Goddammit I hate memory sometimes.
And everything it leads to. Nostalgia. Reminiscence. A concrete sense of Self. Rambling, confessional blog posts about supposed childhood sexual traumas. And so forth.
After all that, after my whole humiliating confessional frenzy here in my last few posts (holy crap, was that all the way back in February??), I have to admit now that I'm not entirely sure my memory of these early experiences is even correct. And I've wanted to write and post this explanation for a good while now, because those posts are still sitting there on the front page, like a severed head at a dinner party; but I've been alternately too busy, or, mostly, too embarrassed by the whole ordeal to want to return to it. But I can't just leave that shit up there for anyone to read without any context or resolution. I have to put this to bed.
So here's how it all started. I was driving to work that February morning, and there was a discussion on the radio of how children respond to parental abuse. I don't remember what it was exactly, but something they said reminded me of this childhood friend (I'm going to start calling him "Bill" just so that I have a name to refer to him by). I hadn't thought about Bill in many, many years. I remembered some of our experiences together, and I remembered his big, angry father. And that's when I suddenly made the connection and realized, "Oh! Bill was abused by his father!" And everything else just followed from that.
I still believe that to be true; I believe Bill was abused (at least mentally and emotionally, if not physically or sexually) by his father. But the rest of it, I must admit now, I am significantly less sure about. I know that Bill and I "played doctor," but I don't remember all that we did. I don't actually remember how far our sexual play went. And, I am forced to admit to myself and all of you now, I don't actually remember who suggested what. I thought I did at the time, but I've since realized that's not true. It was just too long ago now for me to remember it clearly. It was so long ago that even the things I do remember clearly are suspect. And through my research I discovered that I would be forced to admit something else, something much worse: it is entirely possible that I am the one who abused him.
Reading through literature on the subject, I was surprised to find out that one of the more common, and yet least often discussed, forms of childhood sexual abuse is to simply educate a child about sex too much at too early an age. (It had never even occurred to me before my research that this could possibly be considered a form of abuse.) Sex is one of the most complicated and complex of all human interactions, and a 4 or 5 year-old child is simply too underdeveloped to be able to fully understand it (hell, a lot of adults are too underdeveloped to be able to fully understand it, for that matter); and so therefore giving a child that age too much information on the subject can often lead them to act out behaviors that they are not able to fully understand, process, or deal with in a meaningful way. That's the basic idea.
My mother's policy was that if I was old enough to ask the question, then I was old enough to hear the answer. And she was always very quick to let me know that if I ever had any questions at all, she would do her best to try to answer them truthfully and completely. And she lived by that statement. And I was a very curious boy. I had a lot of questions. And she answered every one she could. So I remember that throughout my childhood, basically until high school, I always knew more about sex (among many other things) than any of my friends or classmates seemed to. I was proud of that, actually. It made me feel grown-up. It made me feel strong. And superior. (Realizing now, as I type this, that this may have something to do with why I value intelligence so highly, in both myself and others.)
But in terms of my memories of my experiences with Bill, that throws everything into a new light. I only actually remember one thing we did that was definitely Bill's idea, and while that was a little dirty, it also wasn't exactly sexual, either (we were naked, but there was no touching); it would fall squarely in the category of "normative childhood sexual play." I don't actually remember what else we may have done, or who might've suggested any of it. But I know that in my memories of all the other boys (and some girls) who came after Bill, I was definitely the aggressor.
The hard part to admit, is that when I suddenly realized that morning that Bill had been abused by his father, I didn't then "realize" that he had actually been acting out his abuse on me, as I originally wrote. No, the truth was that I actually just assumed that was the case, and didn't recognize that I was making an assumption. "OMG, Bill was abused by his father! What do abused children do? They act out that same abuse on others. He must've been doing that to me when we played doctor! So that's why I then went on to do it others; I was acting out his abuse on me! That's where it all started! It makes perfect sense." And it does make perfect sense. But that doesn't automatically make it true, either.
I still don't know what happened back then, and I probably never will. But I have to admit that the much more likely scenario seems to be that I was actually a victim of childhood sexual abuse, but the abuser was my mother, not Bill. And it seems much more likely that I was acting out my abuse on him (and all the other boys and girls that came after him) rather than the other way around.
Bill moved away before we even hit puberty. I haven't seen or heard from him since I was a child. I have no idea what his life has been like.
If you're still out there, "Bill," I hope you're okay. And if you're not... all I can say is, I'm so, so sorry.
It wasn't my fault. I was only a child.
Showing posts with label confession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label confession. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Twenty-twenty...
Why am I telling you any of this?!
This isn't a diary, for fuck's sake. This is a MEGAPHONE.
Jesus christ, I'm such an asshole.
This isn't a diary, for fuck's sake. This is a MEGAPHONE.
Jesus christ, I'm such an asshole.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Apparent Exaggerations...
Still need more time to write out the full story/explanation, but I did learn something that requires an immediate update.
I knew that the language I used yesterday didn't feel quite right. It seemed inflammatory, and loaded with a ton of connotations that were not actually part of the experience I was trying to communicate. But what other language was I supposed to use? How else was I supposed to describe it?
Well, finally getting around last night to doing some very preliminary research into the topic of child-on-child sexual abuse, revealed the rather obvious fact that I'm not the only person in the world who has ever had experiences like these, and that as such, there is already a whole lexicon available to me to describe it, if I had only bothered to look.
I learned right off the bat that I was not, in fact, molested. I was not abused. What happened to me would be characterized as "Normative Childhood Sexual Play," even if it was a little more advanced than most. The difference being, I was never coerced, or threatened, or manipulated, or made to do anything I didn't want to do. All this friend of mine did was suggest the ideas; I went along with them willingly, even excitedly. And I enjoyed them completely, to the point that I then went on to suggest them to all my other friends for the next 20 years.
What I went through was a normal part of growing up that pretty much everyone goes through at some point. The big difference for me, was that it happened to me about 10 years earlier than the average. I was regularly having sex in elementary school, and I was having the kind of sex that most other people don't even know about, much less start trying to engage in, until middle school or high school. (Oddly, I steadfastly maintained my virginity, however technical, until I was much older; I think having so much sex as a child made my virginity seem more precious to me somehow, and I was determined to save it until I found someone I really loved.)
I still think my friend was abused, though. It's the only explanation I have right now for how he could be so sexually aggressive, and adventurous, and knowledgeable, at such a young age. And so it's still possible that, from his point of view, he was acting out from his history of abuse. But whether he was attempting to abuse me or not (who knows how he would've responded if I'd said no), I wasn't abused. I went willingly, and loved every minute of it.
And while I feel a lot better now, knowing that I don't actually have to wear the "childhood sexual abuse victim" label for the rest of my life, there's still a lot left here that I need to unpack. I'm still not sure what all this means, or what I'm supposed to do with this new information.
I knew that the language I used yesterday didn't feel quite right. It seemed inflammatory, and loaded with a ton of connotations that were not actually part of the experience I was trying to communicate. But what other language was I supposed to use? How else was I supposed to describe it?
Well, finally getting around last night to doing some very preliminary research into the topic of child-on-child sexual abuse, revealed the rather obvious fact that I'm not the only person in the world who has ever had experiences like these, and that as such, there is already a whole lexicon available to me to describe it, if I had only bothered to look.
I learned right off the bat that I was not, in fact, molested. I was not abused. What happened to me would be characterized as "Normative Childhood Sexual Play," even if it was a little more advanced than most. The difference being, I was never coerced, or threatened, or manipulated, or made to do anything I didn't want to do. All this friend of mine did was suggest the ideas; I went along with them willingly, even excitedly. And I enjoyed them completely, to the point that I then went on to suggest them to all my other friends for the next 20 years.
What I went through was a normal part of growing up that pretty much everyone goes through at some point. The big difference for me, was that it happened to me about 10 years earlier than the average. I was regularly having sex in elementary school, and I was having the kind of sex that most other people don't even know about, much less start trying to engage in, until middle school or high school. (Oddly, I steadfastly maintained my virginity, however technical, until I was much older; I think having so much sex as a child made my virginity seem more precious to me somehow, and I was determined to save it until I found someone I really loved.)
I still think my friend was abused, though. It's the only explanation I have right now for how he could be so sexually aggressive, and adventurous, and knowledgeable, at such a young age. And so it's still possible that, from his point of view, he was acting out from his history of abuse. But whether he was attempting to abuse me or not (who knows how he would've responded if I'd said no), I wasn't abused. I went willingly, and loved every minute of it.
And while I feel a lot better now, knowing that I don't actually have to wear the "childhood sexual abuse victim" label for the rest of my life, there's still a lot left here that I need to unpack. I'm still not sure what all this means, or what I'm supposed to do with this new information.
Monday, February 9, 2015
We Are What We Remember We Are...
I realized this morning, that I was - rather technically, I must caveat - molested by one of my very first childhood friends. And that this series of events was directly responsible for shaping a very large portion of my personality; of who I still am today.
I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this. There's way too much story there to be able to tell it all right now. But I had to at least get this much, the realization of it, the acknowledgment of it, out of me and into existence, before I forgot it again, or subsumed it in some other way.
I feel like I'm supposed to be upset about this. But I don't think I feel particularly upset about it, at least not yet. (There is a small part of me, however, that is upset at myself for not being upset about it, for whatever that's worth.) I'd always remembered - and still remember - our "playing doctor" as being entirely consensual. (As much as it could be, at least. We were about the same age at the time, so technically, legally, neither of us could consent; but we were also the only ones involved. So how does that work?) So, I've never felt - and still don't feel - victimized in any way. I feel no enmity or ill-will towards this individual, and never have. And the parts of my Self that I can now suddenly attribute to my early friendship with this person (at least, the ones I know about) are not things that I've ever felt particularly bad about or wished to be different. Nor have I ever felt a need to investigate their root, or determine their origin.
Which I guess is part of why it feels so strange to suddenly know where they all come from. I received an answer to an absolutely massive question, before I had ever even asked it in the first place. There's an almost vertigo to it; the sensation of it makes you dizzy. A memory you've had for almost 40 years, and suddenly, from out of nowhere and apropos of nothing, one tiny little detail you'd left behind somewhere along the way comes back into focus; and it fits like a keystone into place with all the other memories it connects to: that time, that place, those people; filling in a hole you never knew was there; and now you see it all so clearly, understanding it all for the very first time, after 40 years; and that realization leads to another, which leads to another, cascading down through your history like a line of dominoes, until suddenly four decades of Self have been re-written. You understand yourself now in a new, better, more complete way, a more whole way, than you ever have before. But you also know now, that you're not who you thought you were; and you never have been. So, then, who are you?
That's kind of a lot to handle when it all hits you in a matter of seconds while you're driving down the highway late to work on a Monday morning.
So, yeah. This one's gonna take a while to unpack, I guess.
I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this. There's way too much story there to be able to tell it all right now. But I had to at least get this much, the realization of it, the acknowledgment of it, out of me and into existence, before I forgot it again, or subsumed it in some other way.
I feel like I'm supposed to be upset about this. But I don't think I feel particularly upset about it, at least not yet. (There is a small part of me, however, that is upset at myself for not being upset about it, for whatever that's worth.) I'd always remembered - and still remember - our "playing doctor" as being entirely consensual. (As much as it could be, at least. We were about the same age at the time, so technically, legally, neither of us could consent; but we were also the only ones involved. So how does that work?) So, I've never felt - and still don't feel - victimized in any way. I feel no enmity or ill-will towards this individual, and never have. And the parts of my Self that I can now suddenly attribute to my early friendship with this person (at least, the ones I know about) are not things that I've ever felt particularly bad about or wished to be different. Nor have I ever felt a need to investigate their root, or determine their origin.
Which I guess is part of why it feels so strange to suddenly know where they all come from. I received an answer to an absolutely massive question, before I had ever even asked it in the first place. There's an almost vertigo to it; the sensation of it makes you dizzy. A memory you've had for almost 40 years, and suddenly, from out of nowhere and apropos of nothing, one tiny little detail you'd left behind somewhere along the way comes back into focus; and it fits like a keystone into place with all the other memories it connects to: that time, that place, those people; filling in a hole you never knew was there; and now you see it all so clearly, understanding it all for the very first time, after 40 years; and that realization leads to another, which leads to another, cascading down through your history like a line of dominoes, until suddenly four decades of Self have been re-written. You understand yourself now in a new, better, more complete way, a more whole way, than you ever have before. But you also know now, that you're not who you thought you were; and you never have been. So, then, who are you?
That's kind of a lot to handle when it all hits you in a matter of seconds while you're driving down the highway late to work on a Monday morning.
So, yeah. This one's gonna take a while to unpack, I guess.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Making Excuses...
I haven't written in a long time. Long enough that it is beginning to weigh on me.
I've been busy. I haven't had much time to write.
But I have had time.
And when I've had the time, I haven't had the energy.
And when I've had the energy, and the time, I haven't had the desire.
And when I've had the desire, and the energy, and the time, I haven't been inspired.
And when all my stars have finally aligned in the heavens of my birth, and I have found myself inspired, and with a desire to write, and the energy to do it, and the time to do it in - I haven't had the tools at hand.
It's happened several times while I was driving. It's happened in the sauna, and the steam room. It's happened late at night, just as I'm falling asleep. It's happened while I was rushing to get ready in the morning, late for work. It's happened in meetings. It's happened on the toilet.
I've tried to write without keyboard or pen, but I've yet to meet any measure of success. The process is completely different. My mind must then be constantly pre-occupied with remembering and reciting and memorizing whatever I've written to that point, while simultaneously trying to determine what comes next.
But when I have a keyboard - or paper and pen in a pinch - I can focus entirely on feeling out the next line; all I have to do is express.
What I realize as I observe this, is that making it up in my head is simply not my style.
But it's all I've got right now. And I am clogging up.
I've been busy. I haven't had much time to write.
But I have had time.
And when I've had the time, I haven't had the energy.
And when I've had the energy, and the time, I haven't had the desire.
And when I've had the desire, and the energy, and the time, I haven't been inspired.
And when all my stars have finally aligned in the heavens of my birth, and I have found myself inspired, and with a desire to write, and the energy to do it, and the time to do it in - I haven't had the tools at hand.
It's happened several times while I was driving. It's happened in the sauna, and the steam room. It's happened late at night, just as I'm falling asleep. It's happened while I was rushing to get ready in the morning, late for work. It's happened in meetings. It's happened on the toilet.
I've tried to write without keyboard or pen, but I've yet to meet any measure of success. The process is completely different. My mind must then be constantly pre-occupied with remembering and reciting and memorizing whatever I've written to that point, while simultaneously trying to determine what comes next.
But when I have a keyboard - or paper and pen in a pinch - I can focus entirely on feeling out the next line; all I have to do is express.
What I realize as I observe this, is that making it up in my head is simply not my style.
But it's all I've got right now. And I am clogging up.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Trigger Warning: Rape...
I am a rapist.
That is a powerful word
a putrid, painful word
a psychotic thing to say
out loud
to know
about myself
to admit
to You.
This is the worst thing I know
about myself
that I raped a girl once
without even realizing what I was doing.
I don't know why I'm saying this now.
I know a lot of people will hate me
for saying this
for admitting this horrible thing I did
for displaying this
repulsive
repugnant
piece of my personal history
like picking up a piece of my shit
and showing it to You.
I don't know why I'm saying this.
I don't know why I'm telling this.
I guess because
after all these years
more than half my life later
I still haven't forgotten
I can't forget
I still regret
so I guess it simply
needs to be said.
So call it a confession.
And now the bargaining begins.
The inevitable qualifications.
Because while it is true
I am a rapist
that powerful, putrid, painful, psychotic word
calls forth to mind an image
of violence and brutality
that is not me
and is not what I am trying to say
and is not what happened that night.
We were very young
not even twenty
and stupid
clearly stupid
and we'd been "going out" for years
Homecomings and Junior Proms
we'd taken each others' virginity
many years before
this was not our first dance.
And we were drunk.
Blind drunk.
It's not an excuse
but it's a fact
and it's relevant
and it needs to be said.
We had rented a hotel room
away from our parents
alone
free
and we were fucking
joyously
terrificially.
Young
Free
Drunk
Fucking.
It was a glorious night.
At some point
she said,
"Wait, stop."
I don't know why.
To this day, I have no idea
what happened
what was wrong
why she wanted me to stop.
But I remember
what I said.
I'll never forget
never be able to forget
what I said
what I did.
She said, "Wait, stop."
And I said,
"No,
I'm almost done."
There is no apologizing
for that
no accepting it
no getting over it.
Not for her
or for me.
Some things just become
a part of you
forever
and you can't hide them
no matter how much you want to
or how hard you try.
Some words weigh on you like Marley's chains
and you carry them for the rest of your life.
And you should.
I'm not seeking sympathy
or solace
I deserve neither
and I wouldn't want them
even if I did.
I want to carry this chain.
I have to.
Because it is the only way
I can attempt to
balance out the equation
and even have a hope
of trying
to begin
to make up
for what I did
to her.
I guess I just needed to
acknowledge the chain
admit it
make it real
so that I could keep carrying it
a little longer.
**I really wasn't sure whether to post this one or not. I knew it could make some people feel some very negative things, and quite probably at me. But it's real, it's honest, it's from the heart, and it is likely to make people feel something, and as that's all I'm aiming for, I felt that I had to call it art, and put it out there. Art shouldn't be about only expressing what is safe, or acceptable, or what is likely to only make people feel positive things. It is often controversial, or provocative, and that's as it should be.
Another concern I had, was whether I was right to use the word "rape" in this way. As I tried to express in the poem, that word conjures up images of violent, brutal sexual assault that is not even close to what I did. I was a stupid, drunk teenager, having sex with my girlfriend of several years, and when I was just about to come, she said "stop," and I didn't. It was absolutely wrong, and I have regretted it ever since, but that is, literally, as technical as rape can get and still be considered rape. So, am I doing a disservice to victims of actual violent sexual assaults, by using that term, by equating what I did with the horrible trauma they had to endure? Am I just taking a mildly traumatic event from my youth and blowing it up for maximum drama and artistic gain? I honestly don't even know anymore.
All I know, is that for my entire life since that night, every once in awhile, the first line of this poem has flashed through my brain. It happened again this morning. I was lying on the couch, trying to catch a few more minutes of dozing before I had to get up and go to work, and a story came on the news about a sexual assault in my area. There was something about the story that resonated with me in some way, and the thought "I am a rapist" flashed through my brain again, and that whole night came flooding back to me. And at that moment, I knew I had to get it out, and onto paper.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Disappointments & Failures...
How's that for a title, huh?
I was in a pretty good place the last time I wrote here, almost a week ago. But the past week hasn't gone well for me, and I've swung myself over to the opposite end of the scale since then.
It started when my weekend vacation in the woods didn't work out as anticipated. I got some writing done (expect to be reading my crappy work off and on for the next week or so), but nowhere near as much as I had wanted. The mosquitoes and other bugs were simply relentless, so I couldn't do any meditating out in the peaceful forest setting, either, which I'd been looking forward to a great deal. (We are both covered in itchy, red bites from head to toe now.) And the hot tub out on the back deck, which is one of my favorite features of this cabin-in-the-woods, and which might've provided some needed respite from the bugs, was broken. So, while the weather was beautiful, and the setting serene, I couldn't really spend any time outside to enjoy it. Oh, and somehow, we only managed to have sex once all weekend. So pathetic. What a waste.
And to top it all off, after all of these disappointments, combined with all of the stress of getting everything ready for the vacation, and then not being able to find any way to relax once we got there, I ended up succumbing to my addictive desires, and relapsed again. So much for "looking forward to spending this weekend sober." I somehow managed to justify it with the fact that I was using a drug I'd never used before, and not one of the ones that I'm currently trying to resist because I've had problems with them in the past. (Basically, I told myself it was okay to use this drug, because it wasn't alcohol or pot or painkillers, and because I'd never used it before. Which is such complete bullshit. Same old pattern I'm trying to break: avoid using one drug by using another instead.) I'm not going to name the drug here, but it's legal (or maybe it'd be better to say that it's not yet illegal), and while not actually a painkiller, one of the active chemicals in the plant bonds to the opiod-receptors in the brain, producing the same physical sensation, without most (if not all) of the harmful side-effects of true opiates (liver damage, chemical dependency, respiratory failure, withdrawl, etc.)
So, basically, it's a safe, cheap, legal way to get an opiate-like high. How the fuck am I supposed to say no to that?! The horrible, deadly, sickness-inducing side-effects of opiates are what I use to convince myself not to do them in the first place! Without them, I'm reduced to telling myself, "Well, you shouldn't use it because... well, because you've committed to a year sober and you don't want to feel like a failure. Oh, and don't forget that if you get high, on anything, at all, you'll end up feeling depressed and lazy and unmotivated and emotionally unbalanced for a week, remember?"
All of which is true, but I couldn't bring myself to give a shit at the time. And now I'm paying the price. I just wanted to enjoy my vacation, and I had run out of other options that I could find. Somehow, sitting around the cabin watching DVDs (two of the three movies we watched ended up being really awful) and snacking (which just made me feel fat - I could feel all of my workouts being undone with every bite) just weren't going to do it for me. And that's my problem in a nutshell. I couldn't bring myself to stay sober, knowing that it meant not enjoying myself on my vacation. Because when I get in a situation where I feel like I need to have a good time, and I try and fail to find any other way to do it, I always know that I've got this sure-fire method right in my back pocket. And, sure, that shortcut comes with a heavy price to pay, but I can never seem to bring myself to care about that in the moment. I'm always willing to pay almost any price later to enjoy myself now.
Like I said last week, a lot of what I'm trying to work on right now is learning how to suffer; how to allow myself to be okay with something like having a shitty, sober vacation, rather than feeling like I have to get high in order to avoid it (which only ends up making for a shittier vacation anyways). And this was put to the test this weekend, hard. And I failed that test, completely and utterly.
Anyways, then I got home and found out that my wireless had broken, again. So I had to take the laptop back to the shop and have them fix it, again, less than a week after I got it back from them and spent two days frantically trying to restore all my files and programs. But before I took it back to the shop I wanted to make another back up, since my previous one is corrupted. I decided to back-up to disk this time, since every other method I've tried has failed. After three hours, and three failed attempts, I had to give up on that method, as well. (I have never, not once in my entire life, successfully backed-up a computer. Every single attempt I have ever made using any method has failed. Either it crashes while creating the back-up, or it doesn't restore from the back-up properly. Why the fuck do I even bother?)
Then the depression from a weekend spent getting high kicked in full-force, and (combined with all of the other things I was already legitimately depressed about) totally knocked me on my ass, and I ended up calling out sick and spending two days on my couch playing video games. (I am such a fucking child!) I'm chemically exhausted from the coming-down, and so it takes me hours to get up and out the door in the morning. As such, I haven't worked out in almost a week, and I know I've managed to completely undo most of the gains I've made with all that hard work in the last month. I finally managed to make it into work today, but an hour late, only to find out that I missed an important assignment while I was out, and my boss had to take care of it for me. (I didn't know about it, because I couldn't check my work email, because my computer is still fucking broken!) Then my boss had a "talk" with me about the fact that I never seem to have any internet at home. (For years, this was because our building's internet sucked. And now that we have finally managed to fix that, my computer has been broken for a month!) And my story of why I never seem to have internet at home sounds ridiculous (even to me, and I know it's true!) so she didn't believe me, and I can hardly blame her.
I skipped SMART last night, because I'm too depressed, and too much of a coward to face all those assholes and admit what a stupid fucking failure I am. And I skipped my therapist appointment today (which I should be at right now, actually) because I couldn't bring myself to leave work early to go to my appointment, after missing two days and then coming in late today.
So, basically, my vacation sucked, I relapsed, I'm chemically depressed and exhausted, my computer is still broken and back in the shop again, I haven't worked out in a week, I'm way behind and in trouble at work, and I feel like a miserable, worthless, piece-of-shit excuse for a person right now.
And it is ALL. My. Fault.
I was in a pretty good place the last time I wrote here, almost a week ago. But the past week hasn't gone well for me, and I've swung myself over to the opposite end of the scale since then.
It started when my weekend vacation in the woods didn't work out as anticipated. I got some writing done (expect to be reading my crappy work off and on for the next week or so), but nowhere near as much as I had wanted. The mosquitoes and other bugs were simply relentless, so I couldn't do any meditating out in the peaceful forest setting, either, which I'd been looking forward to a great deal. (We are both covered in itchy, red bites from head to toe now.) And the hot tub out on the back deck, which is one of my favorite features of this cabin-in-the-woods, and which might've provided some needed respite from the bugs, was broken. So, while the weather was beautiful, and the setting serene, I couldn't really spend any time outside to enjoy it. Oh, and somehow, we only managed to have sex once all weekend. So pathetic. What a waste.
And to top it all off, after all of these disappointments, combined with all of the stress of getting everything ready for the vacation, and then not being able to find any way to relax once we got there, I ended up succumbing to my addictive desires, and relapsed again. So much for "looking forward to spending this weekend sober." I somehow managed to justify it with the fact that I was using a drug I'd never used before, and not one of the ones that I'm currently trying to resist because I've had problems with them in the past. (Basically, I told myself it was okay to use this drug, because it wasn't alcohol or pot or painkillers, and because I'd never used it before. Which is such complete bullshit. Same old pattern I'm trying to break: avoid using one drug by using another instead.) I'm not going to name the drug here, but it's legal (or maybe it'd be better to say that it's not yet illegal), and while not actually a painkiller, one of the active chemicals in the plant bonds to the opiod-receptors in the brain, producing the same physical sensation, without most (if not all) of the harmful side-effects of true opiates (liver damage, chemical dependency, respiratory failure, withdrawl, etc.)
So, basically, it's a safe, cheap, legal way to get an opiate-like high. How the fuck am I supposed to say no to that?! The horrible, deadly, sickness-inducing side-effects of opiates are what I use to convince myself not to do them in the first place! Without them, I'm reduced to telling myself, "Well, you shouldn't use it because... well, because you've committed to a year sober and you don't want to feel like a failure. Oh, and don't forget that if you get high, on anything, at all, you'll end up feeling depressed and lazy and unmotivated and emotionally unbalanced for a week, remember?"
All of which is true, but I couldn't bring myself to give a shit at the time. And now I'm paying the price. I just wanted to enjoy my vacation, and I had run out of other options that I could find. Somehow, sitting around the cabin watching DVDs (two of the three movies we watched ended up being really awful) and snacking (which just made me feel fat - I could feel all of my workouts being undone with every bite) just weren't going to do it for me. And that's my problem in a nutshell. I couldn't bring myself to stay sober, knowing that it meant not enjoying myself on my vacation. Because when I get in a situation where I feel like I need to have a good time, and I try and fail to find any other way to do it, I always know that I've got this sure-fire method right in my back pocket. And, sure, that shortcut comes with a heavy price to pay, but I can never seem to bring myself to care about that in the moment. I'm always willing to pay almost any price later to enjoy myself now.
Like I said last week, a lot of what I'm trying to work on right now is learning how to suffer; how to allow myself to be okay with something like having a shitty, sober vacation, rather than feeling like I have to get high in order to avoid it (which only ends up making for a shittier vacation anyways). And this was put to the test this weekend, hard. And I failed that test, completely and utterly.
Anyways, then I got home and found out that my wireless had broken, again. So I had to take the laptop back to the shop and have them fix it, again, less than a week after I got it back from them and spent two days frantically trying to restore all my files and programs. But before I took it back to the shop I wanted to make another back up, since my previous one is corrupted. I decided to back-up to disk this time, since every other method I've tried has failed. After three hours, and three failed attempts, I had to give up on that method, as well. (I have never, not once in my entire life, successfully backed-up a computer. Every single attempt I have ever made using any method has failed. Either it crashes while creating the back-up, or it doesn't restore from the back-up properly. Why the fuck do I even bother?)
Then the depression from a weekend spent getting high kicked in full-force, and (combined with all of the other things I was already legitimately depressed about) totally knocked me on my ass, and I ended up calling out sick and spending two days on my couch playing video games. (I am such a fucking child!) I'm chemically exhausted from the coming-down, and so it takes me hours to get up and out the door in the morning. As such, I haven't worked out in almost a week, and I know I've managed to completely undo most of the gains I've made with all that hard work in the last month. I finally managed to make it into work today, but an hour late, only to find out that I missed an important assignment while I was out, and my boss had to take care of it for me. (I didn't know about it, because I couldn't check my work email, because my computer is still fucking broken!) Then my boss had a "talk" with me about the fact that I never seem to have any internet at home. (For years, this was because our building's internet sucked. And now that we have finally managed to fix that, my computer has been broken for a month!) And my story of why I never seem to have internet at home sounds ridiculous (even to me, and I know it's true!) so she didn't believe me, and I can hardly blame her.
I skipped SMART last night, because I'm too depressed, and too much of a coward to face all those assholes and admit what a stupid fucking failure I am. And I skipped my therapist appointment today (which I should be at right now, actually) because I couldn't bring myself to leave work early to go to my appointment, after missing two days and then coming in late today.
So, basically, my vacation sucked, I relapsed, I'm chemically depressed and exhausted, my computer is still broken and back in the shop again, I haven't worked out in a week, I'm way behind and in trouble at work, and I feel like a miserable, worthless, piece-of-shit excuse for a person right now.
And it is ALL. My. Fault.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Vow...
I Love you.
More than I ever thought I could Love anything.
I will never stop Loving you.
I COULD never stop Loving you.
And, as sure as I am that the Sun does not shine on my world
without your permission,
I am sure that I want you
to be the last thing I ever see.
I want your voice to be the last thing I ever hear,
and I want your hand holding mine
to be the last thing I ever feel.
And if you would consent to hold me,
even only as my last breath whispered from me,
then I will vow to protect you
from anything and everything that threatens or disturbs you;
to worship you
as if you were the god who gave me life, breath, and soul;
to adore you
as the most beautiful,
the most sexy,
the most compassionate,
the most Loving,
the most brilliant,
and the most magnificent woman that the Gods have ever seen fit
to grace our world with.
And I will vow to Love you
more than any person before or after us
has ever been able to do.
You are Light,
Life,
and Love to me,
and you ALWAYS will be.
+ + +
I confess, as the years have passed, I haven't done a very good job of living up to this oath.
You should hold me to it.
Please hold me to it.
This is who I want to be.
This is who I thought I was.
Help make me this man.
Let me be him, again, for you.
More than I ever thought I could Love anything.
I will never stop Loving you.
I COULD never stop Loving you.
And, as sure as I am that the Sun does not shine on my world
without your permission,
I am sure that I want you
to be the last thing I ever see.
I want your voice to be the last thing I ever hear,
and I want your hand holding mine
to be the last thing I ever feel.
And if you would consent to hold me,
even only as my last breath whispered from me,
then I will vow to protect you
from anything and everything that threatens or disturbs you;
to worship you
as if you were the god who gave me life, breath, and soul;
to adore you
as the most beautiful,
the most sexy,
the most compassionate,
the most Loving,
the most brilliant,
and the most magnificent woman that the Gods have ever seen fit
to grace our world with.
And I will vow to Love you
more than any person before or after us
has ever been able to do.
You are Light,
Life,
and Love to me,
and you ALWAYS will be.
+ + +
I confess, as the years have passed, I haven't done a very good job of living up to this oath.
You should hold me to it.
Please hold me to it.
This is who I want to be.
This is who I thought I was.
Help make me this man.
Let me be him, again, for you.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Damn, That Slope Sure Is Slippery...
I think I fell off the wagon last night.
No, that's not right. I know I fell off the wagon last night. Just hard to say it, is all.
She and I and her friend went out to our bar. I had my first non-alcoholic beer. I assumed that would be safe. It was even recommended to me as an option by my chemical dependency therapist. But the weirdest thing happened.
I got a little drunk!
There's this feeling you get when you first take a drink. It's more emotional and perceptual than physical; not like getting high. It's just this feeling of suddenly being happier, more relaxed, more interested in what other people are saying, feeling more outgoing and talkative. And it's an immediate reaction - you can feel it after just a few sips. And it's more pronounced and obvious for alcoholics like myself. Anyone can notice it, but it's really, really obvious to us.
And halfway through my first supposedly non-alcoholic beer, I felt it, clear as day. It must've been the Placebo Effect, there's no other explanation for it. After that one, I had two more, and thankfully, the feeling never went any further than that, but still, that was enough. Even just the beginning of the feeling of getting drunk was apparently enough to trigger me.
After we left the bar, my leg was really killing me. So I decided to take a pain pill. It's hard to say how much of that was legitimate and how much of it was just my desire to continue the feeling of getting high that had started with the near-beer. Yeah, my leg hurt really badly, but I probably could've suffered through it if I really wanted to. And there's no mistaking that I really did want very badly to get high right then. More so than I have in recent memory, actually. So, if I'm honest, I'd have to say that the sore leg was probably just a convenient excuse.
We got home, I took my pill, and the girls went back out again to hit another bar. I plopped down on the couch and started playing video games. It took almost two hours for the pill to kick in, but when it did, it felt like a long, low-intensity, sustained orgasm. Less than thirty minutes later, I took another one. And then I started drinking an energy drink, so that I wouldn't pass out and could stay up and enjoy the pleasure of the pills all night long. This is one of my favorites of my old ways to masturbate myself to death. I call it my "poor man's speedball."
In the span of three hours, I had gone from comfortably sober, to neck-deep in the exact same hole I almost died in just two months ago.
And I didn't even feel guilty about it. I enjoyed every second of it, playing my game and feeling so fantastic, until I finally started to nod off around 3 a.m.
And I still don't feel guilty about it, which I think is even scarier. I feel responsible, to be sure, but not guilty. I feel like I did this to myself, but somehow, I also feel like it was an honest mistake. (WTF??) I had no way of knowing that drinking a motherfucking non-alcoholic beer could possibly affect me in a way that was so unbelievably similar to drinking an actual beer. Yes, I totally let my guard down, and ended up fucking myself because of it, but I really don't think I could've possibly known that I needed to have my guard up in that situation. I mean, it's non-alcoholic beer, for fuck's sake! Its entire purpose is for alcoholics to be able to drink it safely! How could I have possibly known?! Yes, it's still my fault for taking it much, much further after that. But that's how addiction works. Addicts aren't like "normal" people. An addict can't just have a little taste and then simply walk away. That's what makes them an addict. And last night, I had a little taste, without realizing it until it was too late, and I wasn't at all prepared for it. And then I couldn't walk away.
I feel like I should be beating myself up about this. Feeling like a failure. But I know that's a trap. You let yourself feel like a failure, or get down on yourself too much for not being perfect, and then it's just a short step to saying, "Fuck it, why even bother?" Addicts relapse. That's just a fact. And believe it or not, the healthy response to relapse is to accept it, dust yourself off, and climb back on the wagon, resolved to hang on tighter next time. Accept responsibility, yes - but don't hate on yourself for not being perfect. Just try again, and try harder.
Learn the lesson and keep going.
I ended up not being able to sleep at all last night. And I mean that literally and sincerely - I laid in bed, awake, and gloriously high, for six hours, and did not fall asleep for even a moment. Whether from the pills or the energy drink, I can't say. It could be either. But I'm choosing to interpret it as my penance. And I'm accepting it gladly, and with humility. (I hope so, anyways. I'm trying.)
And I know one thing for certain: I'll never take non-alcoholic beer lightly again.
No, that's not right. I know I fell off the wagon last night. Just hard to say it, is all.
She and I and her friend went out to our bar. I had my first non-alcoholic beer. I assumed that would be safe. It was even recommended to me as an option by my chemical dependency therapist. But the weirdest thing happened.
I got a little drunk!
There's this feeling you get when you first take a drink. It's more emotional and perceptual than physical; not like getting high. It's just this feeling of suddenly being happier, more relaxed, more interested in what other people are saying, feeling more outgoing and talkative. And it's an immediate reaction - you can feel it after just a few sips. And it's more pronounced and obvious for alcoholics like myself. Anyone can notice it, but it's really, really obvious to us.
And halfway through my first supposedly non-alcoholic beer, I felt it, clear as day. It must've been the Placebo Effect, there's no other explanation for it. After that one, I had two more, and thankfully, the feeling never went any further than that, but still, that was enough. Even just the beginning of the feeling of getting drunk was apparently enough to trigger me.
After we left the bar, my leg was really killing me. So I decided to take a pain pill. It's hard to say how much of that was legitimate and how much of it was just my desire to continue the feeling of getting high that had started with the near-beer. Yeah, my leg hurt really badly, but I probably could've suffered through it if I really wanted to. And there's no mistaking that I really did want very badly to get high right then. More so than I have in recent memory, actually. So, if I'm honest, I'd have to say that the sore leg was probably just a convenient excuse.
We got home, I took my pill, and the girls went back out again to hit another bar. I plopped down on the couch and started playing video games. It took almost two hours for the pill to kick in, but when it did, it felt like a long, low-intensity, sustained orgasm. Less than thirty minutes later, I took another one. And then I started drinking an energy drink, so that I wouldn't pass out and could stay up and enjoy the pleasure of the pills all night long. This is one of my favorites of my old ways to masturbate myself to death. I call it my "poor man's speedball."
In the span of three hours, I had gone from comfortably sober, to neck-deep in the exact same hole I almost died in just two months ago.
And I didn't even feel guilty about it. I enjoyed every second of it, playing my game and feeling so fantastic, until I finally started to nod off around 3 a.m.
And I still don't feel guilty about it, which I think is even scarier. I feel responsible, to be sure, but not guilty. I feel like I did this to myself, but somehow, I also feel like it was an honest mistake. (WTF??) I had no way of knowing that drinking a motherfucking non-alcoholic beer could possibly affect me in a way that was so unbelievably similar to drinking an actual beer. Yes, I totally let my guard down, and ended up fucking myself because of it, but I really don't think I could've possibly known that I needed to have my guard up in that situation. I mean, it's non-alcoholic beer, for fuck's sake! Its entire purpose is for alcoholics to be able to drink it safely! How could I have possibly known?! Yes, it's still my fault for taking it much, much further after that. But that's how addiction works. Addicts aren't like "normal" people. An addict can't just have a little taste and then simply walk away. That's what makes them an addict. And last night, I had a little taste, without realizing it until it was too late, and I wasn't at all prepared for it. And then I couldn't walk away.
I feel like I should be beating myself up about this. Feeling like a failure. But I know that's a trap. You let yourself feel like a failure, or get down on yourself too much for not being perfect, and then it's just a short step to saying, "Fuck it, why even bother?" Addicts relapse. That's just a fact. And believe it or not, the healthy response to relapse is to accept it, dust yourself off, and climb back on the wagon, resolved to hang on tighter next time. Accept responsibility, yes - but don't hate on yourself for not being perfect. Just try again, and try harder.
Learn the lesson and keep going.
I ended up not being able to sleep at all last night. And I mean that literally and sincerely - I laid in bed, awake, and gloriously high, for six hours, and did not fall asleep for even a moment. Whether from the pills or the energy drink, I can't say. It could be either. But I'm choosing to interpret it as my penance. And I'm accepting it gladly, and with humility. (I hope so, anyways. I'm trying.)
And I know one thing for certain: I'll never take non-alcoholic beer lightly again.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Confessions #3...
"Is it really mine??"
She was curled up in the fetal position on her bed, a mattress on the floor, hiding her head under her pillow. This tiny, terrified little girl, trying to hide from me the way a child might.
"Is it MINE?!" I screamed, again, as though the volume of my voice could somehow force her to answer me.
We'd been together for four years, since my sophomore year of high school; an eternity at that age. She had recently moved out of her parents' house and into this tiny, barely furnished basement apartment across the street from our old high school. Her roommate, a mutual male friend of ours, had just told me they'd been "screwing for the past month."
"Fucking TELL ME, goddammit!" She curled up tighter and pulled the pillow closer around her head. I could hear her muffled sobbing. I have to admit, it made me feel a little better.
She'd told me she was pregnant a couple of weeks earlier, as we'd sat parked in her car, waiting out a rainstorm. Even though we'd only had sex once in the month leading up to that, I still just naturally assumed it was mine. After all, she wasn't having sex with anyone else. And why else would she bother telling me if it wasn't mine?
She told me she was going to "get rid of it." I could feel a part of me break when she said that. At the same time, we weren't married, weren't ready to marry, weren't living together, didn't have jobs, and I had just failed my freshman year of college; we were hardly ready to be parents. And I didn't really feel like I had much say in the matter, either.
"How are you going to do it?" I asked, as the rain beat down on the car all around us. "Do you need my help?"
"No, I know what to do. I looked it up in my book of remedies. There's an herb, and I have to make a tea out of it and drink a bunch of it, and that'll make me bleed it out."
That sounded horrific to me. "Wouldn't you rather just go to a doctor?"
"I can't afford a doctor. And I don't want my parents to find out. Plus, this method is supposed to be safer, and less painful."
"TELL ME, YOU FUCKING BITCH!! IS THAT MY BABY YOU'RE KILLING OR NOT?!!"
The next day she bought a vial of Oil of Pennyroyal from our local
Wiccan shop. The concentrated oil was incredibly pungent. As she
infused a dropper full into a cup of hot water, the sickly-sweet aroma
filled every corner of the tiny apartment. It smelled like mildew and
peppermint. It was enough to make you gag, and there was nowhere to go
to get away from it.
She drank two cups of the "tea" every day for the next two weeks. Within a day, the smell began to ooze from her pores, mixing with the smell of her sweat. If anything, that smell was even worse, like moldy garlic, with an astringent note mixed in, something halfway between nail-polish remover and hairspray. It was nauseating. I couldn't even stand to be in the same room with her.
Even if it hadn't smelled so strong, and so horribly, I don't know if I'd have been able to stand it. Because that smell was the smell of my first child being murdered. It was the bloody death of my son or daughter violently assaulting my senses. And I guess in that way, it was almost fitting. It would've seemed wrong somehow if it had smelled pleasant. No, of course it had to smell like boiled death.
For the record, I was, and am, pro-choice. I believe everyone has a right to make up their own mind on this issue, and I do not judge anyone for the choice they make. If a woman has an abortion, at any point, and for any reason, I do not consider it the murder of a baby. But I found it was easy to accept these things in the abstract, when they were about other people, and other babies. I soon discovered I felt very differently when it was suddenly about my baby.
The tincture of pennyroyal made her horribly sick. She bled constantly, and was bent double with vicious cramps for days. She had trouble keeping food down. She would get sudden fevers. She couldn't sleep. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she would hallucinate.
I felt just as sorry for her as I did for myself, and for our unborn child. It just seemed to go on and on and on. I felt like this had to be worse than just going to a doctor and getting it over with. But now it was too late for that. I alternately tried to comfort her, and ignore her. I stayed away from the apartment for days at a time, going out to get high with my friends, trying to forget what was going on in that tiny, damp little basement room. I couldn't even begin to figure out how to deal with what I was feeling. And while part of me wanted to take care of her and try to help her, another part of me hated her for what she was doing.
But then, after she'd been drinking the pennyroyal tea for almost two weeks, the oil almost gone, her roommate had casually confessed their affair to me, and all the nebulous, sickening things I was feeling crystallized into a razor-edged rage. First, there was the sense of betrayal - they'd both been lying to me for at least a month now. They'd been fucking behind my back. And how could I be so stupid as to not see it! But then came the realization: we'd only had sex the one time over a month ago (her recent and sudden lack of sexual interest in me suddenly making sense). But she'd been having sex with him repeatedly during that same month. So how could she possibly think the baby was mine?? But, of course, she didn't think it was mine. She knew it was his; they both knew it was his. They just let me believe it was mine. They just let me suffer through all of that, for nothing.
Because it was easier to just let me believe she was killing my child, than it was to admit that they were fucking behind my back.
I kicked open the door to her bedroom and screamed at her, "You've been fucking HIM?!"
"Oh, God, no!" she screamed, and curled up fetal, hiding her head under her pillow. I continued to scream at her, getting louder and more angry, demanding to know if it was my child. She wouldn't even acknowledge me, which only infuriated me more. She just kept hiding in that ridiculously childish way, as if she could make me disappear simply by hiding her head long enough.
Finally, I'd had enough, and I grabbed her pillow and blanket and flung them across the room. She covered her head with her hands, but I grabbed her arms and pinned them down on her bed. Straddling her, holding her down, I screamed into her face, "IS IT FUCKING MINE?!!"
"NO! IT'S NOT FUCKING YOURS!! OK?!!"
...
I don't know what I expected her to say. I guess it was more about forcing her to tell me the truth. But, the thing is, to this day, I still don't know if she really was telling me the truth or not. I don't know if she even knew the truth. She'd lied to me about so many things by that point; she'd been lying to me for almost our entire relationship. I can do the math, and I know that, statistically speaking, it almost certainly wasn't mine. But, she said they'd used condoms.
And we hadn't.
So I still can't help but wonder.
And I know that I'll never know the answer - no one will ever know the answer - and that the numbers are on his side, so there's really no point in speculating.
But, if that's true, then why am I still thinking about it, all these years later?
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Confessions #2...
"What did you take?," the doctor asked, sounding bored, not bothering to look up from her computer screen. I was in her office for the first time, for a check-up following my overdose the week before.
"I snorted 75 milligrams of Oxycontin, and drank three-quarters of a fifth of bourbon."
"Well, why did you do that?," she asked, with a note of condescension in her tone, still not looking up.
That seemed like a pretty stupid question to me. "Because I'm a drug addict," I replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. That seemed to get her attention; she finally looked up at me.
She stared at me, as if sizing me up. As if she'd never heard anybody say that before. I didn't understand what the big deal was. Of course I was a drug addict. Why else would I do that? Why else would I be here? What was I supposed to do, lie? Tell her that it was an accident? "Honestly, Doctor, I have no idea how all those powdered narcotics managed to get up my nose!"
She continued to stare at me for a long moment. She was looking me straight in the eye. It was very odd; I couldn't remember anyone ever looking at me in quite that way before. I imagine she must've been measuring me up, testing me, trying to determine if I was being serious or just fucking with her. I didn't flinch. Eventually, she smiled softly.
"Well, how do you feel about that?," she asked.
"I'm not happy about it, if that's what you're asking."
"Do you want to continue to be a drug addict?"
"No, I don't. I've been an addict for a long time, but this is the first time I nearly died because of it. That was terrifying. I don't want to go through anything like this ever again."
"I can help you, if you want."
"Please. I need to stop."
Over the next few years, she helped me to stop abusing drugs and alcohol, got me to start exercising every day, and taught me how to not only eat healthy, but how to enjoy it, too. I lost weight, and I felt strong and healthy and happy in a way that I couldn't remember feeling since I was a child. Every time I'd go into her office for a check-up, she would stare at me in the same intense, probing way for a few moments, sizing me up, and then give me that soft smile. She was the first doctor I've ever had that seemed to actually care about me, and want me to succeed at being well.
But nothing lasts forever. After a few years, she left my HMO for private practice, and I was assigned to a new doctor. Not wanting to start over with someone new, I found "better things" to do with my time than go for my check-ups.
Recently, after 5 years of sobriety, thinking I had everything under control, I relapsed. Three days later, I was back in that same office, having overdosed again, for the second time in my life.
"What did you take?," the new doctor asked, sounding bored, not bothering to look up from her computer screen.
"About 600 milligrams of Tramadol, a six-pack of beer, and a dozen-or-so tequila shots, over the course of the day."
"Hmm... you should make an appointment with a counselor in Behavioral Health. Your stats look fine. I don't think you're in any danger. Do you need the number for Behavioral Health?"
"Um, no, I have it."
"Ok, I'll see you in six months, then."
As I watched her walk out of the office, I couldn't help but think, She never even asked me why I did it. I felt as if, were I to die tomorrow, she wouldn't care less.
This time, I thought, I'm on my own.
"I snorted 75 milligrams of Oxycontin, and drank three-quarters of a fifth of bourbon."
"Well, why did you do that?," she asked, with a note of condescension in her tone, still not looking up.
That seemed like a pretty stupid question to me. "Because I'm a drug addict," I replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. That seemed to get her attention; she finally looked up at me.
She stared at me, as if sizing me up. As if she'd never heard anybody say that before. I didn't understand what the big deal was. Of course I was a drug addict. Why else would I do that? Why else would I be here? What was I supposed to do, lie? Tell her that it was an accident? "Honestly, Doctor, I have no idea how all those powdered narcotics managed to get up my nose!"
She continued to stare at me for a long moment. She was looking me straight in the eye. It was very odd; I couldn't remember anyone ever looking at me in quite that way before. I imagine she must've been measuring me up, testing me, trying to determine if I was being serious or just fucking with her. I didn't flinch. Eventually, she smiled softly.
"Well, how do you feel about that?," she asked.
"I'm not happy about it, if that's what you're asking."
"Do you want to continue to be a drug addict?"
"No, I don't. I've been an addict for a long time, but this is the first time I nearly died because of it. That was terrifying. I don't want to go through anything like this ever again."
"I can help you, if you want."
"Please. I need to stop."
Over the next few years, she helped me to stop abusing drugs and alcohol, got me to start exercising every day, and taught me how to not only eat healthy, but how to enjoy it, too. I lost weight, and I felt strong and healthy and happy in a way that I couldn't remember feeling since I was a child. Every time I'd go into her office for a check-up, she would stare at me in the same intense, probing way for a few moments, sizing me up, and then give me that soft smile. She was the first doctor I've ever had that seemed to actually care about me, and want me to succeed at being well.
But nothing lasts forever. After a few years, she left my HMO for private practice, and I was assigned to a new doctor. Not wanting to start over with someone new, I found "better things" to do with my time than go for my check-ups.
Recently, after 5 years of sobriety, thinking I had everything under control, I relapsed. Three days later, I was back in that same office, having overdosed again, for the second time in my life.
"What did you take?," the new doctor asked, sounding bored, not bothering to look up from her computer screen.
"About 600 milligrams of Tramadol, a six-pack of beer, and a dozen-or-so tequila shots, over the course of the day."
"Hmm... you should make an appointment with a counselor in Behavioral Health. Your stats look fine. I don't think you're in any danger. Do you need the number for Behavioral Health?"
"Um, no, I have it."
"Ok, I'll see you in six months, then."
As I watched her walk out of the office, I couldn't help but think, She never even asked me why I did it. I felt as if, were I to die tomorrow, she wouldn't care less.
This time, I thought, I'm on my own.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Confessions #1...
A couple of hours after writing this post, I was reading an issue of The Sun, a non-profit literary magazine I subscribe to. In every issue, they have a section called Readers Write, where they publish true stories sent in by readers, and related to a different topic each month. At the bottom of the first page of the Readers Write section, I saw the list of upcoming topics and submission deadlines, and I thought, Well here's a ready-made list of ideas for whenever I have a day like today where I can't think of anything to write about. How perfect!
So, I think I'm going to start trying to do that for a while. As always, we'll see how it goes. The first topic on the list is "Confessions," and the submission deadline is May 1st. I've got a few ideas, and we'll see how many I post in the next couple of weeks. For now, here's my first submission:
...
"I'm Suzanne, and I'm an alcoholic."
"Hi, Suzanne!"
My mother and I had always been very close. I was her first-born, and my father worked three jobs to support our family, so my mother practically raised me herself. She was my best friend, and we shared everything with each other. So when she finally had to give up drinking and drugs, after her gall bladder had failed and had to be removed, it seemed completely natural when she invited me to attend some of her AA meetings with her. I was ten years-old.
I think she wanted to share this new world of hers with me. And I imagine that she wanted to show me that she was different now, that she was getting better. I was curious, too, and I enjoyed being included in her new grown-up world of church basements and coffee urns and chain smokers. And I have to admit, there was a definite voyeuristic thrill in spending an hour listening to strangers' sordid tales of addiction and despair.
Every story began the same way. The person would stand up and state their name, followed by, "...and I'm an alcoholic." Then the entire group would respond by saying, "Hi," always using the person's name back at them. "Hi, Suzanne!" And then they would tell whatever story was on their mind to tell that day. There was no judgement, no disapproval. Everyone understood what everyone else had been through, because they'd all been through the same thing at some point. They were there to take care of each other. "Keep coming back," they'd say.
We weren't Catholic, but I'd seen the ritual of confession enough times in movies to understand that these meetings served a similar purpose. Everyone there all seemed to feel very guilty about who they'd been and the things they'd done. And so they were confessing their sins. Not to a God, but to their peers; people who had suffered in the same way, who understood their pain intimately, and who could provide immediate feedback in the form of reassurance and support and compassion. And forgiveness.
As I got older, I stopped going to the meetings with my mother. And she stopped going, as well. Over the next ten years, she would fall back into drinking and getting high again and again. And in her brief periods of sobriety between relapses, she would go back to the meetings for a while, until the next time she fell back off the wagon.
On December 31, 1999, she went to her last meeting. She left that particular basement room that day, checked herself into a local Holiday Inn, and took her life with a bottle of sleeping pills purchased at a nearby grocery store.
Now it's my turn to stand up at the front of one of those rooms and state my name. But I can't bring myself to do it. Because I can't find any comfort or solace in that ritual of confession. Hearing those familiar calls and responses, all I can think of, is the life I've lost.
So, I think I'm going to start trying to do that for a while. As always, we'll see how it goes. The first topic on the list is "Confessions," and the submission deadline is May 1st. I've got a few ideas, and we'll see how many I post in the next couple of weeks. For now, here's my first submission:
...
"I'm Suzanne, and I'm an alcoholic."
"Hi, Suzanne!"
My mother and I had always been very close. I was her first-born, and my father worked three jobs to support our family, so my mother practically raised me herself. She was my best friend, and we shared everything with each other. So when she finally had to give up drinking and drugs, after her gall bladder had failed and had to be removed, it seemed completely natural when she invited me to attend some of her AA meetings with her. I was ten years-old.
I think she wanted to share this new world of hers with me. And I imagine that she wanted to show me that she was different now, that she was getting better. I was curious, too, and I enjoyed being included in her new grown-up world of church basements and coffee urns and chain smokers. And I have to admit, there was a definite voyeuristic thrill in spending an hour listening to strangers' sordid tales of addiction and despair.
Every story began the same way. The person would stand up and state their name, followed by, "...and I'm an alcoholic." Then the entire group would respond by saying, "Hi," always using the person's name back at them. "Hi, Suzanne!" And then they would tell whatever story was on their mind to tell that day. There was no judgement, no disapproval. Everyone understood what everyone else had been through, because they'd all been through the same thing at some point. They were there to take care of each other. "Keep coming back," they'd say.
We weren't Catholic, but I'd seen the ritual of confession enough times in movies to understand that these meetings served a similar purpose. Everyone there all seemed to feel very guilty about who they'd been and the things they'd done. And so they were confessing their sins. Not to a God, but to their peers; people who had suffered in the same way, who understood their pain intimately, and who could provide immediate feedback in the form of reassurance and support and compassion. And forgiveness.
As I got older, I stopped going to the meetings with my mother. And she stopped going, as well. Over the next ten years, she would fall back into drinking and getting high again and again. And in her brief periods of sobriety between relapses, she would go back to the meetings for a while, until the next time she fell back off the wagon.
On December 31, 1999, she went to her last meeting. She left that particular basement room that day, checked herself into a local Holiday Inn, and took her life with a bottle of sleeping pills purchased at a nearby grocery store.
Now it's my turn to stand up at the front of one of those rooms and state my name. But I can't bring myself to do it. Because I can't find any comfort or solace in that ritual of confession. Hearing those familiar calls and responses, all I can think of, is the life I've lost.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)