Trisha’s posterous

We were sleeping next to each other, at his place i think, just lying there next to each other.  I think at one point we kissed.

But that was it.

I woke up in pain over this, this dream and the almost reality it represents in my mind. 

I think he wants his women to want him less, to not declare themselves to him completely, and this may take the form of silence or a marching band.

For me it was always silence, since I was 18 and he was what, 21?

Our correspondence is sparse these days.

I left my husband for him, on a hunch, because I thought he loved me too.

I have never been so broken, so completely and utterly torn apart. 

That day we were having lunch on West 4th, at Capers, (and I still thought he was just 'giving me time' you see, I thought he didn't want to rush things...I mean, he called me every day at work in the week leading up to Cuba, to mine and Leigh's wedding), and there was the magazine he gave me (Vancouver Magazine), and that story "Wolf Medicine..." and in it things were written that he and I said to each other, verbatim, I mean, word for word, and he said in the end, something like...'all my life it's been you.'  That's not exactly right, but generally, you get the idea.

So off I went.

I crossed an ocean for him.

And that day at Capers, I remember...it all fell through, and i felt like such an ass, and never in my life had I ever ever ever felt so completely FUCKED over, when he said real casual like  that he had his heart broken by an actress from Montreal.  

I left graciously enough that day.  We even went to a music store.  I bought The Joni Letters by Herbie Hancock.  Then I said I should go, no drama, just that I should go.  And I emailed him later and said that I felt I had misunderstood a great deal, that i was going to lay low for a while, I cancelled this editing thing we were supposed to go to, and said we should talk in the future.

He wrote back, totally perplexed, didn't understand.

He tried to contact me for a long time, months, even after I moved back to Victoria.

Finally I emailed  him and told him I was back with Leigh, and he wrote back and said he wished me well, just wanted me to be happy.

Our communication now is delicate, though he did recently write that he was putting me in his acknowledgements in his new collection of short stories due out in September, which confuses me, through I'm honoured.

I just don't fucking understand anything.

He was the love of my life though nothing came of it.

Perfectly unrequited.

I tell myself, if I was not so awkward and shy around him, if i was more successful, if i was beautiful...

Today, I am feeling particularly desperate.

I want to either die or just get up and leave everything (and take my bunnies with me)....or die.

Didn't come up with a lot, lots of joke responses like 'hold your breath,' or 'how about too much Viagra and really see if sex kills...'

ha ha ha

The one honest response I got was something like this:

Take a lot of pain pills, then take a lot of nausea pills so you don't puke up the pain pills, then lie in a warm bath and slit your wrists (but it was noted that you should make sure the pain pills should have kicked in), and just wait for death.

Seems simple.

Not saying I'm going to do it, but I don't know how much longer I can take this.

I have been sick forr three days, off work.

Leigh's buying a new Honda Civic today.  Well gee and I thought he was destitute because of me.

I have a fever, woke up chilled, shivering, kind of nauseous.

I cannot call in sick to a temp job though, i mean, come on, so will suffer through it.  Oh what a trooper I am,

Goiing to bed early tonight, as iin right now.

I'm setting it up, a bit of a preamble, because I am not aiming for drama or trying to evoke equally alarming responses.

Let me start here: I've been consuming about 20 of those packets of powder in Neo DM, each night, for some time now, and drank it in a to go mug all day at work the other day.  Made me high and loopy, but I can pull it off still.  I can still do the job.

I take this amount now because I need that much for it to have any effect.  That what, 600mg of DXM each night, and now in the days too,...I'll have to keep track. 

It's gotten to the point where, really, I kind of pray for overdose, that it will just sort of put me to sleep, but so deeply my heart will stop and I won't wake up.  I think I'm flirting with this quite seriously now.  I have no sense of restraint that I want to invest in, and I kind of just want to die.  But sort of, for real this time,

So my flirtations with all this DXM, combined now with Lithium, Zoloft and Clonazepam (which i often double up on), are flirtatious to the point of perilous.  I check my pulse sometimes when I've stayed up all night, and it's like my heart is barely beating.  All the vessels and veins and so forth beneath my skin become very very dark (almost purple,,,,I noticed this the other day,,,my legs, arms), and when I push down on my skin, anywhere, a pure white spot appears from the pressure of my thumb, and it slowly goes away, after about 20 seconds, and those purple vessels come back.

I don't have the courage to 'do it' outright you know?  But this DXM thing, I kind of view it as a potential sideways access into death....a slipping away and only halfway meaning to, or rather, only mostly meaning to, but not really, in case anyone asks.

There really just isn't any point to any of this, and aside from being high, I'm certain that I will never be able to escape this affliction.

Nothing is enough to sustain me.

Not even you.

I have a great office, 2nd floor, windows that open onto a cobblestone courtyard (I think I may have noted this already).  I like being 'high up.'  I have never been in a second floor office before. 

I have sat on the steps under a tree (on that bench) so many times over the years, both as a student and staff worker.

Just below, on cement wall that goes up about 3 feet high (and has trees planted on top of it), I found an envelope one day a couple of years ago inside of which were an assortment of hard terracotta clay tablets, and upon each one was a word.  Random.  I have been carrying around that envelope for 2 years, because I want to make something of it, sort of  a 'found poem,' or something, then maybe incorporate it into a visual art project or installation of some kind.

I'm feeling dizzy, off-balance, hands shake when I sip coffee or when I was trying to put on my mascara while driving to work this morning, which by the way, I did quite successfully.

Women are amazing, the things we can do, our adaptability, ingenuity, survival skills, multi-tasking abilities.

My sister has flat ironed her hair while driving to work.

I think the dizziness is from the Lithium, trembling too is common or so I've read, and of course it doesn't help that I hardly eat.

I fell asleep again (it's really almost every night) downstairs with the rabbits again last night. 

Leigh woke me up for work, angry that tone in his voice, "Come on, get up!"

I went upstairs and he whooshed past me in the kitchen, a old stare, muted. 

I followed him into the living room  (I see particularly driven to follow up on every loose thread, every suspected slight or glare, these day anyway.  It's like, I will call him on everything, won't let anything slide.  I am so tired of feeling on the defensive.  All he does is criticize and either directly or indirectly complain, imply or outright declare that I am doing everything wrong.

Anyway, things are not good, still, as if they ever have been.

My medication went missing yesterday too (it was a small supply of the tree meds I take, until my Plan G kicks in, which means I won't have to pay for it). 

I suspect my stepson (who I won't name here) took them, either to consume or to sell.  He was recently suspended from school for 3 days for selling weed on school grounds.

I saw Dr. Gheis (a Neuro-psychiatrist) yesterday, have waited 5 months for this appointment.  He was nice, asked a bunch of questions, and concluded that I am Bipolar II, although he was very wishy-washy about it, saying that bipolar disorder is currently undergoing great revision in terms of medical application and definitions, that it is now known to operate on a spectrum, whereas for years (until very recently actually), if you did not exhibit the traits of classic (now called) Bipolar I (ie; delusions and extreme euphoria with plummets into suicidal despair), then you were not called bipolar. 

I don't care what you call it, but names matter to me, and I was frustrated that he seemed to be downplaying the severity of my issues (again I come across very cool and composed in doctor's offices).

He asked if I ever had feelings of euphoria that lasted for periods of time, and I said no, but I tried to qualify that with saying that I don't really have a reference model against which to compare what is 'normal' or what is 'not euphoric.'  The fact is I have many times, days, historically, wherein yeah, I feel euphoric, sometimes when I'm writing for example, typing for 6 hours without looking up because I'm "euphoric" and so invested and inspired in what I'm writing. 

Maybe I should have answered differently.

I asked him, 'Well, do you think I should be here, like, what's wrong with me?'

He nodded and said yes, yes, that I should be here and so on

Then he explained, after all that, that he (and that department) do not deal strictly with mood disorders, but rather they deal with psychological disorders related to physical trauma. 

But not to worry, he is going to refer me to a psychiatrist.  And I won't have to wait long this time.

Anyway, I'm heading out for a break.

I feel incredibly alone.

I am not prefect; I have admitted this and been open about it, perhaps to my own detriment.  Some people take your vulnerability and keep it safe, like a gift, like a piece of wedding cake tucked under a pillow (my many imperfections), but some people I've noticed do  not regard this offering up of your most tender places as a gift bestowed upon them, but rather, they clutch it tightly (your imperfection), and hold it, or keep it close at hand so that they can use it against you when the time is right.  What I mean is, I have been so self-effacing in this relationship from day one, always the one to point out my own flaws and ugliness (I have these compulsion to just get it out there, so I don't have to worry about it later, so that three years into the relationship the guy does not have to suddenly realize that I am not who I appear to be); no, I tell the truth, I show them my scars. 

I've noticed that Leigh has jumped on the self-effacing band wagon that I have solely perpetuated.  If I say I am nothing, he seems content to treat me as such.

I suppose I am testing him, seeing if he'll still love me despite my ugliness, and that isn't exactly a straight up way to go either,

Todays's argument is really rooted in the trenches of yesterday evening.  Leigh hauled out all of this wire mesh stuff that could be used in some way to accommodate an outdoor rabbit run.  I was grateful for the gesture and expressed such.  But I said that I had actually imagined something more like 'wooden lattice' running up along each 'side' of the bunny run, about what, forty feet long or something?  But that the wire mesh he had brought home for me might work well as a roof.  (I have seen hawks swoop down upon my rabbits on occassion, so I no lonnger rist it; they HAVE to have a roof).

Leigh seemd pissed at my reaction.  He expressed this by saying, "Okay well I'll just roll this up and get it out of your way," or something to that effect, the kind of statement that is loaded with so much more that it seems to hold.  It takes years to understand the compexities and deeper nuances of certain simple sentence exchanged between man and woman, buetween husband and wife.

"I'll just roll this up...etcetera..."

It has so much to do with tone and body language.

The overriding point he was trying to make was that I am ungrateful.

Even though I am not ungrateful; I said so, I thanked him for it.

Now let me tell you what this is actually about....I know my huaband...and this was actually less altruistic on his part than it might otherwise seem.

He then went on to say that he thought the wooden boards I was using as a roof for the exsting portable bunny cages (these are set up in our back yard, out of sight, very private), were "not very attractive."  (He's always using words like that...these fucking fake Bostonian I want to be Jacky-O, white collar...pleasantries).  He speaks with the drawl of gentry, something that has always bothered me.  I wouldn't mind it so much if what he had to say was especially interesting, and I"m sorry, god, I'm being such a bitch, but he really is (this is the nicest way I know how to say it) a man of few words.

So anyway, the boards, right...

I said, "unattractive to whooooo?"  No one can see this back yard.

He replied, "To me."

I was angry and took the bunnnies back inside; they were due to go back in anyway.  It's not just things like this, boards and bunny cages; it's that so many things in my life have become subject to his jurisdiction.

Also, just to keep it simple, if you want a simple answer, the following is just as true, I know it, I absolutely KNOW it: Leigh does not want me to at any point in the future purchase the lattice for building this bunny run, because he doesn't care about the rabbits, sort of hates them, has actually told me in not so many words that i am 'childish' for having pet rabbits.  He has called me immature so many times, and yes, the term itself 'maturity' means nothing to me.  It is a term of social contrivance which we fling around like it means something.  I do not think the goal in life should be to become 'mature;' I think our goal in life should be to become good.

To transcend...somehow.

Maturity is a set of parameters too loaded with hypocrisy for me to take seriously.  I have wanted on many occassions to tell Leigh (after he has just called me immature....or said something like, 'this isn't a joke Trish...'  ....'you're so irresponsible etc.'....to say to him the following:

Leigh, it is you who lacks this thing you call 'maturity' because you have not in all your life taken a single moment to reflect upon the nature of your existence; until you have done this, you are utterly immature.

Somewhere along the way, I have lost myself, quite utterly and completely too.  I mean, I  know it's not a good relationship in the first place, but the bipolar issues (and my recent, however brief lack of income) have taken their toll.  I am having a hard time separating what is not working in the relationship of its own accord, and what in the relationship I am perceiving as not working due to my bipolar, my tendency to amplify things, for good or bad.

It's a mess.

So, there was last night, the bunny cages and boards, so I was still 'holding' that inside me somehow.  Then, before Leigh went to bed I called him downstairs and noted that I wanted shift all of our storage stuff to the right (about eight feet) so that I could then create quite a lot more room for my rabbits to run around, by reconfiguring the boards and cages I have in there. 

(If this sounds like I am in fact 'asking for permission' to rearrange boxes which are mostly filled with my things anyway (because Leigh opted to bring upstairs the things he in particular likes and shoved my thingsin the basement...if it sounds like I am asking for persmission, well, I kind of was...only because the consequences of rearranging what Leigh has already arranged would be dire, to do so, you know, without at least having him "survey" my plans, that would be ludicrous (and I don't mean the rapper). 

As it turns out, he was completely and outright against the idea, basically declaring that, NO, I could not move those things because he said, "Trish, do you have any idea how long it has taken me to arrange everthing thing down there....while you were sleeping or doing whatever it is you do." 

(I have been cycling with mania and depression....staying up for 3 days then sleeping copious amounts, eating virtually nothing).

So he's right, yeah, I do at times sleep a lot, or my sleep is reversed, but despite this, I have by far been the one who has been doing the laundry and keeping the house in order, picking up after the boys and Legh...they are all slobs and it's disgusting.  Plus, when I am flying all manic throughout the night, I get a lot done, often a lot of writing, which doesn't mean shit to Leigh though.

The underlying implication, in this instance, but throughout the nine years I have been with this man, is that I do not do enough, I do not contribute enough, I am not mature enough and so on...again and again and again...no matter what i do, seriously....no matter what I do, it is never, ever, enough.

And the scary part of all this is that I fall for it; I dig in my heels and spin, and dig and try and try and try to do 'what's right,' to be strong and get it toegether and 'contribute to the relationship in the way Leigh wants me to."

But it's never enough.

Never, ever ever ever ever ever e-nuff.

I live in a state of constant worry and stress, feeling this need to do more and catchup, to prove myself to him (and well yes, I do this anyway, come by it naturally), but it is fueled like a match stick tossed into an oil well while in Leigh's company.

I challenged his "No."  About the storage stuff I mean.  I fought him on it, said that I'm not an idiot and I'm fully capable or organzing boxes and  so on.  We bickered for a while, then he threw up his hands and said, "Trish you're going to do what you want to do ayway, so just do it."

(Actually, that's completely not true.  I feel controlled to the point of paralysis, so I know for a fact I am not running around just 'doing whatever I want to do), although allow me to pause here for a moment and make note to myself, because it's important.  Here's what I mean: why am I qualifying myself, defending myself, saying that 'no no, oh no, I don't just 'do what I want to do in this relationship...'  Because by defending myself this way I am basically saying that I have been a good girl and I have done what I've been told to do, and never ever for a moment have I don't what i am not allowed to do."

So Leigh went to bed, all pissy of course, and I set to work downstairs.  I did rearrange all the boxes, made it more organized I think, was conscientious and tried to put Leigh's sailing stuff in the most accessible locations and so on.  I also, as I was going through the boxes, noticed that there were things down there that belong upstairs (our wine glasses, wedding gifts no less, and brand new pots that Leigh's dad keeps buying us every year at Christmas, like each one is $300 bucks or something cuz they're loaded....and of course all of my stuff, lots of book which should go on our presently empty bookshelves upstairs, you know, that last of the stuff that need to be put away upstairs and shouldn't be in storage (or so I thought).  So as I was rearranging things, I pulled out these 'useful' items and brought them upstairs (busted my ass in face, and this of course was at like 3am, 4am and so on...), my logic being that I was doing a great deal of work for 'our household' while simultaneiously streamlinning the storage area, AND allowing my rabbits more room to roam.

(I did not sleep last night, at all).

So this morning, I'm just finishing up everything, was actually in the midst of loading the dishwasher even, when Leigh comes in, and now we're back to where this blog started.

Leigh is standing in the doorway that separates the kitchen from the dining room. Sunlight flooded the room.  I said, "Good morning," and Leigh replied cooly, or no, sort of, contemptuously, "Good morning."  Would not make eye contact with me.  He wanted me to know that I had been 'bad.'  He wanted me to  know that he did not approve of me this morning, probably still fuming about the fact that I actually tampered with his arrangement of boxes and did not 'obey' him.

So I call him on it and the fight is on....I say, "Hey, what's going on, are you upset about something."

There's a bunch of lead up back and forth shit that comes here, but I'll just leave that to your imagination and get to the point...

The conversation turns to argument, decibel levels rise the boys are alseep and we don't wan't to wake them but don't even care about that right now because we're in the throes of battle. 

Leigh is again incredulous, dismayed seems to fit.  He starts to shout. 

He is angry that I stayed up all night.

I say, you realize I am bipolar?  I'm working on it.  New doctor.  New medicationetc.

He doesn't give a fuck about my bipolar, really, he just couldn't care less.

He says, now changing the subject and pointing at all the boxes I've hauled up, placing each of them in the approriate room for easy unpacking (like I said this seemed sensible).
But he's pointing at the boxes with this terrible disgusted look on his face that makes me feel so so ugly and unloved, and declares "I spent hours arranging this stuff downstairs, to get rid of the clutter, and now you've hauled it all up again."

I'm really made now and now I'm shouting too.  "Are you serious?" I say.  "Are you telling me that you have no interestest in having stemware and brand new pots unpacked in the kitchen, that you don't want books (and family photos etc...although Leigh doesn't ever take pictures and has no interest in family photos likely because they have only emotional nostaligic 'value,'), and on and on....

He sort of stammers on about this and that, putting me down, says he doesn't have a wife, that all I do is sleep etc (like i said, I admit, yes, there are intervals when i crash out, but even so it's me who's keeping the house clean, it just is, no doubt about it, and I am working, he makes it sound like I do nothing and he does EVERYTHING, and this is such bullshit.  Anyway....

So here's what he says, sort of backing out of his argument about these boxes I've hauled up, because I think he's realized that yes, in fact, these things DO belong up here but he won't admit it now...so he says, " Trish, you're going to do what you always do...you're going to have hauled all this shit up here, and you won't finish what you start."

It's actually Leigh who only halfway does stuff and doesn't finish....

Anyway point is...I am demoralized.

He says then, 'You know, just pack up this shit and take it all back dowstairs again..."  I have been working all night, (I'M BIPOLAR!), have eaten a bowl of cereal in two days, have had zero sleep, blood pressure is very low I can tell, my legs are shakey. 

And here it comes, I'm about to say it. 

Okay, Leigh...I should go right? I'm leaving this relationship, this marriage.  I'm telling you I'm leaving this marriage.

He says, "Trish, that's fine, but just take the fucking rabbits with you."

We're standing in the dining room now, and I'm about to pick up a heavy box of books which are meant to go onthe bookshelf directly to my right (no doubt about it...this is where the books were in our old place, this is where the books always go).  Leigh departs into the living room.  I take a load down and come back up for another, and here he changes his tune because I've actually said it, and maybe I mean it this time...(I'm leaving you).

He starts to utter something apologetic, prefaced with 'honey,' and I shout (this takes me quite by surprise because I rarely raise my voice, like Starbucks clerks can never hear what I'm ordering, I always have to say it twice), but I shout, like something inside me snapped, and I lunged at him, pushed him away.  I'm not proud of this.  I am not a violent person.  It honestly seemed to happen of its own volition, like it wasn't me, my body,muscles and mind that peformed this lunge and push. 

But I pushed him. 

I said three words, like this, after I had pushed him and he actually looked back at me, kind of scared. 

I said:

NO-- FUCK --OFF.

It's now almost 5pm and I'm in the Village, writing on the laptop at Serious Coffee.  I feel sickened by this relationship, repulsed by the thought of him touching me right now.

Surely, this is over right?

And yes, wait for it....I cannot imagine my life without him.

I am so completely screwed.