Love again (and violence, pain & other cheerful stuff)

My friend Jane and I went to school together and misspent quite a lot of our youth in each other's company. Over the last year or so we've only managed to communicate over the phone though. And in that time she's been swallowed up by an abusive relationship and a drug addiction.

Last week she was nearly killed by her partner. He ripped her clothes, punched her in the face and tried to strangle her. She escape with her life because she was sober and could run down the stairs, get in her car and drive away.

She ran to her sister who called the police. She went to court to see him and talk with him but was instead confronted by his lawyer and a counter-claim of self defence.

And yet when he called later that week and said he loved her, she agreed to meet with him and talk things through.

"I know how stupid this looks," she said. "If it were a friend of mine telling this this I'd think they were an idiot. I can't explain why I love him and why the rest of that stuff doesn't matter. It should but it doesn't."

Recognising limitations

I wholeheartedly accept that the world is round and that I need to pay my taxes and even that Colin Firth can really act if he needs to. But I don't have to do anything about those things do I?

I mean the world will keep on turning (with or without us, hopefully, but let's not get into climate change right now). And unless I suddenly morph into a corporate entity with so much money that I can find ways to keep every last cent of it to myself, I will need to keep on giving Caesar his due along with the rest of the great unwashed.

And as a member of the great unwashed, it's people like me that keep Colin Firth's career afloat I suppose. Heck, my ramblings have inadvertantly led to me to find some way to make a difference...

Anyway my point is that it's a lot harder to actually accept that being in a relationship with a depressed person will mean living with limitations specific to that. And in the process of figuring out precisely what I can in fact live with I have to acknowledge what these limitations are and how they'll manifest and whether I'm ready to deal with them.

Travel is one that I've bumped up against this week.

Chemical imbalance

I've been reading Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the toxic chemistry of everyday life affects our health (Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie).

According to this book our bodies are absorbing toxic substances that are in the objects which surround our modern lives - everything from pesticides in food and waterways to fire retardants woven into our clothes and emanating from the back of TV sets.

I just wonder whether these chemicals also affect our mental health.

A question of choice

It helps to remind myself that I choose to stay in this relationship.

And I get to make that choice over and over. In fact when I think about it like that I feel greatly empowered.

Every single day (or more often if I want) I am able to review my decision. I can make it again and it can be the same as yesterday or it can be different.

In the past I've been caught up in the idea that I've made a commitment, that I made the decision once and that I am bound to follow through on that commitment come hell or high water. And then when I've made the choice to go it's felt almost impossible, like I was defying some kind of universal law of physics or something.

But in fact it's not that way. It never has to be. I suppose it can provide a sense of security to think that a promise once made to stand by someone is an iron clad guarantee, but it's a false security.

A relationship has to be an active thing; a decision made with every interaction. I guess that can be a bit stressful in a way. But it's preferable to the alternative where no-one has any power over their own situation.

Today I'm choosing to stay. J has been making an effort. A real effort that involves housework and kindness. He seems to be making some choices as well.

Flo

Please add to this list

Depression isolates the sufferer and those around them.

The stigma and lack of general understanding in the community make it hard to get help and hard to feel like you fit in anywhere.

I just thought I'd share some of the things I've done specifically to re-connect with people and fight that isolation.

If people have other suggestions please add them to this list.

Derailed

J's best friend's mother has died. J hasn't seen her for a couple of years but he spent a lot of time with her family when he was young. They provided a safe haven for him when his own home was dangerous and he also had much more in common with them.

I think he reached out to me. I came home to find five missed calls on the mobile but no messages. When I called him back he was upset but also hostile. Perhaps I wasn't sad enough for him.

I happened to ask if there was anything else he had called about and he took this as insensitivity to what has happened. Is it? I didn't mean it that way.

The truth is I have very few reserves of sympathy left for him. That's terrible I know. It's just that everything is a potential disaster and every event is potentially a trigger for the same response.

Something's changed (for the better)

There's been a bit of discussion around being able to tell the difference between behaviour resulting from depression and behaviour that is not to do with the illness.

If only it were as simple as telling Dr Jekyll from Mr Hyde. As I've mentioned before, J experiences some physical changes when he's in a deep depression. His eyes are red-rimmed and his pupils shrink. The muscles in his face sag and he hardly seems to be able to drag his body around for the weight of it. But it's not always so straightforward.

The last few days have been interesting. The person I've seen emerge since this week's blow-up has definitely not been a man that I've seen much of through the depressive fog. Perhaps something in my demeanour changed. Perhaps I was finally serious about separating myself (physically as well as emotionally) from the situation.

Something's not right - Part II

He's 25 and charming. As the guests drifted away from the wedding reception and towards the bus stop (yes we caught a bus home from the wedding - classy!) he put his arm around me.

It was probably to steady himself as much as anything. But yes, it was flirtatious.

Apparently this is the image that has haunted J since the night before last. He feels that my behaviour was disrespectful and that I had obviously enjoyed his company less than that of others on the night.

Something's not right

I think he knows that I saw the online sex website. Either that or he's found this blog.

Then again, it could be just about anything. This morning he was very, very distant. He was on the couch, on the computer when my son and I woke up this morning. He ignored me completely.

I asked him what was wrong and he was evasive. I followed him into the bedroom a little later to ask again and he snapped back quite angrily, "What part of I don't want to talk about it now didn't you hear?"

So I guess this is one of those days when I get to practice walking away; where I very deliberately put it out of my mind. I can't go through the day wondering what the hell I did wrong.

Online secrets (not mine this time)

My partner is using online sex websites. I know because I inadvertantly saw it when looking through the web browsing history for a site that I couldn't remember the address of.

I was using his account you see. We have separate accounts so we can maintain our favourites lists and so on. But I came home from work and he was on the computer already. He was going to bed. I couldn't sleep straight from a work shift. Needed to wind down by watching a DVD (we use the laptop for that). I was looking through the web history for something.