Thread: your stories
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Old 08-09-2007, 07:16 AM
  # 22 (permalink)  
Nitelite
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Hurricane Alley, Fl
Posts: 119
(((((drained)))))
You know, we are working on our heart's own time, here. I have always been the sort of perosn who wanted to jump from point a to point z, and especially when I was divorcing my ex, the doc.

The doc was what they call a "dry drunk" -- no active using, but he had all the characteristics, and believe me, he could create a home with exactly the horor and chaos of
addiction without putting anything up his nose...

I had one kid who was learning disabled and had to be in a $$$$ private school, a toddler , no job, and the doc, who stated very calmly that he would take the toddler and see me living out of a car before he was through with me.

I still look back and shiver from all the fear of it all -- but I left my house with the spiral staircase and the pond and the custom kitchen and moved into a tiny apartment about two blocks from a slum. The first night, I cried all night, looking up at the ceiling with its flaking paint. My younger son's room had a wall that a good friend and I hand painted with sunshine, stars and teddy bears. It felt a long, long way away.

It got a lot worse. I struggled to get a car and then struggled even more to keep it running. My ex kept me in court for months. I can;t even keep track of threatening phone calls--maybe 20 a day. The parents of my older son's friends openly pitied me.

But the private school worked with me for one more year. A judge eventually forced regular child support ( and yes, eventually, not right away, but eventually, doctors and the judges saw thru his carefully constructed facade)

The little apartment had a cozy fireplace. My kids had health insurance. Because the doc was no longer screwing with money, I may have been living on a little, but I didn't have those nasty surprises like oenign a bill and finding out he hadn't paid something or so and so, and now a collector was calling...so it was better. And the ability to lay my head on a pillow at night without a shouting match that my kids would hear? priceless.

I eventually got an excellent job. Doc went thru a period of sanity. Kid#2 ended up in a private school for grades 1-5, and kid#1 graduated from a public high school with no ill effects(!!!)
None of this happened right away. But I can tell you honestly, that if I had had SR and al-anon, it would have happened a whole lot quicker ~~

What I started to say, before I digressed, is that wherever you are right now, you are right on time. Sometimes there are leaps, and sometimes little steps. And we are all holding hands here, so the chances of falling are much less...

~nitelite
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