It’s Not You, It’s Her
Marguerite Schneider
Word Count 995
“Yvonne” and I met three or four years before covid, while working together part-time in a high-end, home furnishings store. I worked there for the employee discount and the experience of working in a setting that was novel to me, while continuing to teach at a university. Yvonne was on SSI-Disability, which allows recipients to work part-time without losing their benefits. Being into style and design, home furnishings was Yvonne’s passion, and she was great at selling. Yet, she called out sick frequently and was a high-maintenance diva, tending to aggravate rather than calm irate customers. Knowing that we became friends, managers and associates asked me, off record, for insight into Yvonne. What can we do to prevent her from going ballistic? Why is she out sick so often? Being unwilling to share her secret of long-term mental illness, I would say little, other than Yvonne needs direction and support more so than most of us.
Everything about Yvonne was high drama, histrionics. She would offend people, and would then re-offend them by overly apologizing. She was a hypochondriac, visiting medical specialists as often as most of us visit the supermarket. She outright lied now and then, for no apparent reason. Despite decades of therapy and various combinations of meds, Yvonne simply was mentally unstable.
Sometimes I was mystified, as others were mystified, that Yvonne and I became friends outside of work. At first, we enjoyed gossiping about the store’s managers, coworkers, and customers, and realized we each had a wicked sense of humor. I learned that Yvonne was fabulous fun, and was more knowledgeable about theater, movies and style than anyone I’ve known. We complemented each other, expanded each other’s world, while having enough in common (raised in Queens, NY; fascinated by the absurdity of life) to connect well. We visited museums, dined out, and went to the theater, often with others.
Her love of theater started in her childhood. Yvonne’s mother, who raised her as a single parent while holding a high-paying job in finance, took her daughter to the theater often. Her mother also partied at Studio 54 frequently. (Photos of Yvonne’s mother at Studio 54 were displayed at her memorial service. Yvonne explained with pride that her mother knew many of its celebrity clientele.) Her mother’s career path and apparently healthy investment fund balances were curious points to me, as few women of her generation worked in finance and she had no college or related qualifications. Yvonne said that she had the best mother in the world. I nodded politely to her “best mother” claim.
Yvonne’s mental illness appeared in early adolescence. She had a vague sense of being sexually assaulted around that time, but had no real memory of it. This haunted Yvonne, and it worsened a few years after her mother’s death. She decompensated quickly, within a few months, when the torment of that early sexual assault enveloped her. The therapist Yvonne was seeing, who worked at a counseling center I had recommended, was checking on her three times a week and was available on an as-needed basis, in addition to their weekly sessions. Yet, Yvonne continued to decompensate, visiting multiple medical specialists, seeking a physiological cause of her illness and a eureka prescription of treatment for it.
In 2024, a mutual friend and I begged her to avoid hypnotherapy, which is dangerous pseudo-science, but she pursued it. The hypnosis didn’t unearth any buried memory of the assault or any other traumatic event, but it further harmed Yvonne’s fragile mind. She began exploding at people in public. Her memory was scattered. She was sending out strange emails to various people at odd hours, and had no recollection of sending them. Yvonne routinely took many bathroom breaks in very few hours, and became unhealthily gaunt. Several friends of mine who had met Yvonne when she was doing better and met her again during her downturn supported my beliefs. It’s not you, it’s her, they said. And, yes, there’s an addiction problem.
I have several addicts (including long-sober ones) in my life, so this isn’t my first experience with addiction. I attempted an intervention with Yvonne that failed miserably, as I anticipated that it would, due to her denial and projection of her problematic behaviors. I mentioned her ever-increasing lying, with specific examples of lies on top of lies, a house of cards of lies, that made no sense. To be told that I got it wrong, and I was the liar. I mentioned specific examples of her yelling in public, at me, at people working in the theater. Indeed, I was the yeller. I indicated her lack of awareness as seen in those strange emails sent to me and others. No, I was the messed up one. Last, I pointed out her acute weight loss, which was causing her to look older, as she had no fat left to buffer the facial wrinkles of women our age. Not so, her weight and diet were great. Though, I note, she did skip a beat about the wrinkles, and didn’t counter that statement.
Yvonne’s many demons consumed her and slayed our friendship. I made the choice to no longer be witness to her self-destruction while trying, in vain, to encourage her toward a healthier path. I hope and pray that, for her sake, Yvonne’s demons are tamed, and she returns to being someone similar to her former self.
As for our relationship, experiences can and do change things, and sometimes there is no going back. As I’ve learned from prior experiences with others, I must sometimes enforce strict boundaries. For I, too, matter, to many people as well as myself, and must protect my own mental wellness. My choice is justified.
Yet, I continue to feel guilty that I failed Yvonne. That’s the damn conundrum. I know that I couldn’t do more for her without serious risk of damage to myself, yet I feel guilty for not doing more, for failing her.
Marguerite, after earning many degrees and working in many capacities, decided to satisfy her six year-old self by writing creatively. She lives in the Bronx and Hudson Valley, NY, with her husband Richard and their hound, Murray. She enjoys gardening, yoga, reading, writing, and walking Murray.