Special Weapons and Tactics

Susan:

My life had slowly descended into hell over the last two years. It just gradually seemed to develop. A general feeling of dissatisfaction that came and went, at first - but then came and stayed with me longer and longer and slowly morphed into perpetual unhappiness and gloom. I tried to ignore it all at the beginning and just concentrate more on my kids and on John.

I also tried to hide my unhappiness from them, of course. John worked very hard and tried to take care of us all financially as best he could. And he had an important job. It was often scary for me and all his time away from us was an irritant and I knew he felt bad that money was always tight with us. And that my not so nice parents and sister seemed to take some glee in pointing that out to John every time we got together at holiday gatherings, birthday parties or just a weekend BBQ. Every fucking time, actually.

John always held his temper and suffered those slights quietly just because of his love for me and his children - willing to share us with them. I loved him for that and so much more.

And then my personal gloom deepened. I even lost all desire to have sex with my own incredibly sexy husband - a man I had basically lusted after since I was 14 years old and first noticed him as a desirable boy of 16. I tried even harder to "fix" myself - with dieting and vigorous exercise. Just "talking" myself into feeling better, dressing sexier hoping that alone would make me feel sexier. But nothing I tried had any effect at all on me. I felt helpless and scared. Somehow I started rationalizing that it must be John's fault. Well, maybe Edith and Janice planted those seeds a bit, as I turned to them for advice. That it was his JOB to keep me happy and he wasn't doing it!

I started drinking more and even going out with my sister just for dinner and drinks about once a week, Janice certainly kept arguing John wasn't doing his job keeping me happy. She never thought he could, anyway.

And then that whole crazy Jack thing happened, fueled by my desperate thinking that ecstasy could help me. I couldn't ask straight-arrow John for that while thinking that's just what I needed, just a little bit. All I could remember was how great it made me feel back in college - and not the fact it almost destroyed me back then. But Jack maybe could get it for me. All cops know how to score - that's almost a job requirement. And Jack already had it, first time I asked him. Was I smart or what? Sigh.

Well, that all worked - for about 2 seconds. Yes, I sort of felt a little better raving on E and Jack's big dipstick filling any of my holes, over and over. He quickly became obsessed with me, my body and my lies. Lies I told quite shamelessly and quite believably about my own love for him and even greater hate for John. I'm sure I could have passed a lie detector test at that time. I almost believed them myself and never felt any remorse or guilt. And of course the false "love" euphoria the drug produces sure felt like the real thing for both of us - until the drug wore off. At least for me if maybe not Jack.

And Jack was almost insatiable when it came to the sex. He fucked me for hours, whenever we could get alone, and with my kids at their Grandparents or even with John. We would both take some "E" and drink a little Tequila and just start messing with each other waiting for the euphoric love feelings. He really liked massaging my whole body. He'd oil my nakedness, then wear a massager on his hand while he worked me. Two fingers in my cooch and one in my can, all abuzz from the powerful massager, would definitely get my juices flowing and almost forgetting my gloom, even before the E euphoria. I'd be on my back, legs spread, and humping his hand for all I was worth. But only after that "love" feeling would my first orgasm occur. Then when I stopped grunting and groaning, I'd straddle his face with my sloppy cooze and start a little knob job action on his big sausage - sucking just the head hard and popping it in and out of my mouth - draining all his pre-cum right out and in just a few minutes he always exploded. Then I would gobble his softened rod all the way in my mouth and massage it until his fully hard boner was back. And then the real workout started. Front and back, and he almost always then lasted a long time, arse and cooze invasions in relentless rave like powered energy. And he would finally come again and we would collapse and pass-out - and I could actually sleep for at least 4 hours straight, but then inevitably wake up again.

The waking up was the problem. Not being able to sleep without sex and drugs was an even bigger problem. Each time I woke up I always felt worse, never better. And I also missed John more and more while my hate feelings for him actually increased. I blamed him now for - leaving me! Somehow it was his fault that I was fucking Jack and had divorced him. He STILL should not have left me and our children. How could he have done that? How could I logically think these kind of thoughts? The black hole I was in just kept getting deeper and darker.

This all made John even more the enemy in my mind - and though my own feelings for my kids were basically neutralized by my pervading gloom, I "rationally" determined THEY would never leave me, and I would both woo them with my "love" and also turn them against their Dad with the same kind of intense lies I so easily told Jack. And of course they believed me even more than gullible adult (Ha!) Jack did.

And then about 7 months into my relationship with Jack - who was practically living with me now - I woke up one morning after yet another intense drug fueled night of pure physical lustful debauchery and faux love. That night had ended with an almost out-of-body feeling for me, where I totally lost all control - with me squirting or just pissing all over Jack's face - and then passed out for what I thought would be a few more hours of blessed sleep.

And when I next woke up just 2 hours later - I was crying and hyperventilating and just couldn't stop. A full blown panic attack. Or nervous breakdown. All Jack could do was call 911. And I spent the next four weeks in a "recovery" facility - the best clinic that my father Stanford could find and pay for. And I guess I was just lucky a very good psychiatrist, Dr. Rachel Horowitz, was assigned to assess and evaluate and really try to find out what was going on with me. She undoubtedly saved my life. My folks took my kids in and didn't even tell John what was going on. He never guessed. The kids were now so afraid of their dad they would hardly talk to him by now, anyway - and especially Kimberley. So on his weekends - which normally meant just a Saturday afternoon visit watching a movie or eating some pizza - no one said a word about "Mom being on a short vacation by herself."

I was put on lithium and Valium initially which worked fairly well to stop my crying jag that first week, then I started taking an NRSI antidepressant while the Valium dosages were carefully decreased. About the second week my actual sanity started returning - along with all my memories of the past year - crystal clear - and that's when I got suicidal. I had destroyed my marriage irreparably and I was sure John could not possibly love me anymore after the cruel way I had treated him. I had also abused my children mentally with all the lies and turned them all against their father in a most cruel and vicious way. Paradoxically I was also a better mother for them in other ways - caring for them almost obsessively as merely pawns in the deranged game in my mind against John.

And I still could not understand why my own parents and sister had enabled me to do all this and even abetted this wanton destruction of John and my marriage. Why did they hate him so much? Why did they discount my own love for him throughout the happy years of my marriage? By not respecting John I now realized they disrespected me almost as much...

Many really depressed people become dangerously suicidal as they start to recover - merely as they regain a minimal energy level that allows them to take action and end it all. But my own mental condition was far worse at this point.

Only after Dr. Horowitz was convinced I had passed that first crisis point and was starting to really feel empathy and love for my children once more and I fully acknowledged what my suicide would do to them, was a conditional release from the institution allowed. But I had to stay with my parents, at first. Not alone with my own children. And I met with Rachel 3 times a week for the first 2 months.

Rachel tried to explain to me why I had turned on John, the man I loved and the one person who might have really helped me through all this.

"All couples have conflicts and disagreements in their relationships. Every single one. What makes a marriage strong is NOT lack of conflicts and any definite resolution of the ebb and flow of constant power struggle to determine who "wears the pants". The fact is BOTH sometimes "wears the pants" in different spheres and responsibilities - from home-making, child rearing, social recreation decisions, to financial earning and spending priorities, and even sex - frequency and personal likes and dislikes. The best couples almost intuitively work all this out in mutual (often unspoken) agreement which spouse makes the best decisions in what areas. Sometimes the woman - even if she is a stay-at-home Mom - makes the best decision on spending the money. Sometimes the husband does. Sometimes one spouse makes pretty much all "the best" sexual activity decisions. Same thing for social friends and recreation - time and money allocations and pleasure vs. discomfort for each in that area. One spouse may like to dance and the other doesn't, for example. Some level of compromise is always best. Those relationships where the man or the woman unilaterally basically controls the other in all spheres very rarely works out best for both or even either."

"That's an old Catch-22 type of situation. Were the "Stepford Wives" husbands REALLY all that happy with their slave robots as wives? How quickly would any normal man just become bored and disinterested with a robot as a lover? Or any woman with a walking dildo? No surprises, ever. No sudden displays of affection, or even unsolicited - unordered - sex? How many humans would actually like a little robotic puppy or kitten as a mere "pet", rather than a real live puppy or kitten? And that's all obsessive-compulsive controlling types can ever end-up with as the totally controlling "wears the pants all the time" dominant person "winner".

"From what you've told me, you and John had a pretty good 'normal conflict' type marriage with generally good compromise resolutions working in different spheres. Read Proverbs 31 and think about that a tad in the next few days - the "worth of a good wife" verses - and how even in such a (supposed) Patriarchal society as Old Testament Judaism the wife obviously made her own decisions in her own dominion, and whose opinion was valued by her husband and even other men outside her own home. But conflict still was there in those marriages and in your own marriage - and John was a natural opponent to you in some ways throughout your marriage. And obviously you couldn't ask John to get you ecstasy or any other illegal drug - which you really logically thought you needed at that point."

"So, as your illness progressed, you lost your basic core emotional and rational "assumptions" about John and your marriage. A normal human mind is NEVER totally and only rational. It can't be. That would be actually contra-survival for each individual and CERTAINLY contra-reproduction for the species - in a strictly evolutionary sense. What purely just "rational" woman would ever put herself through pregnancy and then childbirth - with ALL that discomfort and even risk of serious injury or death? Let some OTHER woman continue the species, is the best purely rational decision. And now that human technology and ingenuity has made sex possible without unintended pregnancy, worldwide birth rates are dropping almost like a rock and demographic winter is approaching many, many of the most advanced countries and cultures, as just rational women choose NOT to reproduce - or no more than one child each."

"The human brain and mind are always influenced by largely uncontrollable and chaotic hormones and complex natural chemicals - testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, adrenaline, endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin - and more being discovered every day. And all of us poor humans have to make innumerable decisions daily based on incomplete information - like what the man sitting across from me on a date is REALLY thinking - sure, all us women know he wants in our pants, but is it really "love", or just for "hot sex", or just maybe a "conquest" and a notch on his bed board - and not even mutually enjoyable sex? So we all play the various flirting games trying to find more info to make both a rational and a merely more accurate "intuitive" decision. Men do the same thing, plus women are more complicated and actually harder to understand purely rationally, or so every man I've ever talked to tells me. Including my husband and my sons."

"But you lost touch with all your actual solid intuition foundations and valid emotional bedrock assumptions - that you loved John and that John loved you. That's what the chemical imbalance in your brain did to you - and with that gone ALL you had was the "logic" portion trying to figure things out - why you were so dissatisfied and unhappy - and pure logic dictated it HAD to be John causing it, somehow. You became like an egotistical computer with no emotional empathy ability anymore at all. And this same "logical" portion of your brain drove you to self-medication efforts - alcohol, ecstasy AND feel-good sex - with someone other than John. John had already been eliminated as any possible help because he was a 'cause' - logically. Just because he was there when you started feeling all bad and depressed. Ipso facto."

I know I looked doubtful at all this, and in fact, it was pretty much the most Rachel ever tried to spell out for me in one session. This was the first of many with me always doing most of the talking, trying to figure things out for myself, but she ended this session with this:

"We both know you are a naturally intelligent woman, maybe even smarter than your brother, Charlie. Unfortunately, a lot of 'smarts' sometimes is accompanied by a tendency to mental instability chemically as well, in some people. Your own chemical imbalances may have just naturally developed as you aged - body chemistries in all of us gradually change over time. Or your own taking of birth control hormones and then recreational drugs in high school and college may have done some set-up damage, further made worse by that progesterone birth control formulation you took after Parker was born. There is a definite link there with other bi-polar patients, at least anecdotally in the literature."

"And we also both know you have a strong basic personality - to go after and get what you feel you really want. And now you want your husband and marriage and family back, just like before. And just seeing and talking with John is the next logical step. But please, PLEASE, do not try and do that right now. We still have a lot of things to work through both just with mental therapy but also drug therapy wise - to get you in as long term a stable brain chemistry position as possible, and maybe even at some point off all medication. But this is going to take some time, and a setback for you personally after any progress with John might prove even more disastrous. I have seen that too many times. OK?"

I could see her points but it was very, very hard to even mentally agree with her assessment. I now SO wanted to see and talk with John again. I just knew he would understand after I explained it all to him. But I wisely decided to wait just a little while longer. What I COULD do though, was try and straighten out my kids - the truth instead of the lies - and even that was harder than I ever thought it would be.

Kimberley in particular wouldn't budge, "That all doesn't matter. He still left us. He is bigger and stronger than you and he shouldn't have left us! If he really loved us he wouldn't have done that."

I tried to explain how I'd so easily gotten the restraining order and basically had all the police and courts on my side, but she still wasn't buying it. To her, I seemed more crazy now than I did before. I was just SO nice to them and rational and strong before - now I seemed nervous and unsure and less believable in everything I said. How would I appear to John in this state, as well? It finally hit me.

And I was unsure. Every day I wondered if THIS was the day my meds stopped working and I started that long gradual slide back into insanity - without actually noticing? The meds also had some inevitable side effects I had to work through and adjust for. The NRSI I was currently on completely squashed my libido. Well, that was probably a good thing right now, actually - but it wouldn't do if I ever got to the point of John wanting even to just have sex with me again. I'd take that instead of remarriage for right now in a heartbeat. But I knew John couldn't handle an unresponsive me. And I couldn't very well fake a dry vagina. And John's penis was too big to just try and use lubricants - as well as natural fluid production, part of female sexual arousal is blood flowing down there and loosening up the vulva and vagina so it is most flexible and accommodating to whatever might enter. Like John's big dick. Damn.

And then John got shot and I almost fell completely apart again. I barely kept it together enough. Barely. Oh, how I wished it was me that got shot and not John. I deserved it, not him. And I was completely helpless to even help him as I so wanted too. But at least Kimberley was maybe starting to believe me a little bit.

It was now Jack that was becoming a major problem, who didn't believe me at all and kept trying to see me and be with me. And maybe he had shot John on purpose...if he had THAT would have been my fault as well!

I felt sorry for what I had done to Jack, and I tried to let him down easy. I told him I was very mentally ill and in therapy and slowly recovering, and I was sorry I led him to believe I loved him. But the fact is that I didn't, never did, and never would. I guess there is no easy way to get that message across to another person - especially one that just 2 months before I had screwed every which way, physically (and mentally as well - he just couldn't get that.) He just would not believe me now, and I guess he was addicted to the sex we had had. Even the false "love" feelings of the E he took occasionally with me just reinforced my lies and his own "true feelings".

It didn't even faze him when I told him the medicine I was on basically made me a zombie sexually. He said, "I just want to take care of you, Baby." But I couldn't help think he merely wanted to give necrophilia a try. I finally had to get a restraining order against HIM to leave me and the kids alone. And he still wouldn't stop until he was in jail.

And then my dad died so suddenly. He wasn't a perfect man nor a perfect father, but he was still just...Dad, to me. And in my current condition it was very difficult. I was back on valium for a bit, just to get through the funeral. Charlie came back for it and handled everything that needed handling. Edith was a mess.

Janice had her own problems now, as Todd had evidently found out about her extracurricular activities and new hobby and was divorcing her. Janice was depressed herself - not chemically like me, thank God. But evidently just "hooking up" with strange wasn't nearly as much fun when not married to some boring older rich man who otherwise too care of you quite well. And Janice even blamed ME for her own problems. Fuck her. I was starting to look at my own family much more objectively and critically than I ever had before. Psychotherapy could be good for that.