Little Fire

Ditching Class

Posted by Boo , Thursday, March 25, 2010 12:02 AM

My life worked out in such a way today that I didn’t make it to class until it was ending. I made it just in time to turn in my midterm – a take home – talk to my very kind professor for a few moments, and leave.

So the universe conspired against me today to see to it I didn’t make it to class.

Damn universe.

Except I’m not sure it was the universe. I think I did it on purpose. I didn’t have this thought until I was driving to class, so late, and now I’m certain it’s true.

A lot of people have a hard time believing people can intentionally do things without being aware of their intention, but I think people do it all the time. Think about the things for which you’ve been late or the things you’ve missed…did you want to be there? As I type this, I realize I’m not offering up a new and brilliant insight into human behavior. It strikes me that this is often called passive-aggressive behavior.

But today I was being neither passive nor aggressive. I think I was trying to save my sanity.

I love this class. It’s called Family Interactions, and we are learning about the concept of family, the working parts of a family, how the players interact, what family means in different cultures. We’ve discussed dating and cohabitation and marriage and divorce, accompanied by a forest full of trees worth of studies dissecting every aspect of human relationships and the family.

It’s fascinating. It’s engaging. The class is full of smart and passionate people who argue and debate and sort and tease. It's guided by a man who knows his stuff and loves to teach it. He loves to lead us into a discussion and watch us figure out for ourselves what we think it all means. It is the intellectual equivalent of breakfast, lunch, dinner and a healthy snack, if you’re me and just enthralled by this stuff.

It’s also real, revealing, and for me, it’s getting dangerous.

Today we were to discuss family functioning. Next week it’s intimate abuse and violence. I am in full flight mode. These classes scare the hell out of me.

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that since my health insurance lapsed, I have not filled a single prescription. First my anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications ran out. I was ok with that. I felt emotionally healthy enough to test these med-free waters. I did really well, for awhile. Then, the Dexamethasone ran out. This helps regulate my adrenal (fight or flight) hormones. Then the Levoxyl. Thyroid meds. Your thyroid function has a very direct impact on your mood and mood stability. Then the Metformin. I’m not sure what that does for me lol, but it regulates my cycles, so it must be important.

Add to this my hospitalized dad, my imprisoned brother, my absent (whether he’s in the room with you or a million miles away) brother, my dead mother and sister, my mercurial boyfriend, my mental-illness-poster-boy-ex-husband, my delightful but labor-intensive four year old, my precarious money situation that makes my life with my daughter a house of cards, and now full-blown insomnia…and you have me, in alternating states of barely restrained panic or untethered from myself in full-on depersonalization, both of which – in me – do a fairly spot-on impression of mania. I’m very afraid the people I speak with will think I’m on crack, actually.

But I’m not on crack. I’m not on anything. That’s the problem.

----------

Part two of today’s post, Ditching Class, begins now. I filled my Dex, Levoxyl and Metformin scrips tonight. I took them. I’m not racing so much. I feel tired and like my blood pressure has dropped. I don’t know if it was actually high lol, but it feels like it has dropped. I have a headache.

So that’s something.

But before I completely lose this stream of thought, I want to explain why I think my class may be terrorizing me.

In January, 2004, this was published on Salon. It was a response to the online magazine’s request for tales regarding “The state of your unions.”

Baptism by fire

My live-in boyfriend had cheated on me. It was a public embarrassment -- everyone knew. During the struggle that culminated in infidelity, he hit me for the first time and said horrible things to me. He came and went as he pleased. He was cold. Hostile. Brutal. Defiant. I was pleading, resentful, enraged and exposed. My response to this emotional sinkhole? Let's get married. And we did.

My marriage was to be a baptism. A sacred ceremony to save me from my sinking shame.

For me and my husband marriage became proof to the world that we were indeed lovable and able to love. Normal. Acceptable. The actual ceremony took place -- after just two days of planning -- on Halloween. Appropriate.

Our tentative partnership was born from mutual need. Aren't most? But our individual needs were more desperate and choking than most. Union didn't ease the terror, but twisted it. We didn't fill each other up. We went about bashing the vessels.

Not too long after the wedding, we were back where we began. You cannot (I hope) imagine the verbal bludgeons that one person can use on another. Fat. Disgusting. Loser. My mother is critically ill and he hopes she dies. My brother is in jail and he hopes he gets raped. My sister committed suicide and he's glad. Physical violence ranges from kicks and punches to litter boxes dumped on my head and his ass wiped on my face. I am not joking.

This is my husband. He's supposed to protect me. I am full of screams that don't come. Sorrow and loss and rage and recrimination. I allow it. I'm still here. The shame from which this unholy union was born is the shame that keeps me here.

Here's the kicker. No one suspects it. I'm a rising star in my industry. Strong-willed and outspoken. I'm an independent feminist. I kept my name. He is amiable and considerate. The picture of the liberal 30-something man. We appear united to all, while our home is a burning bunker.

To be fair, there have been splashes of sweetness. He is childlike sometimes, and I want to protect him. His vulnerability and need seem accessible then. I feel like I glimpse his humanity. I feel like I can reach him. But they're only splashes.

Now I crave kindness. I long for loyalty. I dream of a steadfast man who will love me completely. Someone I can love without fear. That's still what marriage means to me. But marriage won't wash you clean, and it won't save you. If you're looking for salvation, look somewhere else.

-- Anonymous

Of course, I wrote that. It was, as Emily Dickinson wrote from her rural Northeastern town, my letter to the world, That never wrote to me. I still feel as though I should ask you to judge my ex kindly, because he once was an infant someone hurt, horribly, before he was an often cruel and always confused man.

Until tonight, only four people have read this who knew I was the author. My ex-husband, who had nothing to say. My mercurial boyfriend, who has a deep and abiding hatred for my ex. My friend Linda, who gently and lovingly supported me as I made a series of controversial decisions several years later, and my brother, who took my tentative attempt at connection as an opportunity to critique my writing.

Of course, talking about this kind of violence is not something my brother is capable of, except to joke, “If dad taught us anything, it was how to take a punch.”

Family functioning. Intimate abuse and violence.

My family of origin and my family of “choice” simply did not function. Intimate abuse and violence was the primary language in both.

So I ditched class tonight. I think I did it on purpose. I don’t want to do it next week.

Now I have my meds. Not the ones my mind likes, but the ones my body needs. I hope by writing this, and acknowledging what I think was my intention tonight, I can push through it next week. I think it’s important I’m there to "represent." I think I have a responsibility to "represent," because not only am I gaining the knowledge I hope will end with me proudly walking across a stage to accept a Masters of Science in Educational Psychology: Human Development and Family Studies, thereby achieving the first goal in my life I actually chose for myself, but I think I am teaching some of my classmates, as well. They wonder who these people are, who marry men who hit them, humiliate them and cheat on them. They wonder who these people are, who stay with these men for years, even though they know they may not survive. Many don't.

I can say to them “I am one of these people. What would you like to know?”