PAWS
2005-01-10, 9:13 a.m.

This weekend exhausted me emotionally. I quit fooling myself that Eagle was actually ontrack to recovery. I finally had it out with her about it and confronted her. The fact is, she uses or misuses, some form of medication/intoxicant, every single day. Her moods change from sad, to angry, to remorse, to sad again. I finally told her that it looks as if it may come to the point where I may say it's either a treatment center or me. That led to a weekend full of discussion mostly, sometimes arguments, but a lot of talking, crying, anger.

The worst part of it is, when she is confronted about this, she deflects it all back to you. Suddenly I was being attacked and accused of being a presumptions, narcissistic, slob who thinks she's perfect, has deep psychological issues that affect my interactions with others making me hard to get to know and other wonderful things.....not excluding being overweight.

All day long our day consisted of her bringing up some fault of mine, and I would entertain her comments and observations, suddenly she would turn it back on herself, and then I would again be accused of "always analyzing" her and thinking I'm perfect, and round and round and round and round it went. For most of the day I sat and played my video game and tried hard to tune out the shit, but by the evening I'd had it.

The scariest part is, she's got me questioning my sanity. She says that I say and do stuff on a daily basis, that I don't think I really do. So one of our realities is askew and we both believe it's the other one.

The conclusion of the day was this, however. She agreed to go one week without taking anything she should not be taking and see how it goes. I don't have much hope that she'll stick to that. It's sad that I used to believe in her so much, but now I don't. I try to understand her, but I can't. And the more she uses the more it pushes me away.

Just as is always the case with me in a new relationship, when I decide to give someone my all, my heart, my trust, I never imagine it NOT working out. But for the first time yesterday I really had doubts that this will work. But the really really bad part of it is, if I ever decided to leave, I'd have to live with the fact that it may push her to the edge of no return. That's a really big weight on me. But I knew it going into this, and I can't let that rule me forever. I need to do what will be best for ME as hard as that may be.

But Goddamn, I love her. I really love her. I love our home, our lives, our families, everything EXCEPT her using. Period.

I've got no plans to go anywhere anytime soon. I've got to make sure that I give this everything I've got first....Eagle's life depends on it. Yeah I know, my life counts, but I have more options, more strengths, more survival mechanisms. I can survive this relationship longer than she can survive without it.

I read some interesting things about recovery over the weekend too. There's something called PAWS (Post Acute Withdrawal System) and it describes just about every single symptom and behavior that Eagle exhibits. I believe she's been in PAWS for the past year and it will not go away until she stops using COMPLETELY, and then it can take up to two years to recover, but it is possible. Recovery is possible. But she has to do it. I can help her, but she has to do it. I can't do it for her.

I've promised myself that from this point forward, I am going to start to concentrate on me. I do need to do something about my weight gain. I've been turning a blind eye to that, and I need to stop that. I need to start doing what makes me happy. I told this to Eagle and she agreed with me. We both need to concentrate more on ourselves, and less on each other. I think that's a healthy step.

I've got more rumbling around in my brain, but this is long enough for now. More tomorrow.

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