(no subject)
Two weeks ago, Misha was diagnosed with Bipolar Depression. He hasn't started treatment yet. He told me last night that he didn't know whether or not he wanted to be well.
He told me last night that he didn't know whether or not he wanted to be well.
He didn't know whether or not he wanted to be well.
And a precise fifty percent of my soul wants to pet his hair and tell him that pharmaceuticals can be evil and scary and that it's okay to take his time and that i love him as he is, un-drugged. The other fifty percent of my soul wants to wring his large, manly neck, look him in the eye, and tell him that I cannot take another day of life with him as it has been.
Yes, friends, I am a mess.
And you know what's really scary?
What if everything I've loved about him has been his mania? And everything I've struggled with has been waiting depression out until mania comes back again?
One year ago, adrift in his depression, I carted him up to Kerry Park in Queen Anne and forced him to take in the view. I thought an injection of beauty might light some tiny spark and make him come back. When it didn't, I told him it was over. I couldn't do it anymore.
He hated me for that, but after a few days, it made him love me more. The threat of losing me brought him into mania and for a few great months, he was Model Boyfriend. Flowers, planned-out dates, thoughtful little phone calls and fabulous sex. Just like when we first met. Just like when on Date #2, back in Minneapolis, he confessed, "I'm afraid that you'll love me when I'm at my best, but not be able to stand me when I'm at my worst." He knew then, but he didn't have the terminology to peg it down.
He's been hospitalized for depression twice, before we met. Once for slitting his wrists, once for thinking too hard about his grandmother's shotgun and confessing it to a friend. The little white scars from the first incident are still there; I try not to notice them now when we make love.
I don't want to talk to anyone about this. I'm afraid my friends will tell me that the costs of this relationship have begun to outweight its benefits, and that I should save the both of us the pain and take care of myself.
But I can't shake my belief that love has faith, love endures, love holds on. As much as I am a deviant and an experimenter, I am also an old-fashioned girl. More than that, I know that the real, actual thing that I so appreciate about him (his absolute benevolence toward the world, warmth toward all people, and willingness to both listen and truly understand any and all he encounters) is core and won't be changed by illness.
But a revelation like this, in which you discover that the person with whom you spend the majority of your time, with whom you have been co-forming your world view, is and has long-since been mentally ill, makes you stop and wonder who the hell you are. Where do I end, where does he begin? How much of my recent neuroticism has been influenced by sharing a roof and a bed with someone with no 24-cycle, no concept of how to feed and nourish his body or enjoy even the smallest thing?
He passed out at work a few weeks ago. Fell flat on his face on the casino floor. Severely dehydrated, the doctor said. That assessment cost $775.00. Misha is, of course, uninsured.
And everything he does is mediated by the slavery of $600 a month--a lifetime of paybacks for cash-advancing meant to finance manic fits of gambling. Manic fits of gambling. Can I call it that now? It fits so well, but feels so cliche.
He says the scariest thing for him about starting treatment is a lifetime of absolute chemical freedom. No coffee, no alcohol, no pot, no E, no shrooms, no cigarettes. He doc told him that all those things would fuck with his meds and screw up his progress.
He's also terrified of eight hours of sleep. He told me it drives him crazy if he ever falls asleep before me. "The night is my own," he said. "It's my time, my solitude. I don't care what happens in the morning, I can get the report. But the night is mine."
So tonight he is out and will be out (and up) all night long. After being driven thoroughly nuts, we had agreed that Thursday nights would be his sanctioned not-home-till-its-light-out night. But he decided today that it's been taking too much of a toll on our Fridays together. Thus he's out tonight and will sleep briefly in the morning and be at work by noon.
And I don't feel up to soldiering it anymore. And no one wants to hear about it. And I could have so much more. And I'll never let myself do it. And I'm heartless for not feeling sorrier for him, for not being the Good Girl and wanting to help him through it.
Let's not forget, friends. I am a social worker. I help people through it forty hours of every week. I've used up that reserve by the time my real life rolls around.
I wish I were in Minneapolis right now. I would make jawsoflife and inertiacrept come out with me and get drunk, drunk, drunk and revel in the fact that we don't really know each other and then I'd wake up the next day and drive hungover to my hometown and sit in the quiet, quiet, quiet that is only found in smalltown, midwest.
If you've read this far, you're a trooper. It hasn't even been that fun to write.