This is a difficult post to write, but as this is supposed to be an online journal for our family, sanitizing it isn't really going to help anyone.
"The truth shall set you free."Speaking of things sanitary, before all the drama unfolds, we would like to report some success on the potty training front. Here's Little Nio trying the big chair on for size. We're still trying to find one of those combination toilet seats that has two sizes in one.
My wife's medical condition took a terrible turn for the worse. Over the span of a month, we saw her lose weight from 42 kilograms (92.4 lbs) down to about 34 kilograms (74.8 lbs). Her skin condition deteriorated dramatically in the course of less than a week. And to top it all off, her mind and spirit were also affected.
She was given to fits of erratic behavior that turned from argumentative to violent. She was seeing things, claiming to have acquired a second sight, and she was also hearing voices that were supposed to be spirits protecting her. She would stay awake all night for several nights in a row, and then sleep during the day when I would be at the office.
Some time in late-August, my wife claimed that a hex or black magic spell had been placed on her by an acquaintance of hers, a friend who would come to the house to visit. My wife doesn't enjoy going out so she prefers to entertain friends at home. Several of her girl friends would come over to spend the day and sometimes it would become a sleep over. They'd be gossiping, joking around, laughing, listening to music, playing cards, cooking, drinking and eating. All very normal and innocent.
A week or so after all this weirdness started, my wife already suspected this person. Apparently the other girls in her group felt "funny" about her, knowing that she has a streak of this sort of strangeness about her. I found Kanittha in the bathroom at the lavatory with tweezers pulling what looked like thin spidery threads from the index fingers of both hands. She was shaking and bleeding where the tweezers had broken the skin on her finger joints. She asked me to help her look for anything strange in our bathrooms. Rather than question it all, I agreed to search. We found a wad of white gauze stuffed inside the shower drain tied up with dark thread (or hair) and inside were some small black cobbler nails (about 8mm long, square pointed wedges with a wide flat head). It looked like there were bloodstains on the gauze, but it may just as well have been rust. I'm not going to let my imagination get the better of me. Having worked on countless construction sites, I have found all sorts of junk stuffed into drains and bits wedged unceremoniously into P-traps. But this was just a shade more than I was used to, given everything else going on.
Almost a month into all this I find my wife speaking in a dialect in not-quite-her-own-voice again in the bathroom. This time she's got rouge on an old sock over her hands and she's rubbing it all over the toilet seat cover, turning the white molded plastic a shade of red. And it subsequently exposed some very strange scratches and what might be construed as symbols. In the construction industry, when materials are packed and stacked, then delivered to site and not properly protected prior to handover... stuff gets scratched all the time. So what I saw could be one thing and with a bit of imagination could be something else entirely.
So it turns out that this woman who is
"attacking" my wife has allegedly got the
"hots" for me and is trying to break up our marriage. For a moment there I stop worrying about the weirdness and start laughing at the stupidity of it all.
A few days after that, my wife terminates the services of our household helper. To make a long story less boring... apparently there is a connection with this helper of ours and the woman "attacker". And then there's this female taxi driver who apparently is also in cahoots with them... her car was the one spotted in the security videos while we were at the hospital. My wife knows this female driver from a few years back and frequently uses her cab to run errands when I'm at work and can't drive for her. She uses her because she feels safe traveling with another woman, the taxi is clean and well maintained and the driver is a very cautious one. But I doubt we'll be calling on her again.
All in all there were about a half-dozen people who are implicated in all this... and I honestly think that they are clueless to all these goings-on. I think in her weakened state, my wife's fragile grip on reality has created this really convoluted conspiracy.
We have had some high ranking monks come to the house for a blessing ceremony. A four-hour chanting session, clouded in incense, followed by a light drizzle of holy water (the Buddhist variety, not the Christian flavored version). We've also had some doctor/professor/shaman woman come to the house to perform another sort of cleansing ritual.
On the other side of this, we had also gone to a hospital for blood tests and had seen a skin specialist. The tests came back normal and clear, and the dermatologist was pretty much stumped.
We had some pretty fancy banner type things with impressive symbols and diagrams on them plastered in different parts of the house. One is blocking the passage of the dead on a south facing wall, another black one with gold writing is at the front of the house supported by a red one with black writing. Then there was a yellow one with red symbols facing to the east to invoke peace. And they all got moved around as needed, like troops on the frontlines. I wouldn't have been surprised if I woke up one morning with something plastered on to my forehead.
About three weeks ago, the story took another interesting turn. Her eldest brother, Khun Rin, shows up one morning unannounced, which I do not think is extraordinary as family is family and they are welcome to come and go as they please. That morning, Little Nio went off to his daycare center and I go off to work.
When we returned home that evening, my wife was again in the bathroom seated on the toilet seat. At first I thought she was on the phone, but then I realized that she was talking to
"people" over the
"ether". She was animated and in a very engaged conversation with multiple persons, as if she was on conference call. She was very annoyed with me when I interrupted to ask who she was speaking with and said that one of my friends was part of the group currently in communication with her. As if on queue she takes on a concentrated look and speaks into thin air, then turns and says that my friend will call me from his house in about five minutes.
Ten minutes later I decide to call my friend, he doesn't answer his phone. Almost an hour later he calls back and apologizes for not taking my call because he was driving out of town, and confirms that he has not spoken with my wife for the longest time.
It was right after this episode that I was confronted with the grim evidence that my beloved wife was a drug addict. Her brother had found the drug paraphernalia she was hiding. Everyone who knows me, knows that I don't go through the stages of anger-denial-acceptance. I tend to deal with the situation at hand first and then worry about those inevitable stages later on. Apparently she has been on
"ice" (methamphetamine) for a couple of years and that the recent effects on her health was the drug abuse becoming more intense. One could say that
"love is blind", but the truth of the matter is that I was trusting and very stupid to not have seen any of this.
I've asked myself
"how could this have happened?" and
"why did she do this to herself?" — it doesn't matter. One could spend countless hours mulling over the variables struggling to rationalize things, but for whatever reason this has happened to us... it is no longer important in the context of what needs to be done.
Reading through the effects of this particular drug, a lot of things fell into place and all the weird mystery began to make logical sense. If you ever have the chance to see this documentary on National Geographic Channel,
"World's Most Dangerous Drug", I highly recommend it. The documentary, not the drug. Very informative and powerful stuff that will bring the horrific effects of this drug into startling focus.
To make our situation even more of a challenge, her addiction has almost wiped out our nest-egg savings. Over the years, I have been giving my wife gifts of gold — bracelets and necklaces. This is very standard for Thai culture, where they place a very high value on gold (±96.5% pure gold) measuring it in
baht weights, where one baht is equal to 15.16 grams. I would give her one baht gold for Christmas, for New Year, for our two wedding anniversaries, Thai New Year, Buddhist Lent, her birthday, for Mother's Day, for Valentines Day... and sometimes for no special reason other than I had some savings I wanted to stash away for her future. This was supposed to be her gold reserve in the event that something should happen to me and she needed some cash quickly. To simply get to the point — no more gold.
We even had a separate bank account for her where I divert some of my salary to defray household expenses. I wanted her to learn how to run her own home and pay all the many monthly utility bills and assorted day-to-day payments. By the time I realized what was going on, we were behind on almost all the payments, some were in arrears for over two months. It doesn't take much of an imagination to figure out where that money had gone to.
Right now, after paying for all the bills and attending to most of our outstanding debts, I can almost make ends meet. Almost, but not quite. There's still an unknown factor of a week left over in this month that I have no idea how we will manage. I'm not worried though, just curious and slightly anxious. By stretching the imagination I pretend that I can scent a faint whiff of financial liquidity at the end of the month.
Here are a couple of photographs showing the dramatic changes to my wife's condition.
This first photograph was taken about two years ago.
This second photograph was taken a little over two weeks ago. There is a website that holds a collection of photographs similar to these —
Faces of Meth.
The next day they brought my wife to a specialist government hospital in Bangkok, where she was given a sedative to quickly counter the effects of the methamphetamine induced high and help ease her through withdrawals. I could not go with them as I had to stay with Little Nio, and bringing him to a place like that was not something I wanted him to experience. She was in a lethargic and near catatonic state coming down from the effects. After two days of trying to convince her to take clean up, I had to bathe her in bed because I couldn't take the stench of the toxins sweating out of her pores.
On the third day after she successfully fought off the worst effects, she started eating again and could now go to the bathroom by herself. We then decided that it was time to get some specialist help.
There is a substance abuse recovery center up in the northeast of Thailand, in the province of Khon Khaen. You can find an online location for
this place on Wikimapia and also
here on Google Maps. It is a six hour drive up from where we live. Deciding to go there and seek help was not an issue, getting my wife to agree to go there was an effort. Taking the advice of experienced persons in Bangkok whom I knew, it was the general consensus that my wife could not be helped unless she agreed to be helped. It had to be entirely her own decision.
Leaving the house at 2:30 AM and driving on open empty roads we arrive at the center at half past seven. It is still closed and we have to wait another hour for it to open and another hour passes till we get to sit down and speak with one of the resident counselors at the center. It is a heartbreaking experience, but also very cathartic at the same time.
After nearly four hours of discussion and consultation, my wife decides that she is not ready to stay at the center. I am both relieved and disappointed at the same time. The counselor agrees to support the decision on the provision that we return in two weeks time with conditions that need to be met. My wife has to show an increase in her weight, her skin needs to clear up, she needs to be completely off the methamphetamines, she needs to be reading the informational books and pamphlets, she has to be attending support group meetings, and she must show an improved family life. All of these will be discussed when we return to Khon Kaen on Monday morning.
Since that last visit two weeks ago, things have been improving. Having his grandmother around has been great for Little Nio. An extra set of loving eyes and ears around the house has been a blessing. Here's Little Nio have breakfast with his grandmother.
Little Nio strikes a tough
gangsta pose on the concourse level of the BTS Skytrain. We had to leave his Mom at home to rest while we went out to get the car serviced (30,000 km maintenance check-up). We need to have everything in top condition in preparation for our trip up to Khon Kaen.
While waiting for the Nissan Service Center to finish up with the checking and maintenance of our car, Little Nio heads off to feed the birds at Chatuchak Park.
Very hot and tiring work, so he decides to take a quick bottle break on a park bench.
On our way back to get our car, we stop in front of the new museum to check things out. Here's Little Nio posing in front of this large sculpture that looks strangely familiar to his own potty pose.
At the end of the day, Little Nio spends time with his Mommy, who is well on the way to a full recovery. It might be several more months before she can recover physically, but it will take years to really work on the addiction. The sad reality is that drug addiction is an incurable disease, and that we will always only be able to deal with the symptoms but never be able to cure. It is the only disease where the afflicted person actually resists treatment. We live with this sickness one day at a time.
