A letter to Glenn in rehab. March 25, 2008

This is the first letter that I wrote to Glenn in rehab. 

Dear Glenn,

Hi baby!  I have been thinking for a couple of days about what I’m going to write… and I am still unsure.  First of all, I miss you… madly.  I wish that you would have written a little more about the program, but I guess there are future letters for that.  I’m so glad you eventually decided to go down there.  I want you to recover so badly.  You have so much to offer the world, and the people around you, when you are clean and healthy.

 I guess the next topic is the important one.  I couldn’t for a second tell you that I don’t love you… because I do still adore you.  I don’t think that is enough right now.  I know that you are making an effort to realize the huge effects this has had on my life, and the other people around you, but I don’t know if you can fully grasp what the last year has been like for me.  Simply finding out that you were a heroin addict caused such a huge amount of turmoil for me, but it goes so far beyond that.  I don’t think you understand the emotional implications of thinking, for months, that every time I talked to you very well could be the last or what it feels like to stay up almost every night for 2 weeks talking to you on the phone so that you don’t commit suicide or how terrible it is to be 2000 miles away making panicked phone calls to try and get you to a hospital before you bled to death.  These things, and many others, have left horrible scars on me.  I’m a broken person.  At this point, I have nothing to give.  Not to you.  Not to anyone else. 

I spent so much of the last few years being your caretaker that I neglected myself.  I let myself get to a spot that I don’t ever want to be again and right now I am trying to recover from that.  I need to spend this time to heal because I have years worth of healing to do.

Glenn, I love you so much.  No matter what happens I want to be involved in your recovery and helping you get well the best I can.  I’m sorry, since I know this is bound to make you upset just like it has for me, but you asked me to be as honest as possible.  So here it is.

I love you so much.

Meg

I finally got a letter from him. March 24, 2008

So I received my first letter from Glenn.  It was short and to the point.  He apologised for all of the pain he has caused me… a few times.  He also said that he felt like he’s losing me and he wants me to make the right decision for me.  He asked that I let him know where I stand as honestly as I can. I appreciate the idea behind it but the whole letter was unmoving.

I’m going to have to write him back but it is hard to determine what to say.  I guess I just need to be clear about how much these last few months and maybe years have effected me emotionally.  I don’t think he understands what it feels like to think that everyday could be the last that you speak to someone before they commit suicide… for months, or how awful it feels to be 2ooo miles away and get a phone call while he is bleeding to death or even the simple fact of knowing that my boyfriend is a heroin addict.  There are so many more things that I could list but what they all come down to is that I am emotionally scarred from this situation and I don’t think that I can handle it anymore.  Those are the things I am going to tell him.  I will also tell him that I will be here for him through out his recovery no matter what happens.  I can’t tell him I don’t love him anymore because that would be so far from the truth.

A few days ago I referred to Glenn as my ex-boyfriend for the first time ever and it made me feel like I was going to throw up.  I hated it. 

Still no phone call. February 2, 2008

Knowing that Thursday was the first day that Glenn could call me was a little nerve racking for me.  Since I’m still fighting with what I am actually going to do, I was conflicted about whether I was going to answer the phone.  What it comes down to is that since it is now Saturday and he hasn’t decided to call me, I’m hurt.  I wasn’t even sure if I was going to talk to him and yet, I am still wounded by him not calling.  It leads me to think that maybe he is getting input from his counselors that maybe speaking to me isn’t the best idea.  But why?

I shouldn’t even be thinking about it.  He and I both should be focusing on ourselves and nothing else.  We both need to make our recovery our top and only priority.  So, I guess in the long run this is a lot better for both of us.  Still, despite all of the horribleness he has put me through, I miss him so much it hurts. 

What your addiction has cost me, a letter to Glenn. January 28, 2008

I spoke to Glenn’s addictions counselor tonight.  After she told me to “keep the conversation light” she also asked me to write something called a “cost letter”.  It’s a letter to Glenn about all of the things his addiction has cost me.  I figured I would share this here.  I haven’t sent it yet and would like any feedback about it.  If anyone has had experience with letters like this please feel free to comment. I have no idea what I should or shouldn’t include.

Dear Glenn,

            I’m supposed to be writing you a letter about how your drug abuse has affected me.  I’m sitting here and I don’t even know where to start.  For almost a decade it has been an ever present looming monster.  Sometimes it’s sleepy and groggy but most of the time it is ravenous.  Over the last eight years, you have become my life.  There is no aspect of our relationship that hasn’t been negatively affected by drugs, which means that my life is up ended every time you start to use again. 

            Your drug use has made me someone I don’t want to be.  I have always trusted you one hundred percent and I liked it that way.  When you started using heroine I was willing to do anything to help you stop, including snooping through your personal things.  It is a horrible feeling to be constantly trying to get a peek at your phone to see if you were contacting your dealer.  I don’t like being that person.  I want to trust you again.  I want to go back to being the person I enjoy being.

Your drug use made me feel foolish and humiliated.  When you were taking Methadone you convinced me that when you would nod off it was because of your Seroquel.  I believed you.  I didn’t know any better.  I watched a show about heroine addicts with you and jokingly said “hey look, that’s how your meds make you look.”  In retrospect it’s still embarrassing.

Over the past eight years I have spent so many sleepless nights wondering if tomorrow would be the day that I would get the call, the call saying that you were dead.  Dead from suicide, overdose, a bar fight, etc.  I can never sleep a whole night with out thinking about what you are doing.  Are you drinking or doing drugs.  Is tonight going to be one of the nights that I stay up all night talking to you on the phone so I can make sure you are ok?  Or is it going to be one of those times where I don’t hear from you and can’t get a hold of you.  Then I sit there and wonder if I should get in my car and drive two hours to make sure you are ok.  Or maybe it will be one of those nights where you call me, filled with anger and hate and tell me “I’m worthless, just like all your friends” and call me a “whore”.  I never know what the night time hours will bring.  The uncertainty and worry is unbearable.

Because I love you so much, the intensity of the worrying is all consuming.  I can’t focus on my life, school, family, or job.  Every time I sit down to do school work all I can think about is you; what are you doing, are you ok, where are you? 

Whether it is reasonable or not it makes me feel inadequate.  It makes me feel like I wasn’t enough for you.  You couldn’t be happy just being with me.  You needed drugs to make you feel like your life was ok.  No matter what I give I felt like it wasn’t enough because you always needed more.  I felt like our relationship wasn’t reason enough for you to get and stay clean.

We lost birthdays and Christmas’s to your addictions.  Times when people would ask me what you gave me for my birthday or Christmas and my response would have to be “oh, we decided not to give gifts this year” or “oh, he got me something really awesome. He said it’s on the way” only for it not show up, when really what it came down to is you didn’t have any money because you spent it all on drugs.

Your drug use has made me turn from a person who expects the best to someone completely lacking hope.  For eight years it has been promises of new beginnings, only for nothing to change.

Angry January 24, 2008

I feel fucked.  I feel backed in to a corner.  I feel lost and pathetic.  I’m just heading along until something comes to change that.  This whole situation with my boyfriend is out of control.  I have been more understanding about this whole thing than any normal person would have been.  I can’t imagine feeling so hopeless that you are willing to take up heroin because you think there is nothing you can do.  I have only felt helpless a few times in my life and it is a really horrendous emotion.  I know that his decisions aren’t made with the same logical thought that I, or most other people, would have but that doesn’t change the seriousness of them.  I have only told a few people about this and that’s because there is nothing to say.  As humans we talk about things with  others because we are looking for direction, guidance, opinions.  There is nothing to say about this situation that will be helpful to me at all.  The only logical response would be “RUN MEG, RUN” but that certainly isn’t helpful.

Things are finally starting to feel like they have the potential to get better.  I feel guilty because I’m angry.  Despite all of the reading I have done and everything I know about bipolar, I still can’t attribute all of the things he does to it.  I know that it is unreasonable but I take a lot of the things personally.  I feel like his drug use, which apparently has been much more rampant than I thought, is something he “did” to me.  It makes me feel like our relationship wasn’t reason enough for him to stop.  I feel like he made me look like a fool.  I know in the logical portion of my brain that that is ridiculous, but I can’t seem to help it. 

Hopeful but not confident… January 21, 2008

So, tomorrow is the big day.  He is finally leaving the short term facility to go to a long term place.  I’m not sure how I feel about it.  I was so happy he was going to get the help he needed but it appears at this point that he is going to a facility that focuses on rehab.  I know that he needs rehab services but I was hoping he would go somewhere that focused on mental illness and additionally had rehab services but the place he is going is exactly the opposite.  I am still optomistic that this will help him.  I guess we will see.

Finally January 16, 2008

He’s safe.  Atleast for now.  He is in a short term facillity for the next few days and then he is transfering to a long term place.  I’m so glad that he was willing to do this.  I know that, more than anything else, he is afraid that this won’t work.  Then what?  Does he resign himself to this being his life forever?  I don’t think that is somehting he is willing to do.  He deserves more than that from his life.  So do I.

I always think it can’t get worse. January 13, 2008

For the last two years, I have consistently thought “well, at-least it can’t get any worse than this”.  I am always proven wrong.  Alcohol abuse, depression, psychiatric hospitals, suicide attempts, self harm, complete psychosis, coke, heroine…  The list goes on and on.  For the last few months, every day is more difficult than the last.  I feel like an inconsiderate cry baby about this.  This whole situation affects my life but I can’t imagine what it does to his.  This is his life.  He has no option to walk away.  His only prospect is potentially controlling the disease enough that he doesn’t want to die everyday.  I can’t imagine that being my life.  I don’t think he can either, and that is part of the problem.  We found a place that specializes in dual diagnosis (mental illness and addiction).  This is pretty much our last ditch effort.  His father is offering to pay for it.  It’s about time he gets involved.  Everyone in his family wants to pretend like they are concerned with his well being, but they aren’t.  No one wants to be fully involved.  Being involved means knowing what meds he is on, what his dosages are, when he has to take them, who his doctors are and how to contact them, how often he is supposed to see them, how to deal with an emergency situation with him, and what his signs that serious trouble is brewing are.  No one wants to do anything that they find inconvenient.  So, as a college student with two jobs, that is all left up to me.  I know all of those things.  I deal with every crisis he has.  I leave school and drive two hours when that’s what he needs even though his father lives 35 minutes away from him.  I call out of work to bring him clothes in the hospital.  I make all the phone calls to hospitals to make sure he is getting the meds he needs.  I stay up all night talking to him and keeping him from doing something drastic.  I love him so I am willing to do these things, but it is sucking the life out of me.  I can barely complete my school work because I am exhausted from staying up all night or driving 4 hours round trip to help him out on a school day.  I do the best I can but the more exhausted I become the less I can do.  Soon, my best isn’t going to be good enough.  I have nothing left to  give.

I’m away… and it’s terrible. January 13, 2008

So, I have been away on vacation for 6 days, and it has been terrible.  My boyfriend has completely melted down.  On Wednesday he called me and said that he cut himself “worse than he should have”.  I didn’t even know what that meant.  Apparently he cut the back of his hand and severed some veins.  He didn’t seem to think tht it would bleed all that much.  He was wrong.  It wasn’t a suicide attempt but if I hadn’t made some phone calls and sent someone over to take him to the hospital, he would have let himself bleed to death.  Since then things have not gotten any better.  He quit taking his meds and every night he is self medicating with alcohol… or whatever he can afford.  I get calls in the middle of the night from him.  I end up talking to him for hours because I am concearned that he will not make it through the night if I don’t.  Then I get calls from his friends telling me that he is out of control.  What am I supposed to do about it?  I’m 1200 miles away!  Every time I can’t get a hold fo him for a couple hours, I am convinced that he has attempted suicide.  Finally I got a hold of him today and apparently in an wrestling arguement with a friend he tore a bunch of ligaments in his leg.  I don’t think that he will make it through another night like the last few.  Hopefully we are getting him in to a long term in patient program. 

It’s been horrible.  I can’t do anything to help him but he expects me to fix things no matter where I am. 

Worrying January 6, 2008

I’m going away for two weeks and I am scared to death that my bf is going to commit suicide in the time that I am gone.  I asked him today if he thought he was going to be ok while I was gone and he kindly reassured me that he would be fine.  Unfortunately, his reassurances mean very little.  I know that he wants me to be able to enjoy my mini vacation and not worry about him every second.  So I think he would say whatever makes that most likely to happen.  Seeing as there is nothing I can do, I will have to put the thought out of my mind and simply be there for him while I am away.