This patch has been rough. Really rough. I cannot decide whether the continued separations are part of the problem or if they are what has kept us from permanently fracturing. When apart, we fight only rarely. Mostly, we stay in close touch, texting and talking, consulting on every issue, and sending gooey emojis. Hearts. Smiley faces with hearts for eyes. But lately, when we are together, we bicker. Worse than that, we fight. We yell, we cry, we collapse and promise it’ll never happen again. And then it does, over and over.
I’ve been desperate for my husband to come home to help me take stock of my protocol. More than anyone, he can evaluate my state of mind and judge if there’s been a noticeable change. I am also eager to talk to him about the mild perceptual differences I’d noticed in the hour or so after I first took the microdose, the way my senses seemed slightly enhanced, like I’d been bitten by a radioactive no-see-um. Unlike me, my husband has experience with typical doses of LSD. I knew he would be able to give me insight on that aspect of the experience. Also I missed him.
The fact that I have been waiting so impatiently for him to come home makes the argument we had on the telephone, usually our happy place, even more painful. After I woke up wretched from my sleepless night, I called him. I shouldn’t have, because from the very beginning I was gunning for a fight. Nearly as soon as he picked up the phone, I began complaining about our shared workspace.
A couple of months ago, my husband had an idea. The inspiration for this idea is one of the things we fought about, but, because I have vowed to stop imputing bad motives to the people I love, I will present his side of the argument as fact, without picking apart ulterior motives or launching into a digression about whether or not Freud was right about the role of the unconscious in directing behavior.
Not long ago, my husband surprised me with a couch. He placed it in a corner of the studio we share (really his studio, which he allows me to squat in), and moved his own workspace into the middle of the room. He says he bought the couch because I hadn’t been using the studio and he was trying to lure me back. He expected me to recline on the couch, laptop in my lap, and immerse myself with a newfound focus. But the couch is too narrow, the arms are too hard; I can’t get comfortable on it. Moreover, with his workspace now in the middle of the room, I feel crowded. Crowded out.
This morning, when I called him, I suddenly and for no particular reason launched into a familiar litany of complaints. There’s so much I don’t like about his studio! I complained about the couch and the light and about how I feel crowded and pushed out. It was neither the first, the tenth, nor the one hundredth time he’s heard me bitching about this. Is it any wonder he got frustrated with me?
“How many times do we have to have this fight?” he asked. “You should just get an office of your own.”
That really infuriated me. Little postage-stamp offices rent for a thousand dollars a month in the lunatic Bay Area real estate market.
“So we’ll spend a thousand dollars a month,” he said. “It’s worth it.”
“We don’t have an extra thousand dollars a month!” I yelled.
When I am angry, I do stupid things. I hang up the phone (oh, how much more satisfying that used to be when it could be done with a furious bang!). I Google phrases like “The effects of divorce on children.” I check real-estate listings for one-bedroom apartments within walking distance of our house that we could trade off living in while the other is on duty as that week’s custodial parent. After I engaged in these customary behaviors, I began, also as is typical, to berate myself. The whole fight was my fault. It’s always my fault when we fight, because my husband is easygoing and cheerful, and I am a bitch. If it weren’t for me, we’d never fight. I’m an awful wife, a terrible partner. How can he stand me when I can’t stand me?
The problem with self-blame is that it launches a vicious cycle. It makes me despondent, and when I am despondent I lash out at my husband. Which makes me feel worse. Which makes me lash out. Which makes me feel worse. And so on and so forth, with the sharp threads of my shame spiral screwing a hole right through our relationship.
The cognitive behavioral therapist I have lately been seeing tells me that conflict is a dynamic. Couples react to one another in an infinite, closed loop, and thus one person is no more culpable than another. She insists that my self-reproach is a barrier to happiness, both my own and ours as a couple. Even though I trust her insight, I cannot seem to change my behavior or my thought patterns. Just articulating the thought that blaming myself is bad for my relationship is really nothing more than another round of self-reproach. If my self-flagellation is the source of our conflict, isn’t it necessarily true that I am the problem lurking at the heart of my family, like a flaw in the center of a diamond?
* * *
*1 ?As if I have the faintest idea what the difference between a normal and an abnormal pulse is.
*2 ?The morning-after pill for medieval women who preferred a gangrenous, raving demise to a baby. There are days when I can totally empathize.
*3 ?Michael W. Shannon et al., Haddad and Winchester’s Clinical Management of Poisoning and Drug Overdose.
*4 ?Rick J. Strassman, “Adverse Reactions to Psychedelic Drugs. A Review of the Literature.”
*5 ?Peter S. Hendricks et al., “Classic Psychedelic Use Is Associated with Reduced Psychological Distress and Suicidality in the United States Adult Population.”
Day 4
Microdose Day
Physical Sensations: Energized and activated.
Mood: Terrific.
Conflict: None.
Sleep: Better, though I woke early.
Work: Found myself so effortlessly in the flow I didn’t even notice time passing.
Pain: Significantly less than in days past.
I was so very glad to wake up this morning. First of all, I slept better than I have over the last couple of days, perhaps because by last night the LSD was completely out of my system. Most important, however, today is once again Day 1 of the protocol cycle: Microdose Day! I don’t know if it was my eagerness or the LSD that made me so cheerful, but, one way or another, today was an absolute delight. A series of annoyances did nothing more than make me shrug. My kids dawdled over breakfast and were late to school. I missed the deadline for booking a flight, and ended up having to pay a higher fare. Then the dog knocked my arm while I was sipping from my teacup, causing me to splash Earl Grey all over the pages of the book I was reading. She looked at me guiltily, waiting, I expect, for me to scold her. Instead, I scratched her ear.
“It’s all right, Mabel,” I said. “Shit happens.”
Shit happens? When have I ever uttered those words in a tone other than ironic?