May 4, 2006

• Love, Death, and Truth

  Just three little words–one four-letter jobbie and two fivers–but
  they stand for three of the biggest concepts that  we
  semi-civilized apes have ever tried to wrap our heads around.  And
  for most of my life, I didn’t even try.  Probably could not have
  even if I wanted to.

  This is mostly due to my status as ACOA and NPD. Allow me to
  translate the alphabet soup.  ACOA stands for Adult Child of an
  Alcoholic.  This was a fairly new concept in the eighties, when I
  was a professional in the drug and alcohol field, working closely with
  the director of  the Governor’s Council on Drug and Alcohol
  Abuse, doing PR and legislative analysis and stuff like that.  But
  I digress.  It seems that ACOAs have a cluster of
  symptoms–compulsive lying and co-dependency, among others.  We
  got robbed of childhoods, as many of us were forced into adult roles at
  young ages, due to having irresponsible parents..   In my case, I
  got promoted from only child to parent at age twelve when a sister was
  born. As a rule, an alcoholic (or drug addict of any ilk, for that
  matter) is too busy maintaining that active addiction to have much time
  for trivialities–like being a good parent.  My father was
  abusive, my mother was distant–she had learned early on, from her own
  alcoholic father,  that the safest thing is to shut down as many
  emotions as possible.

  And truth?  Yeah, right.  So you go to school and a buddy
  asks what’s up, what’s doing at your place.  Are you really
  gonna tell him about how Mom and Dad kept you up half the night
  screaming at each other, or how Dad paraded drunk and naked through the
  living room?  I don’t think so. 

  NPD stands for Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  This has a
  raft of symptoms including lack of empathy, pathological
  self-centeredness and need for attention, constant feeling of time
  pressure,  sense of entitlement, sense of grandiosity–and those
  are our good points.   We also tend to be sexual predators,
  actors, investigative reporters and politicians.  Oh, and serial
  killers. Best theory is, this is caused by lack of parental attention
  during our infancies–this makes sense, especially considering how many
  other recovering drunks and dopers I see who have NPD and who do not
  even know it. 

  Fast-forward forty-some years.  Having gotten clean and sober a
  few years ago, and done a lot of  work on my NPD, I have
  turned into a fairly reasonable approximation of a human being. 
  Not “normal” by any means–I’d consider that an insult.  But
  functional, and even half-way respectable.  I have been told that
  we addicts tend to take things to extremes, and it is true that I have
  become sort of obsessive about being chronically abstinent from
  dope.  On the subjects of honor and integrity (of which truth is
  an integral part), I have become borderline fanatical.  And since
  I mostly relate to and communicate with my sweety, she is the object of
  much of my attention and communication.  I have become keenly
  aware of the importance of being honest with her,  not only for
  the sake of our relationship, but also for the sake of my self-esteem,
  self-respect and sense of self-worth.  It was not always like this.

  When we met, I was so sick I had no idea how sick I was.  After
  we married–which I felt like I had been pushed into, even though the
  exact opposite is nearer the truth–I was filled with resentment. 
  I swallowed  that resentment whole, and it poisoned both me and
  our relationship.  Not to mention all the physical poisons I
  consumed at the time.  My thinking went something like “You got my
  life savings, you got my car, you got my life itself–but you’re not
  getting it ALL, damn you.”  So I kept as much of myself from her
  as possible, including sex.  Gah–talk about a lose/lose
  situation.  What the hell was I thinking?  When I
  was able to conceal any truth from her–especially how much money I was
  making–I gained this heady sense of power and control.  If I
  could conceal, say, $100, that was money I could blow on Percocet or
  Yukon Jack or expensive vodka instead of the cheap shit.I got this
  well, intoxicating, sense of autonomy from being able to look her right
  it the eye, say one thing, and think the exact opposite.  Not the
  best basis for a relationship.  But that has changed.  Now I
  relate  to that fancy-pants Brit who wrote ”I could not love
  thee, dear, so much/Loved I not honour more.” 

   No, I don’t tell her every little detail of my life–as it is,
  she often hears more than she really wants to.  I have no need to
  conceal income from her though–heck, she forgets from day to day
  anyway.  But I do make an effort to tell her the important
  stuff.  This was the worst part of the whole kitten euthenizing
  incident–not telling her.  Thing is, it was so painful and it was
  so much effort to sort out my own feelings, that I couldn’t tell her
  until I was ready.  And when I finally did tell her, it
  wasn’t face-to-face–or even voice-to-voice.  She read about it in
  my blog, just like everyone else did who read it.

  Putting it in writing was very therapeutic, and getting sympathetic
  feedback was comforting.  Yeah, I can definitely get used to this
  being human thing.

   

  Update–one of CCs kittens still seems pretty mouthy, but it seems
  more like kvetching than cries of pain.  CC herself–I
  dunno.  She still sounds distressed sometimes, and her mammaries
  are still swollen and uncomfortable for me to even look it. 

  We are all just taking it one day at a time.

  • 4:39 pm
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