What's our playbook?

A coworker said to me that since Ass't Man (AM, now gone) isn't very patient or empathetic, his new job working with teens on the autism spectrum will challenge him.
"They will be his next teachers," she said.

I love that way of looking at it.
Who are the teachers that come to us?
AM was one of mine. I didn't recognize the playbook he was using for a long time, but he showed me some key plays.

I'd written about my run-in(s) with AM's alcohol use disorder (AUD) to a friend whose ex is an alcoholic, "It's like people with AUD all follow the same playbook".

The friend helpfully wrote back confirmation:
"Yes, that's one of the benefits of Al-Anon: you go to meetings and you hear the same thing––your story. Your unique, heartbreaking story!–– told over and over again.
And again + again. 
I could relate when someone said, 'I'm starting to think mine wasn't a love story, it was the same tired story of alcoholism, and I was another bump in the road.' "

Last night, wandering around the web, I clicked on something about Johnny Depp and found the acronym DARVO, a classic maneuver that the author said Depp used on his ex-wife Amber Heard (god only knows about that mess):
Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim & Offender.

That's what AM would do.
When I tried to talk about my feelings in response to things he'd said, like telling me I had to obey him(!) or the gross sexual things he said last month when drunk, he'd...
Deny: "I didn't do/say/mean that."/"I'm sorry you took it that way."
Attack: "YOU are the problem." (He said literally those words);
Make Himself the Victim: "I have to walk on eggshells around you."

I thought I'd feel instantly better with him gone, but first I felt sad (at losing someone I'd gone through big stuff with--the city on fire +  loving vintage), and now I feel angry.

I feel compassion for AM though, too. His father DIED from addiction a couple years ago, in some crummy trailer in Meth City. No one found him for a week.
Besides losing his (estranged) father, AM was also feared becoming his father, especially because he is himself a father.

But overall I do feel better, yes. Relieved!

My adulthood has been about learning to (or trying to) establish better boundaries. My mother was an organism with a highly permeable membrane who enveloped and absorbed anything she loved.
Unfortunately she wasn't able to filter out things that hurt her.

I can be absorbent too, sponge-like, but my main reaction has been to set hard boundaries. Like my father, I'd rather cut people off than manage the ebb of give-and-take.
So that's an ongoing learning for me. And, Asst Man aside, I've actually done a lot better setting sane boundaries with coworkers in this current job, where I'm in my sixth year.

Even with AM, I did try to get things in balance. It just isn't possible with someone who denies all agency.

There are many factors in the game of life, and many forces at work, but I am responsible for the plays I make.
"The buck stops here." That is not a burden, that is a blessing.