Late evening, Tuesday February 8,
2000
I seem to have developed sleeping sickness or something. I’m
getting the full regulation amount overnight and then I nap for several hours during the
day. It’s probably just the boredom.
No, it’s more than that. It’s a depression that seems to have sucked everything
from my very soul. It’s not one of those suicidal depressions. It’s one where I
seem to question doing anything, like say scratching an itch, based on its value in the
grand scheme of things. Itches go away, so do hunger and thirst if you ignore them long
enough. They’re unimportant.
I know this seems to be a sharp contrast from the other day, but it’s been present
for a couple of months now. It’s slowly getting wider and deeper, drowning everything
in sight. My entries haven’t reflected it, not because I’m being two-faced, but
it seems the only place I can find any joy at all is in writing.
There seems to be a natural limit to how much I can write over a given length of time.
I’ve been pushing that limit hard for the past couple of weeks in hopes it’s
something to be conquered, like breaking the sound barrier or something. Measured by
volume or consequence, nothing has flowed since Saturday. I haven’t even returned any
e-mail today.
The piece for this week’s class sits in another window and I’m jumping back and
forth between them. It’s coming along and I expect nothing big of it. It’s
simply a little travelogue about a trip to New York City 22 years ago. I was thinking the
other night that it was just over half my lifetime ago. Where has it all gone?
In any event, there’s not much happening and there’s even less to write about.
I’m hoping to get the ambition up to walk to the library tomorrow. I’ve run out
of books at home. I’ve been trying some of the online libraries. I’ve listed a
few on the Other Sites page, BTW. The selections of
course are all older books, the classics and such. I’m not well versed in the
classics so I’m trying to fill that gap.
Although dated in style, I’ve enjoyed a few. It’s a pain reading a book in
Notepad though. Everything I’ve downloaded is in plain text with line breaks at the
end of each line. When I resize the font so it’s easier to read, Notepad wraps the
lines of text at the right margin and there’s a little stub of the line beneath. What
a pain! I’m going to experiment with reformatting the texts in Word to see if that
helps.
Of course that won’t change the portability of the books, it’s gone completely.
I can’t curl up on the couch with them or sit in the sun at the kitchen table. I
spend far too much time stuck in this chair at this screen to begin with.
Afternoon, Wednesday February 9, 2000
I’d just put my coat on to head downtown when the phone rang. I
don’t get many calls. I only need one hand to count those who have the number.
“Good afternoon, this is Bruce.”
“Hello. Is this Mr. Wilbur?”
“Yes it is, and you are?”
“This is the Pre-Trial Office calling. Jeffrey [...] was picked up this morning. He
said to call this number to arrange bail. Are you able to post $100 bail for him?”
I didn’t have to think. The response was automatic and out of my mouth before what
she had said even registered. “No, I’m afraid not.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Uh, just a minute. What were the charges?”
It’s not my place to say here what the charges are. A conviction though will cost him
one year. Eight months with good-time. He’s going to miss another summer.
We’re having a thaw today,
it’s well above freezing and the sun is playing hide-and-seek behind the clouds. I
walked downtown, as much because of the weather as for the fact I had no bus fare.
I did the banking, paid the phone bill, went to the library and bought groceries. All the
while I thought about how I was feeling, how I was going to deal with this incarceration,
what it would mean to our friendship, how I would spent the next eight months and what to
do come December.
Admittedly that’s much too much to think about all at once. But it kept me occupied
as I ran my errands. I kept coming back to one thing though. I am proud my reply to the
Pre-Trial lady was the correct one, and that it came out without even my being conscious
of it.
It was the correct decision to make simply due to the circumstances. But more importantly,
it meant I kept my word to myself and to Jeffrey that I would never post bail for him
again. He’s bound to feel abandonment, betrayal and anger that I’ve leaving him
in jail. Some day I hope he sees it the way I do. I kept my word to him.
He’s going to have a very rough time of it for the next few days. His alcohol abuse
has been so high his maintenance dose is case of beer a day. He stopped by at 5:00AM
Tuesday asking for a maintenance dose of mouthwash to get him through until he could buy
beer at 8:00.
But that’s another story for later…
Later…
I wanted to dash off something quick with the above entry so I could get
a notification out in time for the list members who only have internet access at work, so
they could catch it before going home at 5:00 Eastern Time.
Oh the responsibility I feel for the Notification List
subscribers…
Reading aloud in your best Paul Harvey impersonation, say it with me, “Now… for
the rest… of the story.”
Several people have already written to me about the above entry. The tone has generally been “I’m glad you
got that worthless piece of shit out of your life.” This does not ingratiate me to
the sender. True, you are entitled to have an opinion and to share it with me. You
don’t have to use hurtful language when you do so. (For the record, there have also
been several understanding and supportive e-mails. Thanks.)
I explained this in an e-mail I sent recently, paraphrased below:
I'll get a dozen or so, let's say critical, notes each
time I write about him. I know that on more than one occasion I became hypersensitive to
the issue and replied inappropriately.
Part of the solution has been that I simply don't write about him much any more. The other
part is we've distanced our relationship.
It's been perhaps more frustrating for me than for my readers because I've been squeezed
in the middle if a triangle formed by Jeffrey and his antics, my feelings and antics and
my readers and real-life people who care for me.
Unless you've been in as toxic a relationship as Jeffrey's and mine, YET have still felt
deeply in love and deeply loved within it, AND if you were getting hammered about it by
seemingly the entire planet, all I can do is ask you to imagine how I feel. |
The story here is not about a worthless piece of shit
manipulating and heaping abuse on a witless love-struck mark.
The story here is how alcoholism and drug abuse makes good people do terrible things to
themselves and to the people they love.
I will staunchly defend Jeffrey AS A PERSON until the day I die, and then my words will
live beyond my grave. I DO NOT DEFEND his behaviors when he’s drinking and drugging.
I dislike them as much as anyone.
If you read the e-mail above a little more closely, you’ll find I INCLUDE MYSELF as
part of the problem. I have issues as well, which I deal with as inappropriately as
Jeffrey does his. Truth be told, we’re exquisitely matched co-enablers and
co-dependents. Which means we’re exquisitely skilled at manipulating EACH OTHER. It
takes two to tango, kids. And sometimes I lead the dance.
I stopped writing about Jeffrey because I wanted to stop the insulting derogatory e-mail
coming in. That was wrong. It’s unfair to me, it’s unfair to Jeffrey and
it’s unfair to everyone else who reads these pages.
So here’s where I stand.
Normal people who love each other don’t do the things we’ve done to each other.
We freely and fully acknowledge this. Yet it is possible for sick people to love each
other and do all the nasty things you’ve seen here. Is it the fault of the people
involved? Is it the fault of their love for each other? Or is it the fault of their
sickness?
I’m not well. In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve been seeing a shrink and
taking meds since February of 1992. You'll remember I started because of my drug and
alcohol abuse. And I know the toxic relationship I’ve participated in creating with
Jeffrey has made things worse for me.
Jeffrey is not well. He desperately wants help, but his disease has too strong a hold on
him. The only reason he’s not seeing a shrink and taking meds is because his
alcoholism and drug abuse get in the way of his making it to Medicaid so he can get help.
He knows the toxic relationship he has participated in making with me has made things
worse for him.
We both know these things. Now, you know we know them.
Since the first of the year we have distanced ourselves greatly so that we could begin to
repair ourselves and our toxic relationship. Let me share this with you, as good as that
distancing has been, it has hurt even more than the terrible things we’ve done.
We realize that in this distancing, it is the pain of growth, not of suffering. But that
hasn’t made it hurt any less. I can only describe it as trying to separate Siamese
twins without benefit of antiseptic or anesthesia. Yet each accepts that one may have to
"die" so the other might "live". But the goal is that they (we) both
will "live", AND become better people with a better relationship because of it.
I do my best to deal with the nearly constant guilt, shame, sorrow, pain and anguish I
feel. Then people use their mail to kick me when I’m down. In the current vernacular,
“That’s way uncool.”
So I repeat, you have the right to feel the way you do, however it is that you feel. By
virtue of there being three e-mail links on every page of this entire web site I INVITE
YOU to share your thoughts and feelings with me. What I ask, is that you consider my
feelings when you do so.
Don’t write at all if you’re going to say is that Jeffrey is a worthless piece
of shit. Condemnation of his actions, and mine, though IS FAIR GAME. Suggestions on how we
can deal with any of this mess IS WHAT WE NEED MOST. And the occasional kind word of
empathy or sympathy is appreceiated.
In short, when you write, keep in mind I am not flickering pixels on your screen. Behind
that screen and behind these words is a sensitive, thinking, feeling, loving person.
Obviously you care about me on some level, otherwise you wouldn’t
read these pages and you wouldn’t write. And I'm grateful and deeply moved by it.
Remember these things when you do write. I’m not saying to send only platitudes.
Speak your mind, be honest, be sincere, just don’t be hurtful when doing so.
Back to today’s news.
It’s so hard for me to describe all the different things I feel.
Glad isn’t the right word but it’s the right direction to describe how I feel
about Jeffrey being in jail. I’m glad he’s getting a break from how miserable
his life has become. I’m saddened that jail is simply substituting one set of
miseries for another.
The timing here sure sucks too. He has, or rather had, an appointment for tomorrow,
Thursday, to get things rolling again on a treatment plan. It’s actually the second
appointment. Miraculously he kept the first one last week. It's the first time he's kept
an appointment since he was released from jail in September.
When he stopped by for a shot or two of mouthwash Tuesday morning, I told him how proud I
was of that single simple achievement, the nature of which most other people don’t
even have to think about in order to do. Keep an appointment. He was actually beaming with
pride himself.
Of course I enabled him and got him the mouthwash. I was secretly relieved I had
mouthwash. White Rain is so much more expensive! And how would I keep my hair in place? He
complained that the off-brands of mouthwash I’m buying now are only 40 proof. I
explained that I couldn’t afford Listerine right now, which is closer to 70 proof. We
both got a chuckle at the absurdity of the conversation.
Here’s a bit of oversharing: Did you know that when one drinks mouthwash instead of
beer, one’s farts smell minty fresh?
Here’s some more insight into absurdity. Early last week we agreed he would spend the
night to see if we could do it without inflicting psychic or bodily harm. Just one night,
then he’d go back to his mother’s. On his way home (here) from the bar, he found
two cans of beer in a snowbank. When he got home and opened one, he discovered it was
frozen solid. Using a kitchen knife, he cut the can apart, extracted the “beer
cube”, put it in a mug and microwaved it.
BTW, we didn’t inflict injury upon each other that night or the following day, and he
went home (to his mom's) that afternoon.
Anyway, regarding this incarceration, yes, I could have afforded to bail him out. After
today’s bill paying and shopping trip, when I counted my change at home I had $104.95
left.
I am also not going out to Wal-Mart to buy six sets of underwear, socks and t-shirts, two
sweatsuits and two sets of long underwear. No matter my how much I want to. He made his
bed and my mistake in the past has been to make it too comfortable for him to lie in it.
It’s about time he cleans up his own messes and deals their uncomfortable
consequences, not me. I have plenty of my own shit to deal with myself, thank you very
much.
I will certainly visit, I will certainly write, I will certainly put modest sums in his
commissary account. Not the $20 a week I did last time, I’m thinking closer to $5.
I’ve not made any decision on art supplies. I will not, however, have the collect
call block removed from my phone. At least not until I can both afford it and feel safe
that we won’t abuse each other by phone again. That’s likely to be a long time.
I have gotten used to missing him. I’ve done a lot of that this past month. I’ll
probably still have a good cry though. Something to wash away the past so I can begin
anew.
Late evening, Friday February 11, 2000
As you may have guessed, I’ve had an emotionally exhausting couple
of days. I all but collapsed when I got home from class last night. I awoke early, dealt
with e-mail, finished and mailed a letter to Jeffrey and went back to bed. I don’t
even remember what I did this afternoon, except that it required a nap afterwards.
I’ve replied and said thank you personally to everyone, but I also want to publicly
acknowledge all the supportive and understanding mail that has flooded in. Thank you all
for caring. I’m truly overwhelmed that so many people I’ve never met in person,
never spoken to by phone, are that concerned and want to be so helpful.
And I want to thank those who held their tongues and didn’t write me to lash out
against Jeffrey. That too was noticed and is appreciated.
Of course with all that mail came
the need for me to do a lot more thinking. Everyone has their own viewpoint based on their
own life experiences. It helps me see things I hadn’t seen or even knew were there.
That’s why I like to get mail.
It wasn't until a reader made an offhand remark about enabling yesterday that I GOT IT.
Even though I knew there was an issue, what it’s called and some of the basic
mechanics or it, all the logic in the world had been unable to reach me on what is an
emotional issue.
To paraphrase, he said, we do it so that we feel good, even if it's not good for the
person we're enabling.
I've thought long and hard about that. What it means is that I take pleasure in doing the
wrong thing for someone I love. That's the worst kind of abuse. Yet it's so easy because
immediately it takes the pressure off me and he feels happy.
If I'm going to stop being an abuser in our relationship, I have to examine my motivations
for that abuse. Why does it temporarily make me happy to help Jeffrey get drunk and high
when in fact it's the very worst thing I can to do him? Why does it give me pain to deny
him that drunk or high when it's only going to lead to more pain for us both?
I don't know the answers to these questions and until I do, I won't be able to stop
enabling his self-abuse. If I don't stop, I'm contributing to his misery and mine. That's
not right or fair to either of us. Strange, it wasn't until I read that, that I began to
see a crack of the light at the door.
That crack also revealed a bit more to me about codependency. It's basing how you feel on
how someone else feels. My emotions depend on his. When we’re out of sync, measures
are taken to get us back in step. When Jeffrey is happy, I’m happy. If he’s not,
I enable him to him happy. When I'm angry, I make him feel angry too. The same is true
whether you reverse the roles or change the emotion in question. And we switch roles and
emotions in that regard so easily it seems fluid and natural.
I can’t seem to sail along under my own feelings. If I’m happy and he’s
not, first it’s not my job to make him happy, and secondly, I shouldn’t become
unhappy myself so that our moods match.
It means that you’re giving control of your own emotions to someone else. There are
two dangers in that. First it means you’re no longer in control of your own emotions
and second, it opens you up to letting the other person have control over all other
aspects of your life.
We did that. We were forever bickering over control issues. Gee Bruce, guess where that
started?
All of that’s not to say
we haven’t been trying to find the answers. We’ve had difficulty finding the
questions. When we’ve been able to stumble on a question, we’ve sometimes been
able to find the answers.
Jeffrey taught me that apologies are as much for the apologizer as for apologizee. In all
my life I'd never realized that.
In both our upbringings, apologies were demanded but not accepted well. We each learned
only half the lesson from our respective upbringings. And strangely, we learned opposite
halves of it. I had only ever apologized so the other person would feel better. He had
only ever apologized so he could feel better.
My parents would accept apologies grudgingly then leave me alone. I would still feel all
the guilt after having apologized because neither forgiveness nor punishment followed. But
because they’d stop being angry, or at least start the process of becoming
“unangry”, that’s what an apology meant to me. It was something that made
someone else feel better.
In Jeffrey’s childhood, an apology was the first step in punishment. He would say,
“I’m sorry.” His father would reply, “Sorry didn’t do it, Jeffrey
did.” Then the beatings would begin. The apology relieved the feelings of guilt for
him, and angered the person he apologized to.
(BTW, I’m not telling tales out of turn here, he specifically references this issue
in his poem “My Heart Has a Language”. It’s one of his most popular poems
with others who were abused children.)
That my apologies are also supposed to make me feel better was completely lost upon me.
That his apologies are also supposed to make me feel better was completely lost on him.
The flip side of apology is forgiveness. Neither of us learned forgiveness in our early
experience. I started learning it only a few years ago. I'm still not very good at it.
Jeffrey’s not there yet. He tries, but it’s something that’s never been
shown him, except as a weakness he can subsequently exploit to serve the punishment of
revenge. So he doesn't quite know how to do it yet.
When I’d apologize to him, he couldn’t accept it because he hasn’t learned
forgiveness. I would become resentful because my apologies weren’t accepted, but
rather, they were followed with the punishment of revenge.
His apologies to me never helped him deal with the guilt because they weren’t
followed by swift retribution. So he felt I wasn’t accepting his apologies and became
resentful for it.
The whole reason the social graces dictate the combination of apology AND forgiveness is
so that both parties can soothe the other, resolve the difference and move on. One without
the other doesn’t work and only serves to make matters worse.
We only got all of this worked out last week, and the first chance we had to put it into
practice was Tuesday morning…
Late evening, Saturday February 12, 2000
I went downtown to the jail today. I really don’t care to go there.
What bothers me most is listening to the electric bolts retract when they open the door to
the visiting room, then metallic clank/thud as it slams shut. It’s a sound I
can’t quite describe, but I know I’ll never forget. I think it's one of the
things I wrote about in my “Monroe County Jail Primer” back on
August 3, 1998. I didn't read the
whole thing tonight when I looked it up. I know I mentioned it here though.
I also know I never want to hear that sound from the other side…
There are four bulletproof windows off the visitors waiting room there. One for visits,
one for commissary deposits, one for inmate property and finally the Jail Records window.
The Jail Records window is also where you go to post bail. I had $101 in my pocket.
Jeffrey’s bail is $100. No, I did not visit the Jail Records window. The thought
entered my mind only to the extent that I could bail him out if I chose
to go back on my word that would I will never post bail for him again.
I did hit the other three windows though. I dropped off the Stephen King novel he started
towards the end of his last bid. I put $20 in his commissary account so he can buy
toiletries. The thought of having no soap, deodorant, shampoo, comb, toothbrush or
toothpaste just gives me the creeps. The prices at the commissary are outlandish. Those
six items will eat up most if not all of the $20.
I’ve yet to decide between $5 and $10 for his regular weekly stipend. During his last
bid, he spent $10 and saved $10 every week, so $10 would be the max. I suppose it will
depend on art supplies. If he wants art stuff, it’s a big expense and hassle for me.
And he makes money selling his works. (Damn. He could have made a killing for
Valentine’s Day!) So that will mean $5. Enough to show I care and haven’t
abandoned him, but not enough to live in style or comfort.
Anyway, I made an appointment for a regular visit for Thursday at 10:30 and checked the
status of his first-time visit. I wasn’t going to visit him today, but I wanted to
know if anyone had, so I could drop by for the first-time visit on Tuesday morning. I gave
him some things to think about in the letter I sent yesterday. He won’t get it until
tomorrow morning. I want some time to have passed for him to consider the questions I
asked before we see each other.
It seems they haven’t moved him to General Population from Reception yet, so I
wouldn’t have been able to visit him today anyway. Either the deputy who called me on
Thursday was wrong in his prediction, of when a bunk would become available, or they still
have him in Observation. All the drunks and addicts are kept in Observation while they
detox.
Considering he’d start withdrawal lately after a couple of hours without a beer,
I’m sure he’s a real mess. He’s had seizures detoxing in the jail before.
It’s in his record so they keep pretty close tabs on him. Still, it’s not a
medical detox, there are no drugs to control the symptoms. It’s not pretty.
I’ll write about me tomorrow.
Evening, Sunday February 13, 2000
There has been more to the past week than just the issues with Jeffrey.
I’ve given the impression that his going to jail was the precipitating event that
caused me to put two and two together so many times this week.
It helped, provided direction even, but something was going to give this week even without
outside precipitating events. I've felt it coming on. It’s happened to me before and
it always brings with it a strange sort of anxiety. I feel anxious anticipation. And I
feel fear-based anxiety. It’s because I know something is going to break but I
don’t know what, and I don’t know how.
Consider the word “break”, I’ve chosen it carefully. It can mean a rest, a
break from the madness. Or it could mean like waves breaking on the beach, a smooth change
of state and dissipation of energy. Another type of break is also a change of state and
release of energy, breaking glass.
The psychic equivalent of breaking glass, a breakdown, is what I feared the most. A rest
from the madness is what I wanted the most. Mercifully, what I got was the wave cresting,
breaking and washing over the beach.
It brought with it many new understandings. There’s more for to me to discover, but
it’s still shrouded in the receding foam. The wave also washed away a lot of junk,
some of it no doubt to return as flotsam, but for now it’s gone. And so, I’ve
also gotten a rest.
It’s nearly time for me to reach out beyond myself and beyond these pages for help.
Yet doing so makes me feel that same strange sort of anxiety, the mixture of anticipation
and fear. Why?
Consider these two pictures:
Photo 1 |
Photo 2 |
Which to you prefer? Photo 1 on the left, or Photo 2 on
the right? And I’m not talking about the subject matter, although I find him quite
tasty. Photographically, which picture do you prefer? If you're like most people, even
though your eye is repeatedly drawn back to Photo 1, you’ll choose Photo 2 on the
right. Why is that?
Shades of gray.
It’s those shades of gray that give the photo, not only its interest, its life, but
its very definition. There is more information, more meaning, to be found in within the
shades of gray. Not unlike like life itself. Imagine life without shades of gray, only
black or white, nothing in between, like Photo 1 on the left. Not nearly as pretty as
Photo 2 on the right, no matter what your opinion is of the subject.
So what does this have to do with the anxiety I feel toward reaching out for help?
I was raised in an atmosphere of rigid absolutes. In a way similar to Photo 1 above. But
not quite. Photoshop decided that everything darker than the midpoint in the grayscale
would be black. Everything lighter than 50% became white.
Growing up, the line between the two was never at 50%. There was perfection, and there was
not. An “A” on a test, 92% or above, was not good enough. It had to be 100% or
it was considered a failure. There was right, and there was wrong. Nothing in between,
like a well intentioned mistake. There was not even a separation between intent and
execution. If the execution failed, the intent was also deemed a failure.
These values were imprinted on me even though I realized they were wrong. Gray counts. I
rebelled against black and white even while I used them in my judgements. I still rebel
against rigid absolutes. I’m still sometimes guilty of their use.
But gray brings with it complications, more to think about, less simplicity. For this
reason, it’s the enemy of dogma, which relies upon the simplicity of rigid absolutes.
Because of dogma, I’ve been unable to reach out for help.
I’ve been asked, “Why aren’t you in a program?” The answer is dogma.
The dogma and its followers preach that the very same rigid absolutes that led me here,
broken and sick, are allegedly my salvation. It preaches that it’s my fight against
rigidity and absolutes, my fight for shades of gray that is the source of my problems, the
cause of my illness.
I'm the first to admit that shades of gray bring much confusion to the issue, but it is
those rigid absolutes that made me broken, that made me ill. The fight against them has
been my only source of light, my only source of hope. The reapplication of rigid absolutes
will damage me further, perhaps even kill me, just as surely as if one gave poison to cure
poisoning.
So I ask, where can the help I seek be found? Where is there compassion, nurture and
healing? Where is there acceptance that shades of gray do exist and are important? Where
is there a safe place that is firm and supportive without being rigid and unyielding? It
is not in any program I’ve ever had contact with.
But should one exist, somewhere, one that accepts me as I am, seeking the meaning found
those shades of gray, human and capable of error in execution despite the goodness of
intent, reaching for help, not asking for further punishment, if such a program exists,
then I am ready, willing and able, and I shall accept it. |
