She’s Lost Control

Posted by fxckfeelings on July 20, 2009

Lots of men may be drawn to long legs and big boobs, but there’s nothing sexier to most guys than a severely unstable female. You can marry these women or try to help them, as the people in these cases have tried to do, but when it comes to semi-sane drama queens, there’s only one good bit of advice: run for your life.
–Dr. Lastname

My mother was crazy (bipolar or schizo, it was never clear), and as her youngest, I was the one who took care of her and eventually found a way to get her into the hospital where the state took care of her until she died. I was a crazy kid, but not technically crazy like my mom—I drank too much, got high a lot (too much), crashed a car or two. I met a girl who was crazier even than me, she got pregnant, and so we got clean together to start our family. I’ve stayed clean, but the mother of my kids—now my ex-wife—didn’t. She held it together when she was pregnant all four times, but otherwise, she’d fall off, and now that she and I are finally through, I’ve got the kids and she’s got a nasty drug problem which she funds through alimony, boyfriends, and money she wins from taking me to court for one bullshit reason or another. As for the kids, one has gone through rehab, one is a mom at 18, one’s on tons of medication, and one was killed earlier this year when he was driving drunk. This is a long way of asking a simple question: what the fuck is wrong with me, after the way I was raised, that I can’t stay away from crazy women? Now I’ve passed this curse on to my kids, and now one of them has died because he was unlucky enough to be born to a former-drug addict and a current psychotic crack whore. My goal is to get crazy out of my life for good.

It doesn’t take a Harvard degree (or two) or even a passing familiarity with Sigmund Freud to know that you tend to feel attracted by people who are like your parents, whether you like your parents or not, whether your parents were certifiable or not.

If you expect that feeling to go away, and meanwhile keep dating the people you feel like dating, you’ll keep on getting into trouble, because, surprise, that feeling doesn’t usually go away. And don’t expect therapy to take it away, either.

Like it or not, that feeling—that attraction—is stronger than whatever most therapists have to offer, so if your goal is to stop wanting crazy, forget it. You’re crazy for thinking you can help yourself. (That sounds like it might make a good country-and-western lament).

You’re right to think about the kids, but wrong to think about what your crazy-loving has done to them. The past is past and remorse will do no more than get in your way now. Instead, you should be thinking about how to help them handle their own crazy-loving urges.

Look, being wild (assuming you don’t wind up dead, in the loony-bin for life, or on a reality show) is what makes people interesting and creative; it’s not all bad. If you’ve got to feel guilty, then blame your genes, but right now, your job with the kids is the same as it is with yourself: to help them, and you, manage the attraction to crazy people so it doesn’t ruin your lives.

Face it, messing with crazy people is exciting. The talk gets raw and mean in an instant, which is why people watch soap operas and Judge Judy. Nothing gets unsaid, everything gets said with feeling, and all that intensity feels like living life to the fullest (when in fact it’s to the stupidest). You may get covered with shit, but the rollercoaster ride down to shit gulch makes up for it.

Lots of men love crazy women—as long as the world keeps turning out Brandees, Tiffanis, and Ambers, that means more crazy women are breeding—so you can at least take comfort in the fact you’re not alone.

In relationship terms, sex with sane women normally requires courting and foreplay; with crazies, this stuff is instantaneous (as in, “hello, let’s bone”). The first step to managing it is knowing there’s a part of you that wants it and that will find excuses to put you in harm’s way. The second step is to remember that women like this will just as instantaneously decide you’re the devil and try to burn your house down while you’re asleep.

The usual excuse is that you stick by the crazies, even after they turn, because you’re a gentle, good guy trying to do a kindness; someone is messed up and needs help, and it feels great to provide support when you know what it’s like to hurt. It’s like you’re helping dear Mamma, except she’s young and wants to take off her clothes. And then wants you to perish in flames.

So approach it like your other addictions. Learn the “triggers” that draw you in. Resign yourself to a life without the old, familiar excitement. Screen prospective partners by using your wisdom and experience, not your desire for sex in the backseat of a car and your instincts for wildlife protection.

And if you feel guilty about not saving your mother from a life of illness and confinement, your wife from addiction, and then your son from a horrible accident, ignore it. The grief is awful, but you never had the power to protect them, and so much of what you did was wonderful. Respect your grief as a measure of your love, and don’t let guilt get anywhere near it.

And if you feel vaguely unhappy, guilty and blah because you haven’t had a helpful, meaningful, misery-comforting conversation with a sad-eyed, oh-so-available lady, remind yourself that you must be doing an excellent job.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to protect yourself from remorse and old yearnings. “I may always feel most alive when I’m trying to help a dramatically disturbed and sexy lady, but what I want in the end is a friendship with someone I can respect and trust, and I know what that’s like and the kind of person I need to choose. So I’ll watch out for my sneaky and persistent reflexes while I get active about a more sensible kind of choice. Whenever I feel low and in need of a fix, I’ll remember my feeble powers as a white knight, my long-term wish to find an un-distressed damsel, and the virtues of ignoring my feelings and holding steady. And when those I love are in trouble, I’ll reject feelings ofresponsibility unless there’s something truly helpful I can do for them.”

I’m raising my daughter’s three kids…sometimes she has them with her and is a great mom, but after a month or so of that she just drops them off at my house one afternoon and then I don’t hear from her for a few weeks, and when I do hear from her again, she’s either with a new guy, in a new state, or angry at me for some reason that comes out of nowhere. The kids all have different dads, and the dads keep their distance because they all owe child support, plus she goes after them all the time in court saying she’s taking care of the kids and deserves to be compensated, so they don’t want anything to do with me because they think I’m backing up her lie (I take care of them much more often) and helping her steal from them. I know my daughter’s troubled—she has a really bad temper, sometimes says awful things to me she later denies saying in the first place, makes big decisions without thinking them through—but I think if she could just get a little help, have somebody to talk to, she could see some priorities and get her head on straight. If you’re really a shrink, then tell me how I can get her to a shrink who can get her to see sense.

If you want me to help you get her into therapy, you’re barking up the wrong shrink, and it makes you a bad mother and grandmother.

Yes, you’re doing a wonderful, generous and caring job of caring for your grandchildren, but you’re also doing some needless harm by blinding yourself to certain sad realities, the first of them being your daughter’s character, which is not going to change.

I can do a lot of things—give advice, prescribe medication, make a mean omelet—but I cannot, nor can any shrink, change a person’s character. There are certainly times I wish I had that power, but then, think of all the work I’d have to do.

On the other hand, if she was interested in a lobotomy, I think I could help her; the stylus of my palm pilot might do the trick. And hey, procedures are much better compensated by insurance than talk-sessions. But I digress.

So stop believing that crap about psychotherapy stopping people from being assholes. I’m not saying your daughter can help being an asshole, but I’m also saying that you and I and all the king’s shrinks aren’t going to change it, and you have a job to do as a grandmother (and mother) that could be better done if you were more realistic. So stop pining for your wishes, get real, and dump your make-believe goal.

Now that we’ve resigned ourselves to reality, try this goal on for size: providing as much stability as possible for the grand-kids, knowing, and in despite of, what your daughter is likely to do.

Of course, she will periodically fuck things up and blame you and others, and at those times the kids will suddenly be yanked from their schedules and introduced to a brief mother-child reunion, to be followed by a disappointing breaking of promises, a vanishing mommy act, and return (hopefully) to their life with you.

Ask a lawyer and/or state social worker whether there’s something you can do, by documenting her comings and goings, to give you more say over what happens during these crises. So instead of facing a judge who believes her sad story of frustrated devotion, there’ll be a solid record of her active behavior and a good, responsible recommendation that will give the kids more stability, you more say, and your daughter a less erratic and better managed connection with her kids.

Your daughter has a million reasons to stop her behavior—three particularly strong reasons, in fact—but if they haven’t gotten her to see the light, then no MD is going to do the trick. It’s too late for her, but not for those kids, and thankfully, they have someone as caring as you to look after them.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to protect yourself from the guilt of adding pain (or so your daughter would have you believe) to an already tortured life. “I’m doing a good job with these kids and my first responsibility is to their stability. I feel rewarded by their happiness and my daughter’s gratitude, but I must accept and prepare for the fact that she has an evil, uncontrolled side. That doesn’t mean I blame her or am disloyal to her. I’m loyal to the good ideals we share about parenting, and determined to protect the kids from bad behavior that interferes with those ideals, regardless of whether my daughter can understand what I’m doing or ever forgive me.”