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We are three adults living in a polyamorous triad family. The content here is intended for an adult audience. If you are not an adult, please leave now.

12/17/2010

How Things Are Now

My "life" continues now in day 47. I continue to blow between 7 and 10 randomized blood alcohol electronic tests on demand each day to stay out of jail. I no longer am as enraged and as intent on dying as I was in reaction to continuing this existence. That development feels like a huge defeat. When I deluded myself that I had the courage and dignity to end this, I felt a degree of self worth and self-determination. Now that it is clear that I exist only at the whim of the court, the police and whatever it is that t and swan will tolerate lest they call 9-1-1, I feel such a sense of shame and worthlessness, I want only to not exist..............except that, of course, I lack what it takes to take that step.

Our interactions here between the three of us are more pleasant and much more affectionate. We are not continually fighting.......which means I am not fighting as continually. It became clear in the aftermath of Sue's and my confrontation last weekend, that she and t are pretty content with however it is that I feel, so long as I don't make life uncomfortable for them. The fact is I can be angry with them forever if I choose to, it helps nothing........and besides by what right would someone as despicable as I, have to be angry with anyone for anything.

I have 13 days before I stand before the court again for yet another pre-trial. Who knows what if anything I will have to do or suffer as a result of that. At least this time I will (at least at the beginning of the proceeding) not stand before them barefoot in only pajamas and hogtied in wrist and ankle chains. My attorney is hopeful, although he is unable to describe what a hopeful outcome might entail. It is entirely possible, and perhaps likely, I could, at the least, be mandated to undergo months and possibly years of electronic surveillance, probation, treatment by assholes who have no understanding of anything but genetic alcoholism, and who superimpose that projection onto everyone, and immersion in the alcohol-centric religious cult. There is a good deal of potential too that nothing will be resolved at this next hearing, but continued degrading and expensive electronic pre-trial supervision monitoring (my present status in that I am technically still "innocent") none of which may be credited against my eventual sentence......or diversion program.

My therapist gave me the latest in personality inventories. I came out as narcissistic, hystrionic, controlling, dominant, sadist who is currently experiencing, transitorially, PTSD and anxiety. I am always amazed at psychometry's amazing degree of accuracy.

My therapist is uncertain where she and I should go in terms of goals. The personality test was part of a diagnostic "fishing expedition" in that regard. It turns out that she has a good bit of experience working with people in jail and recovering from jail. She assures me my reaction is normal and not nearly as severe as many. She further tells me that recovery takes time and that my unique personality type (as documented by the peronsality inventory just completed) is prone to react with greater pain, than most, to the experience I have had. She has worked with me enough to clarify that she is convinced I am not a "genetic alcoholic." She thinks of course that the safest way of dealing with drinking is total abstinence, but is not convinced that I must absolutely never ever drink again. She, by the way, it turns out, is an avowed genetic alcoholic, who is now a moderate drinker, after 20+ years of total abstinence and has a very successful and healthy life. It will be interesting to see where we go from here, she and I.

We are on the verge of what appears to be a horrid Christmas. It is the first for me to include no alcohol in 41 years. It is not difficult for me to be restricted from alcohol for other holidays. They are all really just another day with super-imposed festivities of one sort or another. Somehow Christmas has always had this mystical wondrous quality for me. I guess I never recovered from believing in Santa Claus. This is really the first "healthy" Christmas for me since my gastric bypass surgery. Last Christmas I was only about three weeks out from recovering from my emergency bowel obstruction surgery and post operative complications. Then we sent sue out to Denver to visit with her new grand baby immediately before Christmas. She returned for the holiday feeling quite neurotic and determined to end our relationship and family. So the 2009 Christmas holiday was never "real" for me. Now I have the holiday with no ability to feast, no ability to drink, unless I want to be immediately hauled off to jail, the first Christmas since my father died, the first Christmas since my daughter ended our relationship, and the first Christmas since I lost my career, and the first Christmas I have been unemployed in 43 years. Too, there is the stress and sadness surrounding t's Mom who has just entered hospice care, and whose future is at best unclear, as was our situation with my Dad last Christmas. I wish I could just close my eyes and, if I must wake up at all, awaken again January 15, when all this is forgotten in the head long rush into the new year.

Sue is taken with my therapist's discussing what it is we need to do as a family to restore what we had prior to October 28 and the ensuing disastorus cascade of events, or what it is, of what we had, we want to survive this upheaval. Sue generally discusses this in terms of our need for us to return to our "D/s." I am stuck trying to imagine how we do D/s, now that it is clear that D/s means that she and t make the major decisions in terms of how I live my life, how I pursue pleasure, with whom I relate and how, etc. as has become clear over the past year. Sue is responding to this by saying that everything that has been posted here at The Heron Clan has been a lie, and she is going to delete this Blog.....to shut it down. I am feeling that what has happened the last 8+ years was not a lie for me. She and t can wreck my present, and have eliminated my future, but they do not get to destroy my past as well.

She has just ordered two books from Amazon that are written by a clinical psychologist who is purportedly the leading figure in emotion cantered family (couples)therapy, in families effected by PTSD. We are discussing the three of us reading them, perhaps to each other over the holiday. Wouldn't It be interesting if we are able to provide some assistance ourselves in untying this giant family "KNOT."

So that is where I am at present in all this. We shall see how things proceed.

Tom

5 comments:

  1. At the risk of sounding very Polly Ann-ish... couldn't this Christmas be a beginning rather than an ending?

    I do not .. nor will I .. point out all the things you have to be grateful for.. You know them as well - if not better - than I do.

    I hope that one day - soon - you will come to recognize the love and support that surrounds you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:03 AM

    I love you more than anything in the world. I have promised, repeatedly, that I will never dial 911 again. If you are injured, I will duck tape you and haul you to the hospital. If you have a heart attack, I will bundle you in the car with asprin, and drive like a madwoman to the hospital. We are never going to be what we were before but we can, together, work at being better than we were.

    I am so scared of losing you, Sue, and Mom, that I can hardly breath sometimes. You are my family. You mean everything to me. I am fighting hard for us, please fight with me. We are important and valuable. Together we can get thru this. We might need some outside help, and for every step forward, we take 2 steps back, but we will get there. I just know it. I know you think I am being a Pollyanna about all of this, but I HAVE to believe we are worth all of the work and love we have put into this relationship.

    I love you, Tom. I will do whatever it takes for us to remain "us". The 3 of us are worth it.

    Mores & Mores, T

    ReplyDelete
  3. Generally, as a matter of policy here, we don't tolerate comments from anonymous commenters. They are usually mean-spirited, specious, spam, and add nothing to the conversation other than harassment of anyone who engages in sincere conversation. These comments are generally summarily deleted without even being fully read. Occasionally we get an anonymous comment that is identified by some semblence of a signatory symbol. Such is the case with the comment by the anonymous commenter above identifying him/herself as 'B'.

    Rarer still, than our allowing anonymous comments to be archived here, are occasions when we honor them with some sort of response.

    The flagrancy of B's comment above in its irrationality and condescension makes failing to call attention to it too great a temptation to pass by.

    B you read in this post, "I have the holiday with no ability to feast, no ability to drink, unless I want to be immediately hauled off to jail, the first Christmas since my father died, the first Christmas since my daughter ended our relationship, and the first Christmas since I lost my career, and the first Christmas I have been unemployed in 43 years. Too, there is the stress and sadness surrounding t's Mom who has just entered hospice care, and whose future is at best unclear, as was our situation with my Dad last Christmas."

    In an amazing demonstration of inability to reason, you respond to this list of emotional challenges I/we face this next week with, "It is not right to put food and alcohol before your loved ones." Somehow out of what I wrote you have managed to glean that my issues are primarily about whehter or not I can feast or drink. This would not stand were it offered as a fourth grade English exercise.

    I have written here the last month and a half as a release. I find that when I am most upset I get some relief from seeing my thoughts and feelings written out here. I find too, that it works better for me to see them on our blog where I know others will see them. Writing them out for my eyes only, and then deleting them, doesn't seem to help me. I have come to expect that the vast majority of reactions to those by commenters to me will be derogatory and insulting. That has been the norm. By now I'd be surprised if it were otherwise. There have been a few of these from folks who I previously thought of as friends: friends who I have reached out to support and help during crises in their lives, to be responded to negatively now, that I have found hurtful......but quite frankly I am in enough pain, at this point, there is little additiional pain that even registers with me.

    This comment was so entirely ludicrously inane, illogical, and nonsensical, that I cannot resist shining light on it.

    B then goes on, with the facade of wanting good for us, to tell me that I lack the character to ever survive this (how very helpful!) and to suggest that we would be better off if t and s were to leave me.

    B I would never be as judgmental as you were of me. I don't need to be. You have clearly demonstrated both your character and intellect here for all to see and we will "honor" you by chronicling your input here permanently for all to see exactly who and what you are. Too bad you lacked the courage to really tell us who you are so you could claim full credit.

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
  4. Some of you may note that a number of anonymous comments have disappeared from this post's comments section. I deviated from our usual policy of not tolerating anonymous comments, and even responded to some (forgetting the old "don't try to teach pigs to sing" adage.) It is a policy I should never have deviated from.

    I am not going to debate whether I should be allowed to have the emotions I have, or if my emotions are correct or appropriate, on my own blog, with commenters who are too cowardly to even identify themselves (or anyone else for that matter.)

    Those of you who are advocating that I should somehow stop being so negative and just start healing, as though this was a matter of holding onto, and being unforgiving, of some past hurt are totally not understanding my/our circumstances. This is far from over. The courts have only begun their process. I am still potentially facing up to a year in prison, thousands of dollars in fines and court costs (which we don't have) on top of the $5000.00 we've already borrowed (with no hope of repayment) for attorneys, etc. A "favorable" outcome might entail years of probation and electronic monitoring also costing thousands of dollars and hugely limiting my/our lives. I am not able to even imagine a return to my career because having this on my record would prevent me from any position in my profession. All of this is in response to my making an unfortunate comment in an IM, swan's misunderstanding it and her not realizing that if one called 9-1-1 it would generate a police response.

    This, why don't you just move on, put this past you and heal," message is like encoutering a man in an ally 1/3 of the way through being beaten and mugged by a group of assailants and as they continue beating him, saying, "Why don't you just put this behind you and heal." It is so unrealistic, it defies any logic or sense.

    At any rate, my tolerance of comments by anonymous commenters telling me my feelings in all this are "wrong" is over.

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous8:50 PM

    Fair enough, it's your blog.
    And I can see how you took my post, it wasn't intended that way.

    If I can summarise ... when I was at my lowest, I broke things down into very basic facts. That's how I coped with it.

    I can see that what I wrote came across in a way I didn't intend, I'm sorry for that.

    Anyway, I did not mean to trash any of you and I do actually hope you can survive as a family. How you took my words-? well I can't do anything about that except state again that they were not meant in the way you took them.

    If you would like an email address I am happy to send it to you, I'm not remaining anonymous because of cowardice. I simply don't have any profiles on the net and couldn't be bothered creating one!

    still wishing you the best, I will not post again, I don't have the knack of expressing myself in a constructive way apparently :/

    B

    ReplyDelete

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