Ajay00, that's super sweet of you.

I forgot to mention in the earlier post something else that I think could have been brain damage. This was some time after the break up when I thought I would not see him again.

Suddenly then one day he showed up outside my work by his car. His attitude then and to come was as if he had jumped over the last chapter of our break up, relationship. I was surprised at his frustration and entitlement. He wanted me back, was clear to me, in some shape. He wanted me to stop this "nonsense". He was not verbally abusive and not physically either. He would continue to call me non stop and tell me on the answering machine to pick up. He would swift from being sweet to this entitlement, as if we had never broken up or as if he was just stubborn enough he would get me back. Still when and if I would try to talk to him about the break up, what happened, I got nowhere. It was like I could not talk to him. It was so weird. His eyes. Before in the past we use to connect real quick. We could talk about anything. I learned quickly in the relationship that he was a truth teller. I learned that if I asked a question then I better prepare myself for the answer- because he would answer. He would never lie to me about his drinking either, would not hide it away etc. I have learned that many others do that, but it could be because he was just built the way he was, and that we use to be very truthful to one another. During this sad period after the break up he would be bringing and leaving expensive bouques outside my door to just sitting in the car and wait for me to quit my job or leave my home. I had plans to get my own place and was at the time living with my first family and they thought I should stay there til he had cooled off. None of us were used to seeing him like that. I would ask if he needed help and if so if there was someone he would want me to call but he did not reply and drove off once after that. I could just see in his eyes and the way he spoke it wasn't him, but still was. It was strange. I don't think he wanted me to baby him. That he wasn't in trouble. He was by then drinking again. I remember I thought about how he handled work and everything else when he was like that.

This episode of his ended when I sort of forced him to shake my hand and said we have to stop this (fighting) and if we could just be friends. He agreed. After that it was none of that.

I remember when I presented him with papers of rehab when we had been a couple. I would support him all the way, emotionally. I was not afraid of this. I had no shame. I did not care about shame. I was fed up with shame. I was proud of him. I was proud of us. There was not going to be a single person out there that would make me feel ashamed of him. But I understood he had shame. His family had shame.

To go out there and face that shame - that is something. But some people don't get that. What it takes. I once asked him "Are you a murderer?" and he went "No", and I said "Then you have nothing to be ashamed of".I was trying to make it easier for him, but it didn't work.

Before I would present him with the papers of rehab I was trying to pursue his side of the family, a key person, to just be there, not having to speak, I could do the talking, but this person refused. Then years later when I got a call from him being in rehab one of the things he told me was when someone from his family had told him he was an alcoholic - then it hit him. I had the sudden urge to tell him so it did not matter that I had said it like way before, but thought this was not the time to make him feel bad about it, so instead I c hose to just be happy for him and encouraging. It could prove my point though which was that I thought if we stood united in this - to get him to rehab (Like I've seen them do in movies) it would work.

About the bad stuff that had made him angry before in his childhood or youth - I noticed one thing about that. He had confessed something to me. Someone from his family found out he had told me. Even if I had not said a word. I think it was actually him that had said he had told me. He then tried to convince me to go and see this person as this person wanted to talk to me about that. I thought what for? I had his version of the truth and that was all I needed. I could figure there were other versions as well, but the bottom line was that this did not happen to the other family members, this happened to him. But anyways I went and it felt as if the version of the truth of this family member was being pressured on me and as if it was wished for that I would become this little girl, as I can imagine he had been pressured to become or still be the little boy, mentally. I was not interested in that. I remember turning to him, my boyfriend, and saying I am sorry this happened to you and I believe you. And then excusing us saying we had to go and do something. I could feel the anger in me but I stayed civil. I also felt like crying there for a period during the conversation because the way it was acted out towards me was as if I had done something. And the truth was - when he was a boy and this happened - he had not deserved that. And neither did I. But I had the strenght and the clarity with me coming from the outside into this old dusty situation. When I felt like crying it was not so much what this other person was up to, it was that he had taken me there - because he had bended, and now he was taken me into that situation and was to watch me get bend too. Only I was not bending. But I knew at that point that he was not strong enough to see it with the clarity I did and in my heart I forgave him just like that, even if I did not think it was right. All other times he used to be (over) protective of me. I think he thought or had been talked into that it was he who had told me the "wrong" version, and now that was going to be "corrected", so from his viewpoint it could have been that I was not the one being punished during this talk, he was. I noticed something was up with him because normally he wasn't like that. He didn't do any of the talking. But I kept looking at him, not this other person, and I kept trying to validate him even if he was silenced. If I hadn't known it before I knew it then - that there was something bigger at play here.

Now, I could be wrong, but for some reason I still remember this. I remember one time my own child got into something with an grown up and this grown up really tried to show my child who's version of the truth and who's version of what was right mattered and it sure as hell was not my childs. I jumped in and did the same as I had done years before with my then boyfriend and later I send the child off to play. That was when I took this other grown up eye to eye and said my child has equal right to have an own reaction on things that this child has been involved in. You are not the only one who has that right. My child respected your version of the role you played. Now you respect my child's, this happened to my child. Again I could feel the anger boiling right under my skin.

I just don't think what had happened in the past with my then boyfriend was finished even if he had gone and gotten treatment to handle his anger. If more than anything maybe he learned all the trics on how to hold back his anger, but still it had to go somewhere, and it may just have gone directly to that bottle. I don't know. Just guesses.