The Meltdown

I woke up to a note.

I don’t want to be around anyone right now.

I’m not even sure I want to be around you.

I felt like I wanted to vomit.

I had no idea where my husband had disappeared to, or if he was coming back.

My emotions flowed in yin-yang fashion; searing sadness swirled with outrage and anger.

I screamed as I furiously tore the note into shreds and threw it into the trash.

A few weeks ago my husband had mentioned that he was not ok; that something inside him was about to erupt. I asked him if he wanted to talk about it – he said no – so I respected his wishes.

Now he had disappeared.

I called him ONCE.

I texted him ONCE.

I got no reply.

I put on my scrubs and went to work. I felt robotic. I tried my hardest to focus on my job. Luckily my patient was very busy that day, and kept me semi-distracted. Every few minutes I would check my phone.

NOTHING.

The nausea was overwhelming. I felt a crushing weight on my throat – it felt hard to breathe.

My heart hurt so much that I felt like I was having a heart attack. The pain radiated across my chest and I thought I was going to pass out.

“This is it,” I thought, “this is the end of us.”

So this is how this feels – when your whole world comes crumbling down and it’s over? When everything you had imagined for your life suddenly screeches to a halt and destiny laughs in your face. “That’s what you get for planning,” it scoffs, “that’s what you get for dreaming of love and happiness!” It sneers snidefully as it stomps the ashes of my heart into the cracked and barren earth.

I don’t know how I stayed sane. It was the longest shift of my life. I thought it was NEVER going to end. I was desperate to get home. I wanted to know if he was ok.

I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t handle this torture. I NEEDED to know if he was ok. I NEEDED to know if he was coming home.

I texted him one more time.

NOTHING.

Wait a minute……..it suddenly hit me.

I felt like I’d been slapped in the face, or tackled to the ground – laying there breathless from the impact.

For the first time it was ME who was on the other side and I DIDN’T LIKE HOW IT FELT!

Boom.

Reality check.

Proverbial face slap.

I decided to leave him alone; no more texts, no more calls. The obsessive phone checking continued, but there was silence on the other end.

The shift FINALLY ended and I was overcome with anxiety as I walked home. I was trembling as I unlocked the door. I had waited all day to see him, but I was greeted by darkness.

He wasn’t home.

The calmness that I had somehow forcefully maintained all day left me and I started screaming in fury. I got in the shower and used the stream of water to muffle my wails as anger, fury and grief poured out of me. An onslaught of tears streamed down my face – those tears becoming one with the shower stream as they flowed down my body, fully embodying the phrase ‘washing away my tears’.

After that expulsive release of emotions I somehow felt calmer.

I got out of the shower and sat, exhausted, on the couch.

I felt like I was loosing my mind.

I really didn’t know if Jarod was ever going to come home.

I picked up my journal and started to write…..to myself.

Don’t be such a hypocrite.

Jarod is ALLOWED to be sad.

Jarod is ALLOWED to grieve.

Jarod is ALLOWED to be angry.

Jarod is ALLOWED to have a melt-down.

You have had SO many melt-downs and you have always EXPECTED him to just deal with it. You have cried and wept and each time you’ve expected Jarod to be strong as he watched you suffer.

You have expected HIM to stay strong because you are so self-involved that you think YOU are the only one that is suffering in this situation. You haven’t given him any sympathy through all of this.

Well, how about you harness some strength for once and allow Jarod the space to suffer!

He has been strong for so long and he has not allowed himself to release his emotions. He has not yet wept so hard that he thought his soul was breaking. Now it’s his turn. He will find healing through it, and he WILL feel better.

But YOU need to have to strength to let him go through this process.

There is nothing personal about him disappearing this weekend.

It is NOT about you, and if you take it personally then the whole relationship could be at risk.

This could be the end of us.

Get off your high horse, STOP BEING A HYPOCRITE, and allow your husband to suffer.

But I really don’t like this feeling……this horrific helplessness.

Oh, well, what do you think he’s been dealing with all these years?

I NEVER realised, until this very moment, that being the one who has to watch your loved one SUFFER is actually HARDER than being the one suffering. I had NO idea. I truly had no idea what this felt like.

I have been in survival mode. I have been so involved in my own suffering that I have never actually acknowledged how hard this might be for Jarod.

I want to take his pain away.

I honestly can’t handle feeling so helpless.

What an epiphany.

Is this how he feels, and has felt for so many years?

This is HORRIBLE, being on the other side.

I would rather be the one in pain. I don’t know if I can handle him being sad.

Well, suck it up princess.

Gather the last ounce of strength you have and BE STRONG enough to let Jarod go through this……

The words that poured out of my subconscious REPRIMANDED and ENLIGHTENED me in a profound way.

I was speechless.

I had never taken the time to imagine what this might feel like for Jarod; at least not until I was forced to.

I had once spoken to my psychologist about Jarod and his frequent outbursts of anger.

I was very reactive when Jarod got angry.

I’d get angry when he got angry.

I was angry that he was feeling angry.

I viewed anger as negative and unhealthy.

I never allowed him to express that emotion. And yet, when I would have a little melt-down I would EXPECT Jarod to shrug it off and allow me the space to cry – to “get it out of my system”.

How hypocritical of me.

My psychologist encouraged me to allow Jarod to express his anger.

“He is allowed to express anger,” she advised me, “as long as it’s in a responsible way.”

I remember the first time I implemented this.

Jarod got home from work and had a verbal outburst of anger and frustration. I sat there quietly, withholding my emotional response.

“He’s allowed to get angry,” I admonished myself. “It’s like a woman’s version of crying.”

Jarod said his piece and then stood there in shock as I continued to sit in silence.

“Thank you for allowing me to do that,” he said in genuine appreciation.

“You’re welcome,” I replied casually.

I realised that in that moment I felt NOTHING, and it was freeing……for BOTH of us. We went on with our evening as though nothing had happened; whereas in the past, it would have turned into massive fight.

It was a small taste of the potential in our marriage.

As I reminisced about that event, a phrase suddenly floated to the surface of my mind…..

COMPASSION FATIGUE.

An “ah ha” moment. It finally dawned on me – my husband has compassion fatigue.

How is it that I never realised this before?

The partner of the person who is “suffering” rarely gets any form of acknowledgement. People don’t ask them how they are doing. No one acknowledges their pain.

Their partners (and others) have high and unrealistic expectations of them….

They are supposed to stay strong at all times…

They are supposed to support their partner at all times…

They are required to have an endless amount of energy for emotional support….

They should not be the ones crying……

They are not “suffering” so therefore they do not require self-care….

They are “selfish” if they do things for them….

I was speechless.

Anxiety engulfed me as I waited for Jarod to come home.

Was he ever going to come home?

Would I get the chance to tell him of my epiphany?

Would I get the chance to acknowledge his pain and suffering?

Would I get the chance to thank him for his strength, but tell him that my expectations of him were now forever altered?

Would we get the chance to try again? To live together, but as individuals?

Would we get the chance to love each other, but to give each other space to grieve and mourn in our own way – without getting offended of how we each individually express our grief and pain?

Would we get the chance to live in a beautiful freedom of NO EXPECTATIONS where all emotions are allowed and I take care of ME and he takes care of HIM and neither of us are responsible for each other’s emotions or happiness?

The minutes and hours crept slowly and painfully into the night…..

Time warped into a form of torture.

The door finally opened. It was midnight. Jarod was surprised to see me awake.

I couldn’t speak.

I couldn’t get any words out.

He didn’t say anything either.

He gave me no explanation.

The silence was thick and suffocating.

I handed him my journal and went to bed.

I felt as though our fragile fate hung in his response to my written words. Little did I know how I right I was.

____________________________________________

Jarod later told me that he had gone out west.

His internal dam of tears had finally exploded and he was overcome by grief. He was weeping as he jumped in the car, and he kept weeping as he drove to who-knows-where. He had no idea where he was going or if he was coming back.

He wept for hours. He drove for hours. He wept the entire time he was driving.

He ended up out west, in the Australian bushland. He walked into the bush, still convulsing from the weeping; he thought it was never going to stop; he thought the pent-up dam of emotions was an eternal spring – that it would never end.

He was shocked when it finally did.

He cried until he was all cried out, and there were no more tears left.

He sat motionless for a while, fully expecting the convulsing to return – but it didn’t. He’d never experienced this before. Was it truly this simple? Could pent-up energy (grief and emotions) really be released from the body and literally “washed away”?

He was dry now – empty.

Crying truly was cathartic.

He suddenly felt cold in his stillness, so he made a fire from scratch. Stacking the little scraps of twigs and sticks proved to be profoundly distracting and calming; an inadvertent exercise in mindfulness.

He stayed “out bush” well into the night. “Going walkabout” was the perfect remedy, a therapy that aboriginals have lived, breathed, internalised, and used for thousands of years.

Imagine if doctors would prescribe that to their patients? I can clearly see it on the prescription pad.

Go Walkabout

And cry until you are empty

When Jarod was ready he came home. When he’d taken off that morning he wasn’t sure he was ever going to come back. He was surprised by how calm he felt, though he was apprehensive at the thought of facing my wrath.

He was just so fragile in that moment; and how I handled his disappearance would determine whether or not he turned back around, walked out that door and drove off forever.