I know my husband has been clean a long time. I know this because of drug tests he takes at work, a condition thrusts upon him by circumstance, and a serious blessing in disguise. He has done a great job. He has stayed employed, which is hard enough right now. He is trying harder than I could have every hoped this time last year. The problem though, is that even after MONTHS of honest recovery, including NA meetings, he is up against one brick wall he can’t get over.

Me.

I still don’t trust him.

This morning he pissed me off… he said that I was too negative. Yes, I vent a lot… but if you can’t complain to your husband on an exhausted Friday morning, who can you complain to? And that really isn’t the point. He has not been a picnic for the last, well, two years or so. Whether he was using or recovering, he has been miserable to live with sometimes. How am I supposed to react? Do I have to remind him that I have feelings too? I have put up with unbelievable conditions that most sane people would have run screaming from.

The poor camels back snapped when he started acting as if I was the one who couldn’t be trusted. Based on a couple of Facebook e-mails between me and my male friends. Nothing to argue about, much less blow completely out of porportion. It is as if he wants me to be guilty of something. Guilty of flirting? Maybe. Guilty of being lonely? Hell, yes. Guilty of acting on it? No! Guilty of trying to act like an adult? Bingo.

I know I am guilty of one thing. I wanted him clean. I did. For selfish reasons, for my son and for my husband… but I also wanted the man he was before. The one without the bottled-up emotions that come flying at me when he finally snaps and can’t take the stress of it all. I wanted the man I fell in love with a long time ago, not the addict. The man who made me feel protected, not frightened. The man I believed when he told me something.

Am I negative? Yes, I can be. Why not? I am living in a shell of  marriage to a man who is practically in denial about our child’s illness, who expects me to just “get over” the years of lies and all that came with it, because HE is able to move on. He is able, but I’m not.

I know he believes he won’t ever use again. I am not sure. I have been lied to before. I wish I could forget as easy I as I can forgive, but I can’t. I wish I could becaue life would be so much easier. I could be happy. But being played for a fool does a lot of damage .

Sometimes it feels like it would be easier to just start over. It would be easier to move on.

I know can trust myself.

Any other time I might be amused. But I am just pissed. I have the flu and minor sinus problems (nothing like what I have caused myself in the past, though)… I am having a hard time shaking it. But I just started my third week of antidepressants and feeling pretty good about that.  

Then I found the note. I had just woken up, and went to turn on the coffee maker. I noticed a little yellow post-it, with my husband’s handwriting on it.

Please stop. You’re killing yourself.

Five words. Five little words that at SO MANY times in the past could have been accurate, times when it when it might have helped me, times when he would have been right. But he was so wrong. Such an insult. To accuse me – when I am actually trying. My first thought was of course, well then I’ll get some, fuck this. My second thought was, you’ve lost your mind. My third thought was, how dare he think that?

Not that I haven’t  wrongly accused him. I have. And I really can’t look at my own behavior objectively I guess, but I doubt I have been acting like someone who is high. Because I’m not. Though sometimes I want to be. I have been lucky so far at letting that feeling pass. I guess I could credit the Lexapro, but I don’t. I credit myself for doing what I have to. Quitting a bad drug for one that is less worse. For not going back. For trying to be whoever it is that I am supposed to be.

Maybe that just isn’t enough.

Well, I guess the Lexapro is helping and I must admit I am relieved from being in that cycle of need I found myself in about a month ago. I don’t feel weird or spacey now, but I can resist a temporary craving or even an opportunity to score some good blow. I am tired from chasing that shit. I can now relate to how my husband felt than I ever wanted. The addict rationale that makes no sense even to you, the addict. The hate of yourself. The regret and eventual collapse of your world, or at least your marriage. The crushing depression that will make you take SSRIs in the first place.

Seems like we do a pretty good job of dancing around all the damage our marriage has been through, just because we both needed to quit trying so hard to fix things and let them be… In 24 years together I have noticed things have a way of just working out in time. That’s what I am hoping for here. I’ve noticed that we are starting to talk again, and I actually like him again. There was a time when I didn’t. When he was a junkie. When he was using. I used to tell myself that was a logical reason for me to use… and before I knew it, I was a liar too.

I’d like to say I never expect either of us to relapse again, but I can’t be unrealistic. I can only hope. Hope that we are two of the few who actually escape from it forever. One day at a time.

Weird. Kind of spacey but not too bad.

That’s how I feel. Not out of it… not particularly numb, but medicated. I guess the Lexapro is kicking in. Better that than trying to snort away my problems. I have found a legal way to treat my symptoms without getting deep or going into therapy! Yay for me…

Let’s just say I am not thrilled in this state of mind, but I can function. That’s what they’re for, after all, these SSRIs and other antidepressants. There is no such thing as a “happy pill” but there are “less miserable pills.”

I feel strange about not having any craving for cocaine right now. None at all really. I’m sure some stressful situation will come up and I’ll think about it, be tempted, and hopefully, keep myself on the wagon.

My boss and I talked yesterday. He is a man of little compliments, but told me I was doing a great job. I felt a pride I haven’t felt in a long time, especially because it came from a guy who has thrown huge cuss fits directed at me.  Just feeling like I was appreciated was better than getting high by far.

The unexpected never takes me by surprise. Even this morning when my husband told me over the phone he was leaving me. Because of one spam email from an internet dating site. One I never even checked out… I just ended up on their list.

Maybe he is just looking for a reason. I have no idea.

And I had just put my ring back on.

After all this time, it doesn’t make sense. I feel like an idiot. His son is devastated. I could tell when he heard my end of the conversation.

I don’t think he is using. I know I’m not. Maybe I will just have to learn to live without him anyway. But I don’t think the Lexapro is enough for all this.

I guess I am feeling better now or I couldn’t write at all. I have never just hit the wall like I did yesterday. I had not done anything in a day or so and decided not to, and I just felt like total crap. It was all I could do to just get out of bed and try to look presentable. I laid around feeling sorry for myself and took a Lexapro. Then of course I attributed any suicidal thoughts I had to that one pill. I hate Lexapro. I have reasons. But I hate being depressed and trying to get by on cocaine even more. I hope this helps… at least for a little while. I am at a point that I will try it even though I don’t trust it. My husband is on it, and has been for about three weeks. He seems to be thinking more clearly and not as dark about everything. I am happy for him, and wish I felt that way too. I don’t think he knows how bad the monkey on my back has gotten, but maybe he’s just waiting on me to ask for help. I hope I don’t have to. I want to do it myself.

Still, I dread work tomorrow so badly. And I don’t want to just rant about it. Such a trigger for me… that feeling of doom. Makes me want to have a drink, just do anything not to think about it. Pitiful!

I am trying to be hopeful about this week… but I wonder if I will end up leaving my job or not, and that is stressful. It’s a horrible time to be looking for work. It’s a horrible time for a lot of things, I guess. For some things in life, there is never a good time … you just have to get through it and hope for the fucking best.

I’m all fucked up. My sinuses hurt from having a bacterial infection that I am taking antibiotics for, while secretly using off and on for the past few days. I am a genius. This week I actually quit my job, and then took it back when I realized what I was doing (humiliating!)… No one was going to beg me to stay, but they hate to lose me, and since I need that stupid job I guess we’re all even. If I could just get in a better mindset I would be able to shrug off the constant swearing and tension. I wouldn’t need an assortment of substances, one of which makes my nose BLEED, to get through the day. I wouldn’t need to be numb. I yearn to live in the moment and truly appreciate the people around me, or the job at hand, without looking for away to escape it.

I am seriously considering starting back on Lexapro (yuck!) this weekend so the first two days of weirdness won’t interfere with things like, well, driving. Nothing can intoxicate and medicate like the pharmaceuticals that our doctors dole out on a regular basis. Makes smoking pot feel like eating chocolate cake.

Thank God today was a good day. No impulses to hook up with my dealer that I couldn’t deal with… of course, had he answered his phone it might be another story.

I have no willpower. I feel empty, out-of-sorts, nervous, and just well, sad. I have to just grit my teeth to get through this job every day.  I like to think getting away would be the answer. But would it? I would only take myself wherever I went…

My husband should understand but really doesn’t. I think he doesn’t like to think it is all his fault.

I read my last post with a bit of sadness. It seems that in the 2 and 1/2 months since then that nothing, and a lot, have both happened in my life. I am totally void of any feelings toward The Jerk now, and take responsibility for letting myself get swept up in a fantasy of my own making. I know I did that to escape the pain and disappointment of losing a life I had for 20+ years… and so I don’t blame myself for being human and vunerable. I shredded the map without much fanfare a while back. I let him go. He was both a hard lesson, and a glimpse of happiness. But now that it is over, I try not to look back. Or kick myself too hard.

On the other hand, there are things I have to assume blame for. I will admit in all honesty and, without the irony escaping me, that I succumbed to the very drug that took my husband, our money and our life away from us. It is now all too easy for me now to see how he once felt. With the help of antidepressants, which I personally have had a roller-coaster relationship with, he is doing much better. I look at that with a bit of envy and have even considered going back on the cursed things for awhile… Because, without the help of anything stronger than coffee, I am struggling to drag myself through each day at a job I hate, pay down my debts and not further my own self-destruction with cocaine. It is getting easier.

The problem is that cocaine makes itself so easy to justify sometimes, especially when you don’t binge on it, like my husband once did. It’s easy to think you are functional, that you are “managing” and keeping your habit in some sort of control. But if you can’t function without it, or knowing you will get it, or thinking about it, it is a problem. A HUGE problem.

I have just realized this recently, because am I considering quitting my job for ANYTHING else. The stress of doing  a specialized kind of work without any training, and trying to live up to expectations I can’t meet, with no real financial incentive, is why I kept going back. It makes it easier to NOT FEEL. I have a boss that curses at me and tries to make me feel stupid on a daily basis, and it is tempting to just numb yourself to it  so you can keep going. But I am beginning to think it would be much healthier for me to just remove myself from a situation that I just find, well, intolerable. At times I feel like I am going to have a panic attack from the tension, and if I have to use illegal drugs, or even SSRIs, to get through an 8-hour day, I am going to have to get away from that job. Maybe because I quit using, I am discovering how uncomfortable I truly am.

I have every hope that I can find another job, and walk out of that place one day soon. Until then, I will make it one hour at a time if I have to. But I am not giving myself over to a drug that destroyed my life once… and will again if I let it.

In my part of the world, it is early on Thanksgiving morning. I have made a list of all the things I am grateful for. I will post it here later. Right now I have other things on my mind. I took an emotional hit today. After several months of no contact, I realized that That Guy From Before, The One Who Made All The Sadness Go Away, The Jerk who disappeared into the night and left me with a heart full of what ifs has deleted his accounts. I had no way to say “Happy Thanksgiving” other than call his phone, which I knew he would not answer. Maybe he’s given up on school. Or met someone. Or moved home to Tennessee. I have no way of knowing, really. Still, I cannot shred the map to his house that I have sitting on my desk at work. Why? I don’t know. I don’t actually plan on driving there and surprising him. I just can’t shred it. I’ve been trying for three weeks.

But I have to admit some part of me is as relieved as I am sad. It is like losing the dealer’s number… no reason to even think about something you cannot find.

I hope that our first Thanksgiving at home goes well — we are not going to Grandma’s house this year, and are cooking our first turkey. There were days when my husband was using that I thought this day would never come. Or come around again. After everything that cocaine has done to him. to us, to our son, and to me I had lost all hope. It was why my heart was so ready and willing to “love” The Jerk. That Guy became my addiction, and my husband wasn’t the only one giving up something he thought he couldn’t live without.

But now that That Guy is fading ever so slowly from my mind, and my reality, I see a small glimmer of hope for us. I still haven’t put my wedding ring back on. I can’t until I feel like I did when I was 20, and it went on my hand for the first time. My sexual feelings are all messed up. Sometimes I think we would both be happier starting over. Sometimes I think that isn’t going to fix anything. Only divide our son between us. I know that because of cocaine, we lost a lot more than money in the bank. My feelings of trust and safety are gone. I cannot feel as secure and happy as I once did, no matter what I do, or what he says. But for now we are taking it one day at a time, and today we are cooking a turkey.

Maybe Monday I can shred the map.