i have a vague memory of my dreams from last night. ray and i, living together and laughing, his arms around me in a kitchen, not unlike balter's house. i got the sense that i was out west. there was a mountain there. and then, i am at school, carrying books. i am wearing a pencil skirt and a nice sweater and i am having a discussion with my teacher about something political. its important. i have written a paper that is really good... or a book or something? i walk outside, i am happy.
ray is gone, he's working in chicago. i left him the other day, he got on the train. i miss taking trains to the city. he goes to work and i stay here, and while he's gone i always deal with wynn and i can hear the anger and disappointment in his voice when i tell him that i've done it. i don't want him to be upset with me, i want him to understand that i deal with wynn because of my fear of death, and to remind myself of how strong i am. i deal with wynn because he needs a friend. i deal with wynn also because i am weak and i don't know how to cut ties from a person who is bad for me. that is also true.
.....and.... i guess i shouldn't have just left this entry. prolly should have finished it.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
darkness visible.
I first saw a review for the book "history of a suicide - my sister's unfinished life" in what must have been time magazine, or maybe perhaps it was the nation. it must have been time, the nation's review of books is always very wordy - sometimes so much so that i feel like i need to have a phd in order to understand just what the hell the author of the essay is talking about.
"history of a suicide" interested me, in part because i am still not over greg's death & i want to understand more why he did what he did, and partly because i myself, have been suicidal. it sounds illogical, to write that sentence, when i read it over again. like i do not understand why a person would want to die - when i understand, all too well, why life would make a person want to die. i understand all too well how life can batter a person down, how it can make you just want for it to fucking stop. and, in fact, up until greg's death, i believed that suicide was a viable option for me. a last ditch effort when life got too shitty and i just couldn't deal with it any more. when, in the throes of my depression - which, often gets unbearable, in the worst moments of my self hatred, ending it all by my own hand had always seemed like a decent way to go. in fact, i recall that those who had known me (i do not speak to them anymore) believed very strongly that if i did not die from an accidental or mostly intentional drug overdose, then, it would most definitely be by suicide by age 27.
perhaps this notion would have become true if not for a few factors -
1. i moved back home & in doing so, watched my father, a once brilliant man turn into the simple minded never without morphine always high man that he is now. i do not blame him because he is in pain, but it became obvious that his pain medications were doing more than just getting rid of his pain, they were also obliterating his mental capacity for conversation, high minded dialog, and in general participation with the world & his family. he was and is content to sit or lay in bed & have the world pass him by. i realized that, i too, was on a rather fast path to becoming like this - a zombie in my bed, numbed out and high most of the time.
2. i watched my then best friend's little brother die from cancer. it was horrible, and what was not lost on me was that a person who so desperately wanted to live, was not going to get that chance, and i, at the time, did not, at all want to be on this planet. i regret a lot of the choices i made during this period of time. i feel a lot of shame, a lot of regret, and a lot of anger towards myself because i should have known better. i know that my friend is so phenomenally fucked up from that experience, and instead of being a better friend & kicking her ass for being stupid, i let her make stupid choices, and i made stupid choices with her. while i quit making those dumb choices, i don't think she did - i suspect she continued to fuck up and hid it from me. we never talked about it, and when i did try to get her to be honest with me, it was met with an uncomfortable silence. i wasn't the person she wanted to talk to about any of that. i hope one day that she is able to forgive me for participating in ... being such a huge mess, with her. i wish i had known then what i know now.
3. i did not die, from the huge amount of drug use that went on during the five years that i attempted to numb my pain. the fact that i didn't, although i came close a few times, is still a mystery to me. the fact that i never ended up in a rehab, that i was able to come out of all of it, and quit my destructive habits on my own, with simply my own force of will, is something i still don't understand. why is it that i can regulate the amount of pills i take? how is it that i can keep from being tempted and not want to get high anymore? perhaps it is because i finally stopped running. i finally took a good look in the mirror and i worked out what was wrong with me. i forgave myself as much as i could for everything i hated about who i had become, and i slowly worked on changing into the person i am now. at the time it really didn't seem like i would ever make it - i figured quite honestly, that i would fail, and more than likely, that i would end up like a lot of the people i know - on the streets, involved in some shady relationship where i trade my body for drugs, and in order to deal with the fact that i have sunk that low, i would do more drugs and the cycle would repeat until i finally died. and when i died i would be lucky. truly, this was how i saw my life. it is not lost on me that i must be a strong person, to be able to look at wynn, to be near him, and know i can ask for heroin, to know that he wanted me to - that he was hoping & praying i would just ask him, just please ask him for it because he would have given it to me, and we could have had a glorious downfall together. that a big part of him was banking on that, was banking on my will power not being strong enough to say no. but, it was. it is and it was and all i saw was what i used to be and god, it was pathetic and i felt sad for her, i felt so sad for her.
4. but most important - i lost greg. greg's death has had as much of a profound impact on me as robb's did, if not more. because robb's was, in some ways, expected. when you play with fire, you expect to get burned.
but i never, in my wildest dreams expected that greg, my best friend, my quirky socially anxious little brother that i wasn't born with but thank the gods i got to have, would, kill himself.
and so, i picked up this book, in some ways, because, i want, and will always want to know, why he did it. why did he decide that life was so unbearable? why didn't he tell me? he told me everything. i was the person he came to with his problems. if he couldn't tell me he felt like dying - then, i failed him as a friend, as a sister. i miss him so much. with ray in my life, that sting just hurts all the more, because greg would have loved ray & they would have become such good friends. greg would be proud of me too, for finally being with someone who i am equal with, for dating someone i deserve. i always wanted greg to be part of my wedding, and, when ray and i talk about marriage and kids, which we do, talk about - more often than ive ever talked about it with anyone else - it becomes bittersweet because there are so many people that won't be there, but most of all, greg won't be there, and it sucks.
and so i am reading this book, and i keep writing down other books it references, all about suicide - as if i can somehow understand and connect the dots. i used to think that greg had just lost it - that it was this momentary lapse of insanity, but, i know that isn't true. because when he came over to my house, the day before he died, he looked at my mother & i, in a way, that said he was saying goodbye. in the book, it said that most suicides privately say goodbye to those they love & care about before they commit the act. it was only in retrospect that the look he gave both of us made sense. i tell myself it was a momentary lapse of insanity, but i know it wasn't. there was no note. i used to think it was because of nina & he had broken up, that she had left him for matthew. but i don't really even know the full story of that. all i know is that the last place he went was to her work, that he watched her or something before he went into his car, shut the garage door, ran the engine, and died. the next door neighbor found him, and it was too late.
the book has now become highlighted, sticky tabbed, marked up. i keep looking for answers in it.
but i know even when i reach the last pages, the answers i am looking for, aren't going to be there.
"history of a suicide" interested me, in part because i am still not over greg's death & i want to understand more why he did what he did, and partly because i myself, have been suicidal. it sounds illogical, to write that sentence, when i read it over again. like i do not understand why a person would want to die - when i understand, all too well, why life would make a person want to die. i understand all too well how life can batter a person down, how it can make you just want for it to fucking stop. and, in fact, up until greg's death, i believed that suicide was a viable option for me. a last ditch effort when life got too shitty and i just couldn't deal with it any more. when, in the throes of my depression - which, often gets unbearable, in the worst moments of my self hatred, ending it all by my own hand had always seemed like a decent way to go. in fact, i recall that those who had known me (i do not speak to them anymore) believed very strongly that if i did not die from an accidental or mostly intentional drug overdose, then, it would most definitely be by suicide by age 27.
perhaps this notion would have become true if not for a few factors -
1. i moved back home & in doing so, watched my father, a once brilliant man turn into the simple minded never without morphine always high man that he is now. i do not blame him because he is in pain, but it became obvious that his pain medications were doing more than just getting rid of his pain, they were also obliterating his mental capacity for conversation, high minded dialog, and in general participation with the world & his family. he was and is content to sit or lay in bed & have the world pass him by. i realized that, i too, was on a rather fast path to becoming like this - a zombie in my bed, numbed out and high most of the time.
2. i watched my then best friend's little brother die from cancer. it was horrible, and what was not lost on me was that a person who so desperately wanted to live, was not going to get that chance, and i, at the time, did not, at all want to be on this planet. i regret a lot of the choices i made during this period of time. i feel a lot of shame, a lot of regret, and a lot of anger towards myself because i should have known better. i know that my friend is so phenomenally fucked up from that experience, and instead of being a better friend & kicking her ass for being stupid, i let her make stupid choices, and i made stupid choices with her. while i quit making those dumb choices, i don't think she did - i suspect she continued to fuck up and hid it from me. we never talked about it, and when i did try to get her to be honest with me, it was met with an uncomfortable silence. i wasn't the person she wanted to talk to about any of that. i hope one day that she is able to forgive me for participating in ... being such a huge mess, with her. i wish i had known then what i know now.
3. i did not die, from the huge amount of drug use that went on during the five years that i attempted to numb my pain. the fact that i didn't, although i came close a few times, is still a mystery to me. the fact that i never ended up in a rehab, that i was able to come out of all of it, and quit my destructive habits on my own, with simply my own force of will, is something i still don't understand. why is it that i can regulate the amount of pills i take? how is it that i can keep from being tempted and not want to get high anymore? perhaps it is because i finally stopped running. i finally took a good look in the mirror and i worked out what was wrong with me. i forgave myself as much as i could for everything i hated about who i had become, and i slowly worked on changing into the person i am now. at the time it really didn't seem like i would ever make it - i figured quite honestly, that i would fail, and more than likely, that i would end up like a lot of the people i know - on the streets, involved in some shady relationship where i trade my body for drugs, and in order to deal with the fact that i have sunk that low, i would do more drugs and the cycle would repeat until i finally died. and when i died i would be lucky. truly, this was how i saw my life. it is not lost on me that i must be a strong person, to be able to look at wynn, to be near him, and know i can ask for heroin, to know that he wanted me to - that he was hoping & praying i would just ask him, just please ask him for it because he would have given it to me, and we could have had a glorious downfall together. that a big part of him was banking on that, was banking on my will power not being strong enough to say no. but, it was. it is and it was and all i saw was what i used to be and god, it was pathetic and i felt sad for her, i felt so sad for her.
4. but most important - i lost greg. greg's death has had as much of a profound impact on me as robb's did, if not more. because robb's was, in some ways, expected. when you play with fire, you expect to get burned.
but i never, in my wildest dreams expected that greg, my best friend, my quirky socially anxious little brother that i wasn't born with but thank the gods i got to have, would, kill himself.
and so, i picked up this book, in some ways, because, i want, and will always want to know, why he did it. why did he decide that life was so unbearable? why didn't he tell me? he told me everything. i was the person he came to with his problems. if he couldn't tell me he felt like dying - then, i failed him as a friend, as a sister. i miss him so much. with ray in my life, that sting just hurts all the more, because greg would have loved ray & they would have become such good friends. greg would be proud of me too, for finally being with someone who i am equal with, for dating someone i deserve. i always wanted greg to be part of my wedding, and, when ray and i talk about marriage and kids, which we do, talk about - more often than ive ever talked about it with anyone else - it becomes bittersweet because there are so many people that won't be there, but most of all, greg won't be there, and it sucks.
and so i am reading this book, and i keep writing down other books it references, all about suicide - as if i can somehow understand and connect the dots. i used to think that greg had just lost it - that it was this momentary lapse of insanity, but, i know that isn't true. because when he came over to my house, the day before he died, he looked at my mother & i, in a way, that said he was saying goodbye. in the book, it said that most suicides privately say goodbye to those they love & care about before they commit the act. it was only in retrospect that the look he gave both of us made sense. i tell myself it was a momentary lapse of insanity, but i know it wasn't. there was no note. i used to think it was because of nina & he had broken up, that she had left him for matthew. but i don't really even know the full story of that. all i know is that the last place he went was to her work, that he watched her or something before he went into his car, shut the garage door, ran the engine, and died. the next door neighbor found him, and it was too late.
the book has now become highlighted, sticky tabbed, marked up. i keep looking for answers in it.
but i know even when i reach the last pages, the answers i am looking for, aren't going to be there.
Monday, March 14, 2011
my righteous anger
Perhaps as a way to distract myself from what i have actually been feeling, that listless feeling of depression, i have been reading a lot lately. i have been doing things, being active in my community, politically active, always, wanting to make a change for the better - as much as i can, attempting to stay engaged.
i read koren zalankas' book on anger, titled 'fury' in the span of two days. i devoured it. i didn't relate that much to her, i have never had a problem with being angry. if anything, i have always shown my anger. she came from a house where it wasn't okay to show her anger - she shoved it down. she was alienated from her emotions. i remember what zak once said to me on a summer day, when i was fired up about something political, he told me that he wished he had what he called my 'righteous anger' - that i get angry and seem to believe i have that right to be angry. and once i am, i believe i have to do something about it. and i go about finding ways to fix it. whatever indignation it is - whoever has slighted me, or the individual i care for - i usually don't stop until i feel that i have gotten justice. it's fitting that my tarot card is justice. i seek it for those who don't have a voice. it is important to me. i don't understand how people can become so apathetic. how they can just sit there and take it. it astonishes me every day that americans just let their government treat them like shit. that they don't want the systems that beat them up to be fixed, punished, changed. because i sure as hell do. and i won't stop until they are. zak, got that much about me right. i do have 'righteous anger' - i also just get pissed off. i sometimes hold it in. and then i explode. usually at someone who doesn't deserve it. and i tend to keep track of every little thing someone has done to slight me, i don't always hold it against them, but i never forget. so, i read this memoir on anger - by this girl who was this break out author, who had written the book 'smashed' about binge drinking - which, i couldn't relate to, binge drinking, because i can't drink much, it makes me sick. but i could relate to binging on drugs, so i replaced the drinking with drugs and it was like i had written the book. i wish i had written a memoir but i don't even know where to start with my fucked up life, so i just keep reading them, hoping one day i will know what story i want to tell.
i wish i wrote more in here. i keep telling myself that every day i will write, and every day i tend to fail at this miserably, and then i get angry and upset with myself. ray uses my laptop a lot, and i use that as an excuse to not write. it's not that i lack material or things to write about either. i have a lot going on, a lot of things to keep track of, to talk about, that i want to have written down. i am afraid to show this blog to those who want to read it, because i don't want everyone to know my inner thoughts - i learned from the myspace debacle but, i also want to open myself up to those who want to know me better. i have become so closed off and i don't like that. it is as if i don't even know myself half of the time. i used to be such an extrovert. and now i am so quiet, when in the company of others. i watch and i listen more than i talk. i think this has a lot more to do with the fact that i am older now, and i don't need to show off who i am, or tell stories to get attention, but also i wonder if, loosing so many friends hasn't had some big affect on me. i am sure that it has.
i finally cut off all contact with wynn, it took me forever - but i did it. how many months did it take? 4. i am surprised by the fact that ray let me ride that roller coaster and never got angry with me for trying to work it out on my own, trying to be his friend. i am also surprised by the fact that wynn in the end, turned out to be way more manipulative than i ever, ever gave him credit for. i guess i always saw him as a dumb, lovable guy. i could never see him as a person who would want to hurt me, stab me because i had found love with someone else, someone who was not him, and that i was happy with that person. so wynn did what wynn knows how to do, he hit me where it hurt the most - he self destructed and started to shoot up heroin, and in doing so, i got to re-live what happened with robb, but differently. i can not begin to explain, how robb's death has altered me as a person. it has fundamentally changed me. in some ways, robb's death allowed me to live. because after i got over his dying - after i got over the 5 years of nonstop drug use - which was how i dealt with both him and his brother dying - and i came out of that fog - i realized how lucky i was to be alive. in avoiding his death, i went through hell - i lost a huge group of friends - i put myself in horrible, dangerous situations, i was trying to kill myself because i didnt want to be alive anymore - and i was doing a damn good job of it - but, afterwards, i learned so much, much more than i think most people will ever learn in a whole lifetime. i am grateful for that experience.
when i told wynn about all of these experiences, and of course it didn't make a dent in his thinking. so i spent the past four months trying to get him to stop shooting up heroin, fearing that he would accidentally overdose, like robb did. i rarely slept. i pulled out my hair. i was anxious all the time. i had headaches. i looked like shit. i was crying constantly. he would say he was quitting, and i would believe him. then days later, i would go over and find him fucked up, nodding out, and drinking on top of it. i drove in epic snowstorms trying to take care of him, trying to right some wrong that i felt i had done by leaving him. of course, i had completely forgotten that i was beyond miserable while i was with him - that he had done nothing to help me as a person, that he weighed me down. that he was life sucking, like a leech. that our relationship was always about him, about me taking care of him, about his needs over mine. he reminded me a lot of my father. someone who was always high, who required me to babysit him, someone who couldn't take care of himself at all - someone who when left to his own devices would steal from me, would drink himself into a vomit induced stupor, who would harm himself in order to harm me. who had no motivation to make a better life for himself.
i had given him suboxine after i had talked to his mom, after i had told his family how bad things had gotten. he was angry with me, for telling them, he told his friends & anyone who would listen about how i had betrayed him by telling his parents that he was shooting up - i am such a horrible person because i wanted him to get help, but i could not, and i would not, just sit there and idly watch him self distruct in his parents home without them knowing. a vision kept returning to my head, where he would be dead, pale, all life gone, with a needle lying next to him, on the couch in the basement. it would come into my head at the most random moments, when i least expected it. i don't know if this was a premonition or if i was just sick with worry, but i knew i couldn't do that to his mother - couldn't let her find him like that. i wouldn't let him end up like robb. so i met with her, and i told her what was going on. i do not regret it. i do know that he tried to shift the blame onto me, like a child, a teenager, what a joke. i learned later that he had taken the liquid morphine that i give my dad at night when he can not sleep. we had noticed that it was going down a lot quicker. i swore that he would never steal from us. how wrong i was.
the last time i saw wynn, he had told me he wasn't using. i had met with him while ray was out of town, to see if he was okay, to see if he was lying to me, to check up on him. i met him at his work. he told me this story about a girl we both know, and how he saw her in a crack house, and how she was sucking dick for crack, how she has been doing this since our friend shannon had died. he told me how he wanted to take her with him, how she shouldn't have been with such awful people. i said that sometimes, its what happens when someone you love dies, and you are a girl. you become exploited. you are exploited, in the name of drugs, in the name of numbing your pain, and those who exploit you will pass you around. i could hear what they say about her in my head. it disgusted me. i asked what he was doing there. he looked at me and he said without a beat 'smoking crack.' i hit him. hard. he tried to tell me that he hated it, but it didn't look like he did. he didn't see the connection, that he could and would become just like the girl he was telling the story about. the one he wanted to save. i should have left then, but i didn't. we went to eat and had a really good conversation. it was only later that i found out he was high the whole time on heroin. i honestly didn't notice. he didn't seem any different. i should have checked his eyes. was i supposed to check his arms?
days later and i am off in south bend, desperately needing some alone time. my parents had been fighting, and ray was working on my computer. i just needed to get the fuck out. wynn calls me on my phone, and somehow, our conversation turns to his drug use, and i find out he had never stopped using. oh, right - he had gotten kicked out of his house. perminately. he had called me wanting sympathy, or help, or something. he had sent me messages saying that he is still in love with me, that, all he needs is my love. you see, he will stop using heroin, stop destroying himself if i just get back together with him. we can start a family then, get married, buy a house. live an ordinary life. these are his words, not mine. he is living in a delusional world. the terror those words fill me with is overwhelming. i answer the phone, and, for once, finally, after dealing with all of wynn's childishness and bullshit in a relationship that lasted 5 months and god knows what for 9 months, i start to scream. i start yelling. i am filled with a fury i didn't know i could have. it has become all too clear to me how he has been manipulating me, manipulating my fear of death, manipulating my emotions & what has happened to me and my scars, in order to fuck with me, in order to get back at me, for not loving him in the way he wanted me to. all those nights of crying. i only wanted him to be okay. i only wanted the best for him, i really did. but i couldn't love him because he was not what i wanted, nor needed. i lash out. i tell him he is sick, that he is fucked up, that i can not believe he would manipulate me in this way. i tell him that all i wanted to do was to help him, was to be his friend, was to be a part of his life in a positive way. i tell him that he has fucked up, and fucked up good, and when he wakes up and realizes what he has done, it will be too late, and no matter what, no amount of begging will help him. he has crossed the line - he has pushed me too far. and when i have been pushed too far,
when,
you finally cross the line with me, when, in my personal relationships, you finally anger me to the point where i yell at you (i do not, anger easily in my personal life. i used to get angry easily, i used to eviscerate people to no end. i used to be such a ruthless bitch. i thought this was a good thing about me. i would find the weakest part of a person, and then i would prod it, relentlessly, and then, in front of people, i would tell everyone what said person's weakness was. i told myself i was being 'truthful,' i told myself i was being 'honest,' i told myself that it was a good quality. it wasn't a good quality at all. it was mean, it was being a bully, and i did it as a defense - i struck before anyone could strike me. i did it because i hated myself and who i was, although i didn't know this at the time. when i quit using drugs massively, when i came back home & worked on myself as a person & really went about changing all of the qualities about myself that i hated, this was one of the ones i changed first. so, i rarely, if ever, get angry at my friends, get angry with people in my personal life. i get angry about principles, but rarely do i get angry with people) - where, i see red, where my voice raises and i actually want to harm you, where, i know and you know that i am beyond pissed - then, chances are we won't be talking ever again.
because i will take a lot of shit. humans are flawed. we have so many things that fuck with us, moods affect us, and i give people the benefit of the doubt, but cross the line, and
i cross you off.
he crossed the line.
he actually got a kick out of it. saying that he had been lying to me for weeks on end, knowing that it would hurt me. and, he thought i would be okay with this. that's what i am baffled about. he told me that he knew he couldn't hurt me by dating someone else so he decided to hurt me by destroying himself. what a brilliant guy. i told him i didn't ever want to talk to him again. that, if he could lie to my face again and again, i didn't think he was worth a shit. later that night he sent me a text message saying he 'felt it was for the best that he didn't talk to me because he would only hurt me later.' ok, whatever. the next day i received a message saying that he 'needed to be in my life, but that, he would, always lie to me.' um, wtf. i have received messages off and on since then, but i have ignored all of them.
i can say that i am relieved by all of this. that, once i finally made up my mind to get the fuck off the roller coaster, i feel so much better. i don't feel confused, i don't feel like my loyalties are being tested, and i feel like my relationship with ray is much better. i only wish that i had made up my mind about all of this sooner.
i read koren zalankas' book on anger, titled 'fury' in the span of two days. i devoured it. i didn't relate that much to her, i have never had a problem with being angry. if anything, i have always shown my anger. she came from a house where it wasn't okay to show her anger - she shoved it down. she was alienated from her emotions. i remember what zak once said to me on a summer day, when i was fired up about something political, he told me that he wished he had what he called my 'righteous anger' - that i get angry and seem to believe i have that right to be angry. and once i am, i believe i have to do something about it. and i go about finding ways to fix it. whatever indignation it is - whoever has slighted me, or the individual i care for - i usually don't stop until i feel that i have gotten justice. it's fitting that my tarot card is justice. i seek it for those who don't have a voice. it is important to me. i don't understand how people can become so apathetic. how they can just sit there and take it. it astonishes me every day that americans just let their government treat them like shit. that they don't want the systems that beat them up to be fixed, punished, changed. because i sure as hell do. and i won't stop until they are. zak, got that much about me right. i do have 'righteous anger' - i also just get pissed off. i sometimes hold it in. and then i explode. usually at someone who doesn't deserve it. and i tend to keep track of every little thing someone has done to slight me, i don't always hold it against them, but i never forget. so, i read this memoir on anger - by this girl who was this break out author, who had written the book 'smashed' about binge drinking - which, i couldn't relate to, binge drinking, because i can't drink much, it makes me sick. but i could relate to binging on drugs, so i replaced the drinking with drugs and it was like i had written the book. i wish i had written a memoir but i don't even know where to start with my fucked up life, so i just keep reading them, hoping one day i will know what story i want to tell.
i wish i wrote more in here. i keep telling myself that every day i will write, and every day i tend to fail at this miserably, and then i get angry and upset with myself. ray uses my laptop a lot, and i use that as an excuse to not write. it's not that i lack material or things to write about either. i have a lot going on, a lot of things to keep track of, to talk about, that i want to have written down. i am afraid to show this blog to those who want to read it, because i don't want everyone to know my inner thoughts - i learned from the myspace debacle but, i also want to open myself up to those who want to know me better. i have become so closed off and i don't like that. it is as if i don't even know myself half of the time. i used to be such an extrovert. and now i am so quiet, when in the company of others. i watch and i listen more than i talk. i think this has a lot more to do with the fact that i am older now, and i don't need to show off who i am, or tell stories to get attention, but also i wonder if, loosing so many friends hasn't had some big affect on me. i am sure that it has.
i finally cut off all contact with wynn, it took me forever - but i did it. how many months did it take? 4. i am surprised by the fact that ray let me ride that roller coaster and never got angry with me for trying to work it out on my own, trying to be his friend. i am also surprised by the fact that wynn in the end, turned out to be way more manipulative than i ever, ever gave him credit for. i guess i always saw him as a dumb, lovable guy. i could never see him as a person who would want to hurt me, stab me because i had found love with someone else, someone who was not him, and that i was happy with that person. so wynn did what wynn knows how to do, he hit me where it hurt the most - he self destructed and started to shoot up heroin, and in doing so, i got to re-live what happened with robb, but differently. i can not begin to explain, how robb's death has altered me as a person. it has fundamentally changed me. in some ways, robb's death allowed me to live. because after i got over his dying - after i got over the 5 years of nonstop drug use - which was how i dealt with both him and his brother dying - and i came out of that fog - i realized how lucky i was to be alive. in avoiding his death, i went through hell - i lost a huge group of friends - i put myself in horrible, dangerous situations, i was trying to kill myself because i didnt want to be alive anymore - and i was doing a damn good job of it - but, afterwards, i learned so much, much more than i think most people will ever learn in a whole lifetime. i am grateful for that experience.
when i told wynn about all of these experiences, and of course it didn't make a dent in his thinking. so i spent the past four months trying to get him to stop shooting up heroin, fearing that he would accidentally overdose, like robb did. i rarely slept. i pulled out my hair. i was anxious all the time. i had headaches. i looked like shit. i was crying constantly. he would say he was quitting, and i would believe him. then days later, i would go over and find him fucked up, nodding out, and drinking on top of it. i drove in epic snowstorms trying to take care of him, trying to right some wrong that i felt i had done by leaving him. of course, i had completely forgotten that i was beyond miserable while i was with him - that he had done nothing to help me as a person, that he weighed me down. that he was life sucking, like a leech. that our relationship was always about him, about me taking care of him, about his needs over mine. he reminded me a lot of my father. someone who was always high, who required me to babysit him, someone who couldn't take care of himself at all - someone who when left to his own devices would steal from me, would drink himself into a vomit induced stupor, who would harm himself in order to harm me. who had no motivation to make a better life for himself.
i had given him suboxine after i had talked to his mom, after i had told his family how bad things had gotten. he was angry with me, for telling them, he told his friends & anyone who would listen about how i had betrayed him by telling his parents that he was shooting up - i am such a horrible person because i wanted him to get help, but i could not, and i would not, just sit there and idly watch him self distruct in his parents home without them knowing. a vision kept returning to my head, where he would be dead, pale, all life gone, with a needle lying next to him, on the couch in the basement. it would come into my head at the most random moments, when i least expected it. i don't know if this was a premonition or if i was just sick with worry, but i knew i couldn't do that to his mother - couldn't let her find him like that. i wouldn't let him end up like robb. so i met with her, and i told her what was going on. i do not regret it. i do know that he tried to shift the blame onto me, like a child, a teenager, what a joke. i learned later that he had taken the liquid morphine that i give my dad at night when he can not sleep. we had noticed that it was going down a lot quicker. i swore that he would never steal from us. how wrong i was.
the last time i saw wynn, he had told me he wasn't using. i had met with him while ray was out of town, to see if he was okay, to see if he was lying to me, to check up on him. i met him at his work. he told me this story about a girl we both know, and how he saw her in a crack house, and how she was sucking dick for crack, how she has been doing this since our friend shannon had died. he told me how he wanted to take her with him, how she shouldn't have been with such awful people. i said that sometimes, its what happens when someone you love dies, and you are a girl. you become exploited. you are exploited, in the name of drugs, in the name of numbing your pain, and those who exploit you will pass you around. i could hear what they say about her in my head. it disgusted me. i asked what he was doing there. he looked at me and he said without a beat 'smoking crack.' i hit him. hard. he tried to tell me that he hated it, but it didn't look like he did. he didn't see the connection, that he could and would become just like the girl he was telling the story about. the one he wanted to save. i should have left then, but i didn't. we went to eat and had a really good conversation. it was only later that i found out he was high the whole time on heroin. i honestly didn't notice. he didn't seem any different. i should have checked his eyes. was i supposed to check his arms?
days later and i am off in south bend, desperately needing some alone time. my parents had been fighting, and ray was working on my computer. i just needed to get the fuck out. wynn calls me on my phone, and somehow, our conversation turns to his drug use, and i find out he had never stopped using. oh, right - he had gotten kicked out of his house. perminately. he had called me wanting sympathy, or help, or something. he had sent me messages saying that he is still in love with me, that, all he needs is my love. you see, he will stop using heroin, stop destroying himself if i just get back together with him. we can start a family then, get married, buy a house. live an ordinary life. these are his words, not mine. he is living in a delusional world. the terror those words fill me with is overwhelming. i answer the phone, and, for once, finally, after dealing with all of wynn's childishness and bullshit in a relationship that lasted 5 months and god knows what for 9 months, i start to scream. i start yelling. i am filled with a fury i didn't know i could have. it has become all too clear to me how he has been manipulating me, manipulating my fear of death, manipulating my emotions & what has happened to me and my scars, in order to fuck with me, in order to get back at me, for not loving him in the way he wanted me to. all those nights of crying. i only wanted him to be okay. i only wanted the best for him, i really did. but i couldn't love him because he was not what i wanted, nor needed. i lash out. i tell him he is sick, that he is fucked up, that i can not believe he would manipulate me in this way. i tell him that all i wanted to do was to help him, was to be his friend, was to be a part of his life in a positive way. i tell him that he has fucked up, and fucked up good, and when he wakes up and realizes what he has done, it will be too late, and no matter what, no amount of begging will help him. he has crossed the line - he has pushed me too far. and when i have been pushed too far,
when,
you finally cross the line with me, when, in my personal relationships, you finally anger me to the point where i yell at you (i do not, anger easily in my personal life. i used to get angry easily, i used to eviscerate people to no end. i used to be such a ruthless bitch. i thought this was a good thing about me. i would find the weakest part of a person, and then i would prod it, relentlessly, and then, in front of people, i would tell everyone what said person's weakness was. i told myself i was being 'truthful,' i told myself i was being 'honest,' i told myself that it was a good quality. it wasn't a good quality at all. it was mean, it was being a bully, and i did it as a defense - i struck before anyone could strike me. i did it because i hated myself and who i was, although i didn't know this at the time. when i quit using drugs massively, when i came back home & worked on myself as a person & really went about changing all of the qualities about myself that i hated, this was one of the ones i changed first. so, i rarely, if ever, get angry at my friends, get angry with people in my personal life. i get angry about principles, but rarely do i get angry with people) - where, i see red, where my voice raises and i actually want to harm you, where, i know and you know that i am beyond pissed - then, chances are we won't be talking ever again.
because i will take a lot of shit. humans are flawed. we have so many things that fuck with us, moods affect us, and i give people the benefit of the doubt, but cross the line, and
i cross you off.
he crossed the line.
he actually got a kick out of it. saying that he had been lying to me for weeks on end, knowing that it would hurt me. and, he thought i would be okay with this. that's what i am baffled about. he told me that he knew he couldn't hurt me by dating someone else so he decided to hurt me by destroying himself. what a brilliant guy. i told him i didn't ever want to talk to him again. that, if he could lie to my face again and again, i didn't think he was worth a shit. later that night he sent me a text message saying he 'felt it was for the best that he didn't talk to me because he would only hurt me later.' ok, whatever. the next day i received a message saying that he 'needed to be in my life, but that, he would, always lie to me.' um, wtf. i have received messages off and on since then, but i have ignored all of them.
i can say that i am relieved by all of this. that, once i finally made up my mind to get the fuck off the roller coaster, i feel so much better. i don't feel confused, i don't feel like my loyalties are being tested, and i feel like my relationship with ray is much better. i only wish that i had made up my mind about all of this sooner.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)