Tears, bitter and sweet,
Fall into my lap
Making my hands too slippery to grasp
Anything.

The things I wanted to hold onto
Slide through my fingertips,
The things I never wanted found me anyway
Scarring me as they slide away from my feeble grip
Leaving me afraid and bleeding,
With only tears now to heal them.

I loved you, ’tis true.
And still.
But it’s a void, vacant for me,
There is no ying to my yang.
No joy to my sorrow,
No sorrow to my joy.
It’s a lonely place
Loving someone who can’t.

There was hope,
For a brief moment.
It was all I had, but it was enough
For that moment.
Then it was gone
In a terrible, terrifying instant.
I can’t even fathom why I had it at all
Considering our history,
Passionate and cold
Ending every time before it could really begin.
But I did.
Suffice to say,
I did.

I don’t any more.

By Deborah E. Dayen

As the day dawns today, I realize that April is almost over. The summer heat and rains are on their way to Florida. Not much will change in my life. I’ll spend more time indoors in the day, and maybe sit on my deck in the early morning, or the evening hours.

Florida needs siesta time in the middle of the day, like they had in Cancun when we visited in 1977. I suppose they still do. That was my first experience with siesta. I remember marveling at how everything in town closed for a few hours in the middle of the day. What a nice custom, I thought. To rest in the day and stay up late, dancing under the stars, or wandering the beach. I remember coming back to my life and wanting to go take a nap in the middle of the afternoon every day for awhile. But you know, life here didn’t allow for that.

Now that I’m retired, I do quite often allow myself a short nap in the day. The nights I don’t sleep well are not so aggravating because I know I don’t have to go put in a 10 hour day. I can pretend I’m in Mexico, and sleep.

It’s odd to me that with all the stress of the past week, I am sleeping pretty well. It’s almost as if the things I was afraid would happen did, and now that they have, I don’t have to worry about them happening. I have to deal with some of them, and will on a continuous basis for awhile, but I don’t have to have that fear that they will happen. I don’t even know if that makes sense.

The friendship that was ended, was not really a friendship. There were not two balanced sides, there was not equal give and take, there was not both of us being there for each other. So, I knew it could not last, though I wanted it to. I will miss some things about it, but not the rude awakenings I’ve had a few times with that person. I hope they get some help for their issues, so they are not alone forever.  Having the end of this happen, when it did, as it did, allowed me to let go of it, and not wait in anticipation for the next round.

My ex….Lord knows I have always thought that he might end up as he is, at least for the last 20 years. It worried me to death when my son lived with him, after I moved out. I knew then that he would hurt my son to get to me. But now, 10 years later, he has deluded himself so much and so often that he lives within his delusions, makes up one after the other. Not to hurt anyone now. Just, that’s where he lives. He wants to create his own reality in a very egoic sense. And does. And his reality has nothing to do with what is actually going on in the world right outside his personal space.  Having him in the hospital allays my fears that he will hurt himself or someone else with his delusions, and allows me to also let go of that, and just deal with the present.

They had a hearing yesterday at 3 to get the order to give him his meds intravenously. I cannot even imagine the terror inside his demented mind as they come at him with a needle. It’s his worst nightmare. Maybe it will be enough for him to decide to take them orally. But I doubt it, and I imagine he will fight it, fight it hard. I so feel for him, so much sorrow that he has ended up where he is. How could I live with someone 40 years and not feel his pain, and confusion, about what has happened to his life?

I did what I did 10 years ago to save myself and my son. But it sent him into a downward spiral, to have what he believed to be a carefully crafted life that he was in control of, fall apart. He felt so entitled to treat me the way he did, and never thought for a second that I had the option of just walking away. I see that now. Of course, I’m so glad I did it 10 years ago, so glad that I finished it before he had a chance to destroy everything we’d built together, and before he had actually descended into madness. I survived, and so did my son. Now we both thrive, and isn’t that the best thing, the only thing, that matters? That we live out our lives well?

I would help him if I could, and for that matter, I’d help the friend that I had to dissassociate myself from, if I could. But the help they need has to come from professionals, not from someone who just loves them. It’s been proven to me enough, that my love for them can’t heal them. Their healing can only come from within. Maybe some day things will turn for them both, maybe some day we can be friends again. I hope for both of them. My own life moves on, I have enough of my own work to do. We are all a work in progress, all of our lives, I think.

Love and light.

Summer’s heat returns

Hot winds blow off the ocean

Steamy evenings.

By Deborah E. Dayen

I sure had my fill of insanity this week.

It started with the drunken phone call from someone I thought was a friend, who turned out to be someone completely different, with different intentions than I had ever thought. I have finished now, deleting all the texts, voice mails, and emails from this person over the last 3 years. I have a lot of blogs about this person, but I don’t have to read them. There is no record of him here, except records of phone calls, but I don’t have to look at those so I’m ok with that.

Then of course, Sunday’s traumatic events with my ex, with all the stuff I had to deal with, in relation to it. That went on through the week. Yesterday though, I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I don’t really want to know any more. I found out they are, and probably have by now, gotten him a court order to force his meds on him by injection. And he hates needles. They will see his temper if they come at him with a needle, but that would probably be a good thing, for them to see him get violently angry. I may call to see where that stands. I only want to keep in touch with them so I’ll know if they’re thinking of releasing him.

Then, Wednesday night. I went to bed sometime between 10:30 and 11, after my friends all left. They’d come over for moral support, and we’d had pizza and wine. It was really nice, to have friends who genuinely were concerned for me. At 12:30 AM someone started banging on my front door. It woke me out of a sound sleep. I waited to hear it again, because some of you know, that weird energy happens to me at times, like my smoke alarm going off, or the phone ringing, and it stops as soon as I’m awake. This time, as I lay there, eyes wide open, disoriented, the knocking happened again. Ok, freaking me out a little. Who the hell is knocking on my front door at 12:30 at night?? And then it happened again.

I got out of bed, and peered through my bedroom curtain. I can’t see the door from there, but could see the step up to my door. As I watched, what appeared to be a young black woman, with a back pack and her hair up on her head, walked off my stoop, and to the end of my driveway, where she stood. Obviously not knowing what to do next. Then she walked across the street, and stood in front of the house across the street. She made motions with her arms, like “What do I do now?” I think perhaps she lives in that house, but it was completely dark, and there were no cars in the driveway, which is unusual, there’s usually one. Then after standing there a few minutes, she walked back across the street diagonally, toward houses farther down the street, and out of my view.

To say it scared the shit out of me is an understatement. Of course, when she was gone, I started worrying about her, like was she in trouble, or danger, or something. Well, there were no cars on the street. She was not trying to hide, not acting like she didn’t want to be seen. It’s possible that she was just locked out of her house. But at any rate, I was not going to answer the door in the middle of the night for someone I didn’t know. I realized that it was a warm night, in the 70’s, and she would not be harmed by sitting outside all night.

But it took me a long while to be able to think about going back to sleep. When I did, my allergies decided it was a good time to swell my sinuses, and may my nose run, and make it impossible to breathe. I can’t sleep and breathe through my mouth. I had taken an allergy med already, didn’t want to take more. I ended up with a few hours of bad sleep.

Yesterday, I had promised to run my friend Pat around so she could get some errands done, because she no longer has a car. I told her to pack some stuff to spend the night here, because we’d be going to open mic and I didn’t want to have to drive her home after. I got about a 45 min. nap before we went, which was just enough to get me through the night. It was so good to just sit there, and melt into the comfy outdoor couch they have. I didn’t even want to talk. I had a glass of jasmine mint tea, did not even want a drink. I totally needed to just mellow out, so that I could sleep last night, and I did. When we got back to my house, we sat on the deck for about 20 minutes, had a piece of apple pie, and a smoke, and went to bed. I slept 8 good solid hours. No nightmares, no one coming into my dreams that I didn’t want there.

Today, my sis is coming to stay with me. We’re going to my friend’s play again, because my sis wants to see it. Tomorrow we’re going to one of the St. Pete beaches for a couple hours. It’s been around 90 here for a couple days, so it’s perfect timing for the beach. Though it will be busy, though when the beaches here are busy it’s like a slow day in New England, lol. Because all the beaches are free and there are many. That will be fun.

There are boat races in the bay this weekend. I just took my walk down on the waterfront, and they have closed many of the streets off along the water. There were tons of vendors setting up, and a kind of boat show of mostly fishing boats. Lots of food vendors too. However, the vendors had taken all of the public parking along the water, which is the majority of the parking in this small town. So I have no idea where people are supposed to park. A few of my friends are playing at one or two of the bars along the water Saturday night and Sunday. I kind of wanted to go see them, but don’t have any idea where we could park.

So all’s well that ends well. My life here is still wonderful, there are challenges but there always will be. As long as I can stay grounded, I’ll be ok.

Love and light.

The golden sparkles
Lit the sky
As your arms encircled me
Pulling me in deeper and deeper.

Where were you in the old days?
You asked
We would have been lovers then.
Yes, and then you’d have run

Now I run from all the terror
All the pain
All the heartache that had no joy
All the ugliness I could not bear.
We are not lovers now
We were not lovers then.

I couldn’t make myself
Take a chance
On something I knew I’d lose at.
It was already lost,
It was gone before it could start.

The common ground beneath
Disintegrated into a dark hole,
and swallowed you into it’s muck.
I held on to the edge and clawed my way out.
I just couldn’t do it one more time.

By Deborah E. Dayen

The days are returning to normal. Tonight a few of my friends came over late in the day. We sat on the deck and drank some wine and ordered pizza delivered. So good to have good girlfriends. We talk about everything. Politics, sex, old lovers, spouses, writing, theater. We are all so different, and so much the same.

I spoke to the social worker at the hospital today. They are going to court to get an order to give him his meds. When they told him, because they have to, he got very angry and combative. They asked him if we wanted an advocate because he’s entitled to one, and he said he didn’t need one, he had a lawyer. He doesn’t. He told them my son wants him home, and was coming to a meeting at 10 am tomorrow at the hospital. She said, “Oh that’s great! We’re looking forward to meeting him.” She said she wonders how he’ll react tomorrow when my son doesn’t show. I said, “Oh, he’ll have a whole new story about it.” I did say though, when she told me how angry he got, “Now you see a little of why we are so concerned about him being released. The meds will stop the second he walks out the door, and you can imagine if someone confronts him.” She agreed, though gave no indication that there would be anything done about it.

My son texted me that his dad called him 12 times this morning. I told him to block the number and he did. I told him, “He’s calling you because he thinks you’re coming to a meeting there tomorrow.” He is beginning to laugh at it, detaching from it. That’s good.

Looking forward to open mic tomorrow. I’m ready for a warm balmy night, just hanging out, good music, no stress, lots of laughter. Same group as tonight, with some additional people, men and women. I hope my open mic night friend comes, I would enjoy the company of a kind, loving centered man for a couple hours.

Love and light to everyone.

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.

At the end of the day, things have calmed down. I have a better understanding of the process of dealing with mental illness, especially when it’s through Medicare. Every state is different but my friend who is a psychiatric nurse, and the social worker, have kind of filled me in on the processes. So there are some avenues to getting him to take his meds, and keeping him confined.

The best thing is knowing I don’t have to talk to him. Or even hear the phone ring when he calls. I can listen to his voice mails if I want, when I want, and won’t be blindsided by his delusions again. That fact alone helped me to calm.

I got down to the water and took a 2 mile walk. They have swings down in the beach front park, like porch swings hanging from a metal frame. I found an empty one in the shade and just sat and rocked and listened to the water, and felt the breeze blowing for about a half hour. I kind of did a meditation, and some self-reiki, and got myself calmed. I realized when I calmed how stressed I had been, over my ex, my niece’s illness, and the obnoxious and arrogant selfish conversation with my now ex-friend on Saturday night, preceding all this chaos followed by a demand I pay attention to his problem Sunday morning. I can still hear him yelling over me, “I don’t want to hear about your problems.” Geezus.

Delete. Lol.

People ask me why I care about what happened to my ex because we’ve been divorced 8 years. One reason is he is my son’s father, and a man I lived with for 40 years. He isolated us so much that I am the only one with the information the psychiatrists and social workers need to make a decision that will keep people safe. Not just my ex, but anyone he may come in contact with. If he’s released, and doesn’t take his meds, which he won’t, and feels backed into a corner because no one will believe his delusions, he could easily turn violent, and has guns and I want to make sure they understand this. As long as I don’t have to talk to him, he cannot trigger old shit in me, at least not to a point where it starts to really affect me. But I do have some PTSD from all those years of abuse, and lies. Now when he starts to tell me one of his stories, I know he’s delusional and very ill, but it still brings back a lot of memories of being manipulated by very similar stories that he made up. When I left him I said that he does not know the difference between truth and a lie. He believes if he says it, it’s true. And now he’s done so much of the lying and fabricating , he’s living within his delusions. It’s sad, and scary to me.

I know it’s upsetting to people who love me that I continue to deal with this. But I’m not dealing with him, it’s the dr’s and social workers that I’m dealing with now. I know what I’m doing, and once I know that they understand, I’ll let it go.

Well it’s off to bed. A few of my girlfriends are coming over tomorrow for moral support. I think we’re going to gab and have Chinese take out. Should be nice.

Love and light, all.

Day 3.

He’s been admitted, he’s an inpatient now at the hospital. This is the psych ward of the regular hospital.

So he’ll be there for awhile anyway, which is good news.

This morning they put me in touch with the social worker assigned to him, so I finally got to talk to someone who knows something. He called me again twice this morning, and I didn’t take the calls. She (social worker) said that’s fine, I don’t have to. He told her I’d been in CT, with my son, that the 3 of us had spent a week together and everything was great and then I went back to FL without telling him. I assured her none of it was true. I gave her a bit more of his delusional history. She said he doesn’t realize you’re divorced, and listed only my son and I as contact people. I gave her his sisters name and number.

I called my bff who works with the mentally ill at the state mental hospital. She went to see him on her lunch hour. He recognized her, but that was the extent of his reality. She said he has 0, ZERO, connection to reality. He has something called “flight of ideas” and switches instantaneously from one delusion to the next. He told her that my son was on his way to see him today. She also is upset that they are talking about releasing him at some point, as am I, because as she says, “Where? Where are they gonna release him to? He’s having paranoid delusions, he’s refusing all medication, he thinks there’s a conspiracy and they are trying to poison him. And how can they know he’s not a threat to anyone?” It’s terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

The therapist finally called me back and made an appt to talk on the phone next Monday. I guess that’s not bad, though I really hoped we would talk today. I feel better though, knowing it’s ok that I don’t answer his calls. However, when the social worker called me originally, she called from the same outgoing only number that he calls from. So I don’t want to block it, but I will let it go to voice mail and call her back if she leaves a vm.

I called my atty’s office up in CT, because I want to find out if my son will have any issues legally with any of this, since I would assume that he is actually next of kin, probably before his sister. Like…he owns 3 cars, etc. And how will his rent get paid while he’s in the hospital. Just some clarification. The receptionist was out to lunch and my atty is traveling at the moment. I’ll leave a message with the receptionist when I can reach her.

I’m about to go for a walk by the water. Needing to get out of the house. Needing to get centered, and grounded again. Lots of stuff on my mind this morning, like what did I do, or what do I need to change about myself, to stop attracting men with such difficult issues. I can’t reconcile it at the moment, but I guess that’s a convo for the therapist. I always thought if I loved someone enough they’d feel it, but if they don’t know their own worth, the love I give them isn’t going to help them. And I think I’ve wanted to have it finally appreciated by them. Funny, now my ex hallucinates about a happy life with my son and I. The other man is still wrapped up in his own misery. And it all fucks my head all up.

Well, here’s to some clarity. It’s a beautiful day here, around 75, and sunny. The ocean always calms me and clears my head, so I’m headed there for awhile. Then I’ll try to come back and call the psychiatrist again.

Wishing love and light to everyone. Including myself, lol.