As a cop, people have relied on me in all different types of situations. Whether I was attending a domestic dispute or going to a murder, I was dealing with high stress and serious situations. I felt I was in control of my life. I was younger than most of the people I helped out in my job. I went and solved arguments between couples that had been married for decades and old enough to be my parents and even my grandparents. People relied on me in these situations to make the problems go away!
I felt on top of the world. I thought I had everything. I had come out of the closet and I had an amazing job that made me feel like I was really helping people. I had my life on the right track. I was in control. I felt like I could deal and handle anything. If there was a problem, then I was sure I could find a way to handle it.
I was also in charge of a lot of people at work. They relied on me in the most stressful situations to make the right call and guide them in the right direction. I knew the answers. I had to know the answers. A lot of people’s safety relied on me being able to make the right decision on the spot and in a split second. I knew I could do it and I felt confident.
I was also confident that I could fix the anger problem Janice had. We had a good talk and I was sure that things would get on track. Things always got on track for me. If they didn’t, I made them get on track. I was the boss in my life and people around me knew it. They saw me as a person in control, who had it together and got what she wanted. I was considered an intelligent, gentle, caring, strong woman who had her shit together. I liked the image I had earned. I deserved it. I worked hard for it.
A few weeks after I had sat Janice down and talked to her, I was happy to see that there were fewer incidents of anger. I thought it was good progress. It was promising. I was not impressed with the fact that she had not made a counsellors appointment yet.
I decided Janice probably needed help figuring out which counsellor to go to. So, I looked up a number of counsellors and researched them. I made a list of counsellors I thought would be good for Janice and presented her the list. She took the list from me and said she would look it over. I figured that Janice just did not know where to start and that is why she had not made the appointment yet. Janice was not used to really looking after anything. I looked after the house, the money, the cleaning, the yard, the cooking, I looked after everything. Janice just was not organized enough to get anything done.
It did not take me too long to find out that Janice was also always falling behind in her paperwork at work. She was great in her interaction with people at work, but when it came to getting the paperwork done she avoided it like the plague. She would then get all stressed and have to try to catch up. She started to bring work home so that I could give her a hand. She also started continually calling me at work for advice with respect to work. I was essentially doing two jobs, Janice’s and mine. It was hard, but I figured I would teach her and then she would be able to get it done on her own.
About a year into my relationship with Janice, my life was full of stress. Janice had slowly allowed her anger to creep back and her jealousy was out of control.
I found myself again avoiding situations and people in order to avoid the hassle with Janice. I did not go for breaks at work with people or if I did I just did not tell Janice. It was not worth the firing squad. When I was out with coworkers, taking a coffee break or lunch break and my phone rang, my heart would pound. I was almost afraid to look at the caller id and see Janice’s name and number there. If it was Janice, my heart went through the roof. I was in a panic. If I answered I would be embarrassed because she would flip as soon as she heard that I was in a restaurant. If I did not answer, she would call back every five minutes until I did. Eventually I knew that as soon as I received a call from Janice, I had about five minutes to leave the restaurant to answer the next call or else she would be mad and suspicious. Typically, I would just wait till she called again, and quickly run outside the restaurant and answer. I would tell her I was at an incident doing an investigation and would call back as soon as I could. Thankfully she believed this most of the time. This ploy usually gave me enough time to finish my coffee or meal and go along my way before she called again.
Janice went for breaks with other people at work. Janice went for coffee with coworkers. Why couldn't I? What was this double standard? How had I let this happen? I was being controlled. I was letting it happen. I did not know how to stop it. It was getting worse.
Then one day, Janice decided that she was too stressed from work and that she was going to have a drink. Janice was a self declared recovered alcoholic. She never went through a recovery program. She decided she had a drinking problem sometime before she met me. I had never known Janice to drink. I knew she thought that she had a drinking problem. Janice also told me that her friends all thought she had a drinking problem and that was the main reason she had decided to quit drinking.
Janice drunk was not fun. She did have a drinking problem. She did not know how to have just one drink. She was so bad that if you took your eyes off your drink for even a second, she would reach over and drink your drink. It was embarrassing and disgusting.
Janice was even funnier than ever when she was drunk though, so everyone just seemed to tolerate the drink stealing. Our friends giving up a drink here or there was admission to the Janice comedy show. Personally I wished I was invisible. Her behaviour was beyond embarrassing and approaching ridiculous.
Originally I had fallen for Janice because she was funny and seemed to have her shit together. As the first year together passed I was starting to see a different Janice. I was starting to doubt things she told me. I was starting to believe that she was pretty much a con artist. I was embarrassed that I had fallen for her in the first place. I felt trapped. I owned a house with her. We had mutual friends (mainly because I was not allowed any friends of my own) and we had accumulated joint debt (mainly because Janice loved to shop). Worst of all, I felt trapped because I was a cop. I was supposed to be in control of my life. People thought I had my shit together. Everyone respected me and thought I was a strong person. I was not supposed to be in the position I was in. I felt like I could not tell anyone the situation I was in. I also felt like everyone loved the public Janice and no one would believe how she was with me at home. No one would believe she was a controlling, manipulating and jealous woman.
As time went by, I started to see more of the real Janice. I started to question things she had told me. She said she had two Bachelor of Arts degrees and a Masters, but her diplomas were no where to be found. She said she had record labels, but the songs she claimed were hers did not have her name on them. She claimed she had won all these awards and world championships in various sports, but she never had any trophies to display. I was starting to wonder what was real. I had to figure out what was true. I was starting to believe that I seriously did not know the woman I was with.
But even with everything going wrong with Janice, I felt sorry for her. She had come from an abusive home. I had met her parent’s and they were horrible. They regularly degraded her and called her derogatory names. They hated that she was a lesbian and they let her know it. They thought she was brain injured and mentally delayed because she was a lesbian. They had nothing good to say about her. Once her mother even leaned over as if she was going to strike Janice and looking at me, she thought better of it and stopped.
Janice really hated herself because of how her parent’s treated her and made her feel. She was embarrassed to be a lesbian. She looked like a lesbian. From her appearance, it was obvious she was a lesbian. She did not dress feminine. She would shop in the men’s department because she was more comfortable in men’s jeans and sweaters. She was embarrassed that people could tell she was a lesbian yet she dressed in a way that spoke to the fact that she was a lesbian. She worried that people talked about her and that she was a lesbian. She pretty much tried to deny she was a lesbian in public.
I was a confused woman. I liked the public Janice. I liked the Janice that was kind, loved children, would help anyone, was an avid listener and in public put me on a pedestal. When I was with the public Janice, that was not drinking, I enjoyed my life. The private, angry Janice was horrible. The private, angry Janice was caused by her parent’s treatment of her and her hate of herself for being a lesbian. I felt sorry for the torment that Janice was going through. She needed help and guidance. I needed to help this angry woman.
More of the adventure in these posts:
