I called out Doug's therapist and his lawyer yesterday.

[EFerrari]

Yesterday, I got three collection calls for Doug -- to my new number that has never been in his name or associated with him.

So, I emailed the therapist and the lawyer and notified them. And I also told them that they'd helped Doug decimate his safety network when they should have helped him calm down and get his brain back by directing him to his doctor instead of helping him leave me because I'm just not that important. And that their actions had and will have consequences.

I'm not at all sure I should have done that but I did. :(

It just all feels so needless. Pharaoh said in another thread thread that some point, you need to just let go of a break up. I see that, I do. But I can't help knowing what Doug is in for. And, my own process aside (hey -- don't do that :) ), it's ugly. This wasn't a break up per say. This was a decompensation that stupid people amplified into a break up because it always feels that way to Doug. He always seems to experience it as the fault of the closest guy, goes to outsiders who get protective and then, they help him act out his fear instead of helping him calm down first. :(

When all this started, Doug asked me for three things and I said "yes" to all his requests. But he couldn't take the "yes" because this wasn't about me -- although, there was a grain of truth in everything he asked for. But, never mind, no matter how many times I said "Yes, you are right about that and this is what I will do" he was never easy with it. Because at bottom, it really wasn't about me. The couple is just where he experienced it. I had no ability to put his upset to bed because this episode was about a meds change gone wrong, not about anything within my control.

So, no matter how many times I'd say yes, it wouldn't help.

It amazes me that so few people really understand this process. :crazy:

I'm doing better than I was last summer. It's still not easy to let go of all those years of work. Oh well, life is life. Let's see how we do.

[knowbody0]

1. Since the breakup,

have you had contact with Doug? How about the circle of friends/acquaintances you had as a couple?

Two things my father pounded into us as kids - "It's a sin to worry" and "the more you help someone, the more you hurt them"

As and adult and mother, his words haunt me. I have more than a boatload of empathy and compassion, but watching my kids turn into adults, I see that I missed opportunities to create more autonomous people by helping them too much when I should have stood by and allowed them to learn responsibilities and consequences of their own choices. Ah well, nobody's perfect.

I so admire how you supported Doug throughout his bouts, it sounds as if he is unable to function with or without you.

IMHO, you did the right thing with your emails. Doctors and counselors have huge egos and need reality checks just like we all do, so there!

Peace and love

i am kate

[EFerrari]

2. No, I haven't had contact with Doug since September.

And, since I worked with him, neither have I had contact with any of our business circle.

What I tried to do was facilitate, not infantilize, if that makes sense? But, there are just some deficits that he will need help with because, that's just what his situation is. Money management is one of those.

The other thing is, most people don't lose their insight in the way someone like Doug can and does. So, while he's a terrific learner, sometimes what he learns disappears on him and consequences that might make sense to someone else, seem to come out of the blue at him. :(

Well, nobody is perfect, for sure. And it may be that those people who took his reports literally were acting completely out of concern for him. So much of what happens in our families is invisible to other people.

But, any family dealing with this stuff has to make accommodations. Some relationships just are sort of asymmetrical. And it doesn't help us when society disrespects us either by believing that they know better than we do what we need or what is helpful. :shrug:

:hug:
:grouphug:

[DemExpat]

3. I agree with knowbody, Beth,

as I have also found in my life that people need to work things out on their own in most circumstances, and will even sabotage/rebel against/abuse those who are trying so hard to help and support.

I did this for years with my parents, friends and professionals trying to help me out, and I saw this process (although in a healthy form!) in my dear children as they worked their way through adolescence.

I do so understand your viewpoint on this, and how families can have viewpoints and insights that professionals cannot have, but since Doug has a say in all that is happening with himself and between you two, there really isn't a choice for you in the matter now.

You seem to think that he won't be able to find solutions to his problems without you, but I think that there is as much a chance that he does as he doesn't. :shrug:

My family thought that I was totally unfit to learn to take care of myself, and after some years of drama and chaos, I did find my way out.

The pain of losing him is the worst for you, Beth, I do so understand how this can be unbearable, but I hope you heal from this split-up and find other sources of great happiness and love.

Many :hug:s from me,

DemEx

[EFerrari]

4. Thanks so much. I joined a neighborhood gym this morning

and try everyday to take the steps I can. My family has been great, my neighbors have been great. I'm actually very, very lucky in that way. :)

The thing that bugs me about all of this isn't that Doug made a change. Or, that part does distress me in the realm of things that belong to me, right?

But, there doesn't seem to be anyone who gets that Doug needs a supportive environment. Not a caretaking situation, but a supportive environment which isn't really the same thing. Because people don't always have to learn things "the hard way" and in fact, some people don't learn in that way but simply get traumatized by "the hard way".

I guess we'll see soon enough.

:hug: back to you, DemEx

[DemExpat]

8. Sometimes supportive environments are turned into prisons.

..."I" did this, even though one could say my mental state prevented me from "knowing" what I was doing, it was still my choices and responses to things. I tend to believe that even those of us with debilitating mental health problems can learn and learn to monitor our own behavior and impulses to some degree - some with and some without medications. Sometimes it takes years...:-(


With me it was learning the hard way and with additional trauma, and I fought my way out of it tiny step by step. I was not alone in this either, as I had excellent support from my shrink, and my friends.

I certainly do not think that you were being Doug's caretaker, I mean to try to explain how I see some people turning their loved ones into caretakers or prison guards and then forcing a break, or letting a break happen. This is something that only they can learn to understand and change - or not. What else can be done here? Autonomy is autonomy even for those of us with special challenges, in my way of thinking.

And know that I understand what you mean by mourning the loss personally as well as feeling intense pain for what you perceive is a lack of support for Doug. :hug:

DemEx

[EFerrari]

9. If I didn't believe Doug could do this on his own and for himself,

I don't think I could have done any of the last 12 years.

That's sort of where I started from -- although that can get lost.

:hug:

[EFerrari]

5. I think I need to clarify something here.

And that is, there is more than one piece to this situation.

There is the mourning piece I'm dealing with as I would during any break up.

There is also a piece about knowing what I know about Doug's situation -- which may be more of a community thing than a personal thing. It's objective and a matter of public record. It's no less my responsibility than doing whatever I can for my friend Keith, who is homeless and in a wheel chair out here on Ocean Beach.

I can't fix anything. But, I can try to hang onto what I know in the face of community dimness or shame. I can try to notice opportunities to make things a little better, and to hold people accountable who try to run over Doug's or Keith's autonomy, their choices or their well being.

Those are two different whole realms for me. I can't always keep them separate and at times, they intersect. But that's mostly how I think of them.

I can't tell you how many times I was disparaged as an advocate because I was "the wife", lol. And now, because I am the "ex wife". (So, who does an advocate have to be? :) )

It's interesting though, that a first impulse is to say -- get over it. Because that impulse is the same impulse that disconnects us all when hanging in together might be a more powerful move. I don't mean Doug should have contact with me or anything like that.

I just notice that our families are always being told to disband as if that would disappear the issue of mental illness. Get over it, shut up, not your problem, your problem. None of those statements are very useful. And, they don't handle mental health issues -- they just try to put them aside, imho.

On edit: Put another way, I can mourn my relationship AND know that Doug isn't getting the support he needs.

[hunter]

6. These threads always scare me.

I don't know why but I've always been able to develop networks of people I can trust, and for the most part, I've never been burned by people too badly. Even the times I've been entirely lost and alone, paranoid, in God Only Knows what mental state, I've been reigned in by people who were trustworthy.

Even as a young man, at the peak of my weirdness, estranged from my family and sleeping in my car, someone who was trustworthy noticed me, and took me in like a lost dog. I use that analogy a lot -- I was a dog pretending to be human, and I was sort of scary looking too, sometimes a snarling creature with sharp fangs, a mean looking son of a bitch.

And I got out of the pit, achieved some sort of stability, met my wife, and I haven't fallen quite so hard as I used to since.

By the day, by the week, by the month, for now, I've got stability, I don't have to pretend I'm human, I just am, I'm on the right meds, I've got people who are trustworthy to talk to. I'm lucky.

But it's too easy for me to imagine falling into the various pits of despair again, and I know too well by experience that I don't see it coming, at least not well enough not to fall in head first.

*sigh*

Thank you for your posts, you say what a lot of people wish they could say, and your own experience always gives me a lot to think about.

[EFerrari]

7. We build a network, hunter. Where concern doesn't end

where personal gain ends.

We can do that. :hi:

:hug:

[mopinko]

10. what good does all that knowledge about neurochemistry do

if you can't use it to see through these things, and find solutions? jesus. :grouphug:

[EFerrari]

11. I think this is one of those lessons I hate about finding out that people

make mistakes.

lol

:hug:

If you go back to the 2001 essay I posted here, you'll see that the pattern I id'd as the borderline family's basic challenge was exactly what was mishandled last summer. Not Doug's choice -- if it was a choice and not a reaction -- but the way it was handled in community. Defensive, reactive, even abusive where there was no requirement for that kind of emotional violence except that the wrong people escalated where they could have helped to soothe and sort out stuff.

It sucks to be right sometimes.

Well, I have to believe there's a point to all this and that we'll all be okay no matter what. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Pharaoh]

12. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.....

Lol

Sounds like your classic breakup story dear sfexpat2000, at some point your just going to have to stop worrying about doug and move on. I know that is always hard as the heart wants to heal all the hurts for all involved. I don't really know the whole story here as I've been away and just now popped in here to DU. But this has been going on for some time ;o) as these things usually do. The story and drama become entities unto themselves and we tend to gain some deeper understanding of our own inner workings as we plumb the depths of anothers soul so do we gain a deeper understanding of our own pain and hurt and we then begin to ask the real deeper questions of why the fuck are we here and what the fuck is this all about anyway! ;o) but that's a whole nother thread............Lol
Course this won't be over till your ready to let it all go sfexpat2000, and that might be a ways off. But what do you hope to gain for Doug? Where do you see him a year from now? Where do you see yourself a year from now? Course I'm sorry dear if I sound like I'm preaching or ranting, my life has it's own unique problems also as I'm sure all of us share in the spasmotic dramas of being here on the earth plane these days.

On a lighter note,....................That Fucker Rove's going down!!


O8)

[EFerrari]

13. I know I've been tiresome and I apologize.

The chances of Doug getting another wife and extended family who accept him as he is and not as someone wants him to be are slim to none. That concerns me. (I don't think I've ever stopped feeling concern for anyone I've ever been close to, including that blonde kid in the third grade. lol)

Let's see. In a year, I hope to have cleared up my credentials and to be just working in my town on social and political projects. And I will continue to work with families dealing with mental health stuff because those families need validation, advocacy and support. Oh, and in a year, my puppy will be a nice big blonde doorstop, not a terminator. :silly:

In a year, I expect Doug's living situation to have blown up at least once and I hope he has enough of a network to manage that. And you know, I'll be surprised if I'm wrong but, relieved, too. :shrug:

Life is not a cushion. And right now, it's especially not a cushion for Mr. Rove. :evilgrin:

[knowbody0]

14. tiresome?

Shut up! I've learned more reading through your posts than I ever did in classes. The honesty and rawness of your words are often heartwrenching, but your attitude re the whole picture is inspiring.

Imagine Mrs. Rove for a belly laugh!

[mopinko]

15. seconds on that shut up.

really!!!

[Pharaoh]

16. I'm with you guys on that!

Liz, never shut up! O8)