Friday Conversations With My Psychiatrist | May 22, 2009

I missed writing about two appointments… one on April 17, the other on May 1. I was there both times, but when I came out of the former I forgot what we had talked about — it happens.

The one on May 1st was productive, and I did take notes, but by the time I was able to write anything about it the notes didn’t make sense anymore. It happens.

I took better notes this time. I’m thinking about a tape recorder, but I think it’d mess with our flow.

I don’t normally go into an appointment with an agenda. Our together time is generally improvisational. But this time I was exhausted, and because I was exhausted I hadn’t been able to write about my recovery in a few weeks. Which meant I was a little pissed off as well.

So, exhausted and pissed off, we mostly talked about the reasons for my being exhausted and pissed off. And it basically came down to one thing… my inability to set boundaries in a relationship.

It’s a little more complicated than that, but it’s a start.

For the most part the women I’ve gotten into relationships with have needed fixing. They’ve had problems. Crappy boyfriends, lousy parents, addictions… escaped from a religious cult. I think the general reasoning was, I’d fix them and they’d show their appreciation by adoring me.

But it never worked out. I’d offer solutions, they’d keep making mistakes, I’d get pissy and stop being in the relationship. I’d still show up for the sex parts, but for the relationship parts I was pretty much reduced to an emotional zombie. Then they’d get tired of me shuffling around and dump me.

When they didn’t want their problems solved, or the problems were unsolvable, I’d shut down. But the more problems, the more I was interested. The more I wanted them to have a safe place, the more I wanted to be their knight in shining lithium.

So, in general, I’ve never had what any textbook would call a “healthy relationship”.

But there was a reciprocal need on my part to be saved as well. In every dating relationship I’ve been in I’ve made these gestures with the expectation somewhere down the line I’d maybe get some help with my problems… I mean, you’d think a chick who grew up in a religious cult would, at some point over the three years we dated, offer some insight into my childhood living in a political cult. Nope.

You’d think the girlfriend who grew up with alcoholic parents would take a few moments and ask about how I managed to survive growing up with no parents, at least not knowing which of the twelve adults in the house were my parents. But you’d be wrong.

But my expectations of reciprocity have always been a tad unrealistic… because I basically have two settings: one, I tell someone everything all at once, they say “OMG”, then I say “relax babe, everything’s cool.” and that’s it, they have no reason to help because I’ve never admitted to having a problem.

And two, I never say a freaking word about anything. Just nod and smile because I have no problems.

I think some of it comes from my relationship / non-relationship with my father. All of my fathers relationships were entirely built on sacrifice and guilt. He actually spent twenty-something years pretending he had no sons — he has three. He lied to his common-law wife, and his two daughters for over twenty years, when the truth would have been easy and simple.

But he did it to protect his daughters… from something. Something important, I’m sure. And, while I don’t think I’m doing anything on that scale, it basically comes down to “so, I’m sacrificing my own mental health to solve your mental health problems. Now love me.”

The thing about the “knight complex”, where you’re constantly riding off to save someone, is it’s a major guilt trip. When the someone you’re in a relationship with calls into question your intentions, you just rear back on the horse and list off all the ways in which you’ve sacrificed for them.

But there’s also, and this is just a little sick, the reverse-guilt factor where you feel guilty as shit for having in the back of your mind those evil-ish intentions. Like “I’m sacrificing my own mental health to solve… OMG, I’m acting like my dad, oh I’m such a fuck, I should try harder to solve your problems now”.

Guilt becomes an expression of love… maybe a substitution for love.

So that’s the “knight complex”, and my need for some sort of reciprocity, but then there are the boundary issues.

The longevity and health of any relationship is determined by the strength of its foundation. Mine, at least on my side, were all weak, cracked and water damaged. I have always gotten into relationships with women because of their flaws with the expectation I could fix them. This, as a foundation, is like building a house on wet sand in California.

So, for the better part of my relationship history, I’ve never needed to set boundaries. I’ve never had to differentiate between “we time” and “my time”, because “we time” was “whenever” and “me time” was “okay, I’m sick of helping you, I’m going to spend the next two weeks letting you know I’m pretending to care, then you can dump me”.

It’s hard to remember a time when I had any actual boundaries just in my general day-to-day life. I stopped going to high school after grade ten, after that I just showed up whenever I wanted. My father, of course, was never around. My mother worked late every night, so no homework for me. I was an unemployed street-kid for five years, I got kicked out of college for not showing up, I’ve been fired from almost every job I’ve had for being late and not showing up for days at a time… and for the past five years I’ve been on disability.

So not having boundaries has led to me not being able to set any boundaries. And when you add the guilt of the knight complex, and my unrealistic needs for my girlfriends to understand my needs without ever giving voice to them, I get exhausted and pissy.

I’ve been living on the edge of exhaustion for the past… lets say a month. But probably longer. I’ve actually felt punch drunk, like each activity with my current girlfriend, or my girlfriend and her son, is another shot keeping me away from the things I need to do to keep my recovery on track.

We’ve been dating since mid-February, but not in what I’d consider to be a conventional sense. Neither of us have a history of anything coming close to normal dating. She started dating her husband in high school, married him soon after graduating, and left him last year.

Since we started dating it has been very rare for us to go a day without seeing each other. It’s a very confused situation. She lives in the basement apartment of my building, and works at the convenience store where I get my milk and Ginger Ale. So most days we see each other two or three times.

When I go out on my balcony, she’s out on the lawn playing with her son. When I walk though the parking lot, she’s at her car. I walk her home after work…

The problem is, or has been until now, there is no “me time” whatsoever. I can’t turn my brain off, and I can’t get it into “Writing Mode”. There are no boundaries… no defined times where I can be alone. There’s always another activity tomorrow afternoon.

Then there’s the guilt. I feel guilty for not being around her, therefore I must try harder. I feel guilty for saying “no” to tonight’s activity, therefore I’ll automatically offer another activity for tomorrow.

The weird thing is, this is the first time I can remember where I’ve felt like I was a full partner in the relationship. I’m planning events, and carrying through… it’s very adult like, or at least what I imagine adults would do.

And I do like her, I enjoy being around her very much. But there’s a near total lack of reciprocity… I can go with her to the lawyer’s office, and help her with her son, and give her advice on dealing with her roommate, but there’s very little she can do to help me with my book, or with my writing in general, or with the manic depression stuff…

Anyway, I did set some boundaries this weekend. On the nights she works I get “me time”, with no responsibilities beyond my front door. And that leaves Monday to Wednesday as “we time”. This Tuesday we’re taking her Little Monkey out for a picnic into the mountains, hopefully I can show them my grandfather’s hobby farm. Then on Wednesday we’re going into Ottawa to shop for clothes and see a movie.

Right now, after a couple of days by myself (I still walked her home every night she worked), and two entire nights of great sleep, I feel rejuvenated and healthy. I like this boundary stuff.

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