Two simple lessons in dealing with the drunk
I’ve got a roommate right now who has suddenly turned toxic. I guess it started months ago when she started lashing out at various people, just a little bit here and there, but I guess being the landlord it took her some time to get around to being nasty toward me. At this point she’s alienated practically everyone in our lives who isn’t in a relationship with her.
Her former partner warned me about her, claimed she threatened to try to get them fired. Doxxing, which in the kink community is one of the worst things you can do until you get to sexual assault. But doxxing isn’t an issue for me. I don’t need to worry about my job or my family finding out that I’m kinky.
Her partner confessed to me the other night that when they told me a few months ago, that they’d quit drinking, that was a lie. They had simply switched to hiding it and lying about it and hiding in their room. So that sort of explains how she could become so delusional, blowing up at all sorts of people, making my own partner and another roommate scared to come here.
Fortunately they are moving out. At least she’s together enough to realize that’s what needs to happen. I would have kicked her out if she hadn’t volunteered. So now we are in this weird limbo where the house just has this toxic feel to it, and people are just kind of staying away.
So at this point I’m committed to never living with another person who drinks alcohol. Just looking back on all my problematic roommates, they all drank too much. And looking back on the good ones, they were all non-drinkers. It’s just this obvious pattern that I never saw before because I drank myself.
Now I have no idea why I ever used to drink. To escape the depression I guess, though I didn’t realize that was it at the time. Now that I don’t have depression, I can’t imagine what I ever saw in that substance.
But my question is, how do I deal with someone who is completely delusional? Someone who alienates the majority of the people who come through our home, getting upset at every little slight against them, but then shrugging off all the harm she causes others. Multiple people are scared to come over now and she just shrugs and acts like it’s their fault for being scared of her, but even the tiniest insult toward her she sees as an atrocity.
I read this medium story the other day: https://medium.com/@fower-leo/stay-away-from-emotional-toddlers-its-self-preservation-a1ca7ab58a88 — Stay Away from “Emotional Toddlers” — It’s Self-Preservation — and I realized that that describes her.
But she didn’t used to be like this. We’ve lived together for two or three years now and the majority of the time she was fantastic. She was mostly reasonable and people liked her. She fixed things around the house. She fixed all sorts of things, and at this point, in the interests of honesty, I would still definitely vouch for her skills as a handyman. She can seriously fix just about anything, and doesn’t ask much in return.
So how do you deal with someone who has gone completely delusional and descended into hate?
I guess there is no way other than to kick them out of your life. It’s really too bad. I believe in second chances and giving people the benefit of the doubt, but when half your friends are telling you that they aren’t comfortable around this person, that they feel this dark energy and nastiness, there’s really nothing else you can do.
What’s weird about folks like this is if you talk about someone else’s behavioral issues, they can talk and analyze and offer solutions just like anyone else. They speak reasonably. But then when it comes to their own issues, they descend into this insanity where every problem is someone else’s fault. They didn’t do anything wrong. Everyone else is just “two-faced” and out to get them.
And there’s no good way to predict who will turn into this… other than seeing who drinks the alcohol. You just need to keep your eyes and mind open I guess.
Maybe I should have addressed some of the more minor issues, like for example a couple months ago she killed a nest of ground hornets by dumping some fuel in there and setting it on fire. It was an effective strategy. They’re all dead and haven’t come back. But another friend, over our house chat, said something like “I’ve use DE in the past to deal them” and she was like “Well how many hornet nests have you dealt with, because I’ve done like 20.”
It was just like this very minor but unnecessarily defensive reaction, that I guess just showed her lack of self-confidence and inability to deal with anything that even resembles criticism. We just let it go, but maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have gone to her and asked why she needed to become defensive about something so simple. I guess I was afraid she would take offense at my question, but then maybe that should have been a sign to me, that if I’m afraid to ask a simple question about a conversation, that maybe this person just isn’t all that healthy to converse with.
What finally brought all this crashing down was one person who refused to accept her fake apology that attempted to redirect the blame. I would have just let it go. Most people would have just let it go, but she didn’t let it go, and I’m kind of glad she didn’t, because now I realize that the only real solution to all this is for her to move out. Maybe I should not have been letting things go as much as I did. I believe in forgiveness and not starting drama, but sometimes you need to put your foot down early on, with the more subtle issues, before things get out of control.
So I guess that’s my lesson here: address things early on, don’t trust that people will come to their senses on their own. If I’m scared they may lash out, then that’s a huge red flag and means it’s even more important that I face it and address the issues.
But the easy lesson is just don’t live with someone who drinks more than a small amount of alcohol.
