The material presented
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information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I have struggled for yrs to detach and regain happiness in my personal life. I had my ABF of 5 yrs move out. Yes, I have been in contact with him, I still see him and sometimes he will still stay here. Apparently I'm not truly committed to ending this relationship, but rather taking baby steps to regain my sanity and happiness. Slowly weaning myslef from him and trying to feel small snipits of normal.
Today I'm outside working in flowerbed, happy. A strange car pulls in and there in the passenger seat is the A looking like crap. You know that all nighter - I haven't showered in a long time look. A gentlemen that I slightly know saw him at a bar, distraught and trashed. Listened to his story about losing me and a huge fight the night before with his family who is now supporting him since I stopped. I'm thinking he was feeling like his "life lines" were getting cut off and he was being found out. Hence another sad story to a stranger and the current reason/excuse to be so wasted.
Here is the good part of the story....... The concerned guy began to explain to me how he had found him and the distraught condition he was in gave him a lot of concern. My sad drunken A began professing his love for me and how he screwed that up along with the relationship with his entire family. While I'm speaking with the nice guy in my garage the A goes into my house and digs out my gun from under lock & key and loads 1 bullet in it, then sits it on my table returns to the garage to announce he almost killed himself. REALLY?????? Wasn't I pruning flowers 5 mins ago and happy????? I called his family and told them they had to come help him or I was going to call 911 and have him sent away before he hurts himself or someone else in his drunken state.
I just have to wonder, what is the right thing to do in this situation? I wanna be a good person and I do care what happens to him, but they couldn't get him committed because he refused to go and they stopped short of signing him in for suicidal attempt. IDK what will happen tomorrow they took him with them. Am I being paranoid or stupid understanding the severity of this? I'm really thankful he is not here. I do fear he will fool his family and this will continue. I know I can't control any of it, but after this crazy event I think he needs to be committed, like yesterday. Was it just another attention getting scam? Who knows........
Too bad life doesn't have a restore button on it like Windows so I could restore my day back to the flower pruning. Sorry I have to make jokes to keep from being extremely freaked out by what happened today.
I dont think your being paranoid or stupid. One time when my X A went to the ER because he was so out of control drunk, he said the magic words. " I want to die, I want to kill myself" that Dr. had him committed to lock down re hab that nite, he was there for two weeks and it brought him back to sanity.
Next time I would call 911, I did that many times with the X, for your saftey and his. Dont even fool around with it and definitely hide the gun in a different place.
I agree with calling 911 if this happens again - it's your best and quickest way to get help. There have been 4 alcohol related suicides in my family, my Dad, my Aunt and two younger cousins -- in each case each of them had their codependent caretakers that would never call for help when problems like this came up. You have no way of knowing if it was an attention getting stunt or a real threat - and he probably doesn't know either.
Stay focused on thr serenity you had while pruning the flowers (((HUG)))
Hugs, .. sending you love and support as you walk through this journey. You've gotten some great esh.
Hugs P :)
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Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
My daughter and I have latched onto a concept that describes how some people in life always try to ruin things - those who want to throw a cup of doo-doo (not using the more powerful bare word) on whatever you are doing. Last night we went someplace where everybody buys fireworks that bang big in the sky and played along with the rest of the pyros. The talk turned to the poop thrower - how mr ex would always wind up ruining whatever we were doing because he just couldn't seem to stand us having fun. Living with someone like this makes you fear having a good time because you KNOW that if you have too good a time, that poop is gonna fly.
Mr ex doesn't like that I won't give him my new cell number, egads it makes him mad but I am so tired of having my day ruined by his phone calls - going along with your day, having a good one and then, whamo - its so nice to not have that happen anymore.
Mr ex also would pull out his guns and threaten; I have emails of his saying all i have to do is distribute his stuff to certain people and his ashes to a certain place - of course its just his way of trying to manipulate me into reacting the way he wants.
I tried having a friendly relationship with him after his last storming out but got to the point where I realized that ANY contact was always going to end badly because his need to have someone to blame for everything bad in his life fell on my shoulders, he couldn't blame his drinking buddies or self, right?
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
I'm slightly obsessing today. This weekend is his high school reunion. His so called friends are heading into town and they always bring drugs for their weekend of heavy drinking. I know I can't stop it and his parents are dealing with him. I worry because they are sooooo easily manipulated and have no understanding of the disease or the depths at which it controls him. This weekend will be bad bad bad! On the positive, it's not my problem, I can't control what happens, its his choice to do what he chooses. Focus on ME. - repeat : )
IWannaFly, I really believe that as we progress in our own abilities to handle ourselves in the face of this adversity, the time will come when we CAN "restore" to the flower pruning. Give yourself credit, hang in there. You will be just fine.
Diva
-- Edited by Diva on Thursday 5th of July 2012 06:11:29 PM
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"Speak your truth quietly and clearly..." Desiderata
Maybe the right thing to do is go in the house and lock the door. I've been around the block so many times with the people interceding for the now ex A stuff. He did suicidal stuff all the time, crashed cars, destroyed them, moaned and groaned. Now I have no tolerance for it.
Detaching for me these days is that if I know someone who does drugs to know as little as possible about their life. In fact one of the things I reminded myself over and over when I detached was not to know. Knowing pulled me in. Not knowing left it up to HP.
There is no "right" thing to do when you are presented with that kind of a mess. Being manipulated isn't something where there isn't a double bind. Choose one way its wrong, choose another its still wrong. For me when I'm given a double bind I name the double bind not think how I can solve it.
I'm very sorry you are going through this. I no longer worry or even consider the ex A. I had to work really hard to get there. Some of what really really helped was to work at absolutely not knowing. When people called up about him I actually told them I do not want to know anything and let it go. I also told them not to call me again.
When the ex A called I put my phone on aeroplane mode for a good few hours so when he called back compulsively he could not leave messages or get through. Obviously that had a significant effect on my life because no one else got through either. But guess what when he couldn't leave a message he stopped calling.
None of the above happened overnight. So don't beat youself up that you didn't get there today. I do know however it is possible to detach and no longer be obsessed or even wondering how is he?
Just found out he talked his dad into accepting that he is ok and doesn't need any help. Apparently putting a loaded gun to your head is ok and absolutely normal. I shouldn't be surprised so was wrapping his car around a telephone pole @ 1 in the afternoon completely obliterated out of his mind. Dad covered and lied to insurance on that as well. I'm seriously angry and disappointed in both him and his father! They should've taken the bullet as a memento since it was no big deal. Wow is all I can say.
((((IWannafly))))...sit quietly and meditate on these words..."I've done the best I can with what I know and have. When I learn more and have more I will do much better"...then get to the next meeting on the schedule cause you will learn and know more. You are not responsible for him, his choices, his disease, his consequences etc...those are all his...none of it is yours...and you just have to accept believing that or else you will find yourself stuck to him like velcro. Don't even get angry at his Dad...Teach his Dad..."You've done the best you can with what you know and have and lets go to a meeting!!".
The ex A did a hit and run and covered it up for a long time. He didn't even get prison time.
I used to be extremely frustrated that no one challenged the ex A but he had plenty of challenges, ruined health (all because of drugs) homeless, friendless (that's if you don't count his drug addicted buddies, estranged from his brother, car-less, truck-less and more.
I am willing to bet your A has had plenty of "bottoms". Not having a car being one of them. Living with your parents as an adult isn't exactly stuff everyone looks up to either.
The nature of alcoholism is denial. I know I took it all really really personally for years. I stopped. The issue is to stop taking it personally and "see" the disease. For some reason that took me decades. I know I only saw the disease when I got out of the "enmeshed" frame of mind. Until then I just saw what it did to "me".
The drama continues. Only 2 days after putting a loaded gun to his head AGAIN, dad's answer to his middle aged son with nothing to his name, is to agree with him that he doesn't need help, he just needs to slow down! Hmmmmmm I think I heard the same advice when he wrapped his car around the telephone pole 2 yrs ago! His advice has worked out well along with the A's solemn promise to give it up. :# So Dad just gave son permission to continue drinking, just hide from the parents how much so mom won't get mad! This way he can enjoy the big reunion party weekend and be drunk the entire time! I really can't stand how I feel at this moment.
Thanks everyone for your kind words. The last few days have been difficult. I went for a long drive tonight to clear my head and I really wanted to sob, but I couldn't, haven't shed a tear since this happened. I can't find the words to describe what I'm feeling and why this time shook me so deeply, its not the first time he's put a gun to his head. Maybe I was caught off guard, maybe this diseases finally scared me enough. Not sure if I'm in some weird state of shock or just numb. The whole scene was pretty horrific the gun, him curled up in a fetal position in and out of consciousness, checking the breathing...... Something was different this time. I could see him laying dead on my floor. I believed him this time.
Denial for his dad is stronger than it is for the A. So strong it makes a parent forget/pretend your only son had a loaded gun to his head, again. The denial I have witnessed is unbelievably scarey.
