How typical is my latest struggle: I have replaced one mood enhancing behavior for another. I have, once again, anesthetized myself to avoid the pain of loss, to avoid irritability, to avoid lethargy...basically: to avoid. I guess it has worked on a number of levels: had I not used as often as I have used the past couple of years, I would not have made some strides in certain areas: and it seems rather insane to acknowledge things this way but it is what it is.
I have been abusing some kind of pill or another since sometime in 2009 I would say. I don't recall per se how it happened....addiction is incidious that way..it may have been a dental appt that provided a narcotic prescription...and that, combined with the right low-mood moment, prompted me to abuse the prescribed amount and brought me some temporary mood lift and feeling of relief. I was trying any method I could come up with that would bring me some useful way to cope with the stresses of my life. The greatest stress in my day to day existence was brought to me via my romantic relationship. The roller coaster of a life shared by 2 dually diagnosed women with individual personality mood and pathology disorders combined with substance abuse basically meant that each day's mood was up for grabs as to whether it would be a dip down a steep hill of emotion or a serotonin boosted climb up the proverbial track. I coped usually in a few consistent ways: primarily in the form of finger pointing. I spent most of my waking day blaming my partner for all of the ills of the moment.....ruminating and emphasizing to whomever would be willing to listen. This was usually someone who also handled their own interpersonal relational struggles in the same way. I would speak of every complaint I had, every wish I wanted to express....every desire I had....expressed to anyone other than my partner. The reality of this was not without good reason: I knew, from years of experience, that speaking directly to my partner all of these conversations would not result in a more intimate relationship..but only in a whirlwind of individual fears and old hurts rising up to create the next inevitable "breakdown", or "break up" (however temporary they usually were...)..... I did not want these break-ups to occur, hence my sharing with another. What I hoped to occur instead, was that through some kind of divine providence, she and I would magically just change somehow......becoming more compatible and agreeable to the wants and needs of the other. This would solve everything.
Alas.......this was not to be. This she-wolf could only wear the sheep's clothing for so long...and vice versa. It would only be a matter of time before the more desired apparel would be chosen..and the continuing conflicts would ensure. I would "have enough".....and in textbook "fight/flight" mode, I would go running.....back to the safe harbor of my prior home.....where my ex-husband and our 2 children lived. A home I left......focused on some greener pasture ahead....that I had yet to find. Oh there were days of sunshine and soft grass, ocean breezes and quiet evenings......but life was much bigger than that: it also included ex-husbands, additional children, financial struggles, separate friendships, individual childhood baggage. This second home now contained even more than the prior home in terms of obligations, negotiations....ghosts. I would "recuperate" in the safe homestead of origin.......put back on my "cap of denial" and return to the land of blended families and blended wounds of youth...and try again......determined that we both had learned some new wisdom based on this latest "round in the ring"....some discovered knowledge that would now lay to rest all of our insecurities, and we would now be "all better"...
until the next round....
until the "final" round...
and there was one. And it resembled all the others........but the end was the worst. This time when I "flew the coop", it resulted in more than an unanswered phone ringing and ringing......more than some angry texts....this time it was all the hurt multiplied by ten years multiplied by a thousand sent out via emails to children, destruction of property, character assassination............reactive actions that couldn't be undone....hurtful verbage that couldn't be erased.
It was done.
I have continued to run.......oh, yes, I ran to the safe harbor of my former marital home. I focused on my children and recommitted to their father in the way I had been unable to a decade prior....due to the 'fantasy of greener pasteur" that was alive in my head. But I have continued running...away from the one thing I have run from for years: real loss. The real end. The finality of death. Death of father.....death of mother....death of Jennifer. Whatever feelings and hopes and wishes that I projected onto any of them...their demise means the end to all those projections.....at least this is how it feels. I haven't needed to "run" from any house in a long time......because I have been running in a different way since: with pills, shoplifting, overspending, any kind of distraction possible to take my focus off this shattered heart. My heart is shattered over the reality that my fantasy land world does not exist....and never will. I guess I wanted to be so special that someone else would compromise.......actually just concede, any of their conflicting desires, because being with me was more important. I am sure that she can grieve for the same reason: I am sure she wishes she had been enough for me too ya know? This is where the denial has to be broken for me: I have to tell the truth that she wasn't enough for me! SHE wasn't enough for me. I was never fully there in the greener pasture....because there was never such a thing.
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