False Shen

I remember not knowing what to do with hope surfacing as I tried to divorce the narcissist. Tiny snippets would emerge where it seemed that he was quite possibly trying to change, trying to be nice. Doing normal human being things--such as the time he offered to change the oil on my car. 

Sure, that sounds great! I heard myself saying. Bring the kids over for dinner and a swim, he said. I'll change the oil on your car. Just get a filter and 5 quarts of oil. 

I remember thinking that I had put him in a box--wanting to demonize him. Obviously, I had not fully seen him. Obviously, I was the one, not owning my shit. He was normal after all. Just like any other divorcing male. 

He made dinner. Offered me wine while I sat by the pool watching the kids swim while he went to work on the car.

I felt strange after the wine. Disoriented. Somehow almost paralyzed. Somehow not able to move. Dizzy. The room spun around me. This after two glasses. I remember thinking I knew my limit with wine. And 2 glasses was far below my limit. Also, I knew that driving even the 2 miles to my apartment was a bad idea. And so I took him up on his offer of the couch in my old house. After that, I don't remember much. 

Next day, one of my patients whom I told of my strange experience suggested that maybe hope had gotten the better of me and that I'd been roofied by my ex. 

Somehow that seemed impossible to me. After all he wasn't that bad. After all he was a decent human being. I almost couldn't try on this idea. But, I also couldn't understand how two glasses of wine could affect me so differently than at other times. 

But. Hope. Hope can sometimes be the lizard's tail that keeps regrowing after it is chopped off. 

I had hope that he could do decent things. Hope that he might want good things for me, in spite of the divorce. 

Sometimes hope can be a terrible regrowing lizard's tale. Today, I saw that same ridiculous hope in my dad. 

My mother is dying of cancer. This week the oncologist finally leveled with my parents--there is no chemo that will help. Radiation may help the bone pain. After that, hospice is the option. It is all over her bones. Splitting said bones at will. She is beyond the hope of geniuses. She is beyond all of it. I am moving across the country to hopefully have a few weeks with her. 

And today dad thought she was better. He seemed to see betterness as hopeful. That somehow God is curing her. That somethow there is hope. Just as I saw hope in my ex reaching out to help me change the oil in my car, then roofied my drink. 

Oh the false shen.

There is a concept in Chinese medicine called the False Shen. The Shen is the life look in the eyes. Often before death people magnificently improve, seemingly better they manifest a bright, light in the eyes as though they are healing. It is the False Shen. A brightening before death comes for them. I'm hoping that it is not yet time for the false shen. Real people have a false shen for a short time before death. The narcissist has a false shen for an eternity, perhaps that is why I recognize it so well.

On Bikes and Cancer

I had to speak with him--the narcissist, yesterday. Pressing matters dictate. Reason being I'm oh-so-abruptly uprooting myself and my no-longer-littles back East. Reason being my mother was diagnosed with the big C. Way too abruptly, she has Gastric cancer with Mets to the bones. Sometimes, I hate being a physican. Unfortunately, I know what this means. The oncologist world peeps need not do their evasive, vague communicative practices. We might have weeks. I'm hoping for a few months. My mother, the woman who has been my unfailing supporter through everything in life is leaving soon to pass behind the thin veil that separates some of us from the others of us.

I am in a shock of sorts.

Of course, logistically, I had to communicate with the Narc. I wish that were not the case. My little Irish princess warrior recommended that I not speak with him at all. But that was not an option.

And all he could seemingly focus on, was how he will lose the kid's bikes to the East Coast. Swallowed whole into some moving truck that will move us all across country. The BIKES. He could only think about the inanimate objects of the BIKES. Because people do not actually matter. He might lose the  BIKES since my kids brought them skyward and now we are going East with nowhere to store them here. The BIKES. And this is a picture--a metaphor of what is the problem with the narcissist. People dying are of no consequence to a narcissist. But, material goods. BIKES. Inanimate objects. These are the things that he clings to. These are the things that matter to the narcissist. Not people.