The contest I lost that cost me my family, my wife, and my mental health

This recollection comes from the very difficult months of April through July, 2022.

 

At this point, my then wife had moved to Montreal to engage in polyamorous sex.  I was not invited.  Instead, I was informed that this was an opportunity for me to explore my own sexuality.

 

I didn't like this.  First, it was the second time my ex had pulled this stunt.

 

Second, I was already exploring my sexuality with my then-wife, and it wasn't going well.  I was getting no attention, and my wife had stopped sharing any information about herself.  She spent most of the previous fall taking a masturbation class with the woman she eventually left me for.

 

None of her self-education came back to our relationship.  My ex was long gone by the time I realized leaving her alone was going to cause me more pain than I'd ever experienced in my life.

 

Too late by then.

 

So…back to the spring of 2022.  Ten years after my dad died, when my ex was also absent.  Bad timing, honey.

 

Because the shock of this had driven me into severe PTSD, I was miserable, angry, terrified, frequently unable to get off the couch for days at a time.  In short I was a mess.  My ex took advantage of this to ghost me.  Maybe this helped her but ghosting is a really bad response to someone with PTSD.  I don't think his wife left Bradley Cooper in that stupid American sharpshooter movie. 

 

My ex was outta here in seconds, learning how to be a really good lesbian, as she reported in our final conversation.

 

The contest was this…communicated almost entirely by Mina's good friend Diti.  The terms were pretty clear:  my wife preferred Caroline, even though she was pretty dumb, but if I could stop being angry, then she would consider going to couples counseling together to help me. (We achieved that point and Mina hired a stoned transexual from Denver who failed to show up for three of the six meetings we scheduled.  You can't make this ineptitude up…my ex really knows how to teach those who disappoint her a lesson!).

 

Diti—thanks.  You were so unhelpful and so wrong, but you did try to communicate something.  All of that community, none of whom other than me have an empathetic bone in their bodies or hearts, failed me far worse than you did.  To that group, I have nothing to say other than "you are not of my tribe, and I now know you never could be."

 

I didn't survive the competition but something went wrong with Caroline so my ex reappeared.  By this point, I was beginning to understand how damaged I was, primarily from the unresolved trauma of 2012 when I went through my dad's rapid illness and death with only one ally—his second wife Lois.  A few other people helped me by keeping my wife away from doing more harm.  I'm thankful to you two, in particular…you know who you are.

 

Then there was my brother, Glenn, who spiraled into bi-polar decay…he lost all of my dad's stuff including his Subaru!  Misplaced them.  He doesn't know where, and it's not that important.  I love Glenn far more than any of those things.  It's kind of funny…a great way to say goodbye to the legacy of your father.  I wonder which state Glenn lost the packed Subaru in.  He can't say.  I'm guessing Montana, but he might have made it as far as Washington state.

 

So, as a consolation prize, and because the other competitors dropped out or disqualified themselves or went back to their better original sex partners. I won.  Here I am on 250 mg of Wellbutrin (an anti-depressant that does, in some cases like mine, accelerate anxiety (people who met me said I was "vibrating" and "breathing loudly".  Several suggested that I admit myself to an emergency room or mental health facitilty, and the only feedback I got for six months was "I'm really worried about you.").

 

I'm full on deep depressed…a mindblowing experience that only those like Joan Didion et al who have come through it can understand or describe.  I'm PTSD.  I'm also heartbroken and afraid of my ex, who at this point appears to be a sociopath…when she walked near me I shriveled in the corner.  I jerked if she came within touching distance, and I tried to stay in rooms she wasn't in, or on the far side of any space.

 

I demanded that a friend move in with me so I had a witness.  To this day, this friend is the only person on the planet who knows  what happened to me.  I treasure her friendship, not because I'm a good friend…I've been needy every second…but because, without her, I have no one who know.

 

No one except Kelsey knows how I won Diti's contest because the other contestants self-disqualified, and then how that ruined my health, my good will, and my hope of ever feeling joy or safety again.  How I lost.  How I won the lottery and got my wife back twice when she walked out, which fucked me up badly…and then lost the lottery the third time and entered the dark dark zone of the permanently traumatized. 

 

Hence my knowledge of my ex-wife's sociopathic narcissism.  It's three years now, and she still ghosts me.  Haunts me from whatever part of the sadistic planet she belongs to.  To me, she's lost in the constellation that includes Trump and Tuesday's election…people with campaign posters giving you the finger on I-80.

 

 

 

I wish I'd understood the impact of trauma and my mental breakdown at that point.