Jumbled Indeed......My prespective

Now that sue has courageously risked sticking her head above the fox hole to share her present reality here, I will follow with my present life experience and reaction to some of what others have written in response to her post "Jumbled Up."

As sue communicated in posts the end of the summer, things here had taken a turn for the better.  It seemed the combination of time, and the love of all three of us, and work with our therapist, and even exploration in the realm of shamanism, had all combined to create a good bit of healing compared to what had been.  We were happier and more satisfyingly bonded than any time since this all began two years ago.  I conveyed this in a post entitled So How I Am (August 29).

As sue returned to school, and I came to be alone again weekdays in my "retirement" I started to slip.  Then shortly thereafter I was summoned for jury duty to court where I was incarcerated.  Being summoned by the court, returning there to the cops and the metal detectors, and that venue triggered my reverting to PSTD symptoms.  That makes no sense.  I know that.  That knowledge doesn't remove the sudden resurgence of fear, paranoia, anxiety, guilt, self-hatred, flash backs, night mares, hyper vigilance, obsessive reliving of events, humiliation, anger, and on and on...As my jury call went by in an abortive call up to serve (I have to go back again next Monday for a new round of potential "service"), we moved on into October.  Approaching the October 28 anniversary of my first dance with the police, my symptoms became worse and worse until eventually I reached out to resume work with my therapist..  I have now been meeting with her again for two weeks and anticipate continuing that.  The last few days I have actually felt some better again.  It is odd the way symptoms seem to come in waves.  Sometimes it is like a fog clearing and suddenly things seem fine for a while and then again, suddenly, just as inexplicably, I am back "in the despair fog" again.

I have been intrigued at the commenters who have questioned what would have happened had there been no 9-1-1 call that day.  I have looked back at my planner page for that day.  What would have happened was I would have gone to Walmart for some groceries we needed, I would have exercised, I would have taken the trash out, I would have gotten the mail, likely I would have read on the Internet a good bit, and  have had further IM chat with sue and phone conversation with t at her work.  It was 10:00 in the morning that day.  I was not drunk or agitated and I had at that point not had PTSD.  Instead I came to be hunted by police and dogs with flak vests and rifles.  I was held in handcuffs and searched amidst a circle of several police cars and about a dozen police, roughed up mildly, and harassed.  I was almost taken to jail but even they could not get me to behave in a way that they could twist into a basis for that.  That is the answer to the question what would have happened without the 9-1-1 call and, in contrasting reality, what actually occurred as a result.

There too are commenter reactions that it is so sad that I can't understand what motivated sue to call 9-1-1.  I do.  Sue loved and loves me still.......god knows why.  She became afraid that I was going to harm myself.  That too makes no sense to me.....but it doesn't, or didn't, have to.  It was her reality.  She didn't understand that police are nothing but highly paid, well-armed, well-trained, abusive thugs who never do anything but make any situation they involve themselves in exponentially worse.  I have had a difficult time imagining that naiivite. My lack of understanding of that reality doesn't matter....she didn't know that.  She actually believed somehow she was being helpful..........protective,  THIS WAS NOT HER FAULT.  SHE IS NOT GUILTY.  MY PTSD IS NOT HER FAULT.  IF IT IS ANYONE'S RESPONSIBILITY IT IS MINE.  I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN FEEL MY FEELINGS, CHANGE MY FEELINGS, BE WHO I AM.  I UNDERSTAND WHY SHE CALLED.  THAT UNDERSTANDING DOES NOT CHANGE MY MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES.  IF I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND IT, THAT WOULD NOT CHANGE MY PTSD EITHER. THE UNDERSTANDING FACTOR IS IRRELEVENT TO THE FEELINGS.

The other huge issue we are struggling with is sue continues to feel that my feeling this way means I don't love her. If I loved her enough, then I would be happy and my unhappiness is, she feels, a repudiation of my feelings for her and our relationship.  It is not.  But that is her perception, belief, and feeling.  She too believes that means I don't trust her and am holding this against her.  She also cannot understand that my "getting" why she did this does nothing to change what I am dealing with.
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After the events of that day, I became hugely upset, paranoid, enraged, violent, and quite frankly very nuts.  All of this was worsened horribly by my drinking. The effects of my drinking were ratcheted up hugely by my roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery.   I needed help.  I needed treatment....not primarily substance abuse treatment, but that too.  I didn't get that.  What I got was two subsequent arrests, one of them violent,
3 days solitary confinement (labeled as suicide watch), two convictions, probation, and what can only be described benevolently as a program of alcohol forced re-education, mandated participation in an alcohol obsessed religious cult for over a year, months of electronic ankle cuff/breatholizer monitoring, and over a year of probation.  I also then, with help from my family, got therapy.

Despite the best efforts of the alcoholism treatment professionals and the cult members to teach me to become a cyclical recidivist, I am sober today for 1 year, 9 months, and 5 days.  I don't have anyway to extend that time period any faster than 24 hours each day.  I don't know that that is very seminal to all of this, but it does prevent that from being a further aggravation. I feel generally better in overall health without alcohol, and it removes a further source of concern for my family.

So that is where I am.  I want to be better.  My life has not been worth living most of the time since October 28, 2010.  I am trying to do what I am told helps this.  I am so sorry that my family and particularly sue has to live with this (since she seems to be really much more unhappy about all this and spends the most time with me... compared to t who, while concerned, sees progress from where we were two years ago, and is generally optimistic).

I don't know if this does anything but further document this story, but it is what "is" for me now and some of my reactions to what I have read here.

Tom