Am I Still Ill?

This time, of the boyfriend variety. Most of my dramas are connected to him in some way.

R and I had a full-blown domestic on Saturday night. The neighbours called the police at about three thirty in the morning, understandably enough as it probably sounded like a murder might be taking place.

I’m just glad I currently have no fragile old ladies living either side of me. One died and is replaced by a family…nice people, thank God. They have grown used to the sound of rasping voices from this address (mainly mine) not to mention the endless hip-hop floating out of my bedroom window of a morning. The other one I learned from her son has had the awful misfortune of being placed in the ‘geriatric’ (lovely word that huh?) ward at St Ann’s Hospital.

Anyway to get back to the Drama. Two coppers arrive, one with half a brain plus his fresh-faced moron sidekick.

At first R wanted to use the occasion to run away to the safety of home  (a tried and tested tactic which invariably ends up backfiring on his arse because it winds me up and upsets me no end).

However, as the coppers attempted to facilitate his getaway I whispered in his ear that I was in danger of being dragged off to the ward again if he left, and also that coppers now terrify me since the last time they arrived at my house intent on incarcerating a perfectly sane woman for the crime of non-compliance with the Home Treatment Team.

R relented and stayed to face the music. I made us a cup of proper Rosy Lee (R now has a herbal tea habit) and put sugar in it…the well known remedy for shock.

The jovial coppers insisted on remaining in our living room for a good half hour. I ‘shared’ with them my dislike of the authoritarian state, confided my habit of sneaking up behind police officers’ backs and giving them the finger, and pointed out my partner’s environmental credentials, as evidenced by the bike in the hall.

They addressed R as ‘fella’ and ‘young man’ which prompted both of us to request a modicum of respect. I pulled rank on the moron sidekick by telling him I was old enough to be his mother.

I skated my usual fine line between outright rudeness and avoidance of arrest or worse…sectioning. Toward the end of their visit the older one told us to ‘go to bed’, to which my rejoinder was to express my wish to tell him to ‘go to hell’. I get away with a lot by simply speaking a lot faster and a lot more articulately than they are accustomed to.

When I referred to the fact that my partner had hit me the coppers wanted to know if I wanted to allege assault, in which case it would be R’s turn to accompany them to the Pig Sty. I told them that a punch on the arm was as nothing compared to the mental torture I have recently endured at the hands of him and certain equals of his.  He had simply lost it and no one is better placed than I to understand why that might be the case.

Finally they left, with us under a strict warning that if there was any more noise one of us would be arrested.  I told them they were mad if they thought we would risk that in a million years. We just didn’t enjoy their company enough.

So it was goodbye Pigs, hello bed, but we were both utterly and completely shell-shocked and it was about four thirty by this time.

Exhausted by a night of sheer torture (and that was before the Pigs arrived) I fell asleep, and woke at about eight to find the bed empty. R had gone.  He was convinced that if he stayed that threat of arrest might become a reality.

I was panicked and grief-stricken by his disappearance and looked in vain for any note. I rang him and he answered: he had just got home. Amidst all the Sturm und Drang he had somehow thought to take the home-grown raspberries from the fridge (a gift to me the previous evening) and take them home with him, as he rightly thought they would not be eaten, and as he later explained they are ‘his babies’.

Thoughts went through my head, all-too-familiar but more intense than ever before. This is it. We are killing each other. I am going to have to split from the love of my life because this relationship is making me ill. And I owe it to myself and everyone who loves me to put my health first.

After the initial awful panic and sky-fallen dread, a bath and a hair wash, I found a text from him saying he wanted to support me but he didn’t want to see me.

We sent a number of texts back and forth and he was engaging fully with the situation. A good sign. Yes, he had done his usual runner, but here he was recognising his responsibility to see me through however he could.

I took a Benzo and the panic and grief melted away. And no, half a mill of Clonazepam is not that powerful. I just had a total change of mind and mood. This was not the end of anything, and it might just be the wake up call that we both so badly needed.

I had quite a good day. Saw a few friends at a Sustainable Haringey picnic at the Town Hall in Hornsey. Texted merrily away, mainly to R. He told me at first he needed a few days to ‘wallow in self-pity’. Later, after not one but TWO long walks in Firs Lane Fields with his dog, he amended that he no longer felt the self-pity but was now merely ‘numb and fragile’.

I thought it a great sign that he decided to fast forward from self-pity to punch-drunk numbness. He even texted me a couple of humourous rhymes at the end of the day.

Problem for you reader, for all those slightly sad types out there who love a brain-teaser.

What do you do when you both love each other deeply and passionately, but find yourselves unaccountably wanting to kill each other?

People in normal, boring, only half-hearted relationships need not apply. You simply won’t get it. But if you’ve been anywhere near where I’m talking about, answers on a postcard please. We need help!

Lotsa love peeps. Zoe xxx