“Every single day I wake up and I think of a reason not to do it…”
I was going to leave this alone. Really. I haven’t been following the situation rabidly or searching out new information on the whole deal. However, I do lie in bed at night reading a book while the 10pm news is on, and when the news ends the channel tosses on one of those ludicrous tabloid shows.
The first “story” every night? William Wallace coming apart at the seams.
I’d been actively ignoring this, to be honest. At the beginning, anyway. Then more tapes were released, and while reading my books I’d hear something.
I’d hear myself.
No, I never behaved quite that badly. I never used the words he’s used, never threatened to remove someone from the equation totally…
What I hear in his voice, as he screams so loudly that the phone line crackles with the force of his rage, is despair.
I hear self hatred.
I hear an overwhelming need to control the situation, the relationship, himself, all of it, that ironically is out of one’s control as soon as the rage takes over in the first place.
I hear fear.
He gave up everything for this, you see. A marriage of many decades that produced his family of children, in the heat of a moment he tossed it aside for The New, and that New didn’t go according to plan. And he hates himself for being that stupid. He hates himself for letting his urges overpower his reason. He hates himself right now, fears what will come of this, and is lashing out in response.
I don’t look at the screen when the tapes run. I put my book on my lap and close my eyes and listen.
I can hear her egging him on, knowing which buttons to push to get what response. For such a short relationship, she’s figured this out well. No, there’s no excuse for his behavior toward her and his child, NONE, but in these tapes I can hear her manipulating the situation into what she needs for the outcome she desires. She’s good. She’s a master, actually. She’s his master, right now, and that’s one of the things that enrages him. Because he can’t control himself.
I listen to him lose his shit, and I can so clearly hear the agony of a Bipolar that I pity him. The things he’s said are dreadful. The words he’s used against people, the aspersions he’s cast against various segments of society… none of that is acceptable.
Me? I’ve been in states where I’ve said things I flat out didn’t mean. Didn’t even FEEL. I can’t believe some of the things I’ve said to people, especially people I love, simply in order to hurt them as much as I hurt at the moment.
So with my eyes closed I listen to him rage, and even though I KNOW I can’t affect the outcome of this, I think to myself, “Don’t go there, man, keep it together. Don’t let this win. Go get help. Go get REAL help. Let someone hospitalize you and get yourself out of this. Chuck the booze. Chuck the drugs. Start smoking again if you have to. This is NOT you. Look what this is doing to you. Look where this has taken you. You’re going to lose everything you have during this episode. Not everyone cares about you. Most people don’t. They’re not invested enough to forgive. You need help. Get it. LET people help you. Even if you lose all of ‘this,’ you’ll keep what’s important. This is NOT YOU.”
But he can’t hear me, and as I said, the outcome is already written.
The other reason I listen to these at night?
Self preservation.
I know, deep down, that his level of rage is somewhere I could easily go. I have a husband who loves me, and when my brain starts to unravel he helpfully points it out to me, but he isn’t always here.
My kids have been terrors lately, and even when I start to get angry, not enraged, I’ve been removing myself from the situation because they don’t deserve it.
Rage isn’t about “them.” It’s about “us.” It’s about perceiving things as threats to our idea of what things should be, how folks should feel about us, and ultimately, how we feel about ourselves.
In my opinion no one who is comfortable in their own skin explodes in that level of rage.
So while I deplore his actions and words, hate the situation he’s created, and do NOT excuse emotional and physical abuse of others…
I understand.
And I’m grateful that I now have a perfect example of how NOT to act.
I’m grateful that I have people in my life who love ME. I’m grateful that I’m not so absurdly wealthy that I have no idea who cares about me and who cares about what I can give them. I’m grateful that my husband knows me well enough that he can defuse me with the proper choice of words instead of deliberately pushing my buttons to flip me out. I’m grateful that I have everything a person could ever want, really, even without financial solvency, and I will NOT let some stupid chemical imbalance take that away.
And I don’t often do this, but I’m keeping him in my thoughts. Praying for him, I guess you could say. The anguish in his voice is a horrible thing, and no one should ever feel that way about themselves.
This is Not Him, folks. This is his disease. And it’s winning.
And by the luck of the genetic draw combined with circumstance, your kids could have it too.
12 Responses to ““Every single day I wake up and I think of a reason not to do it…””
Are You Gonna Eat That? by Julie Summerell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at jasummerell.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sheltergirl.blogspot.com.
Share This
Trash Talking
 | Elisangela on Glass Houses |
 | Mohamed on Flash Fiction Challenge: Toxic… |
Wow, excellent and thought-provoking. I don’t even need to know who this guy is (cuz I don’t) to get what you are saying.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
I’m guessing we’re talking about some Mel Gibson action, here.
I offer half-agreement — I do know that it’s easy to go down roads and to be absorbed by rage and say things you don’t mean. Been there, done that. Nobody likes to talk about it, but there it is.
Still. There might be something altogether more poisonous going on. He’s said enough things that I don’t think are born from impetuous anger — they’re born out of something septic, something deep, something disturbed.
Yes, there might be a disease at work, but I fear we’ve made it too easy to make such maleficence clinical — “Oh, that’s just his disease.” No, he drinks too much. And he holds hate in his heart and maybe acts on it, and maybe doesn’t.
We need to hold people responsible for their actions — but if we hold only the disease responsible, then I wonder if we give too many free passes.
If he’s just saying stuff, okay, maybe we should be easy on him. But if there’s any chance he means it — and that he’s capable of violence — well, then further examination is on the agenda.
I do agree about her, though. She’s clearly provoking this reaction. She knows how to get the beast to come out of his cave.
– c.
Absolutely. There is something septic there.
His behavior is not “excusable,” but there’s a reason for it. He does not get a free pass. No one who refuses to get the help they need can be excused.
He’s an extreme example of this that, unfortunately for him, has hit the global stage. He needs help. He needs to suck it up and get that help. He needs to cut out everyone and everything that causes him to resist that idea, even fear of looking like a “wimp.”
I used to know someone who had known his father, and the things I’ve heard about him make my skin crawl.
The cycle needs to stop with someone, and he needs to make that happen with him, regardless of the imagined cost.
Word.
I don’t know if disease is the word I’d always use, but there’s definitely a source to people’s actions. Sometimes that source is disease and needs to be attended to, but sometimes it’s other things: stress, ego, drugs…
Celebrity or not, everyone’s human. So just like me, Mel has two choices: fix his shit or continue down this path of colossal douchebaggery. Up to him.
If his friend/family want to help him get it together, he should consider himself lucky. But he’s the only one that can decide what to do with his life.
Kinda like my BIL. Let’s just say his world is a mess. In the past ten years my husband, his family, friends have all offered him help. Offered him whatever he needed to get back on the right path. He never took it. He still hasn’t decided to fix his life despite all the offered help.
So Julie I applaud you. I applaud myself. I applaud all of us who make the decision to keep our shit together and approach bad situations with a better frame of mind.
It’s all about choices.
It is all about choices.
A person can choose to let this get the best of them, or not.
He’s choosing poorly.
I hate to see that.
So glad to read this. You’ve thought this through and didn’t just go with that jerk of the knee so many have. Like you, I hear the manipulation going on. Not to excuse what he’s said and done, but I can hear the triggers. I’ve seen this before, in other people and not famous ones. I’ll add my prayers to yours.
Watching someone spin out like this is just so awful, especially when you’ve done it yourself and know what happens at The End.
Like I said, I’ve never gone as far as he, but the potential has been there.
I’ve never been more grateful that I’m a “nobody.”
This is some good thinking Julie. Thanks for putting it out here were I (personally, and we, collectively) can benefit from seeing it.
Thanks.
Sometimes I spend too much time in my own head, but often the reason for that is so I can chisel it into proper shape.
Fighting this is hard. It can’t be done without support.
He’s a dumbass for giving up the best support he had, but what’s done is done.
Is he bipolar?