Injury to Instinct

Another quote from Women Who Run With the Wolves:

Injury to instinct cannot be underestimated as the root of the issue when women are acting mad, are possessed by obsession, or when they are stuck in less malignant but nevertheless destructive patterns. The repair of injured instinct begins with acknowledging that a capture has taken place, that a soul-famine has followed, that usual boundaries of insight and protection have been disturbed. The process that caused a woman’s capture and the ensuing famine has to be reversed.

"These Sentences are How I Solve the Problem of Myself"

I borrowed that title from a line in this sonnet. 

As I revisit my writing in journals, here, and elsewhere, I see that I often revisit the "problem of Roi", which ultimately is the "problem of myself". 

In the codependent model, obsessing on the behavior of the addict is a sign of one's sickness. In the trauma model, and from my own experience, my visits to Roi's behavior is an attempt to get an accurate picture of what I'm truly dealing with. Especially given that I'm living and working with him. 

What he tells me paints a very different picture from what I see with my own eyes, and yet if I don't look with my own eyes, I begin to believe Roi's words. The brain is just wired like that. And this is dangerous to my well-being not because of the lies, which are bad enough in their own right, but because in order to protect his lies he also uses several crazy-making tactics that are deeply harmful to my well-being. 

Previous to now I would make a discovery, there would be a blow up, and then I would try to forget. In the interims between my checking up on the truth of matters, I would forget, but if Roi was acting out it meant he was also mind-fucking me in some way. Thus, my not being privy to or aware of his behaviors doesn't mean I wasn't subject to his other "abuses" which are subtle and complex. 

Gathering it all up and pasting the pieces together to get a full picture has been painful, rusty razor blades in the stomach painful, but it is also peeling away all the levels of deception and crazy and I feel my inner power growing stronger and grounding itself in the process.

These two passage from Women Who Run With the Wolves explain well what I've been through, and the path now: 

"The normalizing of the abnormal even when there is clear evidence that it is to one's own detriment to do so applies to all battering of the physical, emotional, creative, spiritual, and instinctive natures. Women face this issue any time they are stunned into doing anything less than defending their soul-lives from invasive projections, cultural, psychic, or otherwise."

"Yet, when one sees and senses thusly, then one has to work to do something about what one sees. To possess good intuition, goodly power, causes work. It causes work firstly in the watching and comprehending of negative forces and imbalances both inward and outward. Secondly, it causes striving in the gathering up of will in order to do something about what one sees, be it for good, for balance, or to allow something to die."

Different Shades

Roi lies, as most addicts do. No surprise there. What IS surprising is the depth and the persistent clinging to those lies, particularly for someone who goes to regular meetings (1-4 times a week), has a sponsor, and has been in "recovery" for some 7 years.

Toward the end of April, as you who read this tiny corner of the interwebs will remember, I went away for the day to spend time with family. I had invited Roi but he claimed he had too much work to do. He did in fact do this work, but a few days later when I got the report from his accountability software I learned he had viewed photos of a woman in a bikini. 

As I said then, in most relationships this would have been no big whoop, but it was highly triggering for me. 

When I was angry about it, his response was to say, "it wasn't porn", and "is your psychological life and all peace dependent on me?". 

A week or so later he left his phone downstairs when he went to bed, and while I wasn't in "scanning" mode, it was there, so I checked his internet browsing history and found a significant amount of porn from right around the same time he had viewed the bikini photos. 

Then later still I found he had downloaded videos from a site on an office computer, again, in the same time span. 

"It wasn't porn" was a lie in that it was a half-truth, or a skewed truth. No, bikini photos aren't porn, but he knew full well he had used two other devices to view and download porn. And his statement, "is your psychological life and all peace dependent on me?" was a cruel statement meant to make me feel bad while he was knowingly withholding the truth. 

I'm not an expert, but does this sound like someone in "recovery"?

The Other One

I've been quite focused on dealing with Roi's addictions lately, and if you visit because you're looking for news on Kyd, here's a check in. 

I don't write about Kyd as often for a lot of reasons. He's my child, so I feel protective of how he's viewed here. I want the world to love him as much as I do. Also, I don't know a lot about what's going on in his day to day life now that he's not living at home. And finally, thank the Universe, there hasn't been a major event in a while. 

The worry is less, but it's still there, and indeed there have been some recent triggers. Kyd has a girlfriend, and she's pretty sweet, if not a little flaky. They seem to get on well, and the longer they're together the louder those worry wasps in my head start to buzz. Closer bonding means deeper heart-break if anything goes wrong. Historically Kyd doesn't handle major change well. We haven't yet seen how he would handle  the major change of a break-up, an event that is deeply painful and difficult for the most stable of minds.

He also gave me the news that he's likely to get a job with the girlfriend's father. I don't know a thing about this man, but another weakness for Kyd is his relationship to male authority figures. You can see how my imagination sees a perfect storm brewing here. 

Most difficult of all is that if he gets this job, he'll be wanting to move home temporarily. A scenario as sticky as a bucket of cold honey. This is where the line between "supporting" and "enabling" gets real blurry, and I'm not much in the mood for blurry anymore. I want to support his efforts, but I can't make that decision alone. Lexie wouldn't feel comfortable with it, but might cave under his pleas and assurances of adherence to whatever rules and boundaries we'll need. Roi, on the other hand, harbors unspoken and unexplained resentments toward Kyd. It seeps out sideways whenever Kyd visits, but Roi says there's not a problem.

I see a rock and a hard place up ahead.

For now, Kyd is getting ready for his girlfriend's senior prom this weekend. We've picked out a gorgeous tuxedo and I'm going to shelve everything else as I admire my handsome son and wear what I expect will be an ear-to-ear grin.

"Your Sexually Addicted Spouse"

This book came in the mail yesterday. It wasn't a surprise - I ordered it. "Your Sexually Addicted Spouse" is written by Barbara Steffens and Marsha Means and based on research Barbara did on disclosure as trauma. 

If I could copy the whole book right here I would, because simply quoting it is not enough. Before this blog I frequented forums, and I went to Al-Anon and S-Anon meetings, and I found myself repeating over and over that what I was feeling didn't feel at all like the symptoms of codependence or co-addiction. After all, I had lived through being married to a binge drinker and my own son had battled with his alcohol/drug demons so I had experience with addiction before. 

I suffered other various abuses and abandonments in my lifetime, but nothing shook me or hijacked my life so much as being in partnership with a sex addict. 

I tried to make myself believe in the codependent/co-addict model because it was the only model there was. Yet I would find myself questioning the analogies and -isms during meetings. Most especially at Al-Anon which I had to attend before there was an S-Anon meeting in my area. Eventually I felt like a broken record and I felt the disapproving stares as I would repeat my "problem" with the codependent/co-addiction party-line. 

Sure I had a pattern of getting into relationships with addicts. Sure, it must mean something. Sure I've got my own "issues". For sure I wasn't at the top of my game when I met Roi and got involved having already been weakened by the then two years or so of wrestling with Kyd's behaviors.

But the pain I was feeling was distinctly different than anything I had previously experienced. It was so shearing, so ever-present, and it was so radically altering my own behaviors and ability to function that I knew in my heart I was experiencing something wholly different from "codependence". 

Barbara and Marsha are working diligently to give voice to the trauma that partners of sex addicts experience, and I am so deeply, deeply grateful that there are not proper words to express it.

Sad, Just so Sad

Tonight I am sad. 

I think that's a good thing as far as healing goes. It means I'm not angry which is my default defense position. 

I started reading "Your Sexually Addicted Spouse" which takes the behavior of the sex addict's spouse/partner and shines the light of trauma on it. It is the FIRST thing I've read that I feel comfortable with. I finally feel validated and sane. 

Roi went to a meeting which was triggering for me. Not that he went to a meeting, but how we went about it. He also did two other things since yesterday that were highly triggering, and I decided to just address it all head on. Not let it stew and fester because I know he'll just lie, minimize, blame-shift, etc. Aaaaand, predictably, that's just what he did. 

Then I unleashed. I mean I just unleashed and didn't stop for three hours. At first it was just anger and arguing, and then I just said everything I was feeling and thinking, and everything I knew, and all the evidence I was looking at, and what it all meant to me. I cried and paced and chain-smoked and it just kept coming. 

He says he's calling a therapist tomorrow. I didn't express whether or not I would go but I will probably go. Not to save the relationship, but because there's a momentum now that I can't stop. A freight train of hurt hurtling right through me and all I can do is ride it. 

He's gone upstairs to bed, exhausted and claiming to recognize what all this has done to me and that he has a demon inside him. I don't particularly care what he feels. I'm not capable of that anymore. But sitting here now in the dark I feel an overwhelming sadness and grief. The trajectory of my life was radically altered and I'm left in my own body but not feeling at all myself. 

I'm sad that all my friends who went to the same kick-ass liberal women's college I went to are keeping true to their values and I'm not. 

I'm sad that I have a career I never wanted. 

I'm sad that I can't seem to pull it together. 

I'm sad that I keep forgetting appointments because I'm so overtaken with recurring thoughts. 

I'm sad that I'm not myself. 

I'm sad that I can't remember myself. 

I'm sad that I've been so deeply hurt and worry that I will never heal. 

There are so many things to be sad about it's overwhelming. I'm exhausted and hollow. 

in which the real pain begins

It's been an interesting few days. After deciding to write a book, I promptly decided to NOT write a book, and then decided that no, I should really write this book but maybe I won't publish it. Then again, maybe I will. 

Such has been my mind since last Thursday. 

I also decided that I think the Universe sending me one of Roi's booty-girls was actually a reminder that I was on the right track. As if she was forcing me to look this whole ugly thing in the face over and over again and not forget about it for too long lest I retreat to denial and minimizing myself. Lest I cave to Roi's sorrowful shuffling around the house.

WHICH, I did. Sort of. I talked to him and then we watched a movie together. I was about to beat myself up over the whole thing when it occurred to me that it takes quite a bit of painful effort to remain completely blocked against someone you work and live with. I didn't cave, I just didn't feel like keeping my shoulder up against the door. I needed a rest from that. 

He offered to go to a therapist with me. I didn't respond. It's too late. 

I spent several hours gathering together all the scattered information and journal entries I've kept over the last 4 and a half years. Emails, forums, written journals (scattered throughout 4-5 notebooks), and computer documents. It's a lot of stuff, and revisiting some of it was heart-shreddingly painful. No wonder our brains minimize stuff, forget, deny, etc. I was reliving several traumas over again and I had to walk away from it many times, catch my breath, scream into a pillow, meditate, take a walk -- anything to keep my molecules from flying apart as they seemed to be threatening. 

And I've only just begun. I've only just located and gathered, but now I have to put it all into one document with dates to use as a reference for writing. 

I am in a terrible state of confusion about what I mean to do with this writing. All I know is that the drive for it is out of my control at the moment.