It only took 19 years.
April, 2019. The morning light shinned in the corner windows. The white walls reflected the stark classroom. I had decoracted them with home-made posters and student artwork, but the classroom was still big with huge, white walls that craved color. The old one-piece desks were mismatched and many were borken. It was my first year here, but I had done my best. Next year would be better. It was my prep period, and I had started organizing the lessons for next week, but I still had my IEP I needed to prep for, and of course the infinite pile of papers to grade.
The beige landline rang, a strange beeping noice only heard on public school phones. It was very strange to me, to have a phone in the classroom. Something I hadn’t seen since I was in high school myself.
I answered.
“Hi Sarah, it’s me” said a voice. It was my husband. I wondered why he had called me through the school. How was such a thing even possible? Why didn’t he call me on my cell. This was answered soon.
“I tried calling your cell but there was no answer.”
Of course, I usually had my phone turned off at work.
“I know you keep your phone off, but I wanted to talk to you about something important” he said to me. “I’m very concerned.”
“Okay” I told him. I had lots of work todo, and I don’t usually like talking personal calls at work but it seemed important.
“I’ve been cleaning the apartment, going through old things we have here and I found something really disturbing.”
“Oh?” I replied.
“I found these books, that talk about patterns. Like how to identify patterns and teaching children to identify patterns. They have a bunch of number sequences and pictures. They’re evil, I don’t like them, I threw them all out. We can’t have that kind of thing in our house. My only question is, how did they get there? How did they even get in our home?”
My stomach felt like it was falling out of my body, through the floor. My stomach lurched. I wondered if I was going to be sick. I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arm around my head.
Oh Shit. It’s happening. It’s really happening, it’s here. He’s at this point now. This is going to SUCK. I thought to myself. There had been signs, warnings, and I had done my best to prevent it, but here it was.
“Those are math text books.” I explained to him. “I’m a math teacher, they’re old textbooks around teaching kids math and critical thinking through pattern recognition.”
“Where did you get them?” he asked me.
“Like at a professional develoipment workshop years ago or something like that. I’ve never used them.”
“I don’t beleive you.” he said. There was a dark, angry note to his voice. He sounded like he had just been threatened. I was starting to feel a bit scared.“I think it’s the Scientologists. They broke into our home and implanted them. They’re trying to convert us, trying to get at us. They broke in hid their literature in our books.”
Fuuuuuuuck, his logic was gone too. He had no idea what was going on, and there wasn’t much I could say or do at this point. He was also scared, angry, protective. This was not going to be fun. I twirled the phone cord around my fingers and started bitting my nails.
“Did you really bring them into the house?” he asked me.
“Yes, as I said they were texts on teaching.”
“Sarah, don’t do that. don’t bring that kind of venom into our home. Don’t you know how dangerous they are? Don’t bring Scientology literature into our home!”
I signed and put my hand on my forhead. He was wasn’t going understand the books had nothing to do with Scientology. He was paranoid and delusional. What was I going to do? He needed help, fast. I would spend the rest of my prep hour calling every psychiatrist I possibly could.
“Okay.” I told him.
“Okay, I’ll see you tonight. I’m making chicken for you.” We hung up. It was a good thing I had gotten him on leave from work earlier. I didn’t want him going to work like, spewing psychotic, angry insanity, and getting fired.
I dreaded going home. It was hard living with a psychotic person. I never knew what he would do or if he would get himself or us in trouble. He was unpredictable, scary, and it was always hard to find help. It was going to be hell.
………………
Four weeks earlier, I had sat him down at the kitchen table and looked him in the eye. He was full of energy and happier than a lark.
“Miguel” I told him. “I think you are starting to breakdown.”
“What do you mean?” he said looking back at me. I looked him dead on the eye and kept my hands folded. I had to do this. Breakdowns were awful, he needed help now, it was early enough to stop it from progressing to much. I knew all his warning signs, and they were here. “I’m more productive than ever! Look at all I got done today.”
“Yes” I said. Let’s do that. Let’s make a list of all the things you have got done today, that are out of the oridnary.
“Okay!” He said full of cheer. We started the list: He had fixed the door knobs that were stuck, cleaned the rug, reorganized his dresser, called the internet company, wrote a 200 page book of poetry complete with illustrations, called his family, cleaned the car, and sevearl other tasks. The list had 10 items. It was 2 pm, on a Sunday, the day he usually relaxed and “took it easy.”
“Is it normal to get this many things done?” I asked him.
He looked at the list, then at me.
“Okay, you have a point” he said. “That is concerning.”
I took his hand, pulled him close, and looked him straight in the eye. This was my chance, and I was going to give it my all “Listen, Miguel, trust me, something is wrong. I’ve known you for 19 years, I look for signs that you are breaking down. I need you to listen, something is wrong. YOU ARE BREAKING DOWN. We need to do something. I need you to see a doctor. Get you some more medication or something.”
But, the thing was, he didn’t listen.
He didn’t get help. In his mania he kept thinking everything was absolutely great! Trying to tell a manic person that something is wrong, is like yelling at a wall. It does not care.
Now things had gotten worse. He was psychotic, and it would get even worse now.
I braced myself.
Absolute hell followed. No, it wasn’t his first breakdown in our 19 years together, nine of which were spent as husband and wife, but sadly, it was our last. After this breakdown, when I got him help, which he refused, he admitted to lying to me about his medication. He verbally abused me and admitted he was cutting in half his antipsychotics for the last 18 months and wouldn’t take his full dose. Not even after I sat him down that day and told him something was wrong. Not even after I moved out. The hell that followed of watching the love of my life descend into madness, of having to leave the way I did, and having to start over and be happy in a new life while he suffers in a prison of his own mind has torn a whole in my soul that I don’t think will ever be prepared. Three later, I can now finally write one piece of the candy dish of horrors around losing my first love, as I move on.
I wish him the best. My first love. I met him at 18, married him at 27, left him at 37, and divorced him at 38.
Well I tell you my friend, one day this world will come to an end. As your lies crumble down, a new life, she has found.
— The Red JumPsuit Aparatus.
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