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This article was a truly enjoyable (and well-written) chronicle of a trainwreck, and I'm glad the author is now happily married to someone who doesn't need Ambien and scotch to love her. What fascinated me about it was how it seemed to be an entirely new version of a very old narrative, in which, by day, a woman's lover is bewitched (and often invisible, or in the shape of an animal or a bird) and comes to her at night in his true human form. At some point she breaks the spell and he is restored to his human glory, and they are married and live happily ever after, etc., etc. If there's a Cinderella syndrome and a Sleeping Beauty syndrome, maybe this is the "Fenist the Falcon" syndrome? (That's the Russian version of this tale.)
Only...which is the magical form, and which is the true form? It's hard to tell. Those of us who have benefited from antidepressants know that sometimes it really does require chemicals to lift years of the effect of depression and psychological trauma from one's mind, and the difference is often dramatic and clearly visible. Perhaps this man was self-medicating successfully. Perhaps, during the day, he really was depressed and detached and unable to relate to a woman he found lovely and absolutely necessary while under medication.
Or maybe, sadly, it really was the medicated version that was all a ruse. That's the problem with transposing fairy tales to modern life: the protagonists never manage to reproduce those perfect endings, no matter how much they believe in them. Sometimes the "happily ever after" ending involves not rescue, but walking away from the seductions of the bewitched lover and finding true love elsewhere.
