my own insanity
 

Have any of you experienced this--you become completely unhinged and do things you would never have done, things that are as unforgivable as what the addicts do?

My abf has been clean for three weeks but is still drinking, we went to a place we have been thinking of moving to, where I had a job interview. This was a city that he had lived in for a while (this was planed before the last coke slip and I decided to go through with it anyway). While there he ended up going out and drinking and spending way too much money, leaving me alone in a hotel room, then he stopped by the room twice before passing out and was rather obnoxious and awful. The next day I told him that if that ever happened again that was it. And of course, it happened again, this time he took off drinking and spent tons of money and didn't resurface until the next day. I was so angry I threw him out of the hotel room and told him it was over.

So far so good...huh?

but then the next day, the one we were going to leave on, I let him come along with me to do some sight seeing and visit one of my friends, and we talked and I told him I didn't know what was going to happen between us but that if he wasn't sober I wasn't going to stay with him. well, that night on the plane I just came unhinged, cried non-stop for 3 hours of the 4 hour flight, told him I couldn't live without him, bla bla bla.

and then when we finally got back to my house we were both tired, but he anyway took a nap and went out, saying he just had to relax, was only going to be gone an hour...you know the rest, a call at 2 am, can he come back here, I agree to everything...

he crashes on my sofa and when I get up he still just sleeps there, I tell him to get up and get out, he refuses, wants to sleep some more...he then gets up, is verbally abusive and I became completely unglued and started throwing things, he got up, I shoved him, pushed him, threw stuff at him, I pushed him against a cupboard and he hit his head, he said he was leaving, went to get his stuff, I followed him, I continued to shove him and finally managed to push him so that he slipped and fell against a wall, smacked his head a second time and then seemed to lose consciousness for a few seconds.

please keep in mind that none of this involved drugs...just drinking and money spent, my money spent.

I was so angry, so depressed, I felt like he just keeps taking our dreams away, keeps doing the very thing that is destroying this relationship, I am so frustrated and mad and now I have reached the point of violent insanity.

I ended up taking him home, I feel drained, I feel shocked, how could I have done this? Physical violence trumps everything, I think it is worse than anything he has done. Okay, he has been emotionally and verbally abusive but never anything that even bordered on physically. He has been cruel and mean, but so have I.

I feel so crazy and so warped and sick, what has happened to me???? How could I do that to another person?

this relationship is just sick, sick, sick, and even sicker, is that in the car on the way to his place he still says he is in love with me "I don't want to talk to you for a while" he says, I say "why would you want to talk to me at all???" and he says because he is still in love with me. and I even believe that if he wanted to make another go of it I would probably go ahead and be with him again. This is perversity...how could either of us even think that?

Hopefully with time and perspective we can both detach and realize this relationship is sick, sick for both of us, that we should both just drop it. I hope he really does manage to not talk to me for a while, or ever. I am so humiliated and embarrassed by my behavior I can not see myself making any attempt to contact him. Perhaps that was the point, perhaps I need to do something that would make it obvious that we both need to just walk away from this....

I too have acted that way, sadly on more than one occassion. I have repeatedly been completely out of control. SOmetimes Ive gotten that way just at the thought of what could happen even when he's not doing anything.

The only thing you can do is start focusing on you. Take care of you and learn to get control of yourself and your emotions. Its not easy but it can be done.

in an amazingly good coincidence I have an appointment with my therapist this afternoon. here is another irony in all this, he calls me when I get home and says he is worried that I am so unhinged that I am not safe from myself and that if I even begin to think that I might harm myself I should call him. He says he couldn't live with himself if that happened. I ask him "how can you be nice to me?"....someone at some point told me something they read in an al-anon book about how being involved with an alcoholic brings out our worst character flaws. Guess I really proved that to myself.

one thing--why are we so easy to forgive women who get violent with men? If he had done the same to me everyone would tell me to call the police, heck I would call them myself. But he leaves, then when he called he says "oh, I have been in worse fights, that was really nothing" like as if it doesn't matter. I guess it is a man's pride, he doesn't want people to know that a woman shoved him around. Yet, if he told his family, I bet his mother would have a cop here to arrest me for assault in a second. And I feel like I would deserve that.

I can believe that too.
I think thats why its called a family disease. For me, its built up rage and talking about it more, writing and discussing my anger with AH helps, but more importantly taking care of me. For me its always worse if I havent slept well or ate well and I always forget that.

Talk to your therapist about it be honest she should help you work it out.

My AH and I have discovered we both have them biggest resentments towards ourselves whihc we project on to each other, recognizing that has helped too. For us, we have also realized he is as codependant with me as I am with him.

I was thinking that myself on our ride home where he says that he still loves me. I thought, "that sounds like something I would say." at first when it happened he tells me I am sick, he never wants to see me, etc. and then 1/2 an hour later....he says something that indicates he would still go on with this relationship. and it dawned on me--it is just like what I have said...I forgive you for hurting me, I want to try again.

I just think that nearly a year of anger and resentment concerning everything about alcohol and drugs has made me finally snap.

I have done somethings simular to this with my H and I know I was wrong. I can see that my behavior is not all about the relationship it is about how I cope with stress....

I had to come to terms with the fact that I was violent and no matter what else was going on it was my reaction and I had to own it.

I had to find help with this and learn that being violent was only going to make whatever situation I was in worse. Yes there were times in my past where I was violently violated and I had no defenses then but, now I am an adult and I can't let my anger get such a hold on me that I am violent with another human beingit is not a good way to deal with my anger.

That is where you have to decide can you let go of the anger and resentment with him in your life, or do you need to be without him to work through it. You will never be the best you, you can be while carrying that around.
FOr me that is part of why my AH and I have separated several times as well as something I worked on when he was in jail and rehab, letting go of the anger, and its not easily done, because I little bit of repressed anger can hide on you and sneak up when you least expect it.

The irony is that I was trying to wake him up to tell him that I thought this anger and resentment and depression and despair I am carrying around was just overwhelming things and that we should consider putting things aside for a bit while I work on dealing with it....but instead I just let it get the best of me and I freaked out.

Mine usually starts with me wanting to talk, him not listening and me getting angry. Ive found puting things in writing more effective.

it is time to step back & take a look at your life. u said this was not about drugs.alcohol IS a drug. he did the same things as anyone on a harder drug would do.it was also your money & he kept u waiting.he crossed your boundry. as far as what you did ,it was wrong but that what living with an addict can do to you.it IS an unsane life.nothing will change until something changes.

i agree that it doesn't matter the drug, its the behavior thats the same. yes, i have acted out of character, and i feel that i was wrong. i believe that its the effects of the desease for one and then its me not handling that type stress in a healthy way.

i think that its not something to keep beating yourself over the head about, even though its not something that is to be taken lightly. maybe its time to take a closer look at your reactions to his addictive behavior and decided if somehow this is something that you can commit to working on so that the violence won't have to get worse. sorry that you have to go through this.

Yeah, I know alcohol is a drug, I just wanted to clarify that he has been clean for a while and these nights out didn't involve that.

I personally don't see why he would even want to have anything to do with me after this...
He didn't even try to defend himself, fight back, or even restrain me. It was odd, like he was just accepting it as a punishment. And now I figure he will have a clean slate, what I did trumped all the things he did, plus, if we did get together again, he know has something he can pull out of his hat on me if I ever complain about his behavior...okay, cynical me.

right now it is too soon for me to even imagine what can happen next. I hope he doesn't call. It is true, I realize that he is just as codependent with me as I am with him, and it is like he enables my bad behavior, This has been slowly creeping up on me, Every time I do get angry and express it I have been getting more and more wound up, more and more violent, tossed stuff around, but this...wow, freaked me out.

That's why it is called "codependency" and not "dependency".

If the addicts in our lives didn't let us "get away" with seemingly insane behavior, we would either a) end up alone or b) figure out a way to fix it and get better.

I finally figured this out just about a week ago, if you can believe that. I decided that if my ABF wouldn't make the move, I had to - for both of us. As a result, right now, we are both alone. But I'm hoping that we can move along to figuring out a way to get better, for ourselves, because neither one of us needs another partner to let us "get away" with what we do... whether it's him (using and being constitutionally incapable of telling the truth) or me (invading my SO's privacy... being constitutionally incapable of trusting an SO... inherently lacking respect for an SO... etc).

So yeah... that's active codependency at its purest for ya. No one who wasn't also codependent would accept the things that we do, just as we would never accept the things that they do.

I've never struck my exe but I've THOUGHT about it on several occasions. I think what stopped me from actually going through with it is the knowledge that it was MY CHOICE to stay. My AGF's behavior was the consequence of my choice and everything else painful and frustrating that occurred because of it. Under no circumstances would I have the right to turn things physical.

I wasn't in handcuffs or shackles. I can't completely blame her for the insanity. At any time I wanted to walk away I could have and eventually I DID! Yeah, it was hard, IS hard but ultimately I had to ask myself was it more painful to be with her or without her. Now I was guilty of just being nasty and ugly with her when she hadn't done anything at all. It's amazing how just the memories of crappy times can make those feelings of anger and pain so real all over again.

Even still, I had no right to be ugly to her verbally or otherwise. I strongly suggest that if it's come to you doing something so out of character as to shove him several times or hit him then it's time to leave! I'm afraid no one's responsible for your reaction except for you. I hope you can find some resolution to all this. Good luck!

New blue you are so right. it was my choice, my responsibility. I sit here and say to myself I felt this way, this crazy insane way because of his alcohol and drug abuse over the last 8 months, but I have to take responsibility for the fact that I stayed with him every single time, and there were so many chances for me to get out. and I let myself get this strung out, this insane.

If he calls I want to say to him "you are out of your mind to want to have anything to do with anyone that would be violent with you." and tell him him to just stay away. I mean, I don't want to be with someone I would do that to...is it love??? How can I say I love him when I have done this. And yeah, if the roles were reversed he would probably be sitting in some jail right now, I'd have the restraining order, everyone would gather around me and be supportive. Instead I sit here feeling ashamed and shocked at myself, and he probably is keeping the whole thing a secret.

this is ridiculous...I can't believe I let myself go this far into this, I have gotten so far away from who I truly am. I have done things over the last few months that I never would have imagined...if this was real love then wouldn't I be becoming more myself than the ogre I have turned into?

Oh, it's love all right, LOL! If you had no feelings for him then you wouldn't even waste your energy being angry or frustrated. Those feelings generate from another feeling. They are not just manifested out of thin air with no bearing. I'm sure you feel guilt, shame, and disbelief but you're only human. All you can do is learn from this incident and resolve never to let yourself become physical again.

As for calling him and essentially letting him off the hook, I wouldn't go so far as to say to him you are unworthy of his love but perhaps an apology is in order and perhaps an explanation as to why you reacted as violently as you did. He'll understand and as you say he must at least have the feeling that he had it coming to him. It was wrong but not detrimental. You just have to rise above it, hun. As I said we've all been there either lashing out physically or verbally and we all ask ourselves "What's gotten into me?"

I suppose it's natural for pent up emotions to just burst one day and suddenly you're not even in control of them or yourself anymore. But once the storm has passed and you've come back to Earth then as was mentioned above you have to re-evaluate the situation and promise YOURSELF you won't allow yourself to sink to that level again. As I'm sure you won't have an explosion like that again try to get a grip on yourself before you feel you're coming to that breaking point. Practice makes perfect:)

I was just thinking about how I need to work my way back into being the person I know I am...kind, loving, friendly, etc. being involved with this man has led me to places within myself I never thought I would go. I was once slapped around by a boyfriend, and here I am doing the same thing to someone else. and oddly enough, there were aspects of that relationship in this one, obsession, emotional ups and downs, etc. I have always said that in the end it was a good thing he hit me because it put an end to the relationship, after someone hits you there is no going back (for me at any rate) and I think that in some way I was hoping that my abf would hit me back, or that he would even view things that way as well and would leave for good.

I think it is about wanting him to understand the pain, the hurt, the anger, the humiliation, all those things that I feel because if he sees them then he will stop drinking...HA..right. and I want him to pay attention to me rather than his drinks or drugs and the people involved in that world that he spent time with. I can't get his attention by being the loving girlfriend, he walks away from me all the time and choses to sit in bars instead of being home with me, so now I am going the other way, being the insane evil nut case.

either way, it was over the top....and yes, I need to make sure I never act like that again towards anyone.

When a relationship becomes toxic, it's time to take a giant step back and think about why you remain so attached to someone who makes you so crazy and sad.

A good way to examine our own part in any crazy relationship is to go to meetings, share and learn to work the steps which lead to self-healing and learning to make healthier choices for ourselves.

Any relationship that becomes violent, on either part, is very dangerous and unhealthy. Putting some space between you for a while may help you clear your head and keep you in a safer place. Sooner or later the abused person may strike back, and at that point it is all totally out of control.

Hugs