Written to a friend the other day about relationship conflicts and struggles:
I’ve thought we were getting divorced a couple times or at least separated… I love him so much but he drives me nuts sometimes with his behavior and serious depression/rage issues and I am just a bloody mess… a disorganized former pack rat who has 1,000 projects unfinished and broken, lost by the way side, cluttering his life with forgotten to be paid bills, missed appointments, etc… basically I’m little girl lost and he’s the big man/little boy lost so we argue a lot. We lived in the chaos of our schizophrenic parents’ lives so we create a new chaos here in our home even though there’s a big part of us who likes calmness, quiet and peace.
There’s also a huge wonderful feeling of love and friendship there between us. But we’re both fucked up passionate people who are depressive and also, like you, addicts who, unlike you, have been in our cups off and on in the last 10 years. We were really ‘strong in our recovery’ 12ish years ago when we got together (I know, doesn’t that phrase make you want to be sick?) and have been slipping down since. Up and down up and down. He has never ever drank again but he has had issues because of sleeping pills and heart meds and he went from fit to overweight so he has the food thing like me. Really we are damaged al anon kids “grown up” with baggage but wanting to just live as hedonists and travel the world and spend beyond our means and escape, escape, escape at all costs … and it certainly has cost us.
You know my old spiel… gained an inconceivable amount of weight to wipe away my sexuality and my prettiness, to become invisible, to punish myself or whatever it is that makes that self destructive empty space within us addicts tick. So I have been afraid to talk to my mother since 2001, to confront her, to forgive her, to hate her, to forget her, to move on… whatever. So I’ve been afraid to get my shit together, to be more. So our relationship has suffered even with love. Our self awareness doesn’t mean squat though. We just continue the vicious cycle. Our own vicious cycles. But it’s simplifying things to state well if I just do A, B, C and he does 1, 2, 3 we’ll perfect ourselves and then we’ll be able to communicate and perfect our relationship and then I’ll be great, he’ll be great and everything will be wonderful. Like two addicts, like two adult children of alcoholics, like two survivors of schizophrenic parents will ever be “fixed”.
Some times I think we remain fucked up so we don’t destroy our own secret illusions of grandeur of ourselves. We don’t “realize our potentials”, we don’t live up to our physical attractiveness, our prowess, our careers, our personal relationships, whatever because we’d rather remain “untapped geniuses” and “decadent bohemian talents” who couldn’t be bothered to try than two individuals who tried like any body else and wound up just being mediocre at something, God forbid. Also we thrive on being half awake, me vague on wine, on fantasy, on other people’s lives, on other people’s art, on my eating disorder, on eating till I’m sick, on forgetting to pay bills, forgetting everything, him on the sleeping pills he needs to sleep, lately my muscle relaxants, on comfort foods, on travel, on travel plans, on rants on a myriad of topics, on regrets of the past, etc, ad infinitum.
Writing this helps clarify things, it brings me a little closer to the truth and now I’m going to clean my house. It’s been a month since my accident and it’s time to do a little work. Only a few hours left but I’ve only realized now this is what my recovery looks like.
It helped writing that letter to see in black and white the truth about my reality as it is now. I need constant reminders because I am an escapist. Who likes reminders of one’s character flaws, of one’s weaknesses? But how else are we expected to armed with the strength to face our weaknesses on a daily basis and no longer succumb to them each time? I want to fight again. I don’t want to just survive any more, I want to live.
