Caught my friend Steve in some more lies today.  Didn’t mean to, just stumbled upon the information (someone casually told me something that  made as much clear).  I see no reason to confront him further.  He knows now, that I’m aware of his tendency to bullshit.  But, maybe, he really does have himself convinced that I don’t know anymore than I’ve let on.  I just don’t see the point in hashing out every lie he’s told.  I know he does this for attention because he’s not well.  I was never gonna call him out on any of it.  I just wanted him to stop bombarding me with his manufactured drama.  But, he said, "I don’t lie," in an argument, and I snapped.  Because, he didn’t just lie.  He stabbed me in the back, hard core, gossiping about the most intimate details of my life.  Then, he knew he’d done something wrong, so he tried to create an elaborate lie to cover that – saying this scumbag guy had come to him, knowing all this stuff, and that he didn’t know how dude knew.  I now know he didn’t just talk to Mariain front of the scumbag.  He actually took him aside, and told him EVERYTHING, just to gossip. 

What’s hillarious is that he’s often called our mutual friend, Maria, a liar, and an idiot.  She wasn’t dishonest, or stupid abput this situation.  She copped to what she did right away (having discussed my business with Steve, within ear shot of th scumbag) , and was forgiven accordingly.  If he weren’t a sick person, I’d never consider forgiving Steve for this.  Strangely, now that I’ve called him out on it, I’m having a harder time getting past it.  At least, now he knows that I’m onto hi bullshit, and that there’s a damn good reason for my impatience with all the drama he creates (beyond my concern for him, which is still there, but a little muddled at the moment).  I can be understanding of a lot, when people are sick.  I know my illness has made me hard to live with, at times.  But, where do you draw the line?  If someone’s potentially toxic…  how much do you extend yourself?  I’ve been burned a lot in the past, trying to be a good friend.  I’ve always thought being a good friend and a good person were pretty much the same thing.  Obviously, there’s more to being a good person, than being a good friend, but if you’re not good to your friends… 

So, Charlie’s off work for a few days.  Which is awful, b/c we can’t afford this right now.  Things are just slow at his job, and we’re fighting to get our shit together, so we don’t wind up losing everything.  If we pull it together now, I may still be able to work things out.  But. if we don’t…  I don’t know what’s gonna happen.  I know there are some people around these parts who are really unsympathetic to addiction.  Someone said to me, not to long ago, that if I  have money for drugs, I have money to pay my bills.  Nevermind the fact that what I spend on drugs wouldn’t save the day financially – it’s just not that simple.  This person claimed to understand these things, but obviously doesn’t.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t have made such an overly simplistic statement.  (This wasn’t a post on a blog, or anything, so don’t bother searchig for it – for those of you who bother to look up references in other people’s blogs, the way I do.)  This was the same person who told me, without ever seeing me sick, that my stomach prob is just an excuse.  Which is kind of perversely humorous to me, b/c right around the time that was said, I was spiralling into the worst sickness I’ve dealt with in recent years.  My stomach flairs up all the time.  It’s so hard to kick, with all this pain.  I know I can’t let it stop me – I have to find other ways to cope with it.  The pain feels like my stomach acid is actually hydrochloric acid, trying to burn through the middle of me, and my intestines spasm, and I writhe around in agony, with sheets of sweat pouring off me, and I vomit every few minutes.  I told this person that, and they said, "there are antacids for that."  Can you believe that?  Antacids…  for that…  obviously, if a Tums would fix it, I’d have a million of the damn things in my house. 

The doctors give me Zofran – an anti-nausea drug that was created for chemo patients to control their nausea.  It’s really expensive, but a generic came out this last year.  But, it’s just a symptom treater, and it doesn’t always stem a bad attack.  Right now,  don’t even have the Zofran, b/c the depression gets so crippling when I’m in a spiral like this that I don’t get around to taking care of anything.  Especially myself…  doctor appointments…  I can barely get myself to prepare food, when I’m the only one here.  Things are bleak, right now, in a lot of ways, but I’ll find a way through it. 

I always have before.  I’m a scrapper.  That’s one of the reasons Charlie loves me.  I never stop fighting, no matter how beat up, and worn down I am.  I may lay down and cry for a while, and I may not do all that I should, but I never give up, and I usually manage to claw my way through (though, I do, at times, claw my way towards what I want, instead of what I need). 

I think it all goes back to that awful day, when I was thirteen, and I had just been raped, and beaten for eight hours.  The guy stabbed, me, and I was bleeding really badly.  I managed to leave the building, and stumble a block and a half to a friend’s (I was too hysterical to ask just anyone for help).  The doctors couldn’t figure out how I’d managed to walk at all, given the nature and severity of my injuries.  But, walking, battered, bleeding, and broken, was the only way out.  It was the only way through.  It was that…  or giving up.  I could’ve laid down, and died.  And, with every step, I felt my weight pulling me to the ground.  Weak as a baby, and heavy as lead…  I wasn’t going to be defeated by that bastard.  I wasn’t going to let him think that he got me to give in.  I never cried or screamed, through the whole ordeal for the same reason.  I knew he wanted me to.  He wanted to break me.  I knew he might kill me, but I wasn’t going to give him anymore satisfaction than that.  He wasn’t going to hear me cry, or beg, or scream. 

I don’t know how I held it in.  A lot of it blurs together in my head, now.  I remember grabbing a chair, from behind my head on the floor, and hitting him with it.  I didn’t think I’d get away, but I wanted to hurt him, anyway I could.  I bit him.  I hit him.  But, I never cried.  I just swore and spit, and eventually, got quiet.  When he left me alone in the room, I wondered if he thought I was dead, or if he was just taunting me – letting me think I could get out, when he really planned to stop me.  And, when I dragged myself to the door, I felt him behind me.  I felt his breath on the back of my neck as he got closer.  I froze, and he told me I could leave.  He said, he was letting me go, and that he wanted me to survive, and to try to forget about him.  And, that when I had moved on, and forgotten, he’d be there to remind me…  and, he’d cut my f@$%ing head off.  I left.  I did recover.  And, he never did, of course, come back to cut my head off.  He got his.  No retribution on my part – what went around, just kind of came around, I guess.  But, of course, you never get over something like that.  I’m always gonna be defensive.  I’m always gonna be overly-sensitive – it’s kind of sadly funny, but my ability to control my emotions eroded after that day (after having had such discipline – not weeping, or crying out, at all during the attack).  I’ve been extremely sensitive and mercurial ever since. 

I know I’m pretty messed up, but I think my husband is under the impression that I’m worse than I really am.  He always knew it was bad, while I was in denial, so that could still be the case.  But, I think he sees me as being nuttier than I really am, and there are all these things we can’t talk about, which means that I can’t talk about this shit, which makes me feel misunderstood and resentful.  I know I have no rational cause to resent him, but I’m talking about knee jerk feelings – the stuff you bury, and don’t talk about, b/c you know it’s unfair, or it makes no sense, but you feel it anyway.  Stuff like jealousy…  I resent him, in that way.  In a quiet, stupid way that I know is unfair, and makes no sense.  I resent him b/c he didn’t confront me (that he instead made that tape), but I know he was in an absurd situation, and didn’t know what to do.  He was in a lot of pain.  Pain I caused…  but I resent him for a number of things, I guess…  things he didn’t protect me from…  things he took away from me…  and, the fact that he saw me becoming more and more unhinged and said NOTHING until it hurt him, directly. 

He let me get this sick, and on some level, I can’t help but wonder if he avoided the subject b/c he then would’ve had to acknowledge that by getting high with me, he was knowingly participating in something that was making me worse.  That by introducing me to the drug, he’d helped me to unravel everything in my life that had been going well for me, up to then, including whatever weak hold I had left on my sanity.  I was a broken human being when we got together.  I’d just walked out of a physically and emotionally abusive relationship, and the guy was still tormenting me (my self esteem was so far gone, I actually felt guilty for leaving – he’d threaten to hurt himself, and I’d feel so badly, and I even felt badly for falling for Charlie).  Everyone knows that hard drugs exacerbate mental illness.  And, Charlie saw it happening.  He knew it was bad, and that I wasn’t facing that.  He just let it go.  Only calling me out on my instability after he busted me with Quinn.  And, he suspected something between me and Quinn ages before anything went down.  If he’d come to me, back then…  I know it’s not his fault.  I know that.  I really do.  This just seems like a safe place to vent all this madness that’s bouncing around in my head.  He’s flawed, and I’ve always known that, but he’s a very special guy, and I love him.  That’s what I need to concentrate on, right now.  That, and taking care of myself…  maybe, I just need to get the hell over this shit. 

I’m just saying too much about everything, today.  All apologies, people…