Friday, October 26, 2012

The Numb Effect

Part of the damage control that I put into place when my husband decided he no longer wanted to be my "plus one" was to make an appointment with my doctor.  I use the term "my doctor" loosely because I had never met this doctor.  I was transferred over to her because my own doctor had decided to go into a nursing home environment and no longer be a general practitioner.  That in itself sucked.

But what can you do.  So I went.  So sad.  So brokenhearted.  My current dose of antidepressant a total joke to my battered emotions.  I explained my situation.  This new doctor couldn't have been more sympathetic.  She commended me on already seeing a therapist and she encouraged me to seek a support group.  Then she readily doubled my antidepressant and wrote me a script for my anxiety that was a defcon level five.

I took that potentially habit forming anxiety medication EVERYDAY.  Every morning I would look at the bottled and curse my dependence on a pill to get me through the day.  But it worked.  I wasn't crying.  I wasn't sending sappy dripping text messages to a man who wanted no part of me.  I was able to cope.

Last week I must have reached therapeutic levels for my antidepressant because I woke up on a Monday and it was like a thick layer of salve had been put on along with a cushy band-aid.  I no longer even thought about the anxiety pill I was taking.  I forgot all about them and their addictive qualities.

It got me thinking about the wonders of drugs and how they can make you numb.  Make it so you don't feel the gut wrenching pain of your heart breaking.  Makes so you can get through the day and not cry your eyes out over what will never be.

I can now be in the same room with him and not loose my shit.  I don't feel the need to seek him out and yell at him about something trivial.  I can spend time with my kids and not be tempted to say something degrading about him to them.  Its like I've got my sanity back.

Too bad there isn't a pill that will take me back in time, before all this mess.


Tuesday, October 9, 2012

March 28, 2013

Therapy, the new dislike

I am not entirely sure why I felt that today's therapy session would be a breeze.  That my being about seven sessions into therapy and not even close to seeing any sort of light at the end of any sort of tunnel, should have been my cue.  Therapy is tough.  Being honest about my feelings.  Tougher.

By admitting them out loud, they become more real.  Yes, therapy is good.  Yes, speaking about it is good.  But it sucks, major.  I am not enjoying it and each time I go, I feel like, this session will be different.  This session I will come out strong, head high. 

Instead I come out red eyed, blubbery and a pile of warm goo.  Its humbling that where I think I am doing the right things, I am not.  That where I am strong, I am really weak.  That this dark and twisted path I am on, isn't even close to be over and that suppressing these feelings just leads to more denial.

Oh how I love denial.  Its so easy to pretend, when I am out of the house, that everything is fine at home.  I'm a chameleon of sorts.  I can hide in my smile and my friendly banter.  But get in my car on the ride home, or two seconds before I walk in the door and it's obvious to even my six year old that I am broken at this point.

Hopeless.  Broken. In Denial.

That's what therapy is for though.  Bring that denial out into the light.  Expose it. Today's session was very much about how bizarre it is that my husband has brought a toilet (that he got for free) into the basement with the intentions of installing it.

I saw it in the back of his truck one morning and I texted him about it.  He replied that he got it for free.  I texted back that for some reason it made me happy to see.  I was happy about it.  To me that toilet means that he plans on staying.

To the therapist?  That toilet means that he is moving further away.  That having his own place to "go" makes it so he access the house less.

A crushing truth for me.  But one I needed to hear.  My husband is a very smart man.  He is consistent.  He doesn't want to be with me.  He has made that clear.  All of our conversations are censored.  He doesn't lead me on, he doesn't say anything misleading, he stays on topic.  No amount of my desperate texts, asking him to come back, telling him I am sorry, asking him for forgiveness (my therapist pointed out today, that there is nothing for him to forgive and that really I should be ANGRY), telling him how I cry every night over him, has changed nothing.  My words to him don't change a thing.  He stays the same.  Distant.  Completely uninterested in any sort of reconciliation. 

Its time that I accept that.  That I accept that our twenty years together no longer means anything to him.  That he is done whether I choose to agree or not.

I don't agree.  Right now, it doesn't seem I will ever agree.  But it doesn't matter.  My feelings no longer matter.

Its a bitter pill.