kvetching up

During the troubled times over the last two years, I really could have used a support group of spouses/partners of people with BPD. 20/20 hindsight, being what it is, coupled with the wide dissemination of information on BPD, I keep reading things and recognizing my life. For instance, Jenny would from time to time deny something had occurred, like her suicide attempt, where there were witnesses other than the two of us. Reading about the disorder, it is clear to me now that she likely wasn't lying, she was dissociative. A different part of her brain took over during the incident, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing for her to be able to remember. Had I searched for books, instead of journal articles, I would have found a bestseller about BPD from the late 80's entitled, "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me. I won't buy it, as it has to have outmoded ideas, but the title describes what I was living with all the time, even before she was diagnosed with stage IV cancer....

 

Entry 1 Six months or so into our relationship, I was in bed with Jenny in the fourth floor of old Lander Hall, where she was a resident assistant ("RA"). It was late June or early July (Jenny always worked summers as an RA). Jenny was laying on her side facing me, and had her right hand under her pillow.  It's been 30 years, but my recollection is Jenny got up to go to the bathroom, and when she did I noticed there was something under her pillow, where her hand had been. I lifted the pillow up and discovered a child's pajama bottoms. They were faded, old. When Jenny returned from the bathroom, I asked her about them. She blushed and stammered, and couldn't make eye contact. After a few moments, she sheepishly explained that this was her blankey. She had been sleeping with them since she was 6 or 7, a replacement from another that had worn out. She was embarrassed. She was distraught. Then, I told her I thought it was adorable. She never parted with her blankey, w...

 It's 3:36 a.m. I woke at 1:30, took the dogs out, came back upstairs and started watching Dr. Ramani on YouTube talk about Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the symptoms of which have heavy overlaps and crossovers with Borderline Personality Disorder, which I am sure Jenny had. An interesting aside, Anna Kendrick, she of the Cup Song, talks about how Dr. Ramani's youtube videos helped her deal with NPD in a recent Rolling Stone article. I am not alone in feeling grateful for that resource. After some time, I switched to music, first listening to June Tabor's ridiculously beautiful cover of Richard Thompson's "Strange Affair." Then, I just let YouTube do its thing and have just gone down the rabbit hole of beautiful music .  Yesterday, I finished up my work at the City. I am grateful for my time there, and won't pretend that I won't miss the people there. Monday is the beginning of a great adventure.

Or Not I met Leiney today at Seattle Children's Playgarden to look at the mosaic that was installed by a local artist in honor of Jenny. It was one p.m., dark and rainy. Perfect, because it meant the park would be empty, we would have it all to ourselves. I lamely brought a dozen roses, to place on the monument.  My grief is stuck in anger mode. I gotta be honest. Not that I don't mourn the loss of Jenny, would that she were here.  But, my kids and I have been put through it. Moreover, I blame myself for not being able to get Jenny to pay attention to the girls through her illness. I can't forgive her, can't forgive myself. So, standing at the mosaic, I was awash in pain,, guilt and sorrow. My pain was centered around the stark fact that I watched my partner die, and as she died, experienced cruelty from her, cruelty for which I wasn't prepared.  My guilt stemmed from my abject failure to get her to love her children enough to give them real time over the 19 months ...

 It's Jenny's birthday. I don't really feel like wishing her a happy birthday on Facebook, I don't begrudge those who do, I just can't do it. Leiney is coming with Jared for dinner. My sister Jane and her husband are bringing dinner. I have been fine all day, until now. I am overwhelmed with emotion. I miss her to my core. What I can do is thank all of you who have been here with me through this journey of grief. I would not have made it through all this without you all. I am overwhelmed, surprisingly, with sorrow, which is better than the anger I can't shake yet. Abby got her first response from a school, Hollins, a women's school I know nothing about and which we didn't visit. It is in Virginia. They offered her a chunk of change. Many more responses to come. When I applied to law school, I applied to 11 schools. I was admitted at all 11. It was a blessing. I don't know if that will happen to her, but she is far brighter and a far better student th...

I wrote to the therapist Jenny and I used through the trials. I think I sent it around 4:30 a.m. yesterday. It follows: From: Geoff D. Miller <gdmiller88@gmail.com> Date: Fri, Jan 13, 2023, 8:09 PM Subject: Jenny To: Shayla N <shayla@qqqqqqqq.com>   Shayla,   Its been 10 months now since Jenny passed. I am writing to check in with you. The family is doing ok. Abby is applying for colleges, Leiney has come back to Seattle, having left Western when Jenny was dying, and is now at Seattle College getting her AA. I am about to transition to a Senior management position at a large tech company. It is 100% remote for now, but at some point I may head down to California to live in Palo Alto, where the firm is located. I miss Jenny terribly. I am still deeply wounded by all that happened, and saddened by all I learned in the phase of the loss where I was reading everything she had been saying about me, and how she was seeing Eric most every day. In retrospect, I am struck b...

At work today, I started talking about losing Jenny with a union rep with whom I had just completed a bargaining over in-office minimums. Coming out of the holidays and with Jenny's birthday next week, she has been more on my mind than I care to admit.  My sorrow is back, and I thought I had banished it to a small closet in the basement. I am so sad. So very sad. I miss Jenny. I grieve over the terrible pain she suffered through. No human should endure such agony or suffer for so long. I feel like talking about it today was like the time I pulled a band-aid off my skinned knee as a kid, taking the scab with it and reopening a heretofore healing wound.  I drove home wishing I could call her, wishing we could talk one more time. The day my best friend Corey died (we had been in a fight over some rather choice things I said to his girlfriend), he stopped by my house and we made up. We hugged, and he left to go swimming. He made his way across the gorge, slipped and his life was s...

 It's close to one a.m. Things are progressing. Fuck Google.  One week left at the City. It's been a ride these past 4 years, and I have learned so much. I had, in my professional career, never had a position where I was a rank and file member of a team. I started in a leadership position and there I remained, until I came to the City. [I came over when the interim LR Director, asked me to come work for her.] It was a mitzvah on her part, she knew I was being driven insane at the antics at King County Metro. It was a kindness I didn't deserve, and I will forever be in her debt.] She left a few months after I arrived, and my intent was to apply for the directorship position. It was a terribly toxic place, in fact the interim left for just that reason. I assumed the interim position when she departed, and formally applied when the position opened. I was the only name in contention. No one got back to me. No one. I cajoled, pushed, questioned. Nothing. Ultimately, I withdrew m...

Work is throwing a goodbye party for me on January 19. Coincidentally, it is also Jenny's birthday. I won't take the day off. The current plan is to go to the Playgarden and have a picnic at the mosaic made in Jenny's honor by a local artist. A weird fucking local artist who decided it would be appropriate to say a few words at Jenny's Celebration of Life, despite not knowing her nor ever meeting her. That was weird, but not as weird as the person who stood up and claimed to be Jenny's best friend. Jenny's actual best friends--she had two-- were present and accounted for, so wtf? People are strange. Not sure how I feel about doing this work send-off on her birthday, but there is no way around it. My intent is to have a drink and then Uber home. I don't like driving with just one drink on board, just don't do it. Having given notice, I am so jammed up at work, I was at the office e from 8 until 6, came home and made turkey drumsticks for dinner, took down...

Today I was struck by the following: For several years before Jenny was diagnosed, while we were living in Ravenna, she would come home and sit in her car for long periods of time, really long periods of time. I found it odd. Generally, we weren't bickering, so I couldn't figure it out. Oftentimes, in retrospect, she was on the phone. One can only presume with whom she was talking to the majority of the time.  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hate myself more than I should. I do. Perhaps hate isn't the right word, but it sounds good. People are always kind when you are leaving a job, and as I am saying my goodbyes, it has come to my attention that people do respect me and the work I do. That I am surprised probably means I need to find a better therapist--clearly I didn't work through this issue enough. I have my own ego that tells me I am performing well, but the kind words spoke...

The new year is a dour mistress. I am overwhelmed with sadness, having entered the two months of Jenny's suffering that would make Christ blush for complaining about his crown of thorns, the nails in his wrists, the spears poked into his torso. There is no great lesson from this suffering, other than life isn't fair. Jenny may have failed me and the kids, but damn it if she didn't make the lives of hundreds or thousands of kids better in the work she did. She allayed suffering for so many, only to be killed by her own body in the most painful and lingering way. I did my best to ease her pain, but my attempts were no match for pancreatic cancer. Her sorrow permeated everything, like gamma rays penetrating all of us. I just didn't want her to suffer . We couldn't stop the inevitable, but we could do our best to make her last few months, weeks, days better. She didn't make that task simple, it was never going to be easy. I go back and read earlier posts on occasion...