"You can survive this. Talk to others that have"

DevastatedDee posted 11/13/2019 19:16 PM

gmc, I hurt for you, reading about your DD. I am so sorry. It was hell dealing with a spouse with drug issues. It has to be a thousand times worse when it's your child.

DevastatedDee posted 11/13/2019 19:25 PM

This. I do question myself still about leaving. I knew I had to. I knew I wasn't safe. But - would staying have stopped this? Or would I be dead too? No matter what - I didn't want him dead. I'm not sure when I'll ever really feel closure from this. This will always stick with me. It's always going to be there. It will always be in the back of my mind. Right now in the front of it. But it's always going to be there.

It is impossible to know the answer. Maybe he'd be alive if you had stayed but you'd be dead. Maybe you would both still be alive, but you'd be utterly miserable. Maybe you would both be dead. I don't want my XWH dead either but if he calls me with that suicide stuff nowadays, my reaction won't be any different from what it was a year ago. And it will hurt, because I know he's a true suicide risk. I still expect him to die at his own hands at some point.

Some people take themselves hostage to control others. Sometimes the ransom isn't paid. That isn't on us. You never asked him to kill himself.

Addiction is just incredibly tragic. It can take a person down so hard and hurts so many people on the way down. Your WH chose this path. He had a right to let the addiction kill him. It was his choice. We have to allow others to make their own choices on how to live their lives, even when they hurt us terribly with them. You chose not to take a front row seat to his slow suicide. I chose the same. Those were smart choices on our parts.

BearlyBreathing posted 11/13/2019 21:12 PM

Just thinking of you, CNT. (((Hugs)))

CatsNTats posted 11/14/2019 19:12 PM

GMC, I am so sorry. I can't imagine having to live through that with it being your child. I hope she has a wake up call before it's too late. Really.

Prior to this nightmare, I wanted to believe that people found a bottom that wasn't dead. Now I'm not so sure. At what point do they see what they are doing? How do they not see it? I thought me leaving would be a wake up call. I thought...well, whatever I thought was clearly wrong.

My therapist really put into perspective for me today how scary things got this Summer. And I probably would be dead if I had stayed. There was nothing rational left of him. He didn't come around. He didn't stop. He literally lost his fucking mind. This shell of a man - and nothing else. The man I fell in love with I don't believe ever would have hurt me, but the addict that took over did and probably would have taken me with him.

Some people take themselves hostage to control others.

He had taken me hostage too.

CatsNTats posted 11/14/2019 19:13 PM

BB, thank you.

DevastatedDee posted 11/15/2019 08:45 AM

My therapist really put into perspective for me today how scary things got this Summer. And I probably would be dead if I had stayed. There was nothing rational left of him. He didn't come around. He didn't stop. He literally lost his fucking mind. This shell of a man - and nothing else. The man I fell in love with I don't believe ever would have hurt me, but the addict that took over did and probably would have taken me with him.

I have never seen anything more disconcerting than what my XWH turned into with drugs. He started as one person and ended as something else. And it happened fast. I don't know what goes on in their brains, but they lose their humanity and become utterly incapable of anything resembling who you thought they were before. That this is pretty universal among addicts is insane all by itself.

CatsNTats posted 11/20/2019 16:23 PM

He started as one person and ended as something else. And it happened fast. I don't know what goes on in their brains, but they lose their humanity and become utterly incapable of anything resembling who you thought they were before. That this is pretty universal among addicts is insane all by itself.

It was exactly like this Dee. You may be my soul person here. I feel like everything you say to me I relate to on sooo many levels. Thank you.

Shehawk posted 11/21/2019 09:27 AM

((cats))

Thinking of you today and sending you "prayers" in whatever form you would want to receive them.

HeHadADoubleLife posted 11/21/2019 12:04 PM

I have never seen anything more disconcerting than what my XWH turned into with drugs. He started as one person and ended as something else. And it happened fast. I don't know what goes on in their brains, but they lose their humanity and become utterly incapable of anything resembling who you thought they were before. That this is pretty universal among addicts is insane all by itself.

Well said, Dee. They start to not even look like people anymore. My addict seemed like a strange, very lifelike robot, his eyes simultaneously void of any human emotion, but also filled with an animal-like fear and demon-like rage. Those eyes were truly the stuff of nightmares.

Some people take themselves hostage to control others. Sometimes the ransom isn't paid. That isn't on us.

This is a universal truth that anyone in relation to an addict needs to wrap their head around. I have a few addicts in my family, so I've watched this dynamic play out several times, and while it's always a little different due to circumstances, it's also eerily the same.

I like to think of the addiction as its own entity, kind of like the devil on their shoulder, or some kind of amorphous black gaseous blob of evil that follows them around. If you've ever watched Fern Gully, in my head it's exactly like the black blob called Hexxus, and honestly that character's storyline is a lot like addiction.

Addiction with a capital A, I call it, and the addict is really just Addiction's host. And Addiction hates it when Addiction is not the center of attention. Addiction will not stand for it. So Addiction will tell its host to do everything that it can to make sure it gets everything it needs.

Need a hit but you're broke? Beg, borrow, steal, sell your body, or your belongings, or your child's belongings, or literally whatever you need to do to get that hit. And the next one. And the next. The addict knows it's wrong, but Addiction is right there to nudge them along. Need a hit, but you're high and shouldn't drive? There's Addiction, whispering over the addict's shoulder, "It's only a couple of miles, you'll be fine."

And it is a twisted relationship. Because whenever the addict's needs aren't being met, Addiction is right there, making all of the promises in the world to fulfill them. Bad day at work? Addiction is there. Fight with your spouse? Addiction is there. Kids not doing well in school? Addiction is there. Financial trouble? Addiction is there. Midlife crisis? Addiction is there. Because taking that drink or that hit will solve all of your problems. It will make it all better, Addiction says so, so it must be true.

Addiction never actually follows through on any of its promises, though. Addiction does not solve any of the addict's problems, it makes them worse. But, Addiction is always there - the ear to bend, the shoulder to cry on. That's one thing to be said for Addiction, it will never abandon you. Addiction is faithful as hell. So faithful that it will kill you rather than lose you. Addiction is an abuser, and the addict is abused. And much like in actual abusive relationships, the addict has to be the one to leave, because Addiction never will. Addiction will keep using the addict as a punching bag for as long as the addict will allow it. Also, much like the patterns we see in those who have been abused, they themselves can become abusers - so the addict remains faithful to Addiction, but abuses everyone else in his/her path.

I don't say any of that to take any agency away from the addict. They are still making choices, and just because Addiction has taken over, doesn't mean they aren't responsible for every single one of them. But it has helped me to view it that way when I start ruminating on how my XH could have become what he became. When I have those thoughts of, How? Why? It helps me to be able to say, because he's not human anymore, he is a human host for Addiction.

You never asked him to kill himself.

This. Say this to yourself over and over. He said he wouldn't live without you, and he followed through on that. I know how painful that is, and I understand the feelings of guilt that come along with it. We should not feel guilt for the actions someone else took, and yet we do. In situations like these, our work is in not letting the coulda-woulda-shouldas take over our thoughts for too long. There's nothing you should have done, because it's his own choice to make, and nothing you could have done would have saved him, because he was hell bent on destroying himself.

Yes, it is maddening to know that the strongest commitment these people make is to their destructive, and sometimes life-ending, behavior. That all the follow through in the world could have been applied to making healthier decisions, and they chose to apply all of that to the unhealthy path instead. But it was never on you to save him from himself.

[This message edited by HeHadADoubleLife at 12:06 PM, November 21st (Thursday)]

CatsNTats posted 11/21/2019 13:20 PM

...his eyes simultaneously void of any human emotion, but also filled with an animal-like fear and demon-like rage. Those eyes were truly the stuff of nightmares.

The monster that had taken over was just like this. He was unrecognizable to me. I know he was still in there somewhere because he told his friend that I brought in before I cut him off that he wanted rehab and wanted to make things right with me - but he was so far gone, he couldn't even stop long enough to get into a facility. I still believe he knew what he was doing. I believe he knew this would be his very final manipulation of me - one that I would have to live with forever.

I like to think of the addiction as its own entity, kind of like the devil on their shoulder, or some kind of amorphous black gaseous blob of evil that follows them around

Not even a blob - more like a demon living inside them. It was more like demon possession. But I also have to remind myself that we all have free will - and he knew he had an addiction. He knew he needed to get help - and he chose not to. He chose to do this because he could no longer reach me. Because to him I was gone - what he now made - forever. You can get help for an addiction, but you can't undo dead. He made a permanent choice. I felt like I gave him all the chances in the world to make it right - when I was still there. He still chose not to. He told me that rehab would be like going to jail - as if he wasn't already living in the prison of his addiction.

In a way, it is it's own entity - but when people look at me and say, "He was sick." as if to justify the way he treated me - that makes it look like excuses are being made or he's being excused for that behavior because he was sick. Infidelity was bad enough, but to proceed to do something anyway after your partner has said - "NO" - says that anyone who is "sick" can just go around raping people, because - "well, they were sick."

We still have a choice - and he chose wrong.
On multiple occasions.

Part of me started thinking - that maybe he honestly couldn't live with himself because of the things he did to me. Another part of me thinks this was his cruelest manipulation yet.

[This message edited by CatsNTats at 1:25 PM, November 21st (Thursday)]

CatsNTats posted 11/21/2019 13:26 PM

Shehawk - thank you. I'd hug you if I could.

DevastatedDee posted 11/21/2019 16:59 PM

It was exactly like this Dee. You may be my soul person here. I feel like everything you say to me I relate to on sooo many levels. Thank you.

I so wish it weren't so. You're like my soul sister in that I'm watching you walk down the path that I totally expected to be walking down.

Part of me started thinking - that maybe he honestly couldn't live with himself because of the things he did to me. Another part of me thinks this was his cruelest manipulation yet.

The honest truth is that it's probably both, with an added dash of self-pity. Regardless of what it is, it definitely isn't anything you could have fixed. He didn't get clean and healthy with you by his side, right?

EllieKMAS posted 11/21/2019 19:19 PM

It was exactly like this Dee. You may be my soul person here. I feel like everything you say to me I relate to on sooo many levels. Thank you.

Cats I call Dee my Yoda

How are you today? How's your processing?

DevastatedDee posted 11/21/2019 20:45 PM

I'm not nearly as wise as Yoda, ha ha.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 8:46 PM, November 21st (Thursday)]

CatsNTats posted 11/21/2019 22:01 PM

Ellie,

The feeling like I was hit by a truck feeling has started to wear off, but I feel like that is more of me compartmentalizing things so I can survive this semester - and hopefully pass all my courses so I don't have to wait until next Fall - retake something - before I can continue in the program in a year from now in the Spring semester. I am worried about how I will feel - or what stage of grief is next once I'm through the next few weeks when my schedule opens up completely during winter break. I've been cycling through grief stages, but I always find myself back in the anger phase.

I had therapy today and we did not start EMDR, but will next week. By the time I got done telling her about my texts to him, texts to the OWs, blocking the FIL, blocking the "no boundaries - obsessed with me" high school guy, etc. the session was almost over. And an email I sent to her after our last meeting about something I hadn't been great with verbalizing in session. She's worried what will happen once I have less on my plate and more time on my hands. If we can get some of it under control - or at least processed with EMDR - if it works - hopefully that will lighten the blow during the holidays and winter break.

She did like that I text him. She said sometimes she will have people talk to their person "in the chair." I was like, I'm not talking to an invisible man in your chair...but what works for some may not work for others and vice versa. She thinks the texts to him is a healthy outlet for me to say what I need to him. So...if the urge arises, I will probably continue to use that outlet until someone responds telling me to fuck off - or calls me crazy.

I had to go to urgent care tonight. I noticed pink last night on TP. Today it was really - red - at clinical and I was for sure having hematuria. I've been put on an antibiotic for a bladder infection and diflucan for a yeast infection. I'm really hoping that the issues I dealt with for 5 months before being diagnosed with high tone pelvic floor dysfunction don't flare back up on me and put me in the eternal state of a non-UTI that feels like the worst UTI of my life. One other nightmare I don't want to re-live as it was also during that time I found him on that fuck site that he paid for and also experienced sexual domestic violence where I felt forced to have sex with him when I was in that kind of pain. Or he was going to find it elsewhere. I hate that I'm prone to this shit. I cried some. Not only because my vag hurts right now. But all of it.

I was open with the doctor I saw about all of that and what I've been going through. How my cycle has been fucked up since I left him. and continued to be after his death. about the HTPFD I was diagnosed with last year. How I've been prone to UTIs, etc. She asked me about my primary care - and I told her I don't like the guy I got stuck with as he isn't concerned about women's issues in any form. I'll put that on my list of things to do over break - find a worth while doctor - that actually believes me and doesn't keep testing me for UTIs over and over and over when it wasn't that and their multiple tests showed that but they kept running the same tests anyway. Ridiculous that you have to beg someone to listen to you when you need serious care and they still don't hear you.

Broken health care system.

Kind of my day in a nutshell. Suffering through my last clinical of the semester like that...
But I'm hanging in there.

[This message edited by CatsNTats at 10:04 PM, November 21st (Thursday)]

CatsNTats posted 11/21/2019 22:06 PM

Dee - you may just be Yoda.

DevastatedDee posted 11/22/2019 09:29 AM

No, just dealt with enough bullshit to accidentally gain some wisdom I could have handled living without. I genuinely miss the more open and loving person I used to be. I was a sweet ignorant soul, lol.

DevastatedDee posted 11/22/2019 09:35 AM

Cats, don't be surprised if your body starts to be healthier the further you get away from this situation and the more you heal emotionally. I didn't even realize how sick I was all the time while I was in the middle of all that stress.

I hope you find a doctor as good as mine. I hope EDMR helps too. I never did try that. I wound up replacing therapy with volunteering at a dog shelter. That saved me in the aftermath of all the suicide threats and such. I think I needed (and still do) to look into the eyes of creatures as pure as dogs and help them get better and happier. There had been so much hopelessness that I needed something like that and I was nowhere near ready to help humans. Dogs are uncomplicated. They really do just need love and understanding 90% of the time. Humans? Shit, I had just dealt with a cheating addict. Yikes.

CatsNTats posted 11/22/2019 09:45 AM

I genuinely miss the more open and loving person I used to be. I was a sweet ignorant soul, lol.

I've always been kind of hardened to life because of my experiences from the time I was a child and having to grow up fast. Always wished I had just gotten a chance to be the sweet ignorant soul (at least the sweet part) rather than the hard ass some either love or hate. But I am a hard ass that cares a lot and tries to help people. I just don't deal well with bullshit from others and will call them on it - or tell them what they are doing/have done is fucked up - and I had that talk many times with my WH. But, what he called the "pitbull" (loyal as hell, and not one to be fucked with) in me is also one of the things that attracted him to me. He loved and at times I think also hated (because it scared him) that I would go to people's rescue, even if it meant endangering myself. Like the woman I stopped the assault on last Summer that was bleeding from her head. But had I just kept driving, it would have felt like the same thing when my neighbors ignored my screams when I was held up at gun point at 19. And I vowed to never do that to anyone. It felt awful knowing my neighbors heard me and I could have been lying dead on the pavement and not one bothered to look outside let alone call the cops. People don't scream like that if they aren't in trouble. He shot at two of the neighbors that finally came out to see what was going on. SO I very well could have been dead. Pretty fucked up.

CatsNTats posted 11/22/2019 09:57 AM

Dee - pre-funeral, I almost got back down to my HS weight. I think I was 4 lbs shy and at 118 lbs. I've been eating better again - and I'm back up to 124 (probably with in the last week the way I've been eating). My appetite came back - so that's a good thing.

Thank you. I hope I find one too. I liked the lady I saw last night, but she's urgent care only I believe.

I'll do some searching once I survive this semester. I'm not giving up hope on that. My Pathophys professor said he wants to see me in Pharm next semester - so that was encouragement as well to do well on the exams when we get back. I'll spend the majority of this Thanksgiving break in my books.

I think posting here is helping too.

I didn't like EMDR the first time around - but she claims it really does work, so I'm going to give it another shot.

Animal rescue is an amazing thing you do. I have a friend that runs a pitbull rescue shelter here as her 2nd non-paid full time job.