Living with Dr. Jeckal
Sep. 14th, 2008 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyykiI have a roommate who is somewhat arrogant, superior, and doesn't treat people very well, especially people like waiters and bartenders. He's also in a fairly high stress situation with school that requires a lot of hours each week to get things done. And he drinks. A lot. To the falling down stage.
Last week he managed to get about eight hours of sleep in total. He also lost his anti-depression meds and seriously bombed a test he thought he should have aced, and he has other personal problems going on too. He came home on Friday and was pretty low, and I could feel another bad one coming on.
He's a mean drunk. He wants to fight, and no one will throw a punch at him here, so he fights with words. He gets really nasty, he's manipulative, and he knows how to find people's buttons. He was in a marriage that, according to him, had his spouse constantly berating him and treating him like insignificant dirt on a regular basis, and apparently he's learned how to do that very well.
Friday night/early Saturday morning was the abosultely worst interpersonal experience I've had in my life. He's been haraangueing my other roommate, who is a really nice guy and very mellow, but not a strong individual. But I was his main target.
My other roommate came home early , (I have three) and took him out for a bite and a beer or two . Then D brought him home, and he started drinking again. After about six or seven beers Mr. Hyde came out to play, and it started getting ugly. I knew what was going on, and I wasn't going to play, so I kept telling him to go to bed and get some sleep, but he kept laying into me.
Last Wednesday I found a slippery mud puddle on my way onto the bus, and I managed to road rash my left calf on the outside from just below the knee to slightly above the ankle. I got it dressed at the student health center, and I've been limping around. I asked the other roommate, the one who is the mellow guy, to run to the drug store and pick up some things to wrap it up, which he was happy to do because he seriously wanted to get away from the constant harassment. This was about 11pm, and the terror was into it's third hour by then. Mr. Hyde put the chain on the door so J couldn't get back in, and then started in on me again. I told him to go to bed and get some rest, and told him that I knew that his behavior was due to his being drunk, off his meds, stressed out, and short on sleep. I absolutely refused to take anything he said personally, even though on several occasions I wanted nothing more than to let my sharp tongue loose and shred him. But I won't sink to his level. Many of the things he said were extremely hurtful, designed to punch buttons. But I'm strange about that -- if I knowsomeone is trying to push my buttons, they can't push them. Still, it was horrible.
I finally realized that the chain was on the door. J spent about 30 minutes on the front portch, listening to Mr. Hyde tearing into me. We dressed my leg and I went to bed about midnight thirty. Mr. Hyde decided to tear into J for another three hours until D came home and got Mr. Hyde into bed.
All yesterday I was as quiet as I could be. I was very pissed, but I didn't want to wake the troll again and deal with him. J and I had several email exchanges, and he made it clear he was looking for apartments. We agreed to grab a bite after he got off work, and I kept as quiet as I could. He got off work, we went to a Mexican place he knows, and we talked, me, J and D.
When we got home, Dr. Jekal was awake, and freaked out because none of us would talk to him. Seems he thought he went to bed around 8pm the night before and slept through all of it, or at least, that's what he claims. He's smart enough that he could have thought this up and is just pretending. We let him know that his actions the night before destroyed friendships, and he agreed that he needs to move out. However, he then started backpedaling on things, and adding additional conditions and such to things, which wasn't unexpected.
Still, he should be moving, and soon. We're looking for another roommate because four people in the house makes the bills and work go a lot faster, and hopefully the house, which is avery cool place, will calm down now. I've convinced J that he doesn't need to move out, and Dr. Jeckal has agreed not to talk to him at all anymore. I've also explained to him that he becomes someone very mean and dark when he's drunk, and that he needs to think on this seriously. I'm convinced, after long observation, that he's an alcoholic, and doesn't possess the ability to restrain himself from drinking himself into oblivion if he takes a single drink.
This has been a very long and very ugly ordeal. If I hadn't had a lot of very good training in a life management seminar back in 2000 things would have probably gotten a lot more ugly. I'm deeply grateful for that experience, and even more grateful that this situation will hopefully be over soon. It was harrowing, emotional, and exausting, and I don't ever want to deal with such behavior ever again.
Last week he managed to get about eight hours of sleep in total. He also lost his anti-depression meds and seriously bombed a test he thought he should have aced, and he has other personal problems going on too. He came home on Friday and was pretty low, and I could feel another bad one coming on.
He's a mean drunk. He wants to fight, and no one will throw a punch at him here, so he fights with words. He gets really nasty, he's manipulative, and he knows how to find people's buttons. He was in a marriage that, according to him, had his spouse constantly berating him and treating him like insignificant dirt on a regular basis, and apparently he's learned how to do that very well.
Friday night/early Saturday morning was the abosultely worst interpersonal experience I've had in my life. He's been haraangueing my other roommate, who is a really nice guy and very mellow, but not a strong individual. But I was his main target.
My other roommate came home early , (I have three) and took him out for a bite and a beer or two . Then D brought him home, and he started drinking again. After about six or seven beers Mr. Hyde came out to play, and it started getting ugly. I knew what was going on, and I wasn't going to play, so I kept telling him to go to bed and get some sleep, but he kept laying into me.
Last Wednesday I found a slippery mud puddle on my way onto the bus, and I managed to road rash my left calf on the outside from just below the knee to slightly above the ankle. I got it dressed at the student health center, and I've been limping around. I asked the other roommate, the one who is the mellow guy, to run to the drug store and pick up some things to wrap it up, which he was happy to do because he seriously wanted to get away from the constant harassment. This was about 11pm, and the terror was into it's third hour by then. Mr. Hyde put the chain on the door so J couldn't get back in, and then started in on me again. I told him to go to bed and get some rest, and told him that I knew that his behavior was due to his being drunk, off his meds, stressed out, and short on sleep. I absolutely refused to take anything he said personally, even though on several occasions I wanted nothing more than to let my sharp tongue loose and shred him. But I won't sink to his level. Many of the things he said were extremely hurtful, designed to punch buttons. But I'm strange about that -- if I knowsomeone is trying to push my buttons, they can't push them. Still, it was horrible.
I finally realized that the chain was on the door. J spent about 30 minutes on the front portch, listening to Mr. Hyde tearing into me. We dressed my leg and I went to bed about midnight thirty. Mr. Hyde decided to tear into J for another three hours until D came home and got Mr. Hyde into bed.
All yesterday I was as quiet as I could be. I was very pissed, but I didn't want to wake the troll again and deal with him. J and I had several email exchanges, and he made it clear he was looking for apartments. We agreed to grab a bite after he got off work, and I kept as quiet as I could. He got off work, we went to a Mexican place he knows, and we talked, me, J and D.
When we got home, Dr. Jekal was awake, and freaked out because none of us would talk to him. Seems he thought he went to bed around 8pm the night before and slept through all of it, or at least, that's what he claims. He's smart enough that he could have thought this up and is just pretending. We let him know that his actions the night before destroyed friendships, and he agreed that he needs to move out. However, he then started backpedaling on things, and adding additional conditions and such to things, which wasn't unexpected.
Still, he should be moving, and soon. We're looking for another roommate because four people in the house makes the bills and work go a lot faster, and hopefully the house, which is avery cool place, will calm down now. I've convinced J that he doesn't need to move out, and Dr. Jeckal has agreed not to talk to him at all anymore. I've also explained to him that he becomes someone very mean and dark when he's drunk, and that he needs to think on this seriously. I'm convinced, after long observation, that he's an alcoholic, and doesn't possess the ability to restrain himself from drinking himself into oblivion if he takes a single drink.
This has been a very long and very ugly ordeal. If I hadn't had a lot of very good training in a life management seminar back in 2000 things would have probably gotten a lot more ugly. I'm deeply grateful for that experience, and even more grateful that this situation will hopefully be over soon. It was harrowing, emotional, and exausting, and I don't ever want to deal with such behavior ever again.
