When there’s nothing else to do:

When there is nothing else to do….

As there is now.

Nothing else I can offer, nothing else I can say, nothing else I can fight, to fight for you.

I pray. And I’m praying now, Scott.

Right now, I don’t know if I want you out of the hospital, or if I want them to keep you longer. Because I’m torn between the part that hates seeing you caged up in a hospital, and the part that is terrified for you.

I want you to be able to accept how sick you are/were. I want you to be able to see that you HAD to go into the hospital, and get back on your meds. I want you to understand that the only path you were on led to either death, or jail. That there WAS no positive outcome that could have come from where you were going.

You were terrifying, Scott. I worried for you, I worried for those who knew you. I worried for strangers that encountered you.

You were an entirely different person than I had ever known, and not one I cared to know further. But this new you was drowning out the real you, the you I’d loved.  Keeping him from living. Keeping him from eating, sleeping, laughing, loving.  And I couldn’t let you die.

I wasn’t the one who called crisis. But I was thankful when they took you. I had every hope in the world that you would finally get some help accepting your illness, and your addiction, and you would realize you needed to stop.

That you would realize how very loved you are. That you would realize how much you have to offer the world when you are ill, but how very, very critically ill you were.

I couldn’t stand to see you wasting away, physically, as you were. Starving yourself to death. Living in a hovel of chaos. I couldn’t stand to see the danger you were putting yourself, and others in. I couldn’t stand to see you neglect the feeding of your cats, who were innocent victims to your illness. I couldn’t stand to see you bully people, who were trying to help you. I couldn’t stand to see the sweet you that I loved so much, be killed off by your diseases. I couldn’t. That’s not you. That’s not the you I loved.

Scott, you were sick. I don’t want to write a list of everything that you did and said. But there was nobody on this earth who would have looked at you and thought you healthy. Nobody on this earth who wouldn’t have known you were very, very ill.

I hid from you. For the very first time in ALL the years I’ve known you, I felt the need to hide from you. You were in such a state, that to be around you could only lead to destruction. I feared you might hurt me, or yourself, or someone else, if I said something that you didn’t like. And I was always saying something you didn’t like, because you didn’t like anything sane. You didn’t like anything that did not match with your distorted views of reality.

And even now, I am worried that you have no idea how truly distorted those views were.

I think you’ve been sick for quite some time. That without counseling, your meds were not enough to speak truth to your insanity.  And then you went off the meds even.

Oh, God, Scott. I don’t even want to be saying these things. I don’t.

But you’ve got to understand, you HAVE to understand, you were functioning in a completely different reality than the rest of the world.

And you were so unpredictable….anything could have happened.

I want to know that you will understand. That you will see. That you will admit you need the help of meds, and counseling. That you will understand that every single time you start to use drugs, you start to go manic. That it is not just a coincidence, but that it is a causeational effect. I need to know that you will finally accept that you cannot go this alone, that you cannot forgo therapy, that you cannot forgo meds. That you cannot use substances.

More than that, I need you to understand how important you are to me, and to others who love you. I need you to understand that you need to safeguard your health, so that you can safeguard those you love, too. Because when you are sick, like you’ve been, you hurt us. You hurt us, you terrify us, and you rob us of your vital, beautiful essence that you are when you are well. You cause us to grieve you.

Scott, if you were to die, I would not survive it. It’s not like when Scot F. died, or when Jim died. You….

You’re in every story I tell. My vocabulary has become a shared vocabulary of yours and mine. You have become part of the fabric from which I’m made. You’re part of me on a cellular level. I wouldn’t survive it. I wouldn’t survive seeing you in prison. Or dead. And you know, it would even be tremendously hard if you were put in a home for the rest of your life. And those are the ONLY possible outcomes if you do NOT come out of this.

I need you to be out there, happy. I need you to be out there, at peace. I need to imagine you pouring over text books, I need to look forward to the day you graduate. I need to imagine you drinking cup after cup of coffee, listening to your music, playing with your cats. I need to know that you’re living, and enjoying life. Accepting life on lifes terms.

Scott, you matter to me. You need to know how deeply you matter to me. You need to know how much I love you. How much it hurts me when I see you starving, and wasting away. How much it hurts when I see you living in an apartment that looks like a cyclone passed through it. How much it hurts to think of you allowing your cats to go hungry because you can’t even remember to feed those precious creatures, who have been such good friends to you. It hurts when you scream at me as if I were a stranger. It hurts when you no longer see me as your friend. It hurts me when you look at me as if I were the enemy, when I would give anything, ANYTHING to save you. It hurts when you go running off, to meet with people who are irresponsible, and dangerous, when you are in such a state, and to imagine you getting beat up again, or worse, killed. It hurts to see you bleeding. It hurts to see you incapable of processing reality.

It literally feels like you are punching me in the heart, when I see these things. It hurts, on a physical level.

I want you well, Scott. I want to know you’re well, even if we never see each other again. I need to know you are well.

Losing you, would be losing a part of myself, and I don’t think I could take the pain of that amputation.

”

So different now.

There is a song, by a band I like. “Girlyman”. It’s called “Somewhere Different Now”. 

“Now I’ve just been reeling, staring up at the ceiling, wishing someone would reach out, come and bust up my hide out. 

I’m not quite lost, but not quite found. I’m just somewhere different now“. 

Seems to describe that point I’m at perfectly. 

The thing is, I’m not over you. I don’t know that it is possible to be over you. And I think I understand why. It’s because you’re actually two different people. There’s the you you were when we first met, and who you were at the beginning of each reunion. And then, there’s the you you are when you’re relapsed on substances, and not treating your mental illness. The thing is, the one I love, is always pushed out by the one I hate. The one who hurts me. Who screams at me. Who says awful things to me. Who rejects me. Who leaves me. And I never really get to say a proper goodbye to the person I love. And I can’t make him stay either. 

…..I’ve finally realized I’m powerless over your disease.

That’s the found part. I guess. I’ve found out that I’m powerless. I’ve found out that nothing I did caused it, and that nothing I can do would cure it. I’ve found out that I deserve happiness, and fulfillment. I’ve found out that it’s not healthy for either of us to be together. I’ve found out that I have become a manifestation of your illness, by enabling. I’ve found out that I’ve become a safety net. I’ve found out that what we have is not healthy love. 

But to do that, I had to get lost, too. I had to lose my sense of direction. I had to lose my heart. I had to grieve. I had to hurt. And that…that is a process I can get lost in, all too easily. And it doesn’t take much. And each time I reach out to you, and get sucked in for a moment, I wind up losing you all over again. And I wind up losing me all over again. And I wind up losing my heart again. And I have to begin grieving all over again, when you tell me to “get lost” again.

So, here I am, sitting at home on my computer, while you’re in the hospital..hopefully getting better. And I’ve got this small nauseous knot in my stomach, not knowing what to hope for, not knowing what to expect, fearing my response to you when you’re out, in one way, or the other.

I fear that you’ll reach out to me, and I’ll be too weak to resist. I fear that you won’t, and that you’ll wind up hooking up with one of the women you were trying to get together with prior to your hospitalization. I fear the truth: That you wanted me around as your safety net. But that you don’t really want me. That you’re not capable of real love. That I simply won’t hear from you, simply won’t ever hear that you’re sorry. Simply will never hear that you care enough about me to BE sorry, for all that you’ve put me through, time after time. 

I fear that I’ll never stop loving you, or wishing for a different reality. 

I fear that I’ll never be able to let go, truly. 

I know what I should feel. I know I should be thankful if you do move on. I know I should let you go gracefully, and focus on myself. I know I’d be lucky if these feelings faded, and I was able to open myself to true love one day. 

But try to get that through to my stubborn heart. 

A day at a time. Some days, a minute at a time. I try to choose what’s best for me. Knowing it means watching you go. 

And my heart aches, for the reality that never was. 

And because of the reality that is. 

I wish I could fly far away from here, from this town we share. From constant reminders of you.

It hasn’t been long enough yet. Seven months, was not long enough for me to let you go. I’m not quite lost, but not quite found…

I’m just somewhere different now.