My Divorce journal - Driving Myself Crazy

Last week I was getting increasingly frustrated with the vicious cycle that had been a part of our marriage for awhile. This week I feel like I’m driving myself crazy with questions, imaginings and intuition.

Then - 1/26/2004

“I feel like I’m going to drive myself crazy. Yesterday ‘Carl’ woke up with a headache and then he got sick, throwing up. Of course my initial reaction is that he must be drinking again. He got pissed off and said it’s just because he drank too much apple juice first thing in the morning. I’m remembering the day before when he did nothing in the afte
oon, was angry that I wouldn’t let him order dinner because we couldn’t afford it, was in a nasty mood while cooking himself a grilled cheese and finally decided to go to his AA meeting. He comes back smiling with a cappuccino for me, sits down to watch a movie with the kids and actually laughs out loud many times. This NEVER happens with him – usually he has a glazed over expression when he’s watching a movie. It never seems like he’s following the plot enough to laugh at the appropriate times.

Well, all this behavior was the night before he woke up with the headache and got sick. Hmmm….what am I supposed to think? He gets angry when I question him. I tell him he doesn’t have the right to get angry and if he has nothing to hide then he should hide nothing. I told him that for 2 years I put up with his “mysterious” symptoms, feeling sorry for him and wondering why the doctors couldn’t find a problem…..when all along HE was the problem.

This morning I couldn’t sleep even though I was sleeping in ‘Dan’s’ room (my son). I purposely went into my bed once ‘Carl’ went downstairs to leave for work because I wanted to hear if he would get sick again. Every day I feel a little more crazy. With the exception of this morning, I’ve been sleeping in ‘Dan’s’ room every night with the fan on so I can’t hear what’s going on downstairs in the morning.

How much longer do I live like this?”

Now – 3/27/11

My stomach twisted as I reread that journal entry. 7 years later I have such compassion for the woman I was at the time. I was so confused and had absolutely no idea what I was dealing with. I didn’t have alcoholism in my family of origin and didn’t have a clue what to believe, how to behave, whether I was imagining things or whether my intuition was correct. At that time I can remember telling myself “You lived with an alcoholic for over 2 years and didn’t know it. How can you EVER trust your intuition?”

Thankfully ‘Carl’ admitted a lot once he came out of his first 30 day rehab facility in June 2004, but until that time I had not idea that I could trust my feelings. He admitted that every time I confronted him about something I felt, saw or believed, I was correct but that he continued to lie to me because he was afraid of losing me. I look back now with a mixture of sadness and gratitude. Sadness for the mental anguish I was going through at the time and for the self loathing I felt; gratitude for the opportunities to strengthen my intuition and to have those moments to look back on and realize, just like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, “the answer was inside me the whole time”

My intuition felt like it was on the fritz and I was questioning everything including my own sanity. I was starting to unravel but also trying to remain calm in a storm of dysfunction.

Next week - Don’t you think you’re being dramatic?