glad I did. I got a couple of great pictures of her with Kid-2, Kid-3 and Kid-4. (Kid-1 couldn't/wouldn't wake up to come out - late night at the cast party plus his normal strength night meds...) She ran up and down the front porch, squealing in delight at every little thing until she got transfixed by a group of teeny tiny ants. Then she had to tell everybody to come and look at the ants, repeatedly. She was adorable!

They had only been there about 5 minutes when Uber-Bitch called her daughter and told her it was time to go. (I love how on her blog she makes it sound like her leaving so quickly was our decision. LOL) We all gave her hugs. I held her close and she laid her head on my shoulder. I told her that I love her so very very much. I told her I would miss her so much. I told her to be brave and be strong and to be good for her mommy. And I let her go. She hugged Hubby and returned to her mother. They disappeared between the cars and that was the last I saw of her. Most likely, I will never see her in person again. By the time she is old enough to make that decision, I would guess Uber-Bitch will have moved back to Florida.

And it hurts. It hurts that Uber-Bitch is the way she is and that she would let things come to this. I worry that Baby will never know what it means to have a family. I worry about her having to spend 50 hours a week in daycare while her mother takes the time to hang out at Starbucks. I worry about Uber-Bitch's preference to simply feed her and put her bed any time she behaves in any way other than sweet and accommodating. I pray that she is strong enough to withstand her mother's nature to treat her like a toy to be played with when she wants to and ignored when she doesn't. Hopefully the daycare will be able to give her a rock to cling to since her mother is completely incapable of doing so. And I pray that I will hear from Baby again some day, despite her delusional mother.

Goodbye, Libby! We will miss you more than you know.
Goodbye, Charity! I won't miss the Uber-Bitch that you have become.

Make Yourself Proud

When Kid-2 started middle school, I attended a parent orientation wherein they had us write a letter to our student and include a piece of advice for them. My advice to her was to strive to carry herself in a manner that will make her proud to look back on.

As I look back on the past couple of weeks, almost everything I did I can honestly say I am proud of. I took a couple of cheap shots in anger and pain ("Guests don't clean." and my comments to her blog last night after she accused me of sending the anonymous comment left by my oldest friend...)

Tonight I am truly proud of myself. I took the high road. Here is our exchange (via email). This is directly quoted except for the changes of names to protect my privacy.

Me:

I will make the house available for you to retrieve your possessions Friday morning between 9 am and noon. Please ring the doorbell when you arrive. Also, I have mail for you, including what appears to be paperwork for [her daughter's] medical insurance. I will be happy to turn them over to you upon the return of our house key.

[Kid-2], [Kid-3] and [Kid-4] would like very much to see you and say goodbye and set up a time to see and say goodbye to [her daughter]. Losing [her daughter] has been very traumatic for them and I would like to smooth the transition as much as possible. Can we be civil for their sake or should I arrange for them to be elsewhere on Friday morning?

She responded promptly with:

I have been trying to make arrangements to get everything all at once but do not at this point have enough manpower to collect everything at once. I will take as much as I can manage with [friend] and have to come back for the bed and the TV as they're simply too big for her truck and us to handle. I also have to look into possibly upgrading my storage unit to fit everything but am going to try and move things around a bit first to see if I can make room. I will let you know about those two items. I may have to pay to hire someone at this point but don't have the money. The rest - [her daughter's] bed, the chair, my boxes, the printer, her books and toys, and whatever clothes are left I'll take with me Friday. The desk you can keep since you paid for it and Kid-1 may want to use it.

The kids are fine. In regards to [her daughter], as far as I know they can see her on Saturday as I have no plans at this point. Just tell me when is a good time and whether you want to do it at the house or somewhere else.

I have not had a chance to change my address as of yet so you may receive more mail for me for another week while I work on updating various organizations or you can forward it to the office. I am trying to determine if I should get a PO box or not considering funds but will probably just change my address with the post office this week. I tried to do it online but wasn't able to.

Here is where I struggled. I wanted so badly to take the cheap shots and mention how she couldn't get anyone to help her. I wanted to be harsh and short and tell her to get her stuff out by a deadline or I would get rid of it myself. I wanted to be MEAN. I typed up my snippy reply and as I read it over, I thought about the advice I gave to Kid-2 and the subsequent prompt I sent out last night: "Look back. Can you say you are proud of what you see?" I thought about a parable that Kid-2 wrote in her creative writing class today about a kid and monk who shot each other and how, in her story, even though the monk had dedicated his life to peace and good and God, by disobeying God's orders and reacting in anger with violence, he undid all the good he had done and went to hell. And I deleted my catty message. Instead I sent this:

That's fine. I would prefer to have the room cleared no later than July 2. Let me know when you plan to come by so I can make appropriate arrangements. You are welcome to the desk. It is yours and even if there were questions about ownership, we do not need it. If it is a matter of storage space, I will make arrangements to get rid of it.

The kids will be out of town on Saturday afternoon for a wedding. Would Saturday morning work for you? I need to check on [Kid-4's] baseball schedule for that day but the others are leaving town by 11 am. I would suggest a different day but [Kid-1] leaves for camp Sunday morning and he also wishes to say goodbye to [her daughter]. I am amenable to any location with which you are comfortable.

One more thing: I want to say that I'm sorry it's come to this. I never meant for any of this to happen. I would never kick you and [her daughter] out abruptly and I'm truly sorry things got to where we could not tolerate each other at all. You were never a charity case to me; you were a sister and [her daughter] was like one of my own. I was never the one keeping score and that was not why I felt things had to change.

I'm truly happy that you have found a place that is working out for you. I wish you only the best for your future and I know you two are strong enough to move into that future with confidence. I'm glad you've made peace with what you feel is right and true. I have made my peace as well, albeit different than yours.

We will miss having you in our family and in our lives. I have not burdened the kids with your rejection of us, only told them that you and I had a fight and ended up saying things that neither of us will likely be able to forgive each other for. I made sure they know that they do not have choose between loving you and pleasing me. They have asked repeatedly if you and I will ever be friends again. My response to them has been that "ever" is a very long time but I doubt you will be in a position to want a friendship anytime in the foreseeable future.

Although you may not believe me now, and may never come a place where you will able to believe me, I loved you as a sister and care about you still. And [her daughter] will always have a treasured spot in my heart. If there is ever anything we can do for her, you know where to find us. Best of luck and we will see you on Friday.

And now, looking back, I can say I am proud. Although, like the monk in Kid-2's story, I had my moment of anger and longed to devastate her, I obeyed the instincts of my better self and did not retaliate against her painful and increasingly inaccurate blog posts. I took the high road and I am proud of myself. It will be interesting to see how she responds.

Only One Person to Blame

The deluge of hateful diatribes continues as Uber-Bitch has narrowed her focus of blame. She says,

I no longer hate the world because I realize there's only one person to blame for this. I wish I could say it were me - then maybe the blame wouldn't be so huge. But I blame her for lying, for not communicating, for avoiding conflict in her typical fashion, for breaking her promises to tell me if something were wrong. I blame her completely for having a perception of reality so fucked up no one can make sense of it.

She has also decided that I did all of this to her intentionally out of spite caused from intense jealousy. Apparently I am jealous her life. She says,

Did it start with the supposed freedom of me being able to go to California and expand from there? It seems to horrible to think that but jealousy does crazy things to people. Here she is, stuck in this life she's miserable in, feeling without any control, and I'm right there in her living room, pursuing my dreams. Does she resent me as a result? For having the life she can't have?
[snip]
If even half of what I've guessed is correct, it would explain why she would feel like sabotaging me. As M has explained to me in the past, people will try to bring you back to their level if you try to surpass them (or something like that). It would also explain why there's no way in hell she'd ever admit to it and would need psychologically to change her reality to suit herself. It takes a really big person to admit when you're jealous of someone else.

Again the knife is twisted, just when I thought I could breathe again. The things she says that are complete rubbish hurt but they don't devastate. The most effective way to devastate me is to take the truth and twist it and corrupt it into something vile and corrosive then offer it up to me as reality. Because I recognize the kernel of truth, I will believe it all. Like a fish taking the hook with the worm, I will swallow the whole deal and it takes ripping my insides out to see the truth uncorrupted.

The most notable example of this is from my early childhood. These two statements were drilled into me: First off, we all have to do things we don't like. Secondly, when someone does something for you, you owe them something in return. And these things are true to a point so if I ever questioned them I received confirmation of their veracity. But those truths were corrupted, twisted, manipulated into justification for things no child should experience. And I swallowed it all as gospel truth. To this day I believe that those things happened because I made them happen.

Now I am faced with a piece of truth: Uber-Bitch has accused me sabotaging her out of jealousy, jealousy over her doing what I wished I could. And I was jealous. I did harbor some resentment towards her. Certainly not enough to sabotage her and it is laughable to think that I would generate this situation out of overt or suppressed jealousy. But it was there and I was aware of it.

After 13 years of waiting, planning and trying, I finally set it up and arranged to go back to school in the fall. I was over the moon with excitement, a little bummed at having to wait until fall, but genuinely excited. And the Uber-Bitch decided she wanted to go back to school, too. She figured that now was the best time because she did have room and board covered and she couldn't work her business any harder than she was. The benefits of going back to school and possibly getting her degree (which she subsequently upgraded to definitely getting her degree) outweighed the drawbacks, namely all the extra time she would need and the student loans she would rack up. Not only did she decide to go back, she found she could take out loans and make it happen right away.

Because I had decided to go back to school, so did she. Except she would be doing it "better" because she could do what I couldn't. Until she got daycare arranged, I also felt like we were having to pick up the slack from her following my dream. Even after day care was set up, it seemed like she was spending a lot less time on her business and that the only time she wanted to be around her daughter was when she was experimenting with things she learned in her parenting class. But what set the resentment level to "grinding teeth" was when she began judging my parenting skills based on her class and deciding she knew everything and I was doing it all wrong. Regardless of whether she was right (and she prolly was) I felt attacked by her judgments and by her going back to school before me (which felt like a passive-aggressive method of showing me up).

Was I jealous? Yes. Did I resent her? Yes. Did I refuse to admit it because I am weak and mentally fragile? No. I talked it over with two or three different people, decided I was being unreasonable and that she did not mean any of it as an attack. And I set it aside, sometimes gritting my teeth at her newfound "parenting skills" but always supporting and encouraging her. Did I sabotage her because of the green-eyed monster? No. I was proud of her for doing what she thought was the best way to make a life for her and her daughter and for trying her best to learn and apply better parenting skills.

So it comes down to this, reading how she is blaming me and me alone for ruining her life by sabotaging it because I am so jealous of her succeeding. I know that I didn't sabotage her. But I was jealous and resentful. What if I sabotaged her subconsciously? What if the reason I let her escalate a minor spat into irreparable harm was because, subconsciously, I wanted to get rid of her?

This whole disaster came about because she thought I was suddenly kicking her out over an issue she didn't know existed. She has pushed, pulled, and twisted things to where she thinks I wanted to kick her out for a long time and hid behind the doctor to finally make it happen. She thought it was because I felt used and that the relationship was one-sided and has since decided it's because I'm blinded by jealousy over "freedom" that I perceive her as having and me as lacking.

But none of that was ever my intention. I was trying to tell her that, because of irreconcilable differences between her and Kid-1, I wanted her to start actively trying to find somewhere else to live. Up until the Med-Shrink ordered me to get her out of the house in 1 week or less, I wanted her and her daughter there. It actually made it easier for both of us - less juggling of evening schedules - for them to be here.

And I hadn't stopped being her friend because I wasn't doing things with her. I fall apart from Easter through mid-June and it's a struggle to keep myself alive - I didn't have the energy for her drama let alone with the added resentment I felt. Given time, it would have resolved itself. By the end of June her parenting class would have been over and my dark spell would have passed. But she needed attention immediately and I couldn't give it to her.

As for her friend and her therapist saying I have gone off the deep end, I have to infer that is a direct result of what information she gave them. When I downgraded her household status to "guest" (admittedly because I was hurt from reading that she had no more interest in fixing our relationship), she interpreted it as my saying I wanted her out because she didn't do enough. She posted her huge laundry list of things that she "tried" to do (her justification of why the relationship wasn't one-sided and if it was it's all my fault) and while most of them are exaggerated or complete BS, some of them are flat-out true. (I don't do the amount of housework that I should.)

My instinct is to go through her posts, especially that list, and defend myself even though I know there is absolutely no point. But when it comes right down to it, she had missed the heart of it all, she hadn't understood a single thing about what it is to be a family or to be part of a family. The fact that she even kept a running tally is evidence of her not learning a thing from us trying to include her as one of the family. Because of her background, she is too damaged to understand the concepts and too ego-centric to know she even missed the boat.

As the vitriol continues and grows ever crueler, I have asked myself why I still read it. The answer is that the slings and arrows she launches at me are far less painful than not knowing what she is accusing me of. She knows me well enough to have plunged her knife into all of my weaknesses but at least with them out in the open I can point them out to friends and family and dissect the validity of them, thereby seeping much of the power from them. It also gives me tangible proof that I am not paranoid for fearing she thinks these things.

One surprise unintended consequence of this fiasco... my friends and family have rallied behind me and gone out of their way to show their support. I haven't given the kids details because I don't want them to have to choose sides but aside from them whose opinion I don't have, every single person I know has said that I am in the right, that I did the right thing, and that they are proud of me. All sorts of stories about things she has done are surfacing that, while extremely painful, reinforce that this break is in the best interests of me and my family. Because of their support, I am more confident in my overall position (though I readily admit to the things I screwed up as well).

I am the one, singular person to blame here? Not by a long shot. But if we are weighing this out to cast blame, her mis-deeds and misperceptions are far greater and far deeper than mine. It's a shame she will never see any of that - she doesn't have the opportunity to learn valuable lessons from this. She will be reinforcing her victim mentality and putting herself on a high pedestal while I have learned a lot about rescuing vs helping, enabling, communication skills and fighting fair. It truly is her loss all the around.

Finding the Silver Lining

Even through the heartbreak, I struggle to find the good that will come of this situation. Here's what I've found so far:

Top Ten Reasons to Happy About This:

1. No more guilt trips for not having the energy to go places with Uber-Bitch
2. No more biting my tongue over UB's-Kid sleep habits.
3. Get to sleep in again
4. No more baby-proofing everything
5. Kid-1 gets his own room back
6. Kid-2 won't be frequently woken up at night by UB's-Kid
7. No more resentment over Uber-Bitch going to school
8. No more worrying about who will be home for UB's-Kid
9. Grocery bills go down a lot.
10.No more defending Uber-Bitch's behaviors constantly

Maybe if I keep telling myself this is a good thing, eventually I'll believe it.....

Outsider Reactions

I have shared what happened with all of my close friends and family, including the posts from her blog where she is bashing me and saying I'm unstable and that this is all my fault, etc. I originally went to her blog to get her side of things, to make sure that I was doing the right thing. What I found there shocked me so thoroughly that I refused to believe it days. But it just kept getting worse.

I printed out several of the entries and showed it around. I read it to The Shrink who said she had gone to an extreme reaction that was disproportionate with the circumstances. I had my Guardian Angel read it and he found no merit in. I had Hubby read it and he was alternating between incredulous that she would claim such things and spitting mad at the lies. But when she posted a list of reasons why she is in the right and I am in the wrong, I couldn't tolerate it any longer. That's when I sent the email followed immediately by her leaving.

Her departure happened on Father's Day. As devastated as I was (am), I had a hard time calming down enough to go to the In-Laws for the day. I tried to call The Shrink but as it was not only Sunday but also Father's Day, I didn't put much stock in him calling back in a timely manner. So I stuffed it all down as far inside as I could muster, back behind The Wall that protects me from me, and I went to the in-laws.

Being around people was difficult. All I could think about was Uber-Bitch. The kids never got to say goodbye to Uber-Bitch's daughter and I will never see her again either. I felt guilty at how relieved I was to have it over. The parable of the snake hovered over me like a tangible cloud. I did this. I did this to my family and to myself. I picked up the snake, knowing full-well what kind of person she is and choosing to accept her and love her and support her exactly how she is. What did I think would happen?! How could I have believed that making her part of my family would teach her how to be family?

After a while at the in-laws, The Shrink called me back. I was impressed that he called at all but at the sound of his voice, the pain and guilt and anger flooded back and threatened to overwhelm me. I hid in the front room and lay down, using my headache as an excuse. While I "slept", Hubby told them what happened. He showed them my email to Uber-Bitch and told them about the content of her blog posts.

Their reactions were unanimous and vehement - I did the right thing and in the right way. In additional, there were varying degrees of anger and shock at her audacity. They all support me 100%. That helped and after hiding out for a few hours I was able to rejoin them and even smile once or twice.

Hubby also told The Neighbors and showed them the emails and told them about the blog. They too are behind me 100% and think she must be delusional. My mother and my Daddy are both glad she is gone and offered support. My Guardian Angel, of course, is proud of me for finally standing up for myself. And when I told Writer-Friend about it, she actually cheered that I had finally "gotten rid of" Uber-Bitch. The Shrink told me she had reacted to an extreme and that she should never have moved in and felt strongly enough about me talking to her about moving out that he was willing to call and talk to her himself. And the Med-Shrink is the one who started this whole crisis.

Everyone I have spoken to or that has been told is completely behind me, without exception. Even the kids are upset at losing Uber-Bitch's daughter but only Kid-2 (who was close to Uber-Bitch) has said a word about Uber-Bitch herself. To date, that is twelve adults (not counting Hubby and myself) that think I have done the right thing in the right way.

On the other hand, Uber-Bitch's version of her own guardian angel apparently said I wasn't behaving rationally. From the next couple of sentences, though, it seems he was referring to whether or not we had a one-sided relationship. (For the record, I never said we had a one-sided relationship, just that I gave her everything I have to give.) It seems, too, that her original therapist said we have a toxic relationship and that I am bad news. Nothing in her posts indicate whether the current therapist has weighed in on right/wrong or joined the blame game. I also haven't read about any reactions from her boss-type-person or her one other friend that she is close to. So maybe she feels like everyone that she has talked to is on her side.

Which brings me to the following statement in her blog:

I also wonder if deep down she doesn't know how wrong she is in all of this. I mean, if I really deserved to be kicked out on the street, if she really believed that, I would think she would have done it. Even her. I've seen her when she's truly angry and know she's capable of it. Which makes me think that she knows that I haven't done anything worth that kind of action in this situation.

Well, first of all, I didn't (and wouldn't ever) kick her out on the street. But beyond that, I am drowning in self-doubt. But beyond that I can't help but wonder if the people I have told support me because I have only given them my side of the story. Am I the one at fault here? As I read some of her posts, it struck me how I was feeling exactly the same way - only about her. I feel like she is completely delusional for thinking the things she apparently does but what if I am the one who delusional as she keeps saying?

She says that I am going to wake up and realize she is gone and that I will all alone. In my email to her I addressed that. I said, "You said that I am going to wake up and realize you are gone and I will be alone... I think you need to take a long hard look at that, "Shelley". Look at my life then look at your life and tell me again who is going to wake up and realize she's destroyed her relationship with the only person who would take her in and love her unconditionally despite all of the shit in each of our lives.

Her blog response was not directed to my reading eyes but here is what she said:

She says of course that I'm the one who will be lonely and alone but what she fails to realize is that I've been alone my whole life. It's absolutely nothing new and she didn't show me or give me anything I couldn't do without. However, years from now when her kids are grown and gone about their lives and her husband is tired of putting up with her mental illness, she will be the one who is sad and alone. I, on the other hand, am completely used to it. In fact, I rarely expect anything else. And I guarantee, the rest of my life, no one will ever do this to me again.

To be honest, I almost laughed when I read this. She really does have no clue whatsoever. It's very obvious that we both think the other one is going to regret destroying the relationship. And we both think the other one is in the wrong. We both feel like we had to defend the other to MY family and friends and that we gave the other more than should have been expected. For agreeing on so much, we agree on nothing. We are each firmly convinced that we did the right thing and we each have people who say we are right. So how do I know that I'm am actually in the right? I feel it and people say it's true but still.......?

Oh yeah, one more piece of information has surfaced. When I was in the hospital in December, Hubby's Mom and Aunt came over to clean the house so it would be nice when I came home. Apparently Uber-Bitch spent the entire time bashing me horribly to them. She went on and on about all the things I was doing wrong or not doing. And yet she still claims that she defended me to them. This was WAY before any of this happened. My own best friend was spitting venom at me all along. A new dimension has been added to my heartbreak.

Off the Reservation

Things have come to a head and then exploded. I could no longer tolerate the spewage coming from User-Bitch's blog and sent her the following email:

I tried to leave this as a comment but it was too long...

I have been trying VERY VERY VERY hard not to go on the defensive here and spend all my time arguing about your interesting perspective on things. I understand that your background forces you to see things a certain way and long ago gave up thinking you would see the world around you in the same way that I or anyone else I know does. That's who you are and that's fine.

But I am going to say this one time and let you do with it what you will. I was ALWAYS your friend. For the past decade-plus I have ALWAYS had your back. I have fought for you, I have sacrificed for you, I have supported you unconditionally no matter where your life took you. I gave you EVERYTHING I have emotionally, logistically, financially. I thought I was being a good friend, a good sister. I have tried with everything in me to give you a family that you could be part of.

You have thrown this back at me. For all practical purposes, you have spit in my face, insulted everything that I am, everything that I do, everything that I tried to share with you. You never tried to hide your utter contempt for me and my life and I tried for years and years to find excuses for you. I was your friend, your sister, your rock, right up until your post "Friends and Priorities" when you stated point blank that you were done with our relationship. I was willing to move past you calling my son a manipulative bastard because I know you were angry and that you hate him (regardless of how you protest, your behavior speaks to the contrary).

You have done nothing but vent hateful feelings and inaccurate assumptions since I tried to tell you that I need you to work on finding another place. Up until the doctor told me point blank that I am in a co-dependent relationship with you that is adversely affecting [Kid-1's] mental well-being and that I should get you out sooner than immediately, I was perfectly content to have you and [her daughter] stay until you were ready to go. I thought things could be handled by simply keeping you and [Kid-1] apart. But when I tried to tell you that, you went immediately on the defensive, wouldn't listen to what I was saying, and shifted all blame for all things onto [Kid-1]. You quickly shifted that to include me and anyone else that wasn't you.

You can accuse me of all the BULLSHIT that you want to: being two-faced, never being your friend, "replacing" you, betraying you, doing this deliberately to stress you out. And you can choose to never trust me again and choose to not invest any more in our friendship. That is your choice and ultimately your problem. But I held onto our friendship until you declared that I wasn't worth being friends with. I REFUSE to continue to give you my entire heart and soul now that you have made your contempt so blatantly clear.

You said that I am going to wake up and realize you are gone and I will be alone... I think you need to take a long hard look at that, [User-Bitch's pen name]. Look at my life then look at your life and tell me again who is going to wake up and realize she's destroyed her relationship with the only person who would take her in and love her unconditionally despite all of the shit in each of our lives. You wished you could be the kind of person who uses others? You got your wish. It just took me this long to realize that I was enabling your destructive behavior instead of helping you.

I am willing to be friends with you. And I am willing to give you what help I can but no longer will I bend over backwards to accommodate you when you hold nothing but contempt for me and mine. As for what I am doing to my god-daughter whom I "supposedly love", I love [her daughter] like one of my own. I always have. I nearly had my own children taken away from me to keep from letting her and you down. Knowing that you will take her away, poison her against me, and I will never see her again breaks my heart. But you did get one thing right - I chose [Kid-1] over you when YOU forced me to make a choice. Were you my own biological flesh and blood, I would ALWAYS choose my children over you or anyone else in existence.

YOU did this. Go ahead and blame me. Blame everyone but yourself - you always do. Blame whoever you need to blame in order to get yourself through the night. Tell yourself you did more than enough here. Tell yourself we expected too much. Tell yourself how you work yourself to the bone and have a golden work ethic. Go ahead if that's what you need to make it through another day. But don't think for one moment I will be the only one losing out because you have shattered our friendship.

Knew upon sending it that our friendship was irreparable. But I had known long before this email that our friendship was over. The horrible things she has been saying in her blog... We could never completely recover from something like that. Had I sat back and taken it and gone crawling to her begging her forgiveness and telling her how right she was and how awful I am... then we might have kept our friendship going, albeit not the same way. But I was not about to do that because it isn't true. The vomit she is writing on her blog is completely distorted and in some cases factually inaccurate. It had reached a point where I had to stand up for myself and my family.

It came as no surprise that the next morning (Sunday - Father's Day) she packed up a few things and left for good. What did come as a surprise is that she didn't give the kids a chance to say goodbye to Libby. I broke it to them as gently as I could and I did not cast blame anywhere although I did make sure they knew that I didn't, nor would I ever, "kick them out" as she told someone over the phone. She always plays the victim...

After she left, when I had a chance to check my email, this was her reply:

You are so far off the reservation that it would be funny if it weren't so disastrous. You have completely lost your mind and I'm not even going to bother trying to debate anything with you. I NEVER want to see or speak to you again. Libby and I are leaving today as soon as I can make arrangements. I will collect my stuff and move it into storage hopefully next weekend if I can find enough people to help me move it.

I would love to link to her blog here so that anyone who wants to can read it. But a direct link from here would allow her to trackback to this blog, which she does not have the URL at this point. I would hate for her to try to use the things I post here as ammunition against me and she is just angry enough to do exactly that. So I will simply cut and paste the parts that I need to refer to. If someone wants the URL to read her blog, leave me a comment.

A few things that I find notable... she has decided that I have become mentally unstable and that is why all of this has happened. In her writing.com blog she says,

Please note, as of today, I am moving into a homeless shelter. My former best friend has become mentally unstable (or at least that's the only thing I can assume because anything else is simply too awful) and I'm being forced to leave. I have no financial resources at this time to do anything else but hope to have an apartment in August.

She is putting her two year old daughter through the hell of living in a homeless shelter for two months because she is so angry with me. This is yet another example of how she always always ALWAYS puts her own needs and feelings ahead of other people, even her own daughter. She will sometimes think about others' opinions and needs but ultimately she doesn't care and what she wants is what she does. And yet I'm the one who is mentally unstable.

Another interesting thing to note is that she has moved into a homeless shelter. She isn't staying with friends till she can get an apartment. I have to wonder if that is because no one would take her in if she refused to ask anyone. If I had to guess, I would say she let everyone know about her situation, playing up the "poor victim me" side of it, and no one offered her a place to stay, even knowing where they have now ended up. It's possible that someone offered and she said no, after all I caused her to lose faith in humanity and never make another friend. Still, for her daughter's sake, I would have thought she would suck up her pride and accept a roof over their heads. Then again, everything she does "for her daughter's sake" is actually for her own sake so why should this be different?

Anger Ebbed

The anger has ebbed from the raw destructive force that nearly overwhelmed me earlier today. It has settled over me like a woolen blanket on a summer night: itchy, hot, suffocating, unwelcome, stealing my hopes of rest or peace. BFNM's tag reads, "Moving on - [BFNM's-Kid]'s doing great, work is going well, and school is getting easier finally. Moving into my own place in the fall finally"

Finally is right. When she moved in here last September, I thought she would be out before the first frost. Then she bumped it to early spring. Then to late spring. Then by the end of the summer. Then we briefly talked about her staying for a long time and trying to get her to integrate into the family structure better. Then she decided to go back to school and all talks of when she would be gone stopped happening. Her moving in here was supposed to be a stop-gap measure, a brief respite as she looked for a new job and a new place. But she didn't find a new job so couldn't find a new place.

I know this whole situation is my fault. I set it up and I let it happen and I asked for it. In my attempts to rescue her, I set up an unhealthy dynamic. I was trying to help, I really was, but all I did was bring home a snake.

And now I fear that this is the story of my life. That everything she said about me is true and it isn't her perspective that is laughably off base but my own. Of course the Shrink agrees with me; he only gets my side of the story. Of course Hubby and my friends and relatives agree with me; I probably pervert the truth somehow when relating it to them as well, making myself look good at her expense somehow.

By The Shrink was dead on today as I was leaving. He said I would go through a bunch of emotions once the numbness wore off. He said I would get angry and hurt and confused and feel guilty and lost. He said to sit with it (his infuriating response for all emotional responses, especially those I don't like) and stay present, to not be reduced to self-harm and to call if I end up in crisis mode. I told him those usually happen late at night when all the distractions of the day are gone and there is no one around to be hurt by my actions and that I almost called him but figured he wouldn't appreciate a midnight phone call so I didn't. He didn't disabuse me of the notion that it would be intrusive and over-stepping boundaries. I mentioned again after he said to call in a crisis that he wouldn't want me to call at midnight when they usually occur and again he didn't tell me to go ahead and call then if I really need to. I take that to mean I am right and that calling at that time wouldn't go over well. I'm sorry, all crises must occur during normal business hours...

And, for the record, I don't WANT to stay present, to sit with these emotions. I hurt, I hate, I ache... I want to give in the call of the knife. The only thing stopping me is that if I get caught I will be perceived as manipulative. It will come across as trying to "get even" with BFNM rather than the expression of utter disgust with myself and the desire to distract from the emotional pain with physical pain. At least physical pain "makes sense" - if one has a deep gash in one's arm, it is logical that it hurts. No one can see a deep gash in my heart and soul; they don't understand that those hurt too, worse sometimes.

What's so wrong with it anyways? So long as it isn't bad enough to cause medical complications, who is it hurting if it relieves some of my psychic pain? And whose business is it what I do with my own body if I'm not hurting anyone else? Like anyone would even know so long as I was careful - it's not like they would be able to tell by how I act. They don't see obvious signs, let alone subtle ones.

GRRR! I hate this!! I am defensive and angry and hurt and embarrassed and frustrated and confused and lost and hopeless and pathetic and useless and I HURT!!! I am back to that confusing repetitive thought: I wanna go home. Except I am home. And there is no where that satisfies that longing; the closest I can come is cocooned in my bed alone in the dark and quiet stillness.

I wanna go home.
I wanna go home.
I wanna go home.
I wanna go home.
I wanna go home.
I wanna go home.
I wanna go home.
I wanna go home.
I wanna go home.

The End of an Era

Things are finally over. I have lost all respect for my "best friend" and all hope that she will ever have any clue about anything. I don't know yet what to call her here, since BFF is so far off the mark that it's ridiculous. Maybe BFNM (best friend no more - Kid-2 taught me that acronym) will work for now. "Ungrateful Bitch" is just too long to type every time. (Nor is it entirely accurate. She tried to be grateful. I simply asked more of her than she was capable of giving.)

I realized that there was no going back when I read her blog post title "Forgiveness" in which she magnanimously says she can forgive me for a host of things:

I can forgive [her] for the way she approached the situation. It was not handled as well as it could have been, by either of us. I flew off the handle and she approached it wrong. But we're all human. She probably thought to reassure me that I wasn't being kicked out but it backfired. I can only assume that but regardless, I can forgive her for communicating poorly about a difficult topic. I've been there.

I can forgive her for not spending enough time being my friend. But I don't have to open myself up to that hurt again. I can choose not to invest any more into the relationship.

I can forgive her for having a very difficult mental illness that affects her on a daily basis. But I don't need to be responsible for handling her, her family, or the household when that happens.

I can be civil to her, now that I'm not completely angry but trusting her is a different story and is what I'm battling with the most.

And now, when push comes to shove, I can forgive BFNM for this. But I cannot and will not be a part of it any longer. From the moment our relationship went beyond close friends talking online and into the realm of rescuing her from one situation after another, I have had to defend her from my friends, my family, my therapists, and my doctors. And I'm done. Sometimes it takes a harsh reality check to see what was always in front of my face. The fact is, all of those people who I swore just didn't know her like I did... they were all correct about her from the first.

From day one I have supported her. I have always had her back, no matter where that back ended up. From the moment she said she was running from her bastard ex and moving up here, I have given her my support with everything I have in me. I have given her time, energy, money, clothing, food, shelter, babysitting... anything I had to offer was hers for the taking and take she did. I have - quite literally - given her the shirt off my back. I also gave her my heart and my trust, opening up to her like I hadn't opened up to anyone since my best friend from high school and I went our separate ways. I gave her everything.

I can see now that I was rescuing, not helping. I began to see this a while ago as I began trying to set boundaries in my life. I realized specifically how last week when I was reading about the difference between rescuing and helping in my hospice volunteer training workbook. I remember being excited because I had learned a more effective way of helping.

Now it is too late. I am done helping or rescuing her. I was pleasantly surprised to find I can be perfectly cordial to her, even while fighting the urge to jump up from the floor and throttle her.

I am so angry with her right now! At the same time, I am violently angry with myself. At the hospital they always play this video tape from the 80s about co-dependence. There is a story/metaphor in it that I am going to paraphrase here:

A woman finds a venomous snake nearly frozen in the snow. Feeling sorry for it and not wanting it to die, she carefully picks it up and takes it home. She sets it on the hearth and builds a fire to warm it. She goes into the kitchen and pores the last of her milk into a bowl, which she warms and takes to the snake. Gently she spoon feeds the snake the warm milk in front of the fire and slowly the snake begins to revive.

Then the snake bites her, injecting its deadly venom into her. As she lay dying, she asks the snake, "Why? Why did you do this to me? After everything I did for you, how could you betray me this way?"

The snake looks at her coldly and replies, "You knew I was a poisonous snake when you picked me up. Why did you expect I would do anything else?"

I hear that woman and that snake as I go over and over and over this in my mind. I am so shocked and hurt and betrayed by her behavior, by her thought processes. After everything I have done for her, all the unwaivering, unconditional support I have pored into her... how could it have come to this?! And I hear the snake from the story, cold and unabashed, telling me I knew who she was from the beginning so what did I expect...

Therein lies the dual sources of anger. At her for this betrayal and at myself for rescuing instead of helping and being surprised and hurt when the bottom dropped out. The more time that passes, the more that anger points to the true culprit, me. I set this up. I asked for it. And I got what I deserved.

What if all the "helping" I have done is just rescuing and unhelpful? What if I am ruining my kids' lives as BFNM has implied throughout her blog? What if all the "good" I thought I was doing actually isn't good at all? DAMN! I don't want to be here!! I would pray for God to take me away, but He would simply laugh at me or ignore me.

Worse Than I Thought

I don't generally read BFF blog. In fact, I never read her blog. Part of it is that I never read most people's blogs anymore. Partly it's because anything important we generally talk about. A huge part of it is that it feels like intruding. I see the other side of this fence and when I read her side of it, I am shocked at how different it is. Frequently, I am also severely irritated by it.

Since all hell broke loose Sunday night, I have been meaning to check it, to get her side of things. I wanted to know where she was coming from, how she could possibly justify her behavior. So, tonight I finally went and looked.

It was so much worse than I thought. The things she said, the way she said them... my first reaction was utter disbelief. I had a brief flare of anger at her nerve for saying what she did. I really wanted to argue with her about the things she said - defend myself against some of her ridiculous statements. Then it was like a lightbulb burning out - that brief moment where everything gets too bright followed by the plunge into darkness and complete with the POP that sometimes accompanies the burnout.

Now everything is numb. I read and read and read, all the way back to where I was last following it in early April, before Easter. Intellectually I have assimilated what she wrote. Emotionally I feel nothing. My head is about to go Chernobyl but my soul is empty. Typically this is a warning sign of impending severe dissociation. I hope to keep my grip as I have my Shrink and Med-Shrink visits tomorrow and the Shrink is vehemently opposed to my dissociation and I'm already nervous about the Med-Shrink.

A Week of Hell Days

Sunday: police called to contain Kid-1 in rage that bruised me up and down

Monday: grandpa died

Tuesday: Kid-1's med-shrink calls for drastic measures (jail for Kid-1 if repeats and ousting BFF and Kid-5 with 1 week notice even if they end up on the street)

Wednesday: freak out in the Shrink's office. viewing of grandpa; Kid-4 freaks out about death concept

Thursday: good friend had surgery for a brain tumor (her kids stayed at our house Wed/Thurs)

Friday: grandpa's memorial dinner; Kid-1 gets appendicitis

Saturday: Kid-1's appendix removed

What Would You Say?

What would you say if I said that the guy I am living with has such a bad temper that he goes off into fits of rage, screaming obscenities and violently striking out at anyone who tries to come near him or talk to him or stop him? What would you say if I told you that the fit he had earlier this week resulted in a nasty bruise on my arm, deep into the muscle, and an ugly one on my shin?

What if this wasn't the first time? What if, in fact, it has been happening a lot recently? What if today it got so bad that I had to call the police on him and that I am covered in bruises up and down my arms, my legs, my stomach and my head? And that after the cops left, he started up again?

Would it make a difference if I told you he is really sweet when he isn't angry? Or that he apologizes profusely once he's calmed down? That he feels really bad every time I wince in pain when he hugs on a bruise?

How about if I told you that he doesn't mean to hurt me? That he has bipolar disorder and when he goes into a rage, he can't think clearly? That all the intelligence goes out of his eyes when he gets to that point and that he is truly incapable of rational thought? That he doesn't take his meds unless reminded and even then gets seriously pissy about it? That even when he takes them, his meds are off and he is working with his doctor to get them straight but so far he has gone into a violent rage 5 times in the past 6 days?

But here's the kicker...

Would it change things if I said that this guy I'm talking about is my 13 year old son?