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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 15 of 15. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by sunny10 on February 22, 2005, at 12:30:31
Memorial Day 2003, I go to my friend’s house for her family party. I have known them since I was nine. I am an un-official daughter. Basically, that means that when they remember I exist, I am invited to family parties. My friend herself is an over-achieving bread-winner. She is always so busy that she makes plans with me and then cancels on me. But I am bored and need to get out of the house, so I go.
I pull up to the house and there’s this hot guy in the garage, helping my friend’s husband pull of some chairs (cars don’t fit in the two car garage- it is storage). I think, hmmm, who’s the cute neighbor guy?!
Turns out he is the son of my friend’s stepmother who has been living in Colorado for the past twelve years, so we had never met. His parents were living in San Francisco for five years before that, and I was at boarding school before THAT, so we had never met.
He said that he was going to be back at Christmas for a week and would want to get out of the house for at least a day, so asked me if I would show him around. Not an unusual request- for those of us who have lived on our own for a long time, visiting for an entire week with parents 24/7 is hard to take. So I told him I’d be happy to help. He said he’d call. He kisses me quickly before I leave. Not a make-out session, just a little peck.
My family used to have a very set “schedule” when it came to holidays. For reasons that I won’t go into here (too long and this story is long enough!), my father always took us [my brother, his wife, my aunt, and my cousin (because they would be with me) and me] out to dinner for the “winter holiday”. The man that I call my father legally adopted my brother, my sister, and me when he married my mother when I was nine. I was the youngest. My father is Jewish. In terms of the “winter holiday dinner”, this was great, because it didn’t matter to him WHEN we went to dinner, so it never interfered with the “Christmas” dinner set dates. (For the record, it was great to have the Christian holidays and the Jewish holidays while I was growing up. I have been to churches and synagogues and learned a lot.) Every other Thanksgiving was at my brother’s- the other years, I fended for myself because my sister-in-law’s sister would be giving the dinner at her house and I wasn’t invited. I have always been okay with that- I know that the sister in question had to have all of her own in-laws there.
Christmas Eve, when I was married, was at my brother’s house, with his wife, his wife’s parents, our parents, his wife’s sisters and their husbands, and his wife’s mother’s elderly aunt.
Christmas Day, my husband, my son, and I would go to my husband’s parents house. My brother and his wife would travel to my mother’s house. My mother and I do not speak, so all of this worked out just fine for me.
After my divorce, during the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, my cousin would come to stay with me and my son for the week. She is seventeen years younger than I.Many years passed this way. My cousin came to the Philly area to go to college near me. She visits me here, but since the winter of 2003, it was understood that she wouldn’t be coming to stay with my son and me during winter break because she would be going home to work to earn her spending money. But that Thanksgiving, I did not receive an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner, so I figured that dinner was at my sister-in-law’s sister’s house. No big deal. Except that I was depressed. This happens to me approximately every six years. My pdoc called it a long cycle recurring depression.
So I invited my aunt and my cousin for Thanksgiving, went shopping for all of the food, bought all of the table setting linens, et cetera (it was my first “big family dinner” in my apartment), I got a table from my ex-husband’s parents’ attic (it had been stored- he had his own table), and I cleaned like a mad woman. I was getting excited to have company, because I didn’t want to be alone. I called them in the morning of Thanksgiving, to find out what time they would be there. They told me that they were running late and would just have to meet me at my brother’s house. Hunh???!!!??? All my preparations were for crap. My brother had forgotten to invite me. About an hour later, my brother called to tell me what time to be there. I don’t even remember if I went or not, I was so depressed at the time that my recall now is not to be trusted. Or, at least, that’s what my family always says; that I remember everything wrong.
So, even further depressed, Christmas nears. My brother calls me. He tells me that he has invited my mother to his house for Christmas because “she simply isn’t up for having company at her house this year”. He says that he’s inviting me, but is pretty sure I don’t want to come. He’s right, but I’ve just lost Christmas. Since my divorce, I had nowhere to go on Christmas Day, and my son is with his father on Christmas Day. Now I had lost Christmas Eve, too. I was severely depressed by this news.
The phone rings a few days later. It’s my friend’s step-brother. We fix a date to get him out of the house the day after Christmas. I really have no desire to go ANYWHERE at this point, I am so depressed, but I am also too depressed to say no.
Days pass in depression. Get up, go to work, pretend to be fine, get home, crawl into pajamas and under a blanket on the couch, stare at the tv, go to bed. Do the same the following day.
I get an invitation for Christmas Eve at my friend’s mom’s house. Her parents, though divorced, and their new spouses spend all of their holidays together. As a matter of fact, mom’s husband and dad’s wife do all of the cooking together. They are amazing chefs and feed dinner to 70+ relatives with ease. Of course, with 70+ people there, half of which are small children under the age of nine, the house is a mob scene. I hardly catch sight of my friend’s step-brother, although he picks a seat next to me at one of the four tables. But a nine year old picks the other seat, and I have to pay attention to her. Good thing, really, I get tongue-tied around males I am attracted to… The night flies by, soon it is time for my son and me to go home. I drop off my son at my ex-husband’s and go home to bed.
The day after Christmas, the phone rings. I am still depressed. I want to cancel on the step-brother, but have always had a hard time saying “no”- the penultimate fear of conflict rages in me. He begs me to pick him up as soon as I can. I jump in the shower, get dressed, and go to pick him up. I am also a bit anal about going to the movies when they are just released to the theaters because I always think they will be sold out before I get to the front of the line. So when the decision is made that we are going to the movies, we jump in the car and beeline for the theater to buy the tickets early. Tickets in hand, we look for a bar. A beer sounds like a good idea- I am so nervous, yet tell myself to “not be stupid” he lives in Colorado after all! So I relax, am just myself because I figure that it doesn’t really matter in the long run if he likes me or not. Beers in hand ( I nurse- not a big drinker), we chat. About everything. The conversation gets to travel and I admit to not have had a chance to travel like he has. He tells me that a bunch of his friends and he are heading to New Orleans in April for the French Quarter Festival, did I want to come. Of course, I am a big fan of Anne Rice and she writes eloquently about the French Quarter in her novels, so I really wanted to go. But I explained that although I would really love to go, I really couldn’t afford the trip. He tells me that the hotel rooms are already booked, and that he could get comp-ed airline tickets. He tells me that I needn’t worry; I would just be another friend on the trip, no commitment necessary. Okay, I say, I’ll go. I decided right there and then that what I really needed was to get my butt up (figuratively) and try to get something good out of life. We go to the movies.
We went to dinner at a sushi restaurant before I dropped him back off at his mom’s. Again, the conversation never lagged. I had heard parts of a horror story about his previous relationship and he explained the rest. It was awful. The “she” in question was an alcoholic and sorely needed to go through a program. She had a teenaged son and the two of them had lived with my friend’s step-brother before he had to kick her out. She had destroyed things in the home while drunk, had angered the neighbors, et cetera. He told her it was over after she refused to get treatment for the umpteenth time. His other roommates and he threw a party for their friends for the 4th of July. She crashed the party, went to his room, grabbed his gun and shot herself. The police came and arrested him when he called 911. She lives. He was let go by the police finally, when there were gun-powder burns on HER hand, not his. In the small town where they lived, everyone knew each other. There were few people who didn’t blame him for what she had decided to do with his gun. Truly a horrible experience.
But the upshot for me was that I was going to New Orleans in the spring. Next thing I knew, a couple of girlfriends of mine were convinced that I was “leading him on”. I have been hurt so many times by people leading ME on, that I couldn’t go with the possibility that I would end up hurting him. So I wrote him a letter- chickensh*t that I am, I was too afraid to call to discuss it. I told him what my friends were saying and that I wasn’t going to go if he was hoping that we’d end up in a long-distance relationship. (I had no interest in long-distance relationships; especially where the other party was not an e-mailer!) I told him that if I was hurting him, he need not call or write- I would get the message without him having to hurt himself more by dealing with me at all- and that he could just bring another friend with him. During this time, my MDD came back and I had to admit myself to an outpatient mental health facility.
He called. Told me that he thought what my friends were doing to me was crap. He told me that I would never be responsible for his feelings in any case, and that he did invite me AS A FRIEND. Heart lightened, I apologized for the letter instead of a call and agreed to go. I told him about the facility and told him that I would understand if he didn't want anything to do with me. He said, "why wouldn't I? At least you are willing to do whatever it takes to get yourself help! That gives me more respect for you than I had already!"
We went and had a fabulous time. Too much to write it all- suffice it to say that at the end of the trip, we agreed to keep in touch.
He called every night after admitting to me that he had fallen for me. I felt very guilty until he told me that he had been sick of Colorado for some time because of the whole ex-girlfriend incident AND because after 12 years, he was no longer the same person that drew him there to begin with. He felt that he had outgrow the “nightlife” there; and, frankly, with a male to female ratio of 19-1 in the mountains where he lived, he was tired of it all. He was moving east to be with me and to spend time with his mom from whom he had been estranged for a long time. I was horrified for about a week. He was talking about quitting his job and moving out to PA with little to nothing- just what would fit in the small U-Haul trailer. Giving up everything he had for me… such responsibility felt daunting… I kept saying, “what if it doesn’t work out between us? You will have given up everything to start all over here- I don’t know if I could take the guilt!” It took him quite a while, I must say, to convince me that this was his choice. He had been planning to leave anyway- I had merely given him a place to travel TO. And that having his mom here was important to him as well. The plan was that he would stay at his mom’s until he had a job and could get an apartment.
He drove here, towing the little trailer, and in six days he hopped on a plane back to then drive his motorcycle out here with a friend who offered to make the trip with him. They had a motorcycling vacation and he’s been here ever since.
He told me about his brother who died of an aneurism in the brain. He felt that death- mistook it at the time for a fear of his own death, but when he had gotten off the road (he had been traveling at the time), he was met with the news that it was his brother that had died. Then he told me that he had had that same feeling on that first trip to my friend’s house. He was on the plane and thought he was going to die. When his plane had landed without crashing, he said that he knew the trip was somehow important to him. I told him much later that he had been right, on the plane. The life he was living DID die. He wasn’t doing drugs anymore- that lifestyle was gone; dead, if you will.
We had a lot of stuff happening when he finally arrived on the motorcycle. I had a cervical cancer that I needed surgery for- he showed a very threatening, intimidating communication sytle that I, with my fear of physical abuse (thank's Dad and prior boyfrined, Jim) couldn't handle. I went a little nuts after he was debating in a very physically threatening way. We talked it out a couple of days later and he admitted to his own faults and promised to work on them, and he has...we have gone through a lot already together. We know that life is not roses, and that every relationship takes working together to make them good.
We rented a house together last August 1st.
And we are still going strong.
Posted by Toph on February 22, 2005, at 15:29:13
In reply to ok, Toph and Susan47- the story is written, posted by sunny10 on February 22, 2005, at 12:30:31
Good thing I didn't hit the "include above post" button (just kidding). I told you I was a slow reader, but I read every word entranced. Anne Rice has nothin' on you girl.
Since I read with poor comprehension and I'm bad with names I hope you don't mind if I share the impressions I am left with. I love you, sunny. I always have. You have been so supportive of me from the start. I didn't know you well. Now I know you better. Your life is complicated to be sure, but rich. You have some emotional frailties (who here doesn't), but you are full of love and compassion which I sense allows you to fly above the family quagmire. It's a fortunate man who gets to have you for a companion and possibly more. I hope that if he is the right guy for you and you for him that you may start your own holiday traditions to which everyone will someday hope to be invited. You know how when you go to a wedding where the couple appears really happy you kinda of renew your vows and look into your wife's eyes and share the knowledge that we were joined with the same happiness and anticipation? Your story did the same thing for me. We're both fortunate, sunny. Thank you.
Toph
Posted by Susan47 on February 22, 2005, at 16:22:00
In reply to the story is written » sunny10, posted by Toph on February 22, 2005, at 15:29:13
That look, Toph, the look ... I've never had that, I never will now, and it makes me so unbelievably sad.
And the one person I wanted to share that look with is having it with somebody else. (Sigh) Good thing I bought "Against Love" today. People like me need a guard against the pain, pain I beat myself up with every waking moment of every day today.
Sunny, your story is beautiful.
Posted by Susan47 on February 22, 2005, at 16:51:19
In reply to Re: the story is written » Toph, posted by Susan47 on February 22, 2005, at 16:22:00
Moment, to moment, to moment. Try and make them good ones.
Posted by Toph on February 22, 2005, at 17:23:51
In reply to Re: the story is written » Toph, posted by Susan47 on February 22, 2005, at 16:22:00
I'm going skiing with my son tomorrow, I'll talk to you when I get back. Hang in there. I'll just say this now - we know you very well, susan. As strange as this may sound, many of us here have looked long and deep into your eyes and have seen how wonderful you are. Don't look away.
Hey, pray for me that it goes well with Matthew. I'll tell you about our relationship some day.
Toph
Posted by Susan47 on February 22, 2005, at 18:51:19
In reply to Re: the story is written » Susan47, posted by Toph on February 22, 2005, at 17:23:51
I'd like to hear that story. Have a great time, Toph, do a few nice easy trails, early morning, I love those ...
Posted by Susan47 on February 22, 2005, at 19:56:57
In reply to ok, Toph and Susan47- the story is written, posted by sunny10 on February 22, 2005, at 12:30:31
You're very strong. This relationship with the married man that you had, is that right? How old was your son when that happened, because you don't even mention it here but it must've had an effect on your life too, especially all those lonely Christmases.
Posted by sunny10 on February 23, 2005, at 10:22:29
In reply to Re: ok, Toph and Susan47- the story is written, posted by Susan47 on February 22, 2005, at 19:56:57
Obviously, I couldn't include everything!!!
The married man thing culminated as it did in my post to AdaGrace in November of the year BEFORE the horrible Holiday Fiascos...
I had already spent 12 months mired in depression when my family did what they did. It was extremely difficult for me to handle the fact that they would choose a woman who emotionally abused her children over me. The whole family. (Okay, except for my dad- they are divorced, of course! But he didn't stick up for me and point out to my brother how callously bro was treating me, either)
The main point of the story, though, is that had my SO and I met each other earlier, we would have hated each other. He was the long-haired hippie druggie, I was the goody-two-shoes with my head up my butt!
It was fate that we had never met before then. It was fate that I had given up all hope in ever finding a man to love. I had given up all hope of compromise; which I know is the cornerstone to any good relationship.
I think, most of all, that I have learned that holding on too tightly merely squishes everything (and, everyone that I was so afraid of losing), and that letting go of trying to control my destiny actually brought it to me.
Posted by Susan47 on February 23, 2005, at 11:13:30
In reply to Re: Toph and Susan47, posted by sunny10 on February 23, 2005, at 10:22:29
Isn't that lovely. Where's your post to Adagrace, could you link it for me pwetty pwease?
Posted by sunny10 on February 23, 2005, at 11:53:06
In reply to Re: Toph and Susan47, posted by Susan47 on February 23, 2005, at 11:13:30
just the one that was a response to AG on writing..
you read it, dear!!!
Good heavens, if you want THAT story, it would take forever to write...Plus the tone will have changed- the true angst that it all was at the time is gone now.
I truly meant it when I told AdaGrace that I had gotten to a point that I could remember parts with fondness, take responsibility for all of the wrong in it that was me, and beat down the ghosts of "bad girl, bad girl- you'll always be no good, you'll always be too stupid to deserve the air you breathe".... The flavor of it AS I went through it was completely different.
I doubt I could re-live it to write it for you if I tried.... and frankly, think it's better for ME if I don't...too scary to think I might start believing those things again...
Sometimes writing what you know is the secret to success; sometimes, though, it reopens doors better left closed. Yes, I got "over" it in therapy, but I feel the stories as I write them. Those feelings have already been dealt with- wouldn't want to have to deal with them all over again because I was dumb enough to resurrect them from the dead!!!!
Posted by Susan47 on February 23, 2005, at 12:09:20
In reply to Re: Toph and Susan47, posted by sunny10 on February 23, 2005, at 11:53:06
Well said, Sunny. Good for you, and thank you for the reality check I'll go look it up, I know I read it but am too dumb to remember. Things kind of float in and out of my head lately, things I should remember but don't, can't seem to do it. My head is spinning right now. I tortured myself with thoughts of my failures for years. Then I repeated my failures, just to remind myself that I could. Then I obsessed about those. I'm just beginning to learn about letting it all go, and I understand how you feel. Completely. I'm sorry I was insensitive.
Posted by sunny10 on February 23, 2005, at 12:48:00
In reply to Re: Toph and Susan47 » sunny10, posted by Susan47 on February 23, 2005, at 12:09:20
I am JUST FINE, you did not hurt me IN ANY WAY-- geesh, talk about unnecessary guilt, Suze!!!
I LOVE YOU !
I LOVE THE FACT THAT YOU CARED ENOUGH ABOUT ME TO ASK ABOUT IT!
(Whew...) Feel Better, darling?!?
(((MMMWWWAAAHHH))))
Posted by Susan47 on February 23, 2005, at 19:38:02
In reply to Re: Quit It!!!!! » Susan47, posted by sunny10 on February 23, 2005, at 12:48:00
I babbled you, thanks Sunny. M-wah you too.
I've been having the weirdest dreams lately.
How 'bout you?
Posted by sunny10 on February 24, 2005, at 8:00:34
In reply to Re: Quit It!!!!!, posted by Susan47 on February 23, 2005, at 19:38:02
if I was sleeping normally !!!
Last night was the first night I slept more than four hours... insomnia's such a drag!!!!
Posted by Susan47 on February 24, 2005, at 10:06:17
In reply to Re: maybe I would, too » Susan47, posted by sunny10 on February 24, 2005, at 8:00:34
Yes, it is a drag. Knowing you have to put in a full day and not being rested is a worry. Even not having to put in a full day, but being awake and alone in the middle of the night is awful. What gets me is how magnified all the worries of the day get. They suddenly seem insurmountable.
*Possible Trigger coming*
I always thought I would never want to die at night. Night is a bad time for people with terminal illness. Quite frequently they need someone to sit with them. I can understand that. When I die, I hope it can be out in the open, in the day, and warm.
This is the end of the thread.
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