See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me
Jenny told me on several occasions over the last few years, before she was diagnosed with PDAC and while in a state of agitation, how empty she felt. Sobbing, typically prone on the bed, or in a corner of our old couch, she would tell me she was worthless. She said she was the worst person in the world, that no one was more terrible than her.; that no one had ever felt more empty. She was serious. It happened not frequently, but more than a few times. I didn't brush it off, but didn't give these statements the attention they deserved, in hindsight. She was seeing a therapist, and I urged her to tell her therapist about it. I suggested she ask about changing her antidepressant. She said no one could understand, no one could help. I don't know if she ever did talk to her therapist. She would snap out of it each time, relatively quickly. These feelings didn't stick around for more than a few hours. I simply wrote her lamentations off as evidence of clinical depression. I am certain I was wrong, and feel terrible that I
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| 2014 |
As I sit here largely immobilized by grief, I keep digging deeper and deeper into the personality disorder, and am saddened that in my experience, she ticks of so many boxes. I am not a mental health professional, or amateur, just as I wasn't an oncologist. But I trust my experience with Jenny and my gut to say that many of the hardships we had were likely related to the BPD and my utter ignorance of the disorder and adult child of an alcoholic's special denial that anything was wrong with Jenny.
Fear of Abandonment
This has been a central theme of the last two years. It has been around before, but not to this degree or intensity. There were few tandem therapy sessions where she didn't raise the issue despairingly, including the last one we had just weeks before she died. This in the face of me staying and caring for her, despite the affair. It also flew in the face of the fact that even when I did move out, I came home every morning and cared for her. It also ignored the fact that I moved back home just three days after renting an apartment, when she reached out to me to tell me she was going to kill herself. Finally, it ignored the fact I never left again, and had kept and always told her I intended to keep the promise that I would care for her until she was better or passed away.
This fear was visceral. It was real. It encompassed everything. It was irrational. It was heartbreaking.
Feeling of Worthlessness/Despair
But this feeling of utter worthlessness is a key signifier of BPD. It is deep-seated, and this feeling is with the person from the time they are children. Jenny clearly demonstrated this, as described above. Moreover, I have found brief writings she made where she would say terrible things about herself, beyond the pale for someone like Jenny. As hurt as I am by how she turned away from the family, her life was one that otherwise deserved nothing but high praise. She made a difference in the lives of hundred of children, some so profound as to humble most anyone who would like to say they lived a life dedicated to making the world a better place.
Emotional Hypersensitivity
I met her family for the first time at a fondue dinner in 1991, hosted by her parents. Her dad, who was a staunch fiscal conservative and I started having a discussion about politics. It was friendly, we disagreed and exchanged ideas. Jenny asked us to stop. She was almost in a state of panic. She told me, when I asked what was troubling her, she told me she couldn't stand it when people argue. I tried to explain we weren't fighting, just having an amiable but intense discussion. She would have none of it. I had to keep my mouth shut to keep her comfortable going forward. After we had kids, we went to her dad's house (her mom and dad had since divorced) for dinner. I don't remember the occasion, maybe her half-sister was down visiting from Vancouver. Anyway, her sister and I began discussing forest ecology with Jenny's dad. He got his PhD at the UW in forest economics. To him, trees were a crop. That was the start of the discussion. We had a great time dodging and parrying. Jenny left the room. I didn't make that mistake again, it caused her so much distress.
That is one side of a many faceted personality. If we had disagreements, she would feel personally attacked. If I didn't like a song she liked, she would be personally offended--butt hurt even. When we lived in Ravenna, I would invariably be downstairs hanging out with Leiney or Abby when Jenny would get home in the evening. Her expectation was that I was to come upstairs to greet her. Every single time. A "Hey, honey, I'm downstairs," never sufficed. Failure to meet this expectation would send her into a dark mood. If I came upstairs so late to say hello that she was already angry (anything more than a couple minutes would do it) and I dared remind her that "the stairs work going up and going down," which I said on many occasions (albeit mostly to myself to avoid a fight), it was like her mood was set to boiling.
It goes on from there. Often times, and a couple instances have been shared in this journal, when having a discussion and the kids were present, she would take offense at something someone said, usually me or Abby, erupt in anger and leave. The three us who remained at the dinner table, or in the living room would exchange knowing looks which included a bit of bafflement as well. When I would ask what just happened, no one could explain it.
Jenny would get offended for reasons one couldn't predict. It was a feature I had lived with since we began dating. I blamed myself. And maybe I was insensitive at times which contributed to it, but if I said I didn't like Bryan Adams, Jason Mraz or Ed Sheeran, she would not take it as a difference in taste or opinion, but a personal affront and life would be miserable as a result for a few hours.
We walked on eggshells, I can see now in 20/20 hindsight, trying to avoid making her angry. She could be that volatile.
Struggle with Identity
Jenny, when we were first dating, talked about our futures. We talked about what we want to be when we grew up. I told Jenny I wanted to be a lawyer--but the desire was not the driving force in my life. She, on the other hand, wanted to be a special education teacher and had wanted it since she was seven years old. It's really true. She got her degree, got her teaching certificate, went off to NYC and got her master's degree in special education, came back and taught special education. She was happy for a time. But just. She kept struggling through the years with what she wanted to do with her life. I don't mean in some teenage angsty, hair matted and sticking up, pacing, overwrought manner. She just wasn't happy in the work she did. When many years later she went and got a second master's degree in educational leadership, she finished and was still unhappy, and never took a job as a principal, vice principal or a department head. She stayed on as a teacher. Now, given her affair with a fellow teacher, that may also have been a deciding factor, but she just wasn't ever happy with her work.
Teachers have a staple argument, one I agree with, that they don't get the respect they deserve. Jenny would talk about it a lot. She would complain that people like her sister Chris get paid a lot of money to do whatever it was Chris did (as an attorney), and Jenny was changing the lives of kids and made peanuts. Ok. Fair. But she was mad at Chris for what Jenny believed was evidence Chris was doing better than her. She was mad at me for making more money than her. At my brother-in-law. She would say she felt like no one respected her. No one asked her about her work at family events. No one was impressed with the work she was doing. There may be a grain of truth in all of this, but it was to such an extreme that it was unbearable. I simply listened.
That all may be off-tangent. Jenny didn't change her hair color all the time, didn't show up to work with a different name. And her sudden and marked change in concern about her appearance as evidenced by her cessation of shopping at Old Navy almost exclusively and getting Stitch Fix delivered, among other things, coincides with something else.
Suicidal Ideation
Jenny told me several times over the last 4-5 years, both before she was diagnosed and after as well, that she wanted to kill herself, that she would be better off dead, that we would be better of without her. She attempted to attempt suicide in February of last year, and threatened to do it several more times after that. When we discussed it, again, before she fell ill, she told me she thought about it regularly. It was a regular visitor for this person who, paradoxically, was afraid of death and denied she was going to die until the end.
Affective Disregulation
Mood swings could last hours or a few days. She went from the world is ending and I am going to kill myself to "the bells are ringing for me and my gal" in a couple of days or even more quickly. It was extraordinary to watch, and impossible to understand. Usually, such swings lasted a few hours, occasionally a few moments. As described elsewhere, the kids were more than occasionally present when this occurred, which helped me validate it was happening. We could do little but shrug our shoulders and retreat. She would shout at me or us about how she didn't belong here, how none of us had nothing in common with her. It was a thing. And then, a couple hours later, sans apology, everything was quiet and back to stasis.
There are a lot more examples going way back. I remember the day I proposed to Jenny, she went from zero to sixty over some minor matter. She was boiling angry, and for reasons I still don't understand today. We had just had a lovely time at Folk Life. I had purchased a ring. I was ready. I wish I could recall the reason. I just don't. This wasn't the first or last rodeo. But she berated me all the way to the apartment, bellowing. It happened when we were dating and I was preparing for finals at the UW. I didn't want to go to some family thing and had the temerity to suggest I not go, and that was it. She left in a huff, as I returned to my spot near Denny Hall to read my notes. Again, she was bellowing, screaming for all to see. It happened at least once in NYC, when we were on our way to the Museum of Natural History with baby Leiney one warm spring day. I don't remember the issue, I just clearly remember her screaming at me as I pushed the stroller outside the museum. Each time I just wanted to disappear. Unsurprisingly, my mother used to go off like this in public when I was a kid.
Then, after we had two kids a new pattern emerged. I would come home from work and Jenny would be angry--most every day. I don't mean simmering. I mean, I would come home each day, and if she wasn't screaming at me within 5 minutes of getting home, I was surprised. This came in waves. It wasn't constant, but regular the first few years in Renton. Every three months or so she would sit me down to have a talk about why she was upset, we'd discuss her concerns, I would agree to do better at whatever the defect was--many legitimate criticisms, some not. It reminds me of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture on repeat, over and over and over, cannons always signaling the end of a cycle and the beginning of the next.
The fights shifted around the time Abby was 3. Jenny wanted us to make more money. She was angry about it every day. Incredibly angry. I initially suggested she return to full-time work, something she hadn't entertained Abby was born. She had worked either not-at-all, or part-time at a childcare center in Factoria to this point. I wasn't aware that she was lying to her family and telling them we couldn't afford a new lawnmower or that she couldn't buy new Birkenstocks. I imagine this was an attempt to make me look like a schmuck. I only learned of it when she died, and explained that we didn't have a lot of money, but were never broke, never late on bills, and always had a little money in the bank, despite by poverty wages law job as dictated by my loan repayment program, or her decision not to take on work outside the home other than childcare.
She went back to work part-time and then full-time around 2009. She still wanted me to find a better job. Demanded it. I renegotiated my pay at work and got out of the LRAP, and paid off my student loans. Our debts were now minimal. She still wasn't satisfied. She was furious with me constantly.
It wasn't as before, we were stuck in the final stanzas of the 1812 Overture. I would come home and she would be en fuego. Mad at me for this or that. She would rage at me for not being a corporate lawyer. She was mad we didn't make more money. She wanted me to find another job. I told her I liked what I was doing, even if I hated my job, and wasn't looking for a different position. I suggested she find a better paying job. That didn't help. She would rage that teachers weren't respected weren't paid fairly. Ok. So, go back to school I would suggest. This only escalated matters. I couldn't fix it. This argument became so routine, I began coming home, saying hello to her from the coat rack, and heading straight upstairs to see the kids, who at that age were always happy to see me. It became so bad, I would lament to my co-worker that I hated being at work (my boss was a tyrant), and could work from home, but that Jenny was home in the afternoons, and that would only mean more fighting. I couldn't win. I blamed myself.
My mistake was not understanding the problem wasn't fixable, and it wasn't me.
I tried to fix it. I began, with her encouragement, applying for work in Labor Relations. She was incredibly excited. I had interviews at several places, and then got the call from California. I was flown down. I told her I'd never take the job, but she was excited for the interview. She was ok with me looking in California. Then, I came back happy, loving the place. Her affect changed immediately. They flew us down so she could see the city, meet my potential colleagues. When we went down she was sullen, rude, and withdrawn. One of the people we had dinner with became my colleague, and she eventually confided in me that they could see Jenny was unhappy at the dinner they took us to, even as she was eating lobster (Jenny's favorite food) and having drinks.
The next morning, at our hotel, I took a shower. It was the Mission Inn, and the room we were in had a bathroom that had Spanish tile floors and the shower stall had no doors. Some of the water from the shower, in fact much of it, escaped from the shower, and spread across the floor of the bathroom. It took me all of the towels to clean it up after I got out. I went to get dressed, and Jenny, still fuming from the night before, went to shower. She came out less than a minute later with an unsurprisingly sopping wet towel, walked right up to me and purposely snapped the towel, hitting my face. She was furious there were no towels left, furious about being in California, furious I might take the job, and just plain furious.
The story has many more facets, but I digress. An hour later, we were on our way to lunch with folks from the hospital, and you never would have known she had been in such a dark place. It was wild.
Impulsivity
This was really evident in the lead up to her illness, and thereafter, but had been present for some time. I don't think it was something I recognized as really a problem until after she became ill. We started getting items she would order that she would see on Facebook routinely. Often she would buy things and not even remember that she had done so until the package arrived. This was at its height, almost a daily occurrence. We laughed about it, but looking back, it was perhaps more significant than I realized.
Favorite Person
People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often rotate between idolizing and devaluing others. In the case of the “favorite person,” the individual with BPD prefers one person and wants to spend all their time with them.
Jenny had this issue in spades. There were three of which I am aware. I was not one of them, at least not in the last two decades. I was strictly on the devaluing side of the equation, despite her abject fear of my leaving. No, Jenny in fact had 3: Murray, el pinché and much more recently, Becky.
Jenny had to see Murray 2-3 times a week. They talked every single day. Jenny's need for Murray was inexplicable. She never referred to her as her best friend, those designations reserved for Amy and Amelia. She rarely saw either of them. Jenny would be noticeably sad without interaction with Jennifer, those few times she was out of town. When COVID came, she named her as part of her circle, immediately and without hesitation. As noted here in an earlier entry, she was distraught when she asked Abby if Murray could ride along one afternoon while Abby was driving to Mercer Island. Abby, who only had her permit said no. Jenny reached out to me to ask what to do. I was puzzled. I responded, "Don't take Murray." It also would have been against the law, as my sister pointed out, but let's not get lost in details.
The second person is el pinché. If you read her texts about him to friends, he is the second-coming. He is perfection. She can't live without him. She can't stand not being able to see him. When Becky invited Jenny down to spend a few days with her in Vancouver, Jenny declined saying she couldn't imagine spending a few days without seeing him. He was her soulmate, he understood her better than anyone. Etc.
Most stark though, is Becky. Everyone in the family was baffled by Becky, who entered Jenny's life last spring via FB. They had played in the same softball league while in high school, but hadn't been friends. They had attended the same high school, but hadn't interacted there at all. But Becky reached out to Jenny, and they became friends, cemented by the gift of Willow. The relationship had existed for a couple months before that, and had already been intense. They texted morning, noon, and night. They spoke on the phone each day. Becky came to visit us. They exchanged I love yous constantly, and Jenny wondered how she ever existed without her. It was extraordinarily bizarre. No one understood it. We all found it so bizarre and inappropriate that when Jenny was in her final weeks, we locked Becky out of our lives. She kept trying to come and stay at our house. She called Jenny's sisters. She called Jenny's friends. We had discussions about how weird and unhealthy the relationship was amongst us each day. Finally, Judy, my sister-in-law who is more blunt than a blackjack, called her and essentially told her to leave us all alone. Becky went on to get a tattoo of sunflowers with an I love you written by Jenny on her chest. They had planned to both get them, when Jenny was better.
Substance Abuse
Jenny started drinking really quite heavily in 2017 or so. We would have routine cocktail parties at our place in Ravenna, which got old for me. When those petered out, Jenny kept drinking. A lot. She would have one or two 24 oz tumblers of rum and coke or more every night--I wasn't drinking with her at all. She was going through 1-2 fifths a week, as I look back on it. Often, after she had the drinks, she would leave to go meet Jennifer and drink more. The kids witnessed this change and talked to me about it. Adult child of an alcoholic that I am, I had noticed it--but had somehow overlooked it. Honestly, when I look back, when she had a couple in the tank, she was nicer to me. But it was severe. I talked to Jenny about it. She admitted concern, but only stopped once she started having symptoms of the cancer that would ravage our lives.
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Yesterday watching a lecture at Yale, which holds yearly symposiums on BPD, a therapist was talking about affective disregulation.The lecturer said that people with BPD often don't remember these episodes at all. They draw a complete blank when asked about an event after it happens.That doesn't explain the gaslighting about many things, like the relationship with Jason. It could, however, explain her denial that she tried to commit suicide, despite the multiple witnesses.
None of this makes me feel better. If anything, I have discovered that I have serious issues. I didn't notice the drinking. I found the relationships with Murray and Becky odd, but never imagined it could be part of a personality disorder. Now, however, I can't unsee it. This disorder doesn't just come and go, it begins when you are very young and without treatment, doesn't improve. Having only had two serious relationships that were healthy, looking back, with Margy and then Lana, I only had the dysfunctional relationships of my family to measure against. Moreover, I loved her and wanted to make it work. Once we had kids, I doubled down and just tried to do the impossible, keep Jenny happy, make our relationship happy. That I never succeeded, and never clued it that there might be something else going on, that our individual and shared pathologies made it impossible to achieve happiness without intervention is heartbreaking. More heartbreaking is we modeled pure dysfunctionality for our children, the very thing I had striven not to do. I didn't repeat the mistakes of my mother, I made my own, and for that I solely hold the blame. I used to complain that Jenny was always trying to fix me. I think I was trying to fix us, and was so myopic and ill-informed, that I couldn't see or admit that it was impossible.
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