Being a doctor in our culture allows you to get away with a lot. Look at Augusten Burrough's adoptive (well, sort of) father, a psychiatrist who was crazier than many of his patients.
Doctors also vouch for one another. Like a tribe. There was no way a VA psychiatrist was going to listen to a dependent over a vet, especially a vet with MD after her name. It's to their credit that the VA people didn't seem too bothered by Michelle's switch from male to female. The bonds of being in a war together.
I worked with an RN who married a vet. She was convinced one of the VA's goals was to kill dependents. She wasn't the first, nor the last to say this, but she'd given birth in VA hospitals, so her words had weight. Bitterness, yes. Hyperbole, maybe. Still, it speaks of an attitude that's hard to overcome. Dependents are whale shit.
I got no help from the VA in trying to find help for Michelle. Michelle was fine. Cured of PTSD. It was her crazy wife that was the problem. I believed it because on the surface I seemed crazy, even to me.
It's the plight of the spouse of someone with a severe personality disorder to have all the craziness foisted off onto her. And the more you protest, the crazier you sound. I had good people helping me. The glass got clearer and clearer as I realized Michelle's world was the crazy one, Alice's Looking Glass world. But when you're in the midst of it, it's so hard to see the forest or the trees.
And when you're out of it, you're out in the cold and scrambling to forge a life from scraps. I wasn't strong. I made a lot of mistakes. Everything happens for a reason, we say. Of course, what choice do we have?
If there's a reason, I'm determined to discover it. I'm a Virgo; my purpose in life is to serve. So maybe the reason is elucidation for others. Maybe I'm a lightworker, however you want to define that. A little light, a single candle, while trying not to curse the darkness.
Anyway, my father accepted Michelle, which blew me away. I think because he saw Michelle, 6'2'' and wearing a dress, could take care of me. My family had an odd definition of "care." Keeping someone alive, which is a good thing. I'm not blaming. But emotional support only came through the next generation.
It did come through, and for that I'm grateful. I believe my mother and my brother's wife were the key to that blossoming. Michelle despised my family. But where was hers, I would ask. My family wasn't perfect, not sophisticated, not by Michelle's rancid definition, but they didn't disown me.
Michelle's family did. She found out her mother died by letter from her sister, which arrived too late for Michelle to attend the funeral. She found out her sister died by seeing the obituary on the internet. Michelle had to hire a detective to locate her sons when they turned 18, and even then they refused to see her. I don't blame them. Michelle wrote a horrible letter, chastising them and justifying herself. I was embarassed to read it. Michelle asked me, why did you let me send it?
Blame blame blame. Because you sent it without showing it to me, dummy. Remember? Michelle professed to love Truth but she had no idea what was the truth. I think she made so much up that she couldn't tell truth from lies and it all blended in her mind. She was terrified of the truth. Terrified to seem less-than in her own eyes. I pity her that now. Then it was infuriating.
She could convince herself of anything. She convinced herself the one person who had her best interest at heart was her worst enemy. Her lies destroyed two lives: hers and mine.
I'm trying to be a phoenix.
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