It's Friday and (I think) the day after I made the previous post. It's the early afternoon and we have returned from our respective psychiatric visits. I'm numb.
Just now on the way from the bathroom back to my desk she waved and with a smile called out, "hi honey!" I answered with all the self-control I could muster, "Hi. Do you need anything?" She replied, "No. I just wanted to send you my love." I walked away, hiding the look of disgust on my face.
Something snapped in me last night. The outpouring of vitriol directed at me last night changed the way I view her, our relationship, and my life. How did it ever come to this?
Six years ago my third marriage broke up in a very acrimoniously. I had stopped drinking for a year beforehand. I've been a heavy drinker for most of my adult life. Becoming sober brought up an underlying bipolar type 1 condition which is now my diagnosis, along with a tendency to psychosis. My marriage flew apart and on my fiftieth birthday my wife walked out on me. I can't say that I blame her.
I was already in a fragile mental state because of the psychotropic side effect of Interferon. I was taking it along with other drugs to get my Hepatitis C under control. The combination of all of these factors threw me into a psychotic mania which lasted about a year and a half. I realized during this time, in my befuddled state, that something had gone wrong with me and I sought therapy on my own. I found a therapist (who was to remain with me through my recovery--I now see a psychoanalyst) and it was he who made my diagnosis. He strongly urged me to seek a psychiatrist and to start taking medicine to address my condition. Shortly thereafter I followed his advice and began what was to be a long and weary travail of trying different medicines to find one that worked for me. The Interferon treatments continued.
Before I started my therapy I was deeply involved with an online bulletin board called Icarus. I discovered it accidentally during a web search to find references to the myth of Icarus and pictures that depicted it. I say accidentally because I was already in the throes of a delusion that I was indeed Icarus myself and that the ills that had befallen me were caused by flying too close to the sun of my aspirations and arrogance. Icarus promulgated the philosophy that drugs were not a necessity for bipolar and, in fact, not to be valued. Bipolar was a gift that was misunderstood by the society that rejected it as mental instability. This dovetailed quite well with my feelings at the time and I adopted this philosophy with all of my heart.
As Icarus, I began cutting, marking the places on my arms where my wings had been ripped off during my descent. In the dark of winter, utterly alone and without friends or family during the holidays, I played laconic Goth music, lit candles throughout the room and laid out the accouterments of cutting and the bandages needed afterwards. I calmly slit long cuts in my forearms with a razor blade and then gloried in the slow flow of blood from them, serene in my unshakable belief that I had again fulfilled my destiny and partaken in a ritual that was wholly my own.
I was still an active computer programmer and set out to build a website devoted to the musings and experiences of my life in the context of Icarus. I also set up a myspace page which sported a stylized picture of Icarus and the wailing of Goth songs which I had become so fond of. I also began attending DBSA (Depression Bipolar Support Alliance) meetings while still in my episodic mania. It was during this time that I met her through myspace.
She was totally taken by my website, the myspace page and the Icarus bulletin board. We began chatting via myspace and our relationship finally grew to the point where I was comfortable giving her my phone number. She called and we talked merrily on on the telephone. We agreed to meet at a DBSA meeting.
Things went well. We kissed and told the group that this was the first time we had met in person. Everyone was charmed by this. We went out to lunch afterwards. Things get a bit foggy for me at this point in the narrative but at some point (later that day?) I brought her to my apartment and we made wild passionate love. Life began looking up for me. I took her into my ritual world of cutting for the sake of Icarus. I had just begun the cut when she stopped me. It was to be the first of what has since been the many resentments I have towards her. But in retrospect she did the right thing. Cutting is harmful.
She is depressive and we attended the DBSA meetings regularly together. Her medication wasn't helping her and she was pretty much in an uneven state of mind. I had just started taking medication but it was hitherto ineffective against the onslaught of my mania. She would ultimately discover Lexapro which would prove to be the only anti-depressant medication that worked for her. But medication aside, we enjoyed each other's company immensely. She moved in with me and together we renovated my apartment. Life was good. She loved my black Goth style and music and I her small frame draped in black and her face with Goth makeup.
This happy state lasted for several years. She assumed the role of caretaker for me, helping with my Hepatitis medication and the travails of my bipolar anguish. I began taking control of my mental instability and managing my bipolar condition. The Hepatitis came under control and my viral count receded to almost immeasurable levels. My life was changing. I was getting better. I was no longer manic and only slightly neurotic. Manic episodes have plagued me since, and psychotic breaks occur unexpectedly, and my Hepatitis viral load is now high again, but on the whole I am better. My recent membership in a gym has strengthened me physically and created a greater mind-body harmony within me.
She has clung to her role as my caregiver throughout my healing process. I had a psychotic break about a year and a half ago during a clinical trial of a new Hepatitis treatment that sent me to a psychiatric facility. Her role as a caregiver was re-affirmed during the trial and afterwards. I've had periodic psychotic breaks that have caused me to hurt myself since and her role as caregiver has evolved to the point that she now considers it to be her duty to "watch over me" at all times because my psychosis could at any time rear its ugly head.
There's probably something to be said about my need to be monitored but I do not think it is so necessary now. I certainly do not think that 24/7 monitoring is necessary. My drug therapy has proven successful. I see my psychoanalyst twice a week and my sessions with her have illuminated aspects of my life that have been hidden from me. My therapy has made me stronger and more self-aware than ever before. I see my place in the world clearly now. Together with the gym experience I have become a whole person again. Severely afflicted with mental illness, to be sure. But no longer a victim of it. I have taken control of my life.
Unfortunately for her I no longer need a caregiver. My recovery has increasingly made this role unnecessary and insignificant. She has been watching this change in me and is no doubt threatened by it. She increasingly asserts her role as caregiver and my need for it. It now dominates the character of our relationship. She reminds me of my need for her. I cannot survive without her because I need her as a caregiver. I now realize that she is clinging to this as a way to maintain our relationship and my need for her.
She still cannot manage her mental illness. Perhaps the scars of her youth are so deep that no medicine can address them. She could probably benefit from psychoanalysis but refuses to explore this possibility (she is, in fact, threatened by it). She still loves the manic person she met five years ago and talks wistfully about that as a golden time in our relationship which has now passed. She has not grown. She is still the same person she was five years ago. She is still a victim to her illness and incapable of viewing the world through any other lens. She knows this and cannot fathom the chasm that has grown between us.
Something snapped in me after the events of the last few days (see my last post). I suddenly came to the realization of what she has been doing. I've worried about the problems I have had with her. My therapist has suggested that this clinging behavior, the bouts of self-pity and maybe even the anger might be her way of expressing her insecurity that the caregiver hold on me is weakening. That it might be come completely obsolete and I will look at her and realize that I don't really need her because there is nothing else we have in common.
She has over the past year, perhaps longer, bullied me into a submissive role. I am always wrong. I should listen (should have listened) to her. I am not completely well and I still need her. That my memory is bad and that she needs to remember this because it is the source of all of my problems. She knows all this and I should listen to her. I am not capable of making decisions. I am still very ill. I need to rely on her for all that is important.
It all comes together for me in a bolt of self-awareness. The simple fact is that I don't need her. I am fully capable of conducting my life without a wet nurse. I can live my life without abuse. I don't want or need a relationship in which love is subjugated by a sickening miasma of self-doubt. I can be my own person. I am strong and capable and aware. I can re-assume my power, I can engage my brain, I can see around me and judge for myself the character of the people in my life. I am alive again. Dominant as I always have been before this ugly episode in my life.
As I write this she sits in the bed all full of smiles and cheer. She hopes no doubt that the horror of the night before has passed and that I will, as usual, come groveling come back to her. That I will have forgiven her. That all will be good in the world she has created and in which she maintains her control over me. She is still sick and wants my companionship, no doubt. She probably resents the fact that I am not in the bedroom with her to dote on her like a Good Boy does. Guilt trips. I care for you all the time but now I need you to care for me. She's not that sick and she knows it. But it helps to cement her domination over me by making me feel like I am insensitive to her needs. Then she will be the one who has to forgive and I the intransigent.
And so it goes. My long journey out of darkness and the days of bliss turned sour. Overly dramatic, I suppose, but this is the story of my life for the last six years.
Just now on the way from the bathroom back to my desk she waved and with a smile called out, "hi honey!" I answered with all the self-control I could muster, "Hi. Do you need anything?" She replied, "No. I just wanted to send you my love." I walked away, hiding the look of disgust on my face.
Something snapped in me last night. The outpouring of vitriol directed at me last night changed the way I view her, our relationship, and my life. How did it ever come to this?
Six years ago my third marriage broke up in a very acrimoniously. I had stopped drinking for a year beforehand. I've been a heavy drinker for most of my adult life. Becoming sober brought up an underlying bipolar type 1 condition which is now my diagnosis, along with a tendency to psychosis. My marriage flew apart and on my fiftieth birthday my wife walked out on me. I can't say that I blame her.
I was already in a fragile mental state because of the psychotropic side effect of Interferon. I was taking it along with other drugs to get my Hepatitis C under control. The combination of all of these factors threw me into a psychotic mania which lasted about a year and a half. I realized during this time, in my befuddled state, that something had gone wrong with me and I sought therapy on my own. I found a therapist (who was to remain with me through my recovery--I now see a psychoanalyst) and it was he who made my diagnosis. He strongly urged me to seek a psychiatrist and to start taking medicine to address my condition. Shortly thereafter I followed his advice and began what was to be a long and weary travail of trying different medicines to find one that worked for me. The Interferon treatments continued.
Before I started my therapy I was deeply involved with an online bulletin board called Icarus. I discovered it accidentally during a web search to find references to the myth of Icarus and pictures that depicted it. I say accidentally because I was already in the throes of a delusion that I was indeed Icarus myself and that the ills that had befallen me were caused by flying too close to the sun of my aspirations and arrogance. Icarus promulgated the philosophy that drugs were not a necessity for bipolar and, in fact, not to be valued. Bipolar was a gift that was misunderstood by the society that rejected it as mental instability. This dovetailed quite well with my feelings at the time and I adopted this philosophy with all of my heart.
As Icarus, I began cutting, marking the places on my arms where my wings had been ripped off during my descent. In the dark of winter, utterly alone and without friends or family during the holidays, I played laconic Goth music, lit candles throughout the room and laid out the accouterments of cutting and the bandages needed afterwards. I calmly slit long cuts in my forearms with a razor blade and then gloried in the slow flow of blood from them, serene in my unshakable belief that I had again fulfilled my destiny and partaken in a ritual that was wholly my own.
I was still an active computer programmer and set out to build a website devoted to the musings and experiences of my life in the context of Icarus. I also set up a myspace page which sported a stylized picture of Icarus and the wailing of Goth songs which I had become so fond of. I also began attending DBSA (Depression Bipolar Support Alliance) meetings while still in my episodic mania. It was during this time that I met her through myspace.
She was totally taken by my website, the myspace page and the Icarus bulletin board. We began chatting via myspace and our relationship finally grew to the point where I was comfortable giving her my phone number. She called and we talked merrily on on the telephone. We agreed to meet at a DBSA meeting.
Things went well. We kissed and told the group that this was the first time we had met in person. Everyone was charmed by this. We went out to lunch afterwards. Things get a bit foggy for me at this point in the narrative but at some point (later that day?) I brought her to my apartment and we made wild passionate love. Life began looking up for me. I took her into my ritual world of cutting for the sake of Icarus. I had just begun the cut when she stopped me. It was to be the first of what has since been the many resentments I have towards her. But in retrospect she did the right thing. Cutting is harmful.
She is depressive and we attended the DBSA meetings regularly together. Her medication wasn't helping her and she was pretty much in an uneven state of mind. I had just started taking medication but it was hitherto ineffective against the onslaught of my mania. She would ultimately discover Lexapro which would prove to be the only anti-depressant medication that worked for her. But medication aside, we enjoyed each other's company immensely. She moved in with me and together we renovated my apartment. Life was good. She loved my black Goth style and music and I her small frame draped in black and her face with Goth makeup.
This happy state lasted for several years. She assumed the role of caretaker for me, helping with my Hepatitis medication and the travails of my bipolar anguish. I began taking control of my mental instability and managing my bipolar condition. The Hepatitis came under control and my viral count receded to almost immeasurable levels. My life was changing. I was getting better. I was no longer manic and only slightly neurotic. Manic episodes have plagued me since, and psychotic breaks occur unexpectedly, and my Hepatitis viral load is now high again, but on the whole I am better. My recent membership in a gym has strengthened me physically and created a greater mind-body harmony within me.
She has clung to her role as my caregiver throughout my healing process. I had a psychotic break about a year and a half ago during a clinical trial of a new Hepatitis treatment that sent me to a psychiatric facility. Her role as a caregiver was re-affirmed during the trial and afterwards. I've had periodic psychotic breaks that have caused me to hurt myself since and her role as caregiver has evolved to the point that she now considers it to be her duty to "watch over me" at all times because my psychosis could at any time rear its ugly head.
There's probably something to be said about my need to be monitored but I do not think it is so necessary now. I certainly do not think that 24/7 monitoring is necessary. My drug therapy has proven successful. I see my psychoanalyst twice a week and my sessions with her have illuminated aspects of my life that have been hidden from me. My therapy has made me stronger and more self-aware than ever before. I see my place in the world clearly now. Together with the gym experience I have become a whole person again. Severely afflicted with mental illness, to be sure. But no longer a victim of it. I have taken control of my life.
Unfortunately for her I no longer need a caregiver. My recovery has increasingly made this role unnecessary and insignificant. She has been watching this change in me and is no doubt threatened by it. She increasingly asserts her role as caregiver and my need for it. It now dominates the character of our relationship. She reminds me of my need for her. I cannot survive without her because I need her as a caregiver. I now realize that she is clinging to this as a way to maintain our relationship and my need for her.
She still cannot manage her mental illness. Perhaps the scars of her youth are so deep that no medicine can address them. She could probably benefit from psychoanalysis but refuses to explore this possibility (she is, in fact, threatened by it). She still loves the manic person she met five years ago and talks wistfully about that as a golden time in our relationship which has now passed. She has not grown. She is still the same person she was five years ago. She is still a victim to her illness and incapable of viewing the world through any other lens. She knows this and cannot fathom the chasm that has grown between us.
Something snapped in me after the events of the last few days (see my last post). I suddenly came to the realization of what she has been doing. I've worried about the problems I have had with her. My therapist has suggested that this clinging behavior, the bouts of self-pity and maybe even the anger might be her way of expressing her insecurity that the caregiver hold on me is weakening. That it might be come completely obsolete and I will look at her and realize that I don't really need her because there is nothing else we have in common.
She has over the past year, perhaps longer, bullied me into a submissive role. I am always wrong. I should listen (should have listened) to her. I am not completely well and I still need her. That my memory is bad and that she needs to remember this because it is the source of all of my problems. She knows all this and I should listen to her. I am not capable of making decisions. I am still very ill. I need to rely on her for all that is important.
It all comes together for me in a bolt of self-awareness. The simple fact is that I don't need her. I am fully capable of conducting my life without a wet nurse. I can live my life without abuse. I don't want or need a relationship in which love is subjugated by a sickening miasma of self-doubt. I can be my own person. I am strong and capable and aware. I can re-assume my power, I can engage my brain, I can see around me and judge for myself the character of the people in my life. I am alive again. Dominant as I always have been before this ugly episode in my life.
As I write this she sits in the bed all full of smiles and cheer. She hopes no doubt that the horror of the night before has passed and that I will, as usual, come groveling come back to her. That I will have forgiven her. That all will be good in the world she has created and in which she maintains her control over me. She is still sick and wants my companionship, no doubt. She probably resents the fact that I am not in the bedroom with her to dote on her like a Good Boy does. Guilt trips. I care for you all the time but now I need you to care for me. She's not that sick and she knows it. But it helps to cement her domination over me by making me feel like I am insensitive to her needs. Then she will be the one who has to forgive and I the intransigent.
And so it goes. My long journey out of darkness and the days of bliss turned sour. Overly dramatic, I suppose, but this is the story of my life for the last six years.
Comments
Post a Comment