By Ox Drover
A thought struck me the other day as I was musing ”¦ many people today have at least thought about how they want things to proceed when they come toward the end of their lives. Do they want to be “kept on life support” with feeding tubes and ventilators and lying unconscious in an intensive care nursing unit?
Is that kind of “life” really anything but prolonging drying? Or, is it possible that if you stayed there with mechanical life support, that you might actually wake up and heal, and go on and enjoy more time in a healthy life? Many of us have made decisions which we have placed into “Living Wills” and have appointed someone to be our decision maker if we can’t make our own decision at the time. (BTW if you don’t have a living will which is legally valid, your nearest relative or your spouse will be automatically appointed.)
When the time came to make the decision about providing life support for my husband with the terrible burns he had, between the medical knowledge I had about his chances of survival (zero) and his wishes, there was no decision to make, nothing could have helped him live longer, only prolong the unavoidable.
In my career as a registered nurse practitioner I have watched families vacillate over whether to put their loved one on mechanical life support, to take them off, or put in a feeding tube or to take one out. I have seen them cry and fight and have seen childhood jealousies come to the front to make decisions which should have been made by a cooler head.
Life support and psychopaths
As I was musing about these physical end of life life-supports, I thought about the fact that sometimes in my relationships I’ve done the same thing. I’ve kept a relationship that was essentially “brain dead and suffering” on life support, loath to let it die a natural and peaceful death by just not sustaining it artificially any more. Hoping against hope that it might improve if I just gave it enough time and energy. Later realizing that I had expended a tremendous amount of energy sustaining this relationship which only became sicker and sicker, sucked away resources I could have used for other more positive things.
Looking back, hindsight is always 20/20, I can see that I kept my relationship with my psychopathic son on life-support from the time he was 17, and when I went to the local jail to get him, as he walked up to me and my husband he said, “What the f&%k took you so long?” At that time, I said to the jailer, “Sir, there’s a problem, this isn’t my son, because my son wouldn’t talk to me like that, take this young man back upstairs.” Right then I had seen the relationship was dead, there was no mutuality about it, there was no respect for me, or for my position as his mother.
But I couldn’t conceive that my relationship with my son couldn’t be somehow miraculously saved by some magical miracle so that “everything would be all right.”
So because I couldn’t stand the thought or the pain of pulling the rest of the life support for the relationship, I put it back on life support and kept it there for decades after that. Even when it took turns for the worse and he wound up not just in juvy jail, but it big-boy’s prison for a felony robbery, then back again for murder.
I kept on refusing to let myself disconnect from the corpse of our relationship, refused to let it die a natural death , and feel the grief. In my prolonged denial of how seriously flawed our relationship was, I tortured myself with hope. Hope that was unfounded on reality, malignant hope that my son might survive inside this corpse of a soul.
Had to pull the plug
Eventually there came a time when I realized that the relationship was not repairable. I could not, medicine could not, nothing could fix the relationship, and in addition the relationship on life support was poisoning everything about itself—including me. It was requiring all the energy I had to keep it as the living dead. It was a source of contagion that used my energy, infected other relationships around it and me. I had to pull the plug and let it go, in order to survive.
I actually had a memorial service for the boy that was, the little boy I had grown to love so much, oh gosh was he cute, but he’s no longer living, and my relationship with him is only in my memory. Just as my late husband and I are only in my memory. Yet, by letting both of them go, and doing the appropriate and painful grieving, I have released those good memories to be enjoyed and loved the rest of my life.
Nothing should outlast its time. When something is dead or broken and can’t be fixed, it is time for us to let it go. Cherish the memories if we can, but let the rest of it go.
Glyn
Thank you for the analogy about the life-support. I have been on life-support with a psychopath for 20 years!! I started reading lovefraud about a year ago and I have felt myself getting stronger, however, not quite strong enough to totally cut the ties!! This man would lie even when he knew you knew he was lying. Women are just objects to him…well, you know the whole story about psychopaths.
After reading your article I pictured myself sitting in a hospital room, watching myself on life-support…my heart still beating away, but my brain was dead because I knew he didn’t really love me even though me heart wanted to beat on thinking he did. I pictured myself pulling the plug and letting me slip quietly into peace, then I watched myself walk out of the room, down the hospital hall, and out of the door into the fresh air to begin my life.
He called, I told him I knew he was seeing other women…he denied it…I hung up…he called back..I said I know you are lying…he said “Oh then this is a final hang up, I have no problem with that” and he hung up. Luckily my life-support had already been unplugged. I had already walked away from that poor lifeless body that kept wanting to believe she was loved by a psychopath!
Thank you!
Wini
GeminiGirl, I like your post about “Run down that tunnel, and light the BLOODY THING YOURSELF!!!”
I hope your heart is healing bigger and better than before now that you are learning truth about “their” condition. Reminds me of that song back in the 60s … “Just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in”.
Peace on your journey of healing.
bluejay
Wini,
I have not been plugging into LF for several days, having been busy with work, kids, etc. – have been thinking about Ephesians 6:10-18.
erin1972
I am having a hard time with loneliness tonight. I can’t stand having this concussion. It’s got me all messed up. I keep crying over absolutely nothing and none of my friends/family are answering their phones!
super chic
erin72, staying home and getting rest because of a head injury can be totally boring, you probably have cabin fever! I have a hard time with loneliness every night! ugh! You will be feeling better next week when you can get out of the house and back to work. I go nuts if I have to stay home, which means… I am nuts most of the time!!!! Things are going to get better for you, I can tell by your posts that you are a determined and strong person. Are you going back to work on Tuesday?
hens
ERIN72 I am so lonely I am watching clay aikens on pbs, is that a sign of menopause?
erin1972
shabby-I hope so. I go to the neurologist on Monday and he has to clear me. It’s weird that I hate my job so much but it sucks being told I have to stay home. It also sucks that I have people’s lives in my hands at work so I have to be safe. I have just been crying all weekend. I didn’t know until I did some research that you can have emotional changes and mood changes from post concussive syndrome. I’m just freaked because the ER doc said that I could have symptoms for weeks to months. It’s scary. I’ve been emotional because the police academy class graduated yesterday and I saw video clips from it. I just want to be there so bad and I got all emotional and started crying all over the place. This is SO not like me. I am by myself all the time and it never bothers me. I’ve been crying since yesterday.
erin1972
Hens-I’m not having a breakdown. It’s the concussion. I was told by the ER doc that it is normal to have all kinds of mood swings and emotional changes. I haven’t been right since the day it happened. I am usually by myself and it doesn’t bother me much. I saw the clips from the police graduation last night and haven’t been able to stop crying cuz I want to be in that uniform SO FREAKIN bad and I am tired of waiting. I got up this morning and wanted to run my ass off and sweat really hard. I can’t exercise until the doc clears me!
hens
oh well disregard my above post then.
super chic
I’m so lonely I’m watching reruns of Project Runway over and over.
erin72, yes! You just got a little off track, you will be in a police officers uniform!! You know it! Of course seeing the latest graduates of the academy was a trigger (no pun intended! police/trigger… oops). You will get there!!! Well… the concussion… it is probably the reason you are having these mood swings, so if you feel like crying, just cry! You’ll feel better in a few days. I don’t think this is going to go on for months, don’t let your little cute head even think that! So if you are ok being by yourself… you are 1,000 steps ahead of me!