Tag Archives: Pain

Three Days in Never Never Land

Posted on by Standard 9

judgeOkay. I’d like to clarify something. Saturday, I received a call from Chef saying he had been released until Tuesday, at which time, he was to report to the VA to be entered in to rehab. For about 4 hours, I refused to answer his calls/texts. I had his wallet and telephone, so he basically had no identity and no one else’s phone numbers. :-) I found out from the hospital that he’d been released, but nothing more, and of course, I immediately assumed the worst. Finally, after hours and hours, I gave in, picked up Chef, and demanded he show me in black and white that he had not just signed himself out. When he did, I shot him a quick apology, and then lectured him on the consequences that come from lying through his teeth to me for over a year. And some of you thought Chef was lucky still have me…tsk, tsk. I’m not so sure my help is worth it to the poor guy. Everything he says or does is run through this mental “How will he hurt me this time” filter I’ve erected around me, and that is just making me feel awful.

Tonight, he and I attended a Celebrate Recovery meeting, and he gave his life to the Lord. I am happy he did this while sober, but again,wndy that B******t Filter kicked in, and I have a wait-and-see attitude. I just hate myself for that. I really do, but I’ve just seen too much when it comes to him. Still, I think God takes those prayers seriously even if the pray-er doesn’t, and I’m resting assured, God can handle His business with Chef.

What I’m learning this last few days, though, is rather humorous. First of all, the do-or-die junkie life is a whole culture unto itself. Don’t get me wrong. There are addicts on every rung of the financial ladder. I’m a firm believer that Bill Clinton did indeed inhale, probably more than once. Personally, I have mad respect for people who tell the embarrassing truth. I’d have been blown away by the guy if he’s have looked at the camera and said, “Hell, yes, I smoked a bowl!! You trying doing this job and then come back and tell me you couldn’t use a little dubage, smart-a**!!”  He, and others like him, would be what I would call high-functioning addicts. They keep jobs, are able to restrain themselves from spending the mortgage money on dope, and maintain a flimsy bit of control over the drug of their choice.

bed and breakfastI’m not talking about the high-function-ers. I’m talking about the people who move past being recreational users, sail by the drug abuse category, slip past the high-functioning crowd,  and crash-land into being completely lost in their addictions.

These lost people always make me think of a warped Peter Pan & the Lost Boys, with Bernice in the role of a deprived, evil little Tinkerbell. The little set that hail Chef as their Peter Pan are a rough little lot. None of them have jobs, yet they seem to always have a way to pay for a date with Bernice. They move about town on foot, sad little clumps of humanity, each bearing the invisible stamp that marks them as the truly addicted. Each day seems to start off with a tally of Bernice-worthy possessions to sell in order to secure a date with her. This usually entails stealing….. from each other. There really is no honor among thieves!! Invariably, a skirmish will break out between members of the Bernice Fan Club, tempers will run high, and there’s always a ton of smack talking going on. Once money has been had, next comes tracking down the dealers. This is all too easy, in my opinion. Finally, Bernice will make her appearance, and everybody becomes friends again. It’s crazy.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is that each of the ones with a real address become host/hostess to a kind of whacked-out  Bed & Breakfast. Wherever the motley little group lsdrun out of steam, and Bernice, is where they crash for some long needed sleep. The first time this happened at Chef’s house, I all but came unglued. I could just see the cops raiding his house, and Chef trying to convince the law that this twitchy group of misfits were just having a sleepover at a 55-year-old man’s house. I just don’t believe any cop is going to buy that, and given the ages of some of the girls, I’m inclined to think Chef could have bigger problems than Bernice if the law stopped in for a visit. Best to avoid giving the appearance of evil, I’m thinking.

The thing that just makes me shake my head is that they will text/call/drop by for a little chat at literally any hour of the day or night. Chef’s phone had gone off all night long those first couple of nights he was in the hospital. When I finally couldn’t t stand to hear that stupid Sons of Anarchy ringtone reminder go off, I got up and checked the phone, figuring there had to be an emergency or something for someone to be so very persistent. But, no.  Without fail, they all were the dumbest reasons to be texting someone at 3am. “Are you awake?”, “You up?”, “I’m at your house. You in there?” and my personal favorite, “This is Tiff. Remember me? Are you still going to buy me a new tire?” The first three I texted back, “No.” but the last one I just ignored. The next morning, Tire Tiffany, started calling and calling Chef’s phone at the un-Godly hour of 6 am and every 10 minutes again after that. Finally, I answered, grumpy from being woke up by Chef’s Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black ringtone. There’s no need to go into a lot of detail. Let’s just say, Tire Tiffany understands now that she won’t be getting a new tire from Chef and there are polite times to call  people and times that frankly, are dangerous to a person’s health, and should be avoided unless it is a dire emergency like bleeding from your eyes. I voiced my curiosity that Chef had promised to buy a tire for some random chick whose phone number he didn’t even have programmed in his cell or may have reason to not even remember of her existence.  But, as a member of Chef’s Lost Boy’s, Tire Tiffany didn’t seem to think this was odd at all. She’d given him a ride once, and he’d promised to buy her a new tire. I cancelled the verbal contract, and sent old Tire Tiffany on her way. Still,  I find it kind of sad.

I know that I’m sounding snobby, but that isn’t what I feel for these people at all. I know they are of equal value to God as much as anyone else. But given that I feel I’m engaged in a battle for Chef’s life, these people are his enemies, and I have to treat them a bit harshly at times in order to make my point clear — Chef isn’t going to be your Peter Pan much longer. If Chef should emerge from rehab and pick up where he left off, then I’ll dust my feet and walk away. But he will have this one chance.

I just wanted everyone to know what the circumstances were that made him leave, and what I’m learning about this weird drug sub-culture. I appreciate all the support we are receiving from you guys, and hopefully we’ll have even better news pretty soon!!

– Bird

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Are You Prepared For Being A Friend of Mine?

Posted on by Standard 4

Here’s something I’ll bet you didn’t know about me.

I’m extremely fearful, to the point it is an actual phobia, when it comes to going to the hospital. It has something to do with the way they smell and sound. One whiff of fear of spidersdisinfectant and the sweat of fear, coupled with some feminine, bored, muffled intercom voice communicating life and death in rainbow-colored codes, and I have been known to incapacitate myself with a full-blown panic attack.

A rumor that someone I know might be going in to the hospital for something is enough to make me hyperventilate and avoid Facebook, pigeons and voice mail for a week.

Because of this crippling effect on me, there is a kind of process I go through mentally before I’m going to step one foot into these sinister, stinky hubs of health. I’ve established an Is-It-Worth-It Checklist that I complete in my mind before I commit to visiting someone at the hospital.

Well, there are actually 2 lists – one for whether I should go for my own health, and the other for being a supportive, good friend.

The one for me is really just the one line of questioning – how bad does it hurt and will they give me excellent drugs to make it stop hurting?

The other, though, is kind of more complex, and until they start giving out the excellent drugs to the visitors, I’m probably always going to use it. It goes something like this:

Bird’s Is-It-Worth-It Checklist

1. How serious is the condition my friend is in the hospital for?

a.Could they possibly die? (Here I calculate the odds of survival, and adjust accordingly.)

Floating Petri Dish of Disease

Floating Petri Dish of Disease

b. Not life-threatening? Like plastic surgery or a mild heart-attack? (See you when you get out, dude!)

c. Odds are, this could be the end of the line for them. (What are the chances I’ll be seeing them in heaven? Just kidding! This one is unflinchingly rigid.)

2. Just how angry or hurt will they be if I just call them on the phone instead of physically going to the hospital?

a. Really, really angry? (Are they prone to kicking butt when displeased, and if so, can I take them down? Also, how bad will it hurt?)

b.Indifferent – (They’re super popular; they actually begin their recovery after they return home. The hospital visitors actually sign a guestbook walking into the patient’s room. $5 and a broke friend, my name can be there, too.)

c. Hard to tell – (They might act like they don’t care, but last time you did find a stuffed animal of yours boiling in the kitchen…It seemed like it was some kind of warning.)

d. They get the really cool drugs and won’t be lucid for weeks after they get out. (I’ll photoshop a picture of myself in front of the hospital, and presto! I’m a good friend!)

e.They hate visitors – I’d being doing them a favor! (I’ve never met someone I could use this one on.)

3. If I buy them a really cool get-well gift, can I get off the hook?awesome me

a. No. They’re flush with stuff, and a gift isn’t going to go very far with them unless I had to take out a loan to buy it. (Not likely these days.)

b. They practically live in a cardboard box. A gift certificate to Taco Bell will buy me a pass for the next three hospitalizations. (God bless Taco Bell’s Dollar Menu!)

c. Depends on the kind of gift. Am I willing to go to the mall (another phobia of mine, though to a much lesser degree) and spend the ridiculous amount of money they charge for something from Hot Topic or Victoria’s Secret? (I’ve never answered yes to this one. It’s included because eventually one of my friends will get a boob job, and this one will finally come into play.)

d. No. This friend isn’t superficial or materialistic. Next time, be pickier about the kinds of friends you want. :-)

4. Is it in any way possible to pretend I didn’t know they were in the hospital until they get out?

a. Yes, if I pretend I’ve just been super busy. Once upon a time, I could actually get away with this one. I’m notorious for being hard to get ahold of most of the time. These days, though, my friends all know me pretty well, (or I’ve already done this the first couple of times they were hospitalized), and this doesn’t fly anymore.

b. No. They ran ads on every television and radio station in Tulsa, left text messages and voice messages on every telephone I have, sent a telegram, two pigeon carriers,hilarious a note on my windshield, sent a note from my mother to my boss, and paid to have their name and room number written in the sky over my apartment. My presence is requested, and my absence will be noted and unhappily addressed when they are released.

5. How important is this friendship to me in the long run?

a. I can make new friends; giving me one of your kidneys doesn’t make us sisters under the skin, right? Actually, I find it pretty nerve-wracking to try to even talk to someone I don’t know, so this is a stupid thing to even be on my checklist. Still, it does cross my mind…

b. Will they quietly be hurt, or will I find a dead fish wrapped in newspaper on my doorstep? Quietly hurt, in my opinion, can actually be worse than a threat from the mafia that I’ll be sleeping with the fishes, especially since I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

c. Friendships are pretty important, and I really love this person a lot. Oh, fine!! I’ll go to the stupid hospital, but I’m not promising I won’t pee myself on your floor when I smell alcohol swabs, spray you with snot when I can’t breathe because I can mentally see the needle in your IV stabbing through the walls of your vein,  or puke in your trash can when that horrible intercom voice blares through my head. Hey! It’s what you wanted!! Still want me to be your friend??

I wanted to take a minute to thank the fellow bloggers that nominated me for some awards. I promise, I’ll try to get to those some time this weekend. Thank you so much!!fear of trust

– Bird

 

Goodbye, My Favorite Human.

Posted on by Standard 13

According to my journals, Chef’s official Midlife Crisis started on 10/16/2011. Well, actually, that is just when I became aware of it. From one minute to the next, I never images (1)knew what to expect from this person that I’d practically shared my entire adult life with. He’d be normal, and then quickly cold, withdrawn, reserved. I’d try to talk to him, and would be quickly silenced. I’d do things for him, and yet he’d hardly seem to notice, much less care. Where once we were inseparable, I’d find myself alone a lot, always sad or disappointed, or scared. When I found out why the personality had changed so quickly, I was foolishly not as concerned as I probably should have been. My entire family has grappled with addictions, me included, and while Chef & I had seemed to escape this lifestyle for decades, the naive part of me thought this would be temporary, and quickly addressed and fixed. Hmm. Seems I was wrong.

It’s been a whole year and a half since this ugly period of my life first raised its ugly head, and I’m sitting here in the tiny apartment that I love, marveling at how slowly time seemed to crawl by back then, and how quickly it had sped up to get me here.

As I mentioned before, T left Chef. Chef had been basically playing both ends towards the middle. He was constantly calling me/coming over, always full of promises of fixing things with me. He would go on long rants about how I was the mother of his children, his soul-mate, his best friend, and most importantly, his wife. On the other side, he was telling T that he’d been looking for love in all the wrong places, that he’d stayed with me for the children, that she was his best friend, his soul mate, and someday, would be his wife. I’m a girl. I can see how T would fall into this. Chef is convincing, especially if you don’t know him very well. But, as his problem with drugs increased, and his behavior became more and more erratic, she finally had to concede that I was indeed right — Chef wasn’t being truthful. Unlike me, T would dig for the truth quietly, unobtrusively, and frankly, she showed an amount of self-discipline that is kind of impressive to me. The first time I found a Love-Text from her on Chef’s phone at 5:30am one morning, a few months before I left, I woke Chef up by beating him in the head with his phone. :-) See? I didn’t decide to keep it to myself for awhile, to gather more evidence, and to confront him when there were no ways to wiggle out of it. I went for the jugular immediately.

imagesI dealt with a ton of emotions all along the way, and I’m still a bit unsteady some times. For the most part, I’m kind of over all of this. After T left him, and we confronted him together with our Notes of Comparison, I was able to accept that it was over. I watched this exhausted, stressed, frantic man try to baffle us both with b***s***, and a part of me felt relieved. Even completely healthy, this guy has been no picnic. I always felt, and still do, that back then, he was worth it. But, as I wrote about in Old Roy Dog Food, this disease had taken so much away from him, there just wasn’t enough bang for my buck, if you know what I mean. As each promise was broken, and each lie surfaced, a little bit of what I had always really loved about this human being would wither and die. And one day, the bad outweighed the good, and I was less likely to be broadsided with sadness at how all this had turned out. Instead, I had times I actually felt a little guilty. Because of his lack of addressing some health problems, he is sicker than he should be at this stage of the game. He already is needing some help physically, and I’m pretty sure, it is going to go downhill from here. I hope for the best, but I can’t say that I’m all that optimistic. What a stubborn man!! I can see God‘s hand in all of this, trying to get this man to look up, and even when he’s been told this by so many people in his life, he stubbornly refuses. And that is his right as a human being.

I wrote that we were supposed to start marriage counseling next week. Let me clarify, as I got some panicked comments. I have probably no faith whatsoever that our marriage has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being resurrected from the dead. I am not simple or stupid. Nor am I a glutton for punishment, and I truly get nauseated at the thought of having to make myself somehow trust someone who pretty much callously tossed the trust it took me years to develop for him, aside like so much trash. I wanted to believe that our relationship had been real all these 20+ years, and in a way, I have that. Sober, he was a decent husband. Flawed, but then who isn’t? I can be a nightmare myself with my trust issues, hyper-vigilance, insomnia, and bouts of depression. He didn’t marry Mary Tyler Moore. But we worked hard, made a good life for ourselves and our children, and we all laughed a lot. The drug changed everything, as it will do, but it didn’t render my life before worthless. If anything, it put the past on a pedestal, and that is what almost crushed me. Remembering and longing for, and weeping over, the beautiful, beautiful past. Only the past had it’s own issues, and in the light of day, it didn’t have that angelic gleam. Our marriage had survived for so long because we were both willing to work really hard to keep it going. But when Chef bowed out, and I had finally quit trying to carry  it along on my own back, it died. And just because I wouldn’t let go, or he wouldn’t go away, it wasn’t any less dead. I think God knew that, and He was very patient with me as I came to understand that if He, Almighty Author of the Universe, Creator of Mankind,  won’t fiddle with man’s free will, I’m certainly not going to be able to either. It blows. But God isn’t a liar, and these are the rules. Love isn’t love if you don’t have a choice to not love. I didn’t want Chef to come back to me out of necessity. I wanted him to miss me, and to come back because he realized he loved me. That just never did happen.

Everything this last year and a half spun in the gravity of Chef’s choices, and while we are each dealing with our wounds — Chef, T, me, the kids, friends, etc. …. There really is no way to un-ring the bell. I won’t venture to say what Chef has learned about me through all of this. I’ve been one pissed off, angry, somewhat vengeful, hurt wife. But I know something about him now. I know what he is capable of saying about me, behind my back to people I consider my friends. I know what he is capable of doing to me when he is crossed. I know how cold those eyes can be when they watch me cry. I know how easily lies form in his heart, and how quickly they become truth to his mind.

 I know.

I just know too much, and while I sometimes like to see him when he’s sobered up, and he’s singing as he’s working on his wood projects, or see the occasional remembermischievousness that lights up his pretty brown eyes as he tells me a story he remembers from years ago, and hear him laugh at something I’ve said, there is a wall around my heart that doesn’t let him too near me. He had the keys to that heart, and he threw them away. They aren’t so easily given again, especially to the person who didn’t treasure them in the first place. He was my very favorite human on the earth. Now, he is too dangerous to my own self-image, my self-worth, and my self-esteem to be trusted. He’s been ousted, and no matter how much counseling I have with him, I don’t see myself trusting him again, ever. He hurt me. I don’t want to be hurt by him again.

I see Chef as very, very sick right now. On a spiritual level, he wouldn’t fall on the Rock and break, and so the Rock is crushing him. It’s horrible to watch, and painful to feel that bond between us severed. But the kind of person I’ve always been is not going to let this person die unloved, unwanted, and completely utterly alone. I can’t imagine how horrible and hopeless that must feel, nor do I ever want to. Until Chef’s dying breath, he’ll at least know he has one person who gives a rat’s butt whether he is alive or dead, and that person will be me. I most likely will not be his wife…but I will be his friend, even if he hasn’t been a very good friend back. And that’s okay.

The counseling sessions may or may not happen. Chef begged for an opportunity to have a mediator referee an honest, open dialogue between us. We don’t get very deep into anything constructive before one or both of us draws blood on the other. I’m hurt by him “falling in love” with someone else. He’s ….who knows? Angry. Pissed. Humiliated. Selfish. I’m really only guessing. My instincts believe that he takes out how he feels about himself on me, but I have no real proof of this. Either way, I have enough to address that I’m responsible for. I can’t shoulder his, too.  But I desire with all of my heart to communicate to him just how much this has cost me, how much I really loved our lives together before the drugs, and how thankful I am that I had so long with him before this all came crashing down. And I want to hear what was going through his mind that made me suddenly undesirable as his partner. I’m afraid to hear it, but I just need to know. And I think counseling would help us there. It would be some kind of closure for me.

So, that all being said, no, I’m not high on pot! I’m not flip-flopping around. I’m content that things are the way they are for a reason, and I hope God kicks satan right in the teeth with Chef, with me, and with T. In the meantime, I’ll just keep taking each day as it comes. Thank you for your concern, though. I really do appreciate it!

– Bird

As With Everything in Life, Things Begin to Wind Down

Posted on by Standard 22

The last few weeks have been confusing for me. Even though I really wanted to, I chose not to write about the events until I was sure I understood what it all meant to me. imagesToday, though some things are  still up in the air, I seem to have a firm grasp on what I think about this last dramatic year.

Chef’s girlfriend, T, left him a week ago. They had been in a relationship with each other not quite a year. The overlap with my marriage was about four months.

As women tend to do, the girlfriend and I did compare notes, and T was able to answer a lot of the questions that had burned themselves into my soul, and while they still caused some pain, the truth has laid them to rest for me. No more fevered-brain stories I’d spin for myself deep in sleepless nights, all because I just didn’t know for sure. Did he ever love me? Does he despise me? Did he cheat with her for years and I was too stupid to notice? I’m sure every person who’s ever experienced this has pondered sadly and fearfully some of the same ones.

But when I was able to ask T, and she was able to ask me about my perspective, a lot of those questions just evaporated. I knew I was hearing the truth, and that truth had set me free.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t secretly (and sometimes, not so secretly)  hope they weren’t very happy from the minute they moved in together. I was so freaked out in the beginning of this mess, I’d have thrown a party to celebrate every single tear they shed. I felt so miserable, and it seemed from my vantage point, that they were peacefully playing house and flippantly unconcerned about how me or the kids, or our friends, and even our pets felt about any of it.

Betrayed, I tortured myself with hope, despaired over every good and bad memory, and let my imagination envision them happily building their new life together, unencumbered by their pasts and confident in their future together. Dreams of them having babies, dancing slowly to music I loved, or just snuggling on the couch watching a movie would dance mercilessly through my mind, and a lot of my tears were shed over those vain imaginations as well. I won’t even go there about thoughts of them in the bedroom! The whole situation was just horrible… I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, even Chef.

My imagination can be my very worst enemy in situations like these, and I tended to work diligently to find out the truth about this affair, just to dispel the myths I knew I would come up with if I was left to my own conclusions. The problem was, I changed their dynamic with each other whenever I was around, so I knew that my presence was “tainting” the evidence. I’d try to feel out Chef whenever I could, but as usual, Chef pretty much only told me what he thought I would want him to say, and not the actual truth.

If he was mad at me, he’d sing T’s praises, and rub his happiness in my face, dropping out key words to barb me with like love, companionship, and comparing her to me.

If he was feeling sentimental about me, the opposite was true. He’d find ways to paint a picture of himself stuck, martyr-like and full of regret, in a hopeless situation he’d accidentally launched us all into. Here he was, longing for the beautiful wife of his youth, who had been torn away from him by the demon drug and a midlife crisis.

Yet, in an act of penance,  he’d live the rest of his life with this new girl, knowing he was caged in by his mistakes, but ultimately not able to extricate himself from the situation because T would be unable to care for herself. He’d be responsible for ruining her life as well, he’d lament, and after ruining mine, he couldn’t do that again to another human being.

Basically, I heard: “I want my cake, and I want to eat it too.”

Also, “Womp, womp womp. Poor me. Womp, womp, womp. Not my fault. Womp, womp.”

You can trust me when I say this: whatever, dude. I was born at night, but it wasn’t yesterday night!

I wasn’t fooled by these kinds of statements, though I have to admit that in his condition these days, Chef might have actually convinced himself this was indeed the case. His timeline is completely ludicrous, his memory very faulty, and his lies too many. Even he has admitted now that he just can’t remember how all of this came to happen. His lies had been told enough times, however, that they were beginning to become the truth as he knew it. And maybe if I hadn’t been writing about all of this both on-line, and in my journals, he might have lapsed happily in those revisions. I wouldn’t let him, though, dragging out journals, and pulling up posts feverishly at every turn, because his revisions always make me or to a limited degree, T the ones that caused this mess, and allow him to hide from his own conscience. I don’t want to be his fall guy..not for something this crappy. Everyone sucked all the way through this experience…Chef, T, and me. I’ve got my own sack of garbage to carry around. Don’t pile yours on me, as well.

Though it was easy to get lost in the fear and humiliation, I was smart enough, even from the beginning,  to know that every thing that goes around, comes around again. Still,  I worried they’d be the exception.

I’d always heard “men don’t leave their wives for their mistresses”. Mmmm, mine did.

I’d heard that the other woman is the rock that men throw away the wives that are diamonds for. Mmmm, T was pretty much a diamond herself. Yes, she cheated with a married man, and she took the occasional pot shot at me. But, I have to admit, she really hasn’t been all that easy to really, truly despise. I’ll go more into T in another post. I don’t want this one to be as long as Gone With The Wind.

From the very day I moved out of the house up until a week ago, Chef was reluctant to let me go. The main reason I struggled so hard letting him go was because he would say or do something that would melt my anger away, and when I’m not really pissed at him, all my defenses droop like dead flowers. Decades of living with each other had taught both of us how to effectively get what we wanted out of each other. Well, let’s say it did for awhile, that is. Even though we saw each other rather disconcertingly regularly for separated people with no minor kids, we were both changing subtly, and somewhere along the way, words or actions that were guaranteed to work in reaching the heart of the other person, just didn’t work at all anymore. Reactions, especially from me, could be different from minute to minute, and I can say on my part, even I had no clue what something said might trigger in me. For a guy who’d become a professional at NOT looking deeply inside of himself, that made this whole thing unstable and explosive, and probably easy to pin on the psycho wife.

I’ve pondered a lot of stuff, and there’s just too much to write about in one post.