Someone tell me I am not crazy please
 

I had found out on Xmas this year that my boyfriend was using crack. Our relationship had been rocky for the previous 5 months or so, but I had attributed that to normal stresses of any relationship and to the ongoing financial hardships we were having. But by xmas he was holed up in the office for days at a time and his anger at me made no sense. When I wanted to talk to him, he wanted to bring up and yell about all the things I've done wrong in the past 4 years. He finally confessed to smoking crack and left the house.

He came back a week later and we both agreed to try to work things out. He said he stopped doing crack and things were kinda better for a while. 5weeks ago he decided to get off suboxone completely. I tried to be patient and tiptoed around the house for 2 weeks so as not to set him off while he was detoxing. Then 3 weeks ago things went from bad to worse. The neighbors dog ate our bird and that seemed to set him off into this downward spiral. We had a huge fight and he again left for a week. When he came back he apologized and blamed the withdrawal on suboxone and his stress level because of it. He started asking for space and once again locked himself in his room.

But my inner voice kept telling me something else was wrong. I caught him lying constantly. Found out he was borrowing money from friends and neighbors. 20 bucks here. 60 bucks there. Everytime I ask him if he's using again he denies and says,"it's the suboxone" and "i admitted it the last time, why would I lie now". He says that he wouldn't be eating all that he is if he was on it. But there is an emotional disconnect that wasn't there the first 2 weeks of his detoxing. Instead of lying next to me in bed, he's in the office watching porn. I feel like I'm going insane. I have become someone I no longer recognize. For the first time in 4 years of our relationship, I am spying on him. I search his office when he's not home, I search his phone when he is.

2+2 are adding up be 10 and I still find myself wanting more to believe that I'm wrong instead of facing the truth. Am I crazy? Where do I go from here? I can't make him go to treatment when he can't even admit the truth to me. Can someone offer any advice? My love for him alone can't save him and I don't even know where to start.

thank you

Hi and Welcome,

I'm sorry you're going through this situation.

Your boyfriend will need to want help for himself, if he is going to get better. I hope that you will seek support for yourself. There is lots of support here on this message board and you might want to check out NarAnon.

We can not fix others. Have you thought about going to a support group for you? A place to go and talk with others who understand what you are going through. And you are not crazy. In my experiences I want to always see the good in people too, but sometimes we have to face those undesireables.

Just my experience, but having been involved for a long time with someone that has, in my opinion, serious substance abuse issues probably not limited to alcohol, I can attest that after a while you will start to question your own sanity. In the addicts' universe, 2+2 always equals 10, or whatever number that happens to suit their needs at the time. A very good sticky at the beginning of the "friends and family of substance abusers forum"

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ddicts-do.html

Burning those words into your brain can be helpful, and there are also very good books by Melodie Beattie and Toby Rice Drews that deal with our codependency issues. We can't really do anything about the addicts in our lives, but we can save ourselves.

So sorry!


WELCOME!!!


Keep coming back, a lot of support here.

I wanted to thank everyone that has responded. Your words right now are my lifeline to sanity.

I feel like a picture torn in two. A picture of loving and being loved by a beauitful and talented man. A picture of a dream together that has now turned into a crazy nightmare I can't awake from. Both sides can come together to form a complete picture, but each half on it's own can only make so much sense. I guess it's the ying and the yang of people that love the addict. You believe them as well as disbelieve. You are rational as well as irrational. You love them as much as you hate the addicted person they become.

One half of the picture tells me that I am suspended in a moment of not knowing what to do but having to believe in what I see and feel. I am lonely and scared. The other half tells me that as alone in my grief as I feel, his addiction has him feeling the same if not worse. Is there anyway to mend the broken pieces?

I know deep down I can't help him, but I feel like I've become addicted to his addictions. The more he needs, the more I give. The more I give, the more I need saving.

I'm sorry if I'm rambling, I'm sorry if I keep going on and on, but it is like a faucet that onced turned cannot stop dripping. I have only shared what was happening in december with a 5 or 6 caring people. What has happened recently I only shared with 2. And they are people that I know will never judge him, but I hope can help him.

But to be truly honest I need to say my deep dark secret as well. During those times when I have felt so out of control, so helpless, I began to cut myself. It wasn't to feel pain, it wasn't to feel anything but knowing in those moments that the only truth that I could count on was the result of the knife. Please no one think I would ever be suicidal. It was never about that. I had broken my neck at 17 and most of my cuts were where I couldn't feel anyway. In some dark part of me, watching the cuts heal made me feel better. That if my body could heal that well then so could my brain. It makes no sense now as I speak it, but while I was in the moment there was no other truth. That's how I knew my enabling, my turning the other cheek had reached a critical point. My truth of myself was no longer valid and could no longer sustain what has been happening.

Hi solost,

There are others here who have used cutting as a coping method so you're not alone.

Please also join others on the Friends and Family of Substance Abuser's forum. There are sticky posts on the top of the forum with lots of information and others there who are going through the same thing you are.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...tance-abusers/

Hugs,
MG