Love & Addiction, Paired

People say that love is like an addiction.  Eye suppose so!

Some people say that you can't have love during heroin addiction.  This isn't necessarily true.   What eye couldn't have was an eating disorder and a fully encompassing relationship, where you live with the person and spend all of your free time together.  M'eye relationship with Angel phased out m'eye bulimia.  Something else ended up taking over the self-destructive part of me, eventually.  Eye think that a relationship that involves this drug - it just can be very intense.  You see the worst sides of each other.  You experience the desperation and relief, the knock-down-drag-out arguments/fights and the heartfelt apologizes, the lies and manipulation, the deep confessions and the sharing (of drugs) that "saves your life."  It brings you together, it rips you down & far apart, and if you can still stay with someone after experiencing the horror that they are capable of, that says a lot.

It's been said, by more than just me, that eye am incapable of feeling normal human attachment (love), for family or romantic partners.  However, this time eye've come the closest.  Eye suppose eye "act like it" and sometimes even "think like it," but don't "feel it."  Perhaps it's a situation of "loving but not being in love."  It shouldn't be all that surprising to anyone, considering eye don't really "feel" a whole lot, in the way of "Emotions"  To me, it's more like eye have "moods" of excited, irritated, (these two often coincide), depressed, and nothing... more or less.  Far as "emotions" go, they're either - not there, barely there, or too much to handle (this one rarely occurs.)  Nothing in the middle.  A friend called me a "dilettante," meaning in total persona rather than art - eye typically get superficially interested in people or things for a short amount of time, then move on. 

Angel was originally a "temporary roommate" on our couch.  (And eye introduced him to Ketamine.)  However, we started seeing each other.  Eye invited him to live in m'eye room.  Eye'd never lived with a boyfriend before. He was a long-term addict, and whether he wants to or not, is permanently stuck on at least heavy pain medication, due to a shattered spine from an accident (he has rods&pins holding it together.)  It seemed exciting to me, and at first, eye was partially with him to piss people off.  Eye intended to stay with him until eye moved.  He was also a direct opposite of m'eye previous boyfriend, who used NO drugs & broke up with me because eye wouldn't quit psychedelics after a heroin overdose (and eye wasn't doing heroin after that, at that point.)  Eye thought the breakup was ridiculous, and good riddance, and eye had someone MUCH more interesting now, whom eye'd been interested in before the previous relationship even ended.

When eye was first with Angel, he was using, eye was not.  After eye overdosed with m'eye very first injection, eye decided that after the hospital, eye could smoke it for a few days, then eye was taking a break, perhaps for a couple of months, perhaps forever.  (It lasted 3 months.)  At first, eye felt what eye feel toward the beginning of many relationships, except it seemed stronger.  Some "symptoms" of what some people say when they're "in love" - thinking about the person all of the time, doing little things for them, so excited to be with them, so blissful to be together...  Blah, blah, blah - for me, eye just call that "being in a new relationship."  The excitement of finding a new obsession.  It seemed like we had so much in common.  Eye felt closer to him than eye had to any boyfriend.  This must have been real, considering eye actually wanted to spend all m'eye free time with him, rather than needing a life outside of him.  However, during half to much of a brief pregnancy, eye wanted nothing to do with him, eye wanted to run away.  But as eye waited in Planned Parenthood for the abortion, as their pills kicked in, eye felt all these strong feelings toward him again, and wrote him a note apologizing for m'eye behavior.  Once the little alien had been sucked out (eye felt NO maternal instinct toward it, couldn't wait to get the abomination OUT of me.  But, eye did feel "motherly" toward Baby Girl, m'eye kitty.)  Once it was done, eye went to get dope, seeing as eye could actually do some.  (When eye used it once during the pregnancy, it made me violently ill the next day.)  Eye used on and off for the remainder of the time before the move.  He was always the one to inject me, which of course made me feel all the more close to him.  (A previous observation to Marty about a boyfriend from 2 relationships prior, in regards to introducing Ketamine to him, "There's something amazingly sexual about injecting your partner.")

We moved to Las Vegas.  Eye became pretty lonely.  And far as being similar?  Eye felt, "reflective only on the surface."  Eye had previously planned to move here with m'eye best friend Marty.  Eye felt that would have been better.  Eye planned on splitting up soon as eye was financially able to. 

Eye did heroin whenever eye could afford it, he did whenever he could afford it, and we tended to share, depending on who had the money.  At first, eye couldn't that often, as eye could only donate plasma twice per week, and toward the end of the month, had to pay for his methadone.  But, binges got longer, and the time between got shorter and shorter.  But who cared?  It gave me something to latch on to.  It was something to numb how miserable eye was with "no life" in a new city, rarely even a job.  It was a new identity.

If eye didn't have a job, or a recent "medical study," plasma money, or school money, eye had to rely on him to buy for me.  At first, it wasn't too bad, eye could live off of 2/3 of a dime/bag ($10) per day.  Oh!  the manipulation eye had to go through to get that.  With him, he is temperamental, and everything depends on his mood, so eye had to learn to adjust to that, and had to play the game according to that.  Eye couldn't just ask  or say what was going on, it had to be HIM deciding to call...  So sometimes it was arguments, sometimes it was causing pity parties, sometimes it was bargaining, or just making drugs sound appealing - the final one - it was all HIS decision, right, not doing me a favor, when it was still a favor in all other circumstances.

Eventually, it became that eye "ran up tabs" with him, to be paid upon getting a paycheck or school money.  But eye still played games to get him to "loan" to me.  When Tanner moved in with us for a while, it was nice because Angel's anger got directed at HIM, for the most part, and Tanner's the one fucking up, using him, etc.
But it was also a bit harder to play at getting drugs, because since he was getting it from both sides, he was very sensitive to it.  But, eye played both sides, too.  And whenever m'eye "partner" and eye got the drugs without the other person knowing, it was our little secret, or when we'd get drugs out of the other person - that made it so much more fun.  Then Angel "changed the rules" and eye no longer really got extra for buying quantity, now Angel wanted them (which didn't change after Tanner was gone.)  Tanner moved back to his parent's house after about six months.  A couple of months down the road, Angel pretty much REFUSED to help me except in dire circumstances.  So, whenever eye didn't have money from work or school, eye turned to begging on the side of the highway.

Throughout all this, he can just be hell to live with.  He's easily angered, holds long-term grudges, has a tendency to think people are "screwing him over" and becomes resentful, his mood determines how everything goes, he blacks out (can't remember what he did later) on pills & either becomes anything from a mumbling idiot who can't put on his pants & tries to drink soap or cook mustard (which is funny later, but not at the time) to a screaming prick who mistakes me for one of his ex girlfriends who cheated on him or something & is intent on putting me down (which he only actually has done once since eye threatened to leave him for it - bc now he doesn't take a whole bunch on purpose.)  He resents things he's done for me as me "using" him, but when it comes for me doing stuff for him, it's either not enough or just what eye "should" be doing because of him being disabled.  He "forbade" the dealer to speak to me, so, he has control (unless Angel's gone & doesn't know about it.) He lies to me about having money, and at times tries to hide that he has drugs.   He's locked me out of the bedroom.  He's talked shit about me to his mom (and she just makes it worse.)  He's left state to leave me to detox.  He's threatened to beat me, and has come close to hitting me twice.

However, eye'm not so fun, either.  Eye'm neglectful of the house and many, many things.  He has to remember the lies eye've told the family.  When eye want drugs (and have no way to pay for them) eye don't back down unless there's Absolutely Nothing that can be done - like it's too late to call (no cash won't do it, eye will beg and beg to ask for a credit) AND he doesn't have any methadone.  Eye manipulate.  Eye have stolen pills and small quantities of money from him. When eye don't have money, eye'll smoke his tobacco, and it's at the rate of 2-3 times as fast as he'd go through it on his own.  Eye EXPECT him to "figure it out," despite him only getting $600-1000 per month.  If eye'm having problems injecting, he has to do it for me, even if he has no drugs & has to watch drugs go into someone else with his hand.

During our time together, there have been times where one or both of us do not consider ourselves "together," but that's not very often.  Eye have been completely miserable & wanting to leave, and he's threatened to at other times, but for the most part, eye can't see me leaving at all, and he's never left, except a few couple-week excursions to his mother's in another state, that eye always know are upcoming.  Eye can't really see me with someone else, and actually, the first blogspot blog eye got "into" was because he shares a similar past to Angel.  We still have so much fun laughing together.  He's told me so much that he can't tell other people.  We have this common thread that at times may irritate & inconvenience each other, but we understand and come back to this understanding.  We can't bear to watch the other one go without & suffer (and on him, it happens dramatically and FAST, like he's gagging & throwing up on himself within about 18 hours.)  We do little things, and sometimes big things with each other. Eye cook & clean (sometimes, eye'm not very "girly" like that), do the shopping, go drop off things for him, look things up, put his "money pack" on his card or minutes on his phone, etc. Even though he's allergic to cats, he went under the crawl space of a neighbor's house to get Baby, and has pushed out her impacted constipation.  He says that though he's not much into marriage (and neither am eye), if it ever happens, it would probably be with me.   

And now, he's "running up a tab" with me.  But hell, it's m'eye turn, anyway.

And, does any of this demonstrate love?  Maybe so, maybe not.  Being such a dispassionate personality, maybe it's the closest approximation eye'll ever have.  But eye do know, that in any other relationship, either soon as something's wrong, or soon as a certain amount of time goes by, eye'm DONE with the guy.  All previous relationships ranged from six weeks to four months, with lots of time being single in-between.  Angel's important enough to bother with, and for me, that says a lot - especially considering all the things that are "wrong with him" when previously, eye wouldn't tolerate it, once the illusion of "perfect" in a guy was shattered.

Some people say that there's no way we could ever "get clean" while with each other.  This might be true, considering that for so long our relationship has been "made of three threads" (the two of us and the drug.)  But, our relationship didn't begin this way.  He's going to be moved to a pain pump instead of pills.  And, right now, quitting isn't on the agenda.