Revelations of a door mat

I have discovered a great many things this week. None good and nothing to bolster my flagging optimism...

1. I live with a raving alcoholic. I tried to deny it at first and see it as a binge brought on by depression, but no. Can you tell me who gets up at 6am for a beer and a cigarette? Who empties a bottle of vodka, just opened overnight between midnight and 5am? Who goes to the same bar every night and drinks whether he has money or not? Who cannot go to sleep without drinking a gallon of strong beer every night? Who is so chemically dependant that when faced with the idea that he has no money and pay day is 2 days away he meets one of my students in a cafe and proceeds to get them to buy drinks all night for him. Who do you have to carry home because he blames sunstroke on the fact he has been drinking and not eating for 4 days and is too weak and drunk to stand up. Who is in complete denial about drinking so much and will spend the next 8 weeks alienating everyone he knows in his regular bar by trying to coerce them to buy him alcohol? Whom you actually gave a roof to for 3 weeks when he had no home and recommended for a job that was made vacant at the same time he quit his last job, handed him a viable option when his life fell apart? Who owes you a lot of money loaned in good faith and thanks you for all this by refusing to pay you when he promised. My housemate, that is who.

2. What do you do when someone you care about half your life turns around and starts criticising you about things they believe slighted them but in so doing they miss the big picture and nearly lose a friend for life? Well luckily that situation has been avoided, but still hurts and the weight of it adds to point number one, three and four.

3. What do you do when the person you love so deeply so completely pushes you away at the first sign of stress because you are the easiest target? What do you do when the person you can't be without in this world says they can't tell you when or if in July they will see you because she has decided not to make that decision and won't give any answer at all even though you cry tears of blood down the line and beg for a sign of hope, a gram or a scrap? Do you see then that you have always made yourself available for her to vent to and lean on, and taken a lot of time, love and tender patience and wasted it on the wrong person, because you see at the end of it she is too immature, or worse, refuses to give when you make it obvious you need something from her for a change so so badly. If you love someone you put them ahead of yourself in everything. not fourth.

Lyrics

4. What do you do when you have a friend who you have supported and cared for through some very dark and lonely times in the last 18+ months. Who acknowledges your efforts and asks to be told when they can do the same to support and be leaned on. Then when you do need that person really badly she fobs you off for a phone call and espouses some made up on the spot MSN etiquette that real people come first. Now, I have put off sleeping to the early hours, stopped meals and ignored my own phone and responsibilities to be available to speak to this friend at length for hours, to cheer her up and offer her support and just sometimes just to keep her company as she drank alone in her apartment miserable. What do you do when you are nicely kicked in the guts when this is pointed out?

Suggestions welcome...

This last week has really unsettled my optimistic view of life and love and friendship. I want to learn to be a sociopath - where do I sign up??

sociopath (soh-see-uh-path, soh-shee-uh-path)
Someone whose social behavior is extremely abnormal. Sociopaths are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behavior on others. (Compare psychopath.)

I am burnt out and washed away. every time in my life when I have reached out and needed I have been treated like this. You'd think I would have learned by now...

Obi... needs... (and that is just wrong in some books!)