Tag: depression
We Need an Honest Open Discussion on Suicide
This is the second “celebrity” suicide this week. We need to have an honest talk about mental health and suicide.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/08/us/anthony-bourdain-obit/index.html
I am a Loser… It’s OK.
On March 11, 2018 Lena told me that I was a loser. We were talking about my brother, Andy’s, children and I mentioned that Andy wasn’t taking my advice. Lena turned around and looked at me and said, “Why would he listen to you. What have you done…” The end of the sentence kind of trailed off, but the message was clear. What had I done with my life? I, after all, was a loser. It was one of the most hurtful things anyone has ever said to me. I didn’t say anything at the time but it devastated me inside. It was then that I knew our marriage was over as far as Lena was concerned. She had no respect for me at all. I assume she had some respect for me when we got marriage, but at some point all that was left was anger and a total lack of love and respect for me.
I have suffered with mental illness from the earliest years of my childhood. I was openly suicidal by the time I was ten years old. As a child and young adult I never had dreams of what I wanted for the future or what I wanted to be when I grew up… because I had no intention of growing older. As a high school student I could not imagine living into my twenties. I didn’t care about grades or doing well on standardized tests because I didn’t think I would live long enough to go to or finish college. Throughout college I never thought that I would live long enough to graduate; so I made NO plans for an adult life post college. When I did graduate I didn’t have dreams or hopes to live up to or fulfill. I got married shortly after graduating and started my own business, but even engaging in these seemingly “rooting” tasks, I did not think of the future and was actively suicidal. In my mid to late twenties, after my two serious suicide attempts, the doctors told my family that I would most likely never live to see thirty years old. So… as a kid I didn’t care much about grades and as a young adult I didn’t care much at all about money because I did not think I would live long enough for those things to matter. If you combine that lack of caring about grades and money with the fact that I have suffered with various mental illnesses such as depression, suicidality (which is a separate illness and not just a symptom of depression), ADD, and some anti-social traits… I guess it would be fair to say that by societal standards, I have always been a loser and that I remain one to this day.
The first half of my life was spent as a student where despite being “obviously bright” I never did particularly well. I graduated from both high school and college with a 2.9 GPA. I got a 1070 on my SATs. Considering that I come from a very academically oriented family and that I have an IQ that has tested anywhere from the mid 120s to mid 140s, my scholastic life was a continual question of when would I fulfill my potential? As an adult I have never been financially independent. I have worked some, here and there, but never earned enough to support myself. I have lived in homes owned by my parents or my wives. If it were not for my parents and wives there were many times that I would have ended up homeless and hungry… and if that had happened, I would have simply killed myself… without deliberation.
Despite all of the changes during the last seventy years surrounding acceptable roles for women in our culture, societal norms for men have changed very little. Men are judged by their ability to provide financially for their family. Our society measures a man’s worth by his net worth. If given a choice, the parents of most young women would rather their daughters marry a doctor or lawyer over an artist. The doctor or lawyer is statistically much more likely to be able to support a young family than is an artist, many of whom spend a great deal of their lives living in poverty. Women can choose a career or choose to stay at home with children and either choice is acceptable to society. Men have choices in their lives but should be prepared to be judged more harshly than women based on career choices.
Manya-Milaslava (think of a large bitter mean old Russian woman who demands her family glorify her), my mother-in-law, never supported Lena and me getting married. Her objections were so loud that Lena had to give her mother an ultimatum the week before the wedding: come and be quietly supportive or don’t come at all. Throughout the seven years of our marriage Manya was always whispering in Lena’s ear that I was a loser and that she could do better and deserved better. Manya berated me as a loser to my face more than once. It should be noted that Manya never liked or got along with anyone Lena was with for very long. Lena’s mother was a large factor in her first marriage falling apart and in our marriage ending. I once joked with Lena that my only solace was knowing that her mother was so mentally ill herself that she wouldn’t be able to help herself but to be a bitch to the next guy.
My friends and family will tell me that I am not a loser… and I love them for their support. They will point out my many talents and tell me that I have a big heart. All of that is true but may, in fact, prove the loser point. Despite my many talents and my tremendous potential, I have never been a fully autonomous individual. I am not saying here that I am a loser definitively… just by societal standards. And, that’s OK.
Invalidated, Unaccepted and Rejected
I saw this meme online {No one should have to live their life in silence because they’re scared of being invalidated.} and it really made me think about the circumstances that I accepted surrounding the reconciliation with Lena last fall. Last October, when Lena told me she wanted a divorce, I was in shock and desperately wanted to work things out with her. I was so desperate that I agreed to circumstances that had no chances of survival. I gave Lena everything that she asked for and asked not nothing in return, other than to not get divorced. Part of what Lena needed from me was for me to be in Westchester full-time, to get along with everyone there and for us to have a “normal life” in Westchester. In order for me to make this request a reality I had to constantly bite my tongue. Day in and day out was an exercise in me keeping my thoughts and feelings to myself both inside our home and in public. Even our therapist, Ralph, said this was an impossible scenario to keep up.
This notion of a “normal life” had come up numerous times during our seven year marriage. Lena married me knowing all of my history. She knew about my suicide attempts. She knew about my depressions. She knew about my totally dysfunctional family of origin. She knew about my first failed marriage to Ava and the fiasco of a relationship I had with Jessamyn. Lena knew about all of my hospitalizations and all of my psychiatric history. So, one can imagine, it came as somewhat of a shock a year into our marriage when Lena said, “I am a normal person. I want a normal life and a normal marriage. I need you to be normal.” This totally blew me away!
Aside from all of my psychiatric history, which was obviously significant, separate from all of that I was never “normal.” I never wanted to be “normal.” I had always been an outspoken critic of our government and politically correct social trends. I had been a long-time and vocal supporter of various underdogs. I had a long history of writing about my thoughts and predictions for the whole world to read. I had always been known as someone who told people just how things were; there was no beating around the bush with me. There was no way I wanted to be a quiet, sheltered, spineless, voiceless suburban mouse!!!!
The first time Lena brought up this issue of desiring normalcy I really wasn’t sure how to react and probably just ignored her. If she wanted normal, she married the wrong guy. I am not sure if she had any idea of how hurtful this was on her part. Her expressing her desire for normalcy was a direct act of invalidating who I was. She married me knowing exactly what and who I was; and then immediately expected me to change to something completely different. Why do women marry a man and then try to change him? If she wanted me to be different she should have told me before we got married.
I don’t remember exactly when certain things were said, but at some point Lena went as far as to say, “You are not a mental patient anymore.” I assumed, at the time, that she was saying this in a positive way… as in, look how far you have come from the days when your mental illness dominated every aspect of your life. She may have meant it nicely, but in fact, it was very dismissive of me, my history and in part of my very identity. There was a point in my life where I allowed my designation as a mental patient to define who I was. At some point in life, starting before I married Lena, I no longer defined myself by my illnesses. There were, however, some things that were still important to me that Lena never gave credence to… such as the anniversaries of my suicide attempts. She never remembered them… she never asked how I was around those times. To people who have been through what I have, those dates are important. There were also times of each year that tended to be harder for me, specifically the months of March and November. I always seemed to struggle more in those months. Again, Lena either didn’t remember this, despite me telling her several times, or she just didn’t care. Our marriage ended on a horrible note… in March.
Perhaps I expected too much of Lena because of her work. Lena is a molecular biologist who studied the biology of suicide. I thought that she had a better understanding of psychology and specifically of suicide. Apparently, one can study the biology of suicide, and be good at it, and not understand the psychology of suicide at all. I also mistakenly thought she was more in tune to me.
This self portrait displays how I felt… I could not speak because Lena had a gun to my head… If I spoke my mind, she would end the marriage. I was being emotionally held hostage. I feared Lena would become my Natasha; my father’s third wife who beat his spirit dead and held him emotionally hostage.
Appreciative that I got some much needed sun therapy this morning while meditating outside.
Love’s Delusions & Love Matured
I have been away from Lena for five weeks at this point. One thing that has become crystal clear this past month is that love does truly blind us. Love changes how we see the object of our desire. Love allows us to let the little things, that would otherwise upset us, go. Love has such enormous power over our brains that it can even change the way we see someone physically with our eyes. Love often doesn’t make sense.
I spent most of the day yesterday feeling sad because I miss Lena so… despite the fact that she pushed me away… despite the fact that she has cruelly cut off all communication between us and between me and her kids whom I helped raise for eight years. I miss her even though intellectually I can give ten reasons why we weren’t a good match for one another. I yearn for her even though she was really unfair to me in our marriage and I can now see that she never accepted me for who I really am. My heart physically aches even though Lena was often neither kind, loving or caring. I don’t want to give the wrong impression here. Lena is an amazing woman. I love her with all of my heart and soul.
It’s very interesting to me… as I have been living through this round of heartbreak, I have noticed that some things are very different from love sorrows of the past. People ask me, “What do you miss about Lena?” I miss bringing her coffee in the mornings. I miss wrapping my arm tightly around her as we fell asleep. I miss washing her back and shampooing her hair. I miss watching her dress in the morning and pulling the zipper up on her dress. I miss cooking dinner for the kids and watching them enjoy it. I miss watching the kids sporting events. Almost all of the things I actively miss are things I did for Lena and her kids. Whereas, during past episodes of heartbreak many of the things I missed were things the person had done for me. Does this mean I have matured? Am I less of the narcissistic prick I used to be?
I could very easily find someone else to bring coffee to… but I don’t find myself interested in doing these things for someone else. Despite the negatives I now see more clearly as love’s blinders have been removed with time away from Lena…I still miss her. I still ache in my very soul for her. I still love her.
Love alters reality. This isn’t just true of romantic love; it’s also true of familial love – but that is for another post.
Deals with the Devil Never Work Out
In the fall of 2017 I was working in Vermont. Each morning I would either talk to or text with Lena. On the morning of October 4th, I was texting with her about the up coming weekend and my plans to come down and spend time with her and the kids. Lena texted me that she didn’t think I should come down. It wasn’t really clear what she meant and I pushed her to explain. Lena told me in a text message that she wanted to end our marriage. She said she could not go on like this anymore and that she deserved to be happy. She kept saying, “I have to do this for me and for my kids.”
I was devastated. I knew things could be better. I knew that some key aspects of our marriage were not the way Lena would have chosen them to be at this point. When we first started dating and got married, I had a home and some work in upstate New York while Lena and her children lived full time in Rivertown NY. At the time of our marriage I agreed to spend up to half of my time down in Rivertown with Lena and the kids and I would attempt to build some business down there. This was an unconventional arrangement that many people did not understand. I thought Lena understood it and why I needed to not live downstate full time.
Let me back up a little… I grew up on Long Island and as a child my parents had a second home in Southern Vermont. We spent many weekends, most school vacations and every summer up in Vermont. I always loved Vermont and was determined to live there some day as a child. During the five years I was in college I dropped out two or three times, each time moving to Vermont for a few months. After being in Vermont for a while I would feel refreshed… like my batteries had been recharged. I would return to school and get through a few semesters before dropping out again and hibernating in Vermont to refuel my soul.
The last year of my marriage to Ava we were living in College Station GA. When Ava asked for a divorce I could have moved anywhere. I moved to Vermont full time. Although I did attempt suicide twice while living in Vermont, I still maintain that there is something very therapeutic about living in the mountain and being out in nature. For several years I owned a property maintenance business which kept me busy working outside year round. The work was both physically demanding and emotionally undemanding…. a combination that allowed me to heal in many ways.
When I started dating Lena I was determined to learn from my mistakes of the past. I was 100% honest with her. I told her all about my suicide attempts, my marriage and divorce from Ava. She heard countless stories about my dysfunctional family as a child. I told her about all of my shortcomings and issues. I made sure that at every step forward Lena knew exactly what she was getting into. I told her that I could never live downstate full-time; I needed my time in the country to regroup and maintain my sanity and physical health.
So, back to October 2017… Lena ended our marriage in a text message. I was devastated. All of the progress I had thought I had made the past 20 years, in terms of my suicidal ideation, flew out the window. I almost immediately started having panic attacks whenever I left the house at first; then even at home, so all of the time. I wanted to be dead. I told Lena that I could not live without her and that I wanted to be dead. I posted numerous sad songs (YouTube videos) on Facebook. I wrote on Facebook that even with all of the pain I had been through previously in my life, this was the worst pain ever. Lena said my behavior, the post on Facebook, were crazy. That will be another entry here.
I did feel crazy for about a week. I also was acting in a manipulative manner… texting Lena my suicidal thoughts and desires. A week into this total shit storm I still did not really know why this had happened then. I called up Lena and begged her to speak with me on the phone and to just give me some explanation. I said that she at least owed me that much. We did speak and she gave me some of her reasons but we didn’t really get to the meat of the matter. After the phone call I agreed to not bother her anymore.
Several days past during which I stopped posting “crazy” stuff on Facebook and I did not reach out at all to Lena. One night, about two weeks after the initial break up text, Lena reached out to me via a Facebook message. I was asleep at the time but did return her text the next morning. We ended up speaking on the phone. At this time Lena said she could no longer live with the arrangement we made when we got married… my living down with her and the kids only 50% of the time. She said she asked for the divorce because she knew how much I loved the country and that I needed my time there. She said she still loved me, was still in love with me and missed me. We both ended up crying on the phone.
What Lena did not know was that after our phone call, before her texting me, I had made a deal with the Devil. After the “explanation phone call” I had promised myself that if Lena changed her mind and was ever willing to try again, I would do anything she asked without hesitation regardless of what it was. I also promised myself that I would keep my mouth shut about anything that might be bothering me in Rivertown or in our home there. It was a promise made in total desperation. When Lena did reach out a few days later I came through on that promise to myself.
Lena wanted a “normal life” and a “normal marriage.” She wanted us to live together full-time. She wanted me to get a regular job. Lena said she did not think I would be willing to do these things so she felt she had no other choice but to end the marriage. I said, “I will move down there next week. Full-time. Period.” I even told her that I would get a real job.
Lena and I ended up reconciling. I packed up a few things and closed down my house. I quit working and just walked away from my life in the country. I moved down to Rivertown at the end of October 2017. The problem with promises or deals made in desperation is that it’s almost impossible to keep them and remain sane and true to oneself.
The first few weeks living with Lena and the kids full-time was really nice. However, almost from the very first day I was there I found myself biting my tongue. At first it was just once in a while because at the beginning we were all in love again like when we first started dating. As time went by I found myself biting my tongue about all kinds of things day in and day out. It was a constant effort on my part. I knew to some degree that I was not being fair to myself but I said I was doing it “for our marriage.” Also, no one can hold in all negative emotions or comments without some eventual blow up. When I did finally blow up, which I will write about soon, I said something I can never take back and forever changed my relationship with Lena.
Life Lesson: Don’t ever make promises out of fear or desperation. They never hold true in the long run.
The Facebook Dilemma and a Serious Regret
I recognize that in the scheme of life Facebook shouldn’t be very important. As I am going through this separation I am painfully aware of the role of Facebook both in connecting me with Lena and the role it now plays in my OCD missing her.
Lena and I first met when I was a senior in college and she was a freshman. We dated for a very short while and went our separate ways. We had no contact for 17 years and then we found one another again, of all places on Facebook. We spoke for about a month and then started dating. At some point we changed our “relationship status” to in a relationship… then to engaged… and finally to married.
On my Facebook profile I had an album entitled “Lena & Kids” which eventually had more than 800 pictures chronicling our relationship. I received so many comments about the photos in that album… people could tell how much I loved Lena and her children.
When Lena confirmed that she wanted me to move out and that she was done working on our marriage I was so hurt. Hurt beyond words. Lena is the love of my life. I had turned my own life upside down to give Lena what she wanted. I had been part of her childrens’ lives for 8 years. I had watched them grow up. Now, with just a blink of the eye it was all gone. She had given up on us… on me. She wanted me gone. She didn’t want me to have contact with her or the kids. I was besides myself.
In a response to that hurt I deleted the photo album on Facebook of Lena and the kids. Almost as soon as I had deleted it, I regretted it; and regret it more now. Like I said, Facebook is insignificant in the expanse of life… but that album represented something that I was so proud of and something that brought me a lot of happiness… my family. I would give a lot to be able to undo that delete, but I cannot. I have all of the photos on my computer, but it’s not the same. I am sorry that I deleted that album. I try to not have regrets in life because they don’t do any good… but I do regret this.
I now face a dilemma and I don’t want to create another major regret. Lena has cut off all communication with me. After I moved out we did not speak but there was an occasional text. One night when I was in particular distress Lena did talk with me on the phone but there has been no communication since that night. Lena and I are still “friends” on Facebook. As such we can see each others’ pages and pictures. We can also chat on Facebook Messenger. One of the features of Facebook Messenger is that you can see when a friend is online and if they have read your text to them.
One of the hardest parts of the separation for me is that Lena and I don’t speak at all. This is someone with whom I spoke to every single day for 8 years. Even during bad times we still spoke every day. When I was in Irvington we slept together every single night. Most nights I fell asleep with my arms wrapped around her. I cherished her… she was the center of my life, even if she didn’t know it (for which I am very sorry).
The end of communication set of horrible anxiety. There are times when the anxiety is so bad that I cannot help myself… I text her. Most of the time the text is just a smiley emoji or a kissy face emoji. Once in a while I actually text words… most of the time, “I love you” or “I miss you.” She doesn’t respond. But… I can tell when she is on Messenger and I can tell that she has or has not read the texts.
If you have never suffered from anxiety or panic attacks you really cannot understand how debilitating it can be. The first two weeks I was gone the anxiety was so bad that I actually developed a physical arrhythmia. I had chest pain on a daily basis that felt like I was having a heart attack. The anxiety was sustained and never ending and led to me having a migraine headache for more than two weeks straight. I felt like I would die… and that was OK with me.
In two days it will be one month since I have seen Lena. I still have anxiety every day. I still miss her so frick’n much! Luckily, I don’t have the arrhythmia most days at this point and the migraine has subsided for the most part. But I still obsessively check Facebook Messenger to see if she is online or if she has seen the latest emoji I texted.
A couple of days ago I even sent Lena a text asking why she hasn’t unfriended me and blocked me on Facebook. No response. So… my dilemma… should I block her? By blocking her I wouldn’t be able to see when she is online. I wouldn’t be able to text her anymore. Blocking her would force me to stop my obsessive behavior… but it would also be final. I know that if I freaked out after blocking her and then unblocked her – she would not accept a new friend request. So I need to be 100% sure before I do anything… and it all sucks. I can’t bring myself to block her. I can’t stop myself from looking at her profile picture. I don’t seem to be able to stop sending her emojis. I fully realize this makes me sound totally pathetic… that’s what a broken heart will do to a man.
Life Lessons: Think before you act. Seriously. I know this sounds simple and obvious. Don’t make decisions out of anger. Ten seconds can effect the rest of your life.