Unconfirmed Bachelorette

I haven’t had a television since Memorial Day. I got rid of my old Sony, and haven’t gotten around to getting a flat-screen replacement. Last night I knew the Sandusky verdict was imminent. It had to be. The man was guilty, and the jury wouldn’t take long. So I turned to Twitter. I typed in Sandusky. My screen flooded with tweets:

The attorney general is at the courthouse.

The lawyers are there now.

Photos posted of Sandusky leaving his home.

Coach is wearing an unfortunate jacket. (That asshat on Fox news keeps referring to Sandusky as “coach.” This sickens me. It’s the coach bit that gave him access to those boys. So stop calling him “coach,” Shep.)

Sandusky is at the courthouse.

The verdict will not be tweeted until all 48 counts are read and court is adjourned.

Surely he’ll be convicted. Surely the jury won’t OJ us. (Yes, OJ is now a verb.)

Surely he’s given up Penn State for the state pen.

Even his own lawyer says he thinks he’ll be convicted. And then the judge calls him into chambers and issues a gag order.

The verdict is coming out five months to the day after Paterno’s death from cancer.

His adopted son Matt was molested, too.

Dottie testified on his behalf. (Oh, I will get back to Dottie.)

The verdict will be read in twenty minutes. Then fifteen.

Then I flip over to live video of the crowd in front of the courthouse. And back to Twitter.

Any minute now.

GUILTY OF 45 OF 48 COUNTS.

Sandusky is being led away to the jail house in handcuffs.

He stood with one hand casually in his left pocket as the verdict was read.

One victim wept.

Sandusky was stoic.

He knew it was coming.

But what about Dottie? What did she know and when did she know it? Public opinion weighs heavily in favor of her knowing what her husband did, was doing, to those boys. How could she not know? It happened in her house. Her basement. Not just once, but dozens of times over a period of years, decades, even. So how could she not know? The wives know. On some level they know. Which means they fucking know.

Case in point. When I was ten or so, we went to visit my grandparents at their house on Lake Huron. The man who lived next door, a Greek, lived there with his wife. I recall their grandchildren often visited when I was there. And he had St. Bernard puppies. He also made homemade wine. My dad loved his wine. So one day, he sent me next door to pick up a bottle of Mr. Greek’s homemade wine. I ran off next door to get the bottle, and he invited me in. He then offered me a taste of the wine. Recall I’m ten. But I tasted the wine anyway. It was sickly sweet. And then he came close. Close enough that I could feel his breath on my cheek. And he started rubbing me on my chest. And breathing on me. As I wriggled away, I saw his wife peering at us from around the corner. She never said a word. She didn’t try to stop him. She just stood and watched. And stayed silent. I escaped his grasp and ran. I ran back to my grandparents’ house and said nothing about what had happened. It felt wrong. But she watched and said nothing. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe I imagined it. I couldn’t tell. No one would believe me. He just rubbed my chest. The wife didn’t stop him. So I kept my mouth shut. Even when my dad made fun of me for running off without the wine because I was seemingly too bashful to go next door and get it.

The wife, having seen everything, stayed silent.

Was she complicit? Was Dottie Sandusky complicit? Was my sister complicit?

My sister?, you say. Yes, my sister is married to a pedophile. When I was 15, her husband, who was then 29, made a pass at me when he was teaching me how to drive out in the country. He kissed me. A full on wet mouth tongue kiss. It was sickening. And I never told a soul for 20 years. My sister knew, though. Or at least she knew something was wrong. She told him he was spending too much time with me, and it needed to stop. He said he was just teaching me how to drive, because my father was largely absent. He was right. I was vulnerable. I thrived on his attention. Who knows what I would have done had he gone farther. But with me, he didn’t go farther. He saved that for his daughter, my niece. How do I know this? She lived with me briefly when she was in her early twenties. And she told me then what her father had done to her. She told me he molested her from the time she was 6 until she was 16 and finally told a school counselor. He was never prosecuted. And my sister stayed with him. She, to this day, has stayed married to him. She didn’t need him to support her. She worked and made a good salary. She could have supported her two daughters just fine. But she kept his secret and never told anyone, and stayed with him. My niece felt betrayed. She felt her mother had chosen her pedophile father over her. And she was right. This was so confusing for my niece that she still let him walk her down the aisle at her wedding. She let her pedophile father give her away. And my sister watched, beaming with pride. When their second daughter married a year later, I didn’t go to the wedding. I couldn’t watch him pretending to be the doting father, again.

How do these women stay with these men? How do they defend them? How do they ignore the horrific things they’ve done? I asked my sister how she slept in the same bed with a man who molested their daughter. She had no answer other than, “Because I love him.”

She loves him. And Dottie loves Jerry. Ain’t love grand?

I wonder if my sister watched the news of the trial, of the conviction. I wonder if she sat in the same room with her pedophile husband and watched a man get sentenced to life in prison for the same crimes her husband has committed. I wonder if she felt any guilt or remorse for selling her daughter out. Like Dottie Sandusky did with those poor boys.

I did feel his conviction was a bit of a consolation. At least one of these monsters will pay for his crimes. I just wish the women would stand up for the children. And not for the perpetrators.

I saw Dr. McEnroe on Monday and told him I stopped taking the Abilify ten days ago. Since stopping it, I’ve felt a little anxious, but thought maybe it was just a side effect from getting off the drug. Apparently my acceptable level of anxiety and his acceptable level of anxiety differ. So he gave me samples of a brand new drug called Viibryd. Who comes up with these names? This one sounds like a cross between vibrator and vibrant. So of course I accepted the samples. I did, however, think long and hard Monday night about whether to actually take them. By Tuesday night, I figured, what the hell. So now I take 300 mg of Wellbutrin and 15 mg of Deplin in the morning, and 10 mg of Viibryd at night. After a week, I  move up to 20 mg of Viibryd, and then maybe 40.

Before I decided to take the new drug, I scoured the internet. Apparently everyone is having “explosive diarrhea” and nightmares involving Sleestaks. Nevertheless, I plunged on and took the dose. I had pretty bad insomnia the first two nights. That settled down a little the third night. And last night, I slept pretty well. No explosive diarrhea or Sleestaks. Although a Sleestak or two might have been fun.

While I’m feeling virtually no side effects, I’m not really feeling any effects yet, either. This drug is supposed to start working more quickly than other antidepressants, but it is early days. I shall keep an eye on things and report back. Since there’s not much out there on this drug Viibryd, updates on this one might be useful to someone.

I received an email from Mack the other day telling me he’d sent me the final payment. But instead of just telling me he’d sent the final payment, he continued with a long drawn-out emotional message about various and sundry things; things I don’t feel compelled to spend typing strokes on here. He did say we have no need to contact one another again. Ever. So I guess that means he’ll stop trying to hook me with emotional emails. Oh wait. Maybe not. What was the next thing in my inbox? You got it: another email from Mack. This one included a song he recorded. Apparently about me. I’m not sure though, because I didn’t listen to it.

So how did this final spate of emails make me feel?

I didn’t feel sad. I didn’t feel angry. I didn’t feel regret. I did feel a slight bit of irritation, but not enough to color my day. And I felt relief.

Dare I say it?

I’ve scoured the internet, and there’s a dearth of information on the topic of Abilify withdrawal. Hopefully this will help those searching for information, if only a little.

I started Abilify on February 2, 2012, on top of 300 mg Wellbutrin and 15 mg Deplin. My psychiatrist slowly eased me up to 5 mg after starting with the wee dose of 1 mg. On Friday June 1, I quit cold turkey. (Disclaimer: Do not follow my example and quit your antidepressants cold turkey. Always consult with your physician, who likely will wean you off them slowly.) I figured it would be no big deal since I’m only on 5 mg. For the most part, it has been no big deal.

First, why I quit.

I noticed that when I try to exercise outdoors, even walking, I get overheated, even if it’s only 90 degrees in the sun. While 90 might sound hot, for those of us living in Central Texas, it’s not too bad. It’s when we hit 100 that I might opt for indoor exercise. I hate indoor exercise, so getting overheated so easily is a problem. And then there was the constipation. Having a bowel movement every five days, even with the help of Miralax, is awful. Before the antidepressants I prided myself on being a regular girl (if only when it came to bowel movements). And then there was the hair. I was reading about Abilify’s side effects, and discovered that hair loss is often mentioned. Hair loss? Hell no, will I risk that. And come to think of it, it did seem that more of my hair was finding its way into the sink and the tub. So we’ve got overheating, constipation, and hair loss. Could it be any worse than that? Yes! How about weight gain, or even an impediment to weight loss. Lots of people complain of significant weight gain on Abilify. I don’t weigh; it makes me crazy. But I do know that despite being conscientious with my eating and getting more exercise, my clothes are not getting looser like they were in the early days of taking Wellbutrin only. Even if it’s not the Abilify, like hair loss, this is not something I’m willing to risk.

Once the reasons for quitting the Abilify had piled up, I decided to quit it. I called Dr. McEnroe (not his real name, but he kind of looks like him, and has that whiny little voice) and left a message about quitting. That was on a Friday morning. I didn’t hear back from him until the following Monday. In the meantime, I got antsy, and decided to take matters into my own hands. So Saturday, I didn’t take my daily dose. And I haven’t taken the drug since. Today is Day 8. From what I’ve read, the drug has a half-life of 72 hours, meaning it’s not fully out of your system for 72 hours. 72 hours was Tuesday. So Tuesday my system was Abilify-free. Today, Day 8, it’s been fully out of my system for 4 days. Here’s how it went.

The first couple of days, I had a headache. This makes sense, as I had a headache when I was starting the drug. The next few days I felt somewhat nauseated, especially when doing yoga. I had the same symptom in the early days of the drug: I always felt like I was going to vomit half-way through a yoga routine. Especially one with forward bends. So again, not too surprising. Next, I feel tired. I want to sleep ten hours a day. And there’s been some insomnia. Hopefully this is a temporary withdrawal symptom, and not a slide back into depression. I’m guessing it is temporary, because the insomnia seems to be easing, and other than feeling tired, I feel pretty good mentally.

The last thing I’ve noticed, and this is the freakiest, is what I’ll call time-skipping. It happened yesterday when I was bowling. Yes, bowling. I had to bowl for a client’s charity event. This yearly function is a fun but humiliating little boondoggle. I’m a terrible bowler. But I did break fifty both games. Better than last year. So back to the time-skipping. I’m standing there watching one of my team-members, and he bowls a strike. Woohooo! A few seconds later I look up at the board and it screams in block letters: STRIKE! I then turn to the cute new (single!) lawyer in one of our other offices and say, “Who just bowled that strike?” He knew I’d just been yelling for the bowler as he knocked down ten pins as he was standing next to me and heard me cheer. But I’d forgotten in a matter of a second. My brain had skipped, like a scratch on a record. And then it came back to me: I’d just watched it. I covered with a mumblefuck of something like: “Oh, I thought I was watching the other lane.” Cute new lawyer now thinks I’m a ditzy brunette unworthy of my J.D. Even worse, the whole experience was rather eerie. My brain malfunctioned, and I watched it happen in real time. This had better be an isolated and temporary withdrawal symptom, but I’ll be watching it closely.

Here’s something positive I’ve observed: the constipation is easing already. This morning I had a bowel movement for the second day in a row. I almost called this blog: I POOPED! But thought perhaps my gentle readers would find it too early in the morning for that.

Next up, a walk/run in the heat. I do an up and back. On the way out, I’m fine, but on the way back, I’ve been finding I have to stop under a tree every ten minutes or so and cool off. Hopefully I’ll do better than last weekend and I won’t have to spend as much time pretending to stretch under trees.

And last: some extra-special positive news. My brother with the mouth cancer, the one doing radiation and chemo, who just had has lymph nodes in his neck removed, has now been given the all clear. His lymph nodes were clean. He is cancer free! I just crumbled at my desk when I heard the news, and cried out of sheer relief. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how upset I’ve been about his illness, and how scared I’ve been that I might be losing another brother, after I just lost one in April, and what that would do to my poor mother, and my brother’s children. But he’s cancer free, for the second time. Come to think of it, my dad has achieved the same feat, twice.

So today I shall take in all the good things that are happening. No cancer, and I pooped!

Remember the old John Belushi SNL skit, where Belushi ensconced himself in the home of Jane Curtain and Bill Murray and wouldn’t leave? It came to mind this morning in thinking about my latest email from Mack. Yes, Mack still sends me notes from time to time. For months I didn’t reply, but when he sent sympathy notes about my brother, I felt I couldn’t ignore those, and so I thanked him. Since then, I’ve been responding to his emails. In his last note, he told me he’d finish paying off his financial debt to me next month, and we can then finally go our separate ways.

My initial reaction, if only in my head:

We went our separate ways eight months ago. Or at least I did.

But then I started thinking about it. Mack’s been writing me notes since I ended things back in September. He never stopped. In early December, I stopped responding. But receiving his notes, whether I replied or not, kept him in my head. Which I’m guessing was the point. He wrote a song about me once, which included the line: “If I can’t be the love of your life, I hope I’ll still be on your mind.” And here we are, eight months after I ended the relationship, and yes, he’s still on my mind.

The last note he wrote to me, I let him get under my skin. I responded, expressing my ire. I could have kicked myself the next day for writing back. But it’s got me thinking: When at long last he stops writing to me and sending me monthly payments, will it be like a breakup all over again? Of course on a much smaller scale. But will it cause me pain?

What does it take for a goodbye to be final? What does it look like to be fully split? When there’s no longer any form of communication? When they stop getting under your skin? When you stop loving them? When you stop wanting them? When you stop wishing things could have been different? When you stop wishing they were the man you fell in love with?

When have you truly moved on?

After a fabulous vacation in Tuscany, I am back to the mundanities of life. I’ve spent the past week and a half digging out at work (and getting behind on my blogging). I traveled to Chicago for meetings this week, and while I love Chicago in the summertime, the last thing I wanted to do was get back on a plane. My reward was accepting my neighbor’s invitation to drink bubbles by the pool last night. (Much to my chagrin, I think I may actually feel the stirrings of a requited crush.) The combo of the bubbles and all the recent travel finally hit me, and this morning I stayed in bed until 11:00 a.m. catching up on sleep and recharging.

Okay, okay. I won’t skip over the requited crush topic. My neighbor has been crushing on me for years. The trouble is, he’s nearly fifteen years younger, and wants babies. (“But not tonight,” he said, the last time he made a pass at me.) Despite the fact that he’s charming, sophisticated, well-traveled, single, stable, and has a job (the opposite of my last foray into romance), not to mention a sexy Latin accent, there’s just no point in going down that road. And then there’s the fact that it’s a terrible idea to have a fling with a neighbor. So I shall keep it as a flirtation, and enjoy that. But still, there is a stirring in my girl loins that I haven’t felt in months.

All in all, I’m feeling pretty good these days. But the anticlimactic feeling that often comes at the end of a great vacation has me looking for something more. The something more that comes to mind is getting back to my running. But I’m having trouble running in the heat on the antidepressants. The Abilify warnings state that it’s easier to become overheated while exercising, and cautions against strenuous exercise. I live in Austin. I exercise outdoors in the heat. I refuse to spend my life on my elliptical (sheer freakin’ drudgery). So I’ve made the decision to see how I do quitting one of the trifecta (Ability, Deplin, and  Wellbutrin). I called Dr. McEnroe yesterday to get his input on my plan to quit the Abilify, but he hasn’t yet returned the call. Nevertheless, I’ve decided to go ahead and stop it, cold turkey. I’m sure there will be those who protest, but I’m going to do it anyway. When I’ve made up my mind to quit something, I don’t do it by halves. Including relationships and cigarettes. And besides, having quit smoking cold turkey some years ago, I can’t imagine this could be any worse. Just rip the band-aid off and get through it. It’s the best way. In quitting drugs, and men.

Hopefully once the Abilify is out of my system, I’ll be able to run without feeling like I’m going to keel over from the heat. And just to get it out there, I really want to be drug-free within the next several months. I’m feeling better. And with proper sleep, exercise, and Vitamin D (and staying away from abusive jackasses), maybe I’ll be successful in managing the depression without the drugs.

I think I’ve got this now.