“Un-hinged”
I was hell-bent on enjoying myself as much as possible during those first few months of the pandemic. I believed it was a never-ending parade of delicious in-home cooking and wild, passionate sex with bare contact without using condoms. I wanted to experience the best sex high if the world was genuinely ending. I wanted to feel life on life’s terms before my ride in this universe ended. In my eyes, then, I figured COVID-19 was a pretty awful death. I also figured, given how at risk I was and my lifelong relationship with unfortunate turns, it was probably only a matter of time until I got sick and was on a ventilator. Is it all shocking that I wasn’t worried about contracting Hep C?
But as more time passed, Felecia’s negative, ugly, and loud behaviors revealed themselves. And as more and more time elapsed, the frequency and intensity of these behaviors increased, especially the drinking and everything else that came with it. The sloppiness, the loud cursing, and the worst, the paranoia, fear, and suggestions that my family, and friends, were out to harm me in some way she could never explain or articulate or even dare to suggest if she wasn’t so drunk.
One evening, it dawned on me, Felecia had a severe drinking problem. I realized this first as a therapist, then as a person who has been on the other end of things and been loud, ugly, and hostile towards his ex-girlfriend, Dorothea. I also realized this after the last five or six liquor bottles disappeared or I found the trash empty.
Oh my God, I thought to myself. This isn’t going to work, not like this, I said to myself as I began thinking about how serious her problem was and how our relationship wouldn’t work. Felecia was a full-blown alcoholic. Look, I’m no saint. But Felecia didn’t only have a problem with drinking. She made a problem for everyone else when she drank, which was my big issue. I didn’t mind that she liked to drink. My biggest concern was that I felt unsafe around her while drinking. Safety wasn’t my only issue. She was downright insensitive, mean-spirited, and hurtful when drunk. That’s when the conspiracy thoughts and her anger came out, and it was clear how wounded and unable she was to articulate her feelings or healthily deal with her emotions. It was hard to watch, sometimes, but even harder to be around, especially when she got vulgar.
Felecia’s alcoholism became more apparent when people started talking about vaccines. That’s precisely when I began getting nervous about my future and health if this relationship continued. Felecia and I began to argue about her drinking, as it only seemed to get more and more out of control as our relationship advanced. I noticed she drank almost all day, from the morning to when she finally passed out from living an active life as a full-blown working alcoholic. The only thing that wasn’t working was our relationship, around the same time the vaccine rollout was underway.
We would get into these silly little fights that became so outrageously out of hand I was worried about my safety. The stupid little arguments made me think about her insight. Did she have the same lack of sense when taking her Hep C meds and adhering to treatment? After all, mentally ill people habitually stop their medication a lot. Even if they are just medical meds, can I trust her? Can I trust her for the long term?
Author Info:
Max E. Guttman
Max E. Guttman is the owner of Mindful Living LCSW, PLLC, a private mental health practice in Yonkers, New York.
