What I know, what I want

My Dearest Love,

I love you to the depths of my being. I see you hurting, and I hurt too. Sometimes, we get stuck in this pattern, where you want to avoid the hurt, and I want to absorb your hurt for you. I know that's not healthy for either of us. I'm trying to get to a healthier place, and I know that you want that too.

I know that you've been through terrible experiences that nobody should have ever had to experience. I know that you're doing the best you can right now, and that it's not your intention to hurt me. My head knows that when you engage in self injurious behavior, it's not about me. I know that that doesn't mean that you don't love me, but that you can't see past your pain.

I know that I will love you forever. I want to be with you forever. I know that when I struggle with your acting out behavior, it's not that I don't love you enough, but that I love you too much. Sometimes, you know that too.

I know that I have tools to take good care of myself. I know that if I'm using these tools to the best of my ability, I can be ok, whether or not you are. I know that right now, I don't seem to be using my tools to the best of my ability.

I know that you have the right to be exactly where you are, even if where you are hurts me. I know that as much as I want to protect you from yourself, I really can't. I know that in the end, the only person I can truly protect is me.

I know that I came into this relationship with my own buttons, and one of my biggest buttons is being around someone engaging in self-harm. I know that you did NOT install that particular button.

I know that I want intimacy with you so desperately, that I am often willing to put myself in harms way in order to try to maintain a connection with you. I know that desperation is never a good place for me to be.

I know that we have family therapy scheduled for a week from now.

I want to try an experiment. For the next week until our family therapy appointment, if you choose to engage in ANY behavior that is harmful to you, I want you to find someone else to share it with. I want to hear your successes, if you're willing to share them with me. I'm willing to hear your struggles, as long as we can both remember that my job is not to fix it for you, but to love you while you work through it yourself. If you find that you need somebody other than yourself to keep you safe, I want you to find someone else or somewhere else to get that need met.

More than anything, I want to get to the other side of this together, and to be with you forever. I know that I will love you forever, no matter what.

Let Go, Let God

I apparently have some God lessons to learn yet again about trusting the process, letting go, keeping my head where my feet are, and all that fun stuff. God keeps telling me to let go. When I don't, I get gentle, and then not so gentle reminders. There's some major ambiguity in my work situation. I think things are going to turn out the way I want them to. I KNOW (even if my body doesn't) that I'll be ok no matter what and that things will work out the way they're supposed to. I've done the footwork I can do. I'm having a really hard time turning off my brain and going to bed. Guess God and I need to have another conversation. Gnite.

God Lessons in Letting Go

Apparently, God really wants me to learn to let go.

Even after writing that my partner has been choosing NOT to do what she said she was gonna do every time when it comes to doctors, I didn't understand that she really was making that choice, EVERY TIME. Here I am again, surprised. The person that I love is an addict. Addicts lie. Addicts are not dependable. I want to be with my addict AND I want her to be dependable. I want HER to change, so that I can be OK. My way is clearly not working, yet again.

Since I apparently haven't been getting the message, God decided to be a bit more clear. So, when I got to work yesterday, I found out that my hard drive has crashed. I've lost much of what I I believe I need to get my job done.

There's not a damned thing I can do about either situation. I've requested tech support at work, and I've spoken my truth at home. I can't bring back information on my hard drive any more than I can change my addict. Life on life's terms. AFGO!!!!

more doctor confusion

Here's the game we play at my house over my partner's recurring sinus headaches.

She whines that her head hurts. I suggest calling the doctor. She chooses not to and continues to whine. I try ignoring, since she's not interested in my suggestion. She keeps whining. This part can continue for days.

In the next phase, she agrees to get help, but not the help I think she should get. She's gone to a doc in the box and to our former doctor, but NOT to the doc that we agreed on.

We've gone through two doctors together. The first was her pusher,the doctor who got her hooked on narcotics and patted me on the head when I brought the issue to him. The second accidentally gave her something with a narcotic in it and said that she didn't think there was enough narcotic in it to harm her, which led my partner to a relapse. We agreed (or so I thought) to go to an internist who is also an addict. He is an internist and also specializes in addiction.

But, every time she goes to the doctor, she chooses NOT to go to him or to his practice, which leads to my codiexplosions. The last time, we talked it through. She thought it didn't matter that she went back to the old practice, since our doc wasn't available on Mondays anyway. I said that since this is an ongoing issue, if she goes to our doc's practice, he has access to the records. I thought she got it and that she agreed, but apparently she just heard "blah blah blah" and agreed to shut me up, because, today, it's right back to the same old same old.

I'm trying to figure out why this is so huge for me. I want to figure out what my part is, and I want to let go of what's not mine. This hysteria is so not working for me. She's going to do what she's going to do. I have no control over her choices. What she's doing doesn't seem to be working for her, but what I'm doing doesn't seem to be working for me either. And hell, I guess the truth is that either we're both insane or what we're both doing IS working, cuz we're both still doing it. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's Not About the Batteries

I'm on my 3rd day of struggling over a silly little squabble my partner and I had. It started when she was in the bathroom, and I came in and handed her some batteries and told her that they go in the charger. The next morning, when they were laying on the counter next to the charger, I got upset. She got angry with me and told me that I didn't ask her to put them in the charger. I agreed that I didn't ask, and told her I'd work on that. She said she didn't do anything wrong and left PISSED!

I tried to have an intentional dialogue with her later, and it went downhill fast. First, she delayed and delayed and delayed the dialogue, until she was in bed and had already taken "bedicine." When we finally had our dialogue, I really worked at owning my shit, and my perception is that she really worked at protecting herself. Needless to say, it didn't go well.

Today, I'm still struggling. It's really not the batteries I'm struggling with. It's the fact that my need to process through feelings together and come out on the other side together is colliding with her need to avoid conflict and to build her wall of self-protection when she thinks she's being attacked.

We have this same struggle often, when I want to process through something and she doesn't. She says I'm trying to control her, and in a way I have to own that I am. I want her behavior to be different, and I can't make that happen. Maybe I need to figure out a way to resolve my feelings without her, but that makes me sad. A friend in the fellowship reminded me that hadn't I just worked through a really, really, hard lesson in letting go? Did I really need God to provide more growth opportunities in that area? I was able to get clear that I need to let my partner know that I'm really struggling, not with the batteries, but with the dance we do when there's conflict between us. I need to speak my piece, and then I need to let go of the outcome. Or, God can certainly give me some more opportunities to practice that letting go thing.

Playing Tug Of War with God

I guess I've had some lessons to learn, and maybe, just maybe, I've finally learned them. God and I have been playing tug of war over a kid who's very important to me. I think I've let the situation go, and it comes back to me. And around and around we go, faster and faster. Each time the possibility returned that she might come back into my life, I got excited, and each time it didn't come through, I was crushed. My sponsor told me that at some point, I'm going to get to the point where I can say "whatever." Well, the final (at least it appears to be final) decision is in, and she's not coming back into my life. I can't say "whatever," but I'm not crushed. I hope things work out for her the way she wants them to, though I don't think it's likely. I really hope that she learns what she needs to learn from the situation and that she comes through it stronger. Today, I participated in a healing service during the Yom Kippur service. We sang the MiSheberah, and I put her name and the name of her mother out there. I wish healing for both of them. I wish healing for me.

Not My Will

I've had quite the roller coaster of a week. First, my partner and I had to make a decision. Once we came together, the kid in question, and the folks who are supposed to protect her, fell apart. The decision was put to me during Rosh Hashanah, and I really worked on giving it to God right from the start. I'm not sorry I opened up my heart again, though the outcome is clearly not what I wanted, at least for today. I've been riding the roller coaster of my feelings as the decision keeps being for sure one way and then for sure the other. Now we're back in limboland again. We've been asked to keep the option open for this child of my heart while she's thrown to the wolves. My sponsor once told me that if my partner decided to relapse that maybe she had some more research to do and that I needed to trust my higher power and hers. It appears that's where I am again, only it's this child that apparently has more research to do. God, please take care of her. God, please take care of me. Amen.