I like wandering through old cemeteries. In the same spirit, every couple of years I visit the Social Security Death Index online. The entries there aren’t as poignant or informative as old tombstones (though they do contain something tombstones don’t — defunct SS numbers). But every once in a while I’ll think of people from a long time ago and enter their names.
A depressing number of my old acquaintances turn out to be dead. Not because I’ve reached that age where it happens (knock wood), but because of war and drugs and other bad habits long ago. My best friend from high school died in her 20s. I don’t know the cause; I lost touch with her and wasn’t aware she’d died until I looked up her name. But she was a person of such sorrow that if it wasn’t suicide it was probably some suicide analog. An accidental drug overdose. A driving-while-impaired accident.
Yesterday I learned that the guy who was the love of my life and the bane of my existence for more than 20 years is dead. Been dead since 2005. I hadn’t entered his name in the SSDI before now because … well, I wanted only to forget him. He was a troubled character I fell for in high school. I let him make my life hell. Years later, I contributed to making his hell.
I was an idiot in my younger days. I liked the bad boys and was under the delusion that “love” could heal their wounded hearts. Idiot. Truly.
I wasn’t surprised that he died young. And again I bet I know the reason. The official cause might have been cancer or a ruptured liver or an accident. But whatever his death certificate says, the cause was booze. And the groundwork was laid by some of the hardest, scariest drug abuse I ever saw.
In high school and the next several years, he would take any drug, in any amount, any combination, without question. I would see him at a party, already drunk, already high on heaven knows what. And if somebody handed him some pills — down they’d go. It’s a wonder he lived to graduate. By the time he was 23, his body was already old and starting break down. He survived, but by then I’d gotten some sense and drifted away from him.
By the time he was 30, he’d turned his life around. He’d left the drug scene and its bad company. He came looking for me. I fell in love all over again. By then he was a good guy with good friends who eventually became my friends. High school dreams come true. Imagine that. We envisioned being together forever.
There was just this one little thing. He still liked to party. Hard. Really hard. And because it was “only beer” and “only on the weekends or after work,” it didn’t count. It didn’t count even when he guzzled so much that he’d puke — and then go right on drinking. It didn’t count when he slurred his words or staggered or fell. It didn’t count when he had blackouts. It didn’t count when a farmer had to haul him home, his pants drenched in urine, after he drove into a ditch. It didn’t count even after his boss (and friend) pressured him into a treatment program because, after all, he was totally in control, his drinking was strictly recreational, and anybody who thought otherwise was just a party-pooping old lady who didn’t know how to have fun.
Eventually I left. I left in a way that didn’t reflect well on me. I hoped he’d say good riddance and move on. Instead, he decided to get revenge for wrongs both real and imagined. He tried to kill me. Twice. He became a relentless stalker.
Thing is, by then he was, to everybody else, extremely likable. The sort of person who’d always lend a hand. Hardworking and honest. When we broke up, none of our mutual friends believed me when I said he’d tried to kill me. They thought I was just being a jerk when I got a restraining order, which (like all restraining orders) did absolutely nothing to keep him from lurking, making silent phone calls, and sending threatening letters (their contents printed with a Dymo labeler for anonymity, their envelopes addressed in his own unmistakable hand). I finally had to leave the state and cut off most relationships with people we both knew.
That move was the start of the best part of my life — and much better relationships. But I don’t think much changed for him.
About a year later, I was at an airport and happened to run into one of those mutual friends. He asked me, “So where are you living now?”
“I can’t tell you,” I said. “I know you’re a nice guy. But you’re one of _____’s drinking buddies. I’m hiding from him. I have to. I know you won’t believe me, but that’s the way it is.”
He surprised me. “Oh, I believe you, he said. “Yeah, he and I go out to bars together sometimes and we have a great time. But there are other times I see him and he seems so strange I cross the street to avoid him.”
That’s just about the last word I heard about the former love and bane of my life.
Not quite the last, though. A few months later, a lawyer tracked me down to ask what I might know about an allegation a teenage girl had made against ____. The accusation was so creepy, and the girl (a neighbor) so unreliable, I could only shake my head and realize nobody would ever know the truth. Much later I remembered that cops had investigated him for a similar act involving another unreliable kid when he was a teenager. He wasn’t charged and always swore it was a case of mistaken identity. His protestations were so ardent, his indignation so heartfelt, that no one could doubt him.
Sober and sane, he could be a great guy. Drunk or disordered? Some people you never really know.
After I left him, he blamed me for every problem he had. Some of the blame, I absolutely deserved. But he also blamed me for problems he’d had since his druggie days and for other things I never did and would never do. I’m guessing he went on blaming long after I left and used blame and rage as an excuse for slow self destruction.
I hope not. I hope he got some happiness. But I tend to think not much.
After learning he was gone, I googled him, looking for an obituary, for blogs or Facebook pages of his friends or family members, for anything that might tell me more. There was nothing. He appears to have lived, then dropped into death, with less impact than a pebble dropping into a pond. It feels strange that somebody who had such a huge influence on my life for so many years could just disappear like that.
I wouldn’t have stayed with him. But when I learned he was dead, I wondered whether he would have lived longer if I had stayed. Not because of any wonderfulness I possess. I just wondered if he might have eaten better, boozed less (eventually), been more motivated to look after his health, or been more sane simply for having companionship and stability. Would we have gotten past the dark parts and found something good together on the other side of our troubles? Would the once-upon-a-time love of my life ended up being the love of my life, after all, if we’d persevered? I don’t know. Could be. Probably not. In any case, didn’t happen. Do I now owe some karmic cleansing for whatever part I may have played in his too-early death? Not that I “drove him to drink” or “made” him do anything. He made his own choices, but I played a role in his downhill slide.
Too late, though. It’s all what ifs and might have beens. Pointless speculation.
I’m glad you got out, Claire.
I didn’t, and stayed because I thought she would change, eventually, by showing her love, safety and security.
She didn’t.
Some causes, noble or otherwise, aren’t worth wasting your life on.
“I wondered whether he would have lived longer if I had stayed. Not because of any wonderfulness I possess. I just wondered if he might have eaten better, boozed less (eventually), been more motivated to look after his health, or been more sane simply for having companionship and stability.”
No.
NO.
And let it trouble you no more.
Suicide express straight to hell. Best just to jump out the way. What people never understand about people like this is that they aren’t unloved and needy. They aren’t sad and lonely. They’re happy. The path to hell is short and sometimes painful.
But it’s a fun ride too, love.
And who, really, has the right to stand in the way?
The hardest thing to learn is when to walk away. The second hardest thing to learn is that we are not the authors of others destruction. People can destroy their lives without anyone elses help and often put a lot of effort into an early death.
You did yourself the biggest favor imaginable by getting out…some people just can’t, for whatever reasons, manage to ever be anything but miserable.
Just wow… And I’m so glad you got out and found yourself in time. I’ve seen so many people who never did. And watched them die in regret and bitterness.
Thank you, guys. What’s sad is hearing the voices of experience — hearing from or about people who did stay in bad circumstances. Getting away was no great leap for me; growing up watching my parents battle each other (staying together and hating it for more than 50 years), I knew I’d never stick in a bad relationship. Even now, I don’t think I deserve any sympathy, and certainly not kudos, for leaving that one. Rather, the response I was expecting was, “You were pretty much a moron for getting into that one in the first place!”
I would never have stayed. Still, learning that an old love died young threw me into a what-if mood. This week, too, a friend’s mother died. And I knew that she and her husband had had one of those rare lifelong lovebird relationships, a true lovematch that lasted longer than I’ve been alive. All of it got me thinking.
George Potter, I think you’re right, too, about people enjoying their apparent miseries. When _____ was in high school, I imagined he endured some tremendous suffering, though I never knew what it was (and later never saw a hint any great trauma had ever befallen him or that his family circumstances were particularly awful or whatever). I couldn’t imagine what else would fill him with such rage and self-destruction. After I eventually left him, and saw the bizarre nature and out-of-proportion level of the rage he directed at me, coupled with his continued self-destructiveness, I realized it was just his nature. “Normal” life was something he could do for a while. But his baseline was something else.
He also idolized a somewhat older cousin of his who, after a short lifetime of hard partying, took a drunken tumble off a balcony into a river and drowned, age 29.
Glad you got out.
Re: research, the SSDI rocks! But, it’s also melancholy. One former friend still hasn’t shown up, but, I’m pretty certain he’s gone.
Another former friend is estranged from his mother and brother, and they have passed. Two old friends of mine are gone. My mother passed in the 50’s, but, there is no record?! Maybe my father never applied for the SS death benefit. Look at Charlie Sheen. Some people never grow up.
You cannot “save” someone who won’t admit they need it.
You did good.
🙂
“You cannot ‘save’ someone who won’t admit they need it.”
Ain’t that the truth, Kentucky Kid. In fact, I’ve long since concluded that you can’t “save” even people who want to be saved. People are just what they are. They’ll change some things about themselves if they’re motivated enough, but it’s sheer bloody folly to expect another individual to change the slightest thing, the smallest habit, the tiniest personal behavior, at the behest of another person.
but what is and what should never be…you done right
Some people are wired for destruction…..and they seem to always get tangled up with strong, independent women….or maybe it’s they helped make that woman that strong….
What counts is you made it out and away, that’s more important than why/how you got mixed up with the train wreck in the first place…..and what counts is you learned to avoid people like that afterwards, too…..
Sometimes we take on responsibility for other peoples’ actions when really we don’t have the influence on them that we think/thought we have/had…..in other words, the strongest woman in the world still can’t stop a train from wrecking…..
All you can control is how YOU survive the experience…..
I got out of mine after 7 years and two beautiful children.
I did not want them to grow up thinking that fighting [actual physical] was a normal part of a relationship.
And it was getting harder and harder to defend myself without resorting to physical “response in kind”.
I carried guilt and estrangement for many years with several “visits” to them as they grew up in an attempt to keep my name and face in their lives.
I guess it worked because I was invited [and attended] my daughters wedding and have recently [last two years] gotten much closer to both her and my son and both of their families.
There is still a gap in our lives BUT I am now accepted as who I am and I even think they begin to understand my leaving all those years ago. I certainly Hope so.
Thank You for baring your soul Claire.
I [We most likely] will always admire you for who you ARE and what you have helped me to see and discover warts and all.
Stay Safe and Free,
gooch
pirate, curmudgeon and general ne’er-do-well
Not on the SSDI List just yet …. 😉
Wow… had no idea you’d been thru that particular hell … it is so very hard to know someone we love is bent on destroying themself (and I disagree, I don’t think they’re ‘happy’, I think they are soul numbingly unhappy, and know it, and want to destroy themselves…and anyone in their path) … and of course, nothing you did or didnt do would have made a damn bit of difference … you can’t save ANYBODY, they have to save themselves … kudos to you for baring this part of your soul to us … and may God bring you peace …
Hey Moron! (j/k)
I’m glad you are at peace with your decisions and that you shared such a story with us, complete strangers, but avid readers.
I’m curious, if you don’t mind, did you pick “Claire” to hide from him or did (do?) you manage several names or go through several names to arrive at C.W.? No details, of course.
Oh my! If only this didn’t sound so familiar. My gift in life has always been the ability to walk away. Unfortunately the ability to admit the truth before hand would have helped me in not having to become so skillful at it.
I’m a lucky man. I have none of the typical addictions that plague many of my fellow humans. No love of drugs, alcohol, porn, dogs, whatever, none of that… OK, Italian food, maybe. There’s a good side to that but it also means I’m a magnet for woman who are out of control. Divorced at the age of 54 after thirty years of marriage (the last child left home and two weeks later I had my own place) the dating scene was bleak to say the least.
It seemed as if a woman didn’t have her own addictions she was carrying around the baggage from someone else and actively looking for another addict/bad boy. I foolishly started looking up old loves/addicts, failing to see that I was carrying around the same baggage
We’re not talking about a carousal full, just three, but two were dead, one having been beaten to death on a West Oakland street about two days after I got married. I invited her to the wedding but she never showed. The third has been married four times and sounded like one of Marge’s sisters on the Simpsons, not the young girl I remember. My thinking was that all of these woman had problems, but it was clear they loved me, AND I LIKE THAT. Perhaps they had grown up a bit? That’s not how it works. It’s been a long ride for a guy with no addictions of his own. My wife hid hers for close to 15 years but by that time we had kids, mortgage, the usual responsibilities. So I played out my hand and moved on when it was time. The long road, but now I realize how lucky I have been in my own life. I see how hard one of my sons struggles with his addictions and my ex tried hard to cover hers up. These poor souls, and that includes your ex, will fight that truth until the very end. It took my son’s problems to make me see the truth of it, that there’s little to be done other than the dreaded “enabling”. Seeing what and where the war is can be a hard skill to acquire. After all, if they love me than anything can be overcome… right? Obviously you know your life better than I, but the phrase, “Love of my life” caught my attention. It’s very easy to be the love of someone else’s life and fail to see that it was never the reverse. They were nothing more than women who loved me and made me feel special… and of course unspecial too much of the time. At the age of fifty-eight I can finally admit that.
My great-great aunt died just a few days ago. Today would have been her 105th birthday. She and her husband raised 27 foster kids. She worked well into her 80’s, lived in her own house, and for the last 5 years was healthier than I was :p
She was a kind woman, but the kind of kind woman that nobody dared try to push around.
I figured, since death seems to be one of the subjects here, this kinda fit.
As for your ex-nightmare Claire, he would not have lived longer had you stuck around. But you would have lived shorter. I’ve seen it happen too many times. One of my friends from high school was murdered by a man like that. He killed her and their 3 month old son just before turning the gun on himself.
Naturegirl, I think the reason it seems like such men go for strong women, is because the strong ones are the ones who escape. I strongly suspect an aquaintance of mine is being abused by her husband, but she’s such a shy, subservient woman that she just takes it. I think in some ways she might even prefer it, because it absolves her of responsibility for managing her life. (She’s like that even when he’s not around)
In my extended family I’m one of the very few who have not been in an abusive relationship yet, and while I’d like to think it’s because I’m too strong, independent, and intelligent for that, most of the women in my family are strong, independent, and intelligent. Maybe it’s not just strength of will or brainpower that protects you. So, Claire, until we figure out what makes some woman reject abusers while others fall head over heels for them, no calling yourself a moron over it!!!!!
What a plot line for a novel !
I never though about it that way (able to escape), Ellendra….I use to wonder if maybe it was another challenge/conquest in their unsettled mind – to tear apart a seemingly together person so they’d feel better about themselves…..or have company…..
When I was in my teens, the adventure bug and the daredevil bug in me would often lead to some really bad relationships/associations……the immaturity of the reasoning didn’t last very long LOL…..I’ve never been afraid to test out the dark side of people, which can get a person in trouble as well….And I’ve been in some really good (even great) relationships that ultimately turned out to not be such a good choice for my inner self, either, but that’s another subject entirely…..
Maybe it’s just all a part of the outlaw-rebel-self testing learning process….
I haven’t hit the half century mark yet,but a large number of people from my past are dead. Various “chemically assisted unintentional suicides”, cancer, heart attacks, one aneurysm, hitting rock walls at 135 MPH-only my grandparents died of old age. I must be odd in that I never cared in the least for booze or any perception-altering chemicals. Maybe because so many of my family did. I’ve done my share of dip-$*#^ stuff, but I was sober when doing them.
I think you can help people, but they have to want it..
I’ve been trying to think of something to say to this post, but the fact is, I really can’t. It just leaves me speechless.
What I can say is thank you, Claire, for sharing it. That cannot have been easy. This post is another example of why you are so important to so many, including people you have never met.
When the time is right, these observations will be offered to my now-two-year-old daughter, to make of them what she will. (If I do my job well in the meantime, that will amount to a great deal.)
This blog is interesting to me. I’ve just returned from a wedding in which a Type-A acquaintenance of mine 35 years ago has now become a crackpot dominatrix. She’s a heavy boozer with an alcoholic daughter (who was sexually abused by the woman’s second husband), and refuses to support that daughter or recognize however her own personality might have affected their relationship.
The woman attempted to take control of every situation and run over everyone, even to the point of preparing and “catering” every meal for the rest of us (she was a guest, not a member of the wedding family), dominating every conversation, and insisting that her opinion and her way of doing things is the ONLY way to properly act or think. Needless to say, she made the visit a living hell for everyone, especially her closest friend who was the mother of the bride and who was the most dominated.
I know that the woman has destroyed what true friendship she had with this family — they will never perceive her in the same way again. She is bitter, jealous, and unhappy, and I wonder if, being the good Catholic she is, she subconsciously chooses this method to destroy herself for her own familial failures.
Most of the time I think Thomas Szasz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Mental_Illness is right that “mental illness” is just deviation from the norm, but there are times when that deviation goes over the top and I start to believe in real mental illness.
““mental illness” is just deviation from the norm”
What IS normal, anyway? I personally have no clue, never did find that out & I have been around a long time….
I think everyone has some kind of “mental illness” (if you want to term it that way, there’s a million identified by drs for decades that cover just about everything imaginable)….it’s a matter of if it hurts people around them, or only hurts themselves, and how severely….so maybe normal is really “keeping control of the mental illness”….
You never find perfect people, just the ones who’s deficiencies you can handle/blend in with your life as easily and peacefully and supportive as possible…..
I don’t know what “normal” is, either, naturegirl. But the “norm” can be defined as whatever’s acceptable in a given society or culture. (And “whatever’s acceptable” is often defined from a political POV. Not that that’s correct, but it does happen.)
“I think everyone has some kind of “mental illness”…”
Well, we do _deviate_, for the most part, which is what makes us all individuals.
But I’m not sure I’d agree that mental illness can be defined by if (or how) it hurts people. From a libertarian POV, I might agree with you, but from a psychological POV, I’m not sure it’s true. Which way do you mean that?
I was thinking more along the inter-personal connections more than as applied to mass amounts of people, politically……
But, even in a society (compromised of different cultures) there are a number of different personalities and actions “acceptable” (or considered) to be not normal to another part of the society…..
But I was thinking more in terms of how people relate to a closer/smaller circle of people, individual idiosyncrasies/traits meshing with each other…..how one person’s issues can affect the other person and the trade offs in place (or not) in order to have that particular relationship…..
As for connecting mental illness with hurt, it’s often the hurt that makes people address the issue(s) (maybe even from each side of the perspective), which is why I linked them….and it seems there’s a “mental disorder name” attached to just about every action or thought out there, in varying degrees; put in place by studying multiple people who may not have that particular problem (comparisons) but they probably have one of the other ones….Normal seems to suggest a majority that can’t exist for the very reason you mentioned: individuality in all humans (from a personality standpoint)…..
“As for connecting mental illness with hurt, it’s often the hurt that makes people address the issue(s) (maybe even from each side of the perspective), which is why I linked them….”
OK, I understand that, and can agree with you.
“Normal seems to suggest a majority that can’t exist for the very reason you mentioned: individuality in all humans (from a personality standpoint)…..”
And that means no one is “normal”, but everyone is normal — which is essentially what Szasz says. Yet there are times when “deviation” is so severe that I do question where that person lies on the mental illness spectrum. (Or perhaps I should say, Where he lies on the mental _health_ spectrum. If he’s not mentally ill, at least it might be observed that he’s not mentally whole.)
I have been curious about a girl I was involved with several years ago, and last night started to really search for her. Then I discovered she died in 2005, at the age of 26, from a stroke. I instantly thought of this post for obvious reasons.
She was neither TLoML nor a bane; just a friend, a fun diversion, and a really sweet person. She was also one of the two girls I have been involved with that I had totally lost track of, and discovering her death was a sad shock.
[…] to pick up the pieces, glue them back together and choose to live. That’s where it gets dicey if you have someone in your life who does not realize he/ she is broken. Or this person defiantly chooses to live in a destructive manner. That’s where you, as their […]