The day has dawned, and with it I awoke feeling renewed, refreshed. Myself. I’m no longer freaked out by my ex’s situation. I have always known this was coming, though I hoped it would not.

I remember one night my bff and I were coming home from somewhere and she asked me if I’d ever seen the campus of the state mental hospital where she worked. I had not. We were going right by it so we took a detour and she showed me around, in the car.

It is such a nice facility, with well-kept grounds, a number of dorms, shops etc, for those who live there. She told me you have to be basically destitute to get in there. At the time, my ex was in the process of losing his home, and his business. I knew then that the house was because he had convinced people to loan him money he couldn’t pay back. He’s very persuasive. The business he lost because he just didn’t work. He stayed home and drank, and left it to people unequipped for the task of running a business.

Anyway, as we drove around, and she told me how you can’t have anything to get in there, I said, “Oh this is where my ex is going to end up.” I didn’t mean it as a joke, and neither of us laughed. She knows, she lived through the demise of my marriage and his subsequent journey to the place he is now.

It’s sad, but it’s his journey. I couldn’t help him. I told him more than once, maybe a dozen times, “You are going to die old and sick and all alone, because you push away the people who love you.” I also told him, when he began to devise some scenario in his head that was completely off the wall, “You make up stuff in your head, and then we have to live as if it’s true.” Usually that would stop him, and he’d at least let it go a little. Most of the time, he refused to listen to me, and thought I was out to make him look bad. I blamed the alcoholism.

Now, it feels like I am the only person he trusts. He called yesterday, and left a voice mail to say “hi”. It was shortly after my friend left him. I have the number blocked, but this morning, I am wondering if I should make an attempt to convince him to take his meds, and do what they ask of him. I feel quite strong enough to do it, but really, in the end, I’m not sure it would be the right thing to do for me. This morning I feel detached from him, I know he’s sick, and that he’s in a place that will care for him as well as can be. I just don’t know. If I talk to him, I might be just feeding his delusion. At the same time, he might be convinced to take his meds. However, it would only be temporary, because he probably won’t remember that he even talked to me within hours.

So, no, I guess not. I will leave it to the professionals. They may have to get a court order to force his meds on him. That sounds so ugly, but my friend who’s the psychiatric nurse tells me it’s done on a regular basis for people with paranoid delusions.

He sounds so pathetic in his messages. Weak, and confused, and grasping at the last straws of his life. I feel for him, I really do. When I left him, I only felt relief. I never missed him for a second, I mean who would miss someone who abused them on a daily basis? But I believe in unconditional love, meaning you don’t get to pick and choose who you love. I can feel the caring for him bubble up, but it’s tempered by the knowledge that he is one of those people I can’t have in my life, that even from the confines of his hospital room, he will only bring chaos to me.

I’ll leave it be. If the staff asks for my help, I’ll give it. I won’t offer it up to him, unbidden. I’ll send up my prayers for him, and let the universe drive his train, as I let it drive mine.

Love and light to all.