Not a happy christmas

It's Christmas. It's the holiday season. I don't feel it today and I haven't felt anything leading up to it. May as well be just another Sunday.

I'm not happy. I don't think I'm depressed (the worrying kind; there's always some element of it around). I've been sad and angry a lot to the point where I shut down. I'm still feeling and experiencing those emotions, all emotions, but they feel distant and obscure.

I don't feel connected to other people, even those I'm closest to, though few they are. I feel very alone. It's not the first time I've felt this way over the years.

It's like there's a delay. I don't know if it's from depression, the meds I had been taking, coping mechanisms. Regardless, a lot has happened over the last two and a half years. The bulk of it being over the last two years.

Shortly after Chris and I broke up, friendships began ending as well. There were a lot of issues, both underlying and immediate, that caused a lot of problems across the board. That group of friends no longer exists. I have individual friendships with people but the support network is gone.

I've explained what happened with local friends, but things started falling apart in places before that. I saw the end coming.

And Steve. One of the few people I've met who made me feel like I wasn't actually alone.

As I sit here crying on yet another holiday, I just...I'm envious of other people. Who have somewhere to go on holidays, people to be with. And I don't. I haven't for years now, but it hurts all the same.

I'm tired of feeling so terribly alone.

This isn't even the scope of what I'm feeling, just a peek behind the curtain. And I'm not going to be able to see my therapist at all in January. Possibly not February either.

I'm physically and mentally tired so I should just go to bed. That's the best choice for now.

My mind is being entirely unhelpful

It's 10pm and my phone goes off. A text. No one messages me at this hour. Not anymore. As my thumb is about to hit messages, I wonder for the briefest part of a second...

Lisa is asking about tomorrow and what time I'll be there.

And I'm angry, sad, and a bit confused why I would think for even the slightest amount of time possible that it would be him.

I thought the expectations had long passed.

I'm angry because I came across a song by chance that summed up perfectly why I made the right decision to walk away. "I hate you, I love you, I hate that I love you" there's plenty more to the song but that right there was killing me and literally driving me insane.

It's apparently a remix of the original but I like this better. Everything she sings is what I've been feeling, though not in its entirety. But close enough to the whole.

It's strange to miss someone so much that the sound of a text message can evoke hope. Yet simultaneously want to watch their world burn and be the cause of it. I'm sure the Germans have a word for it; they have one for everything.

I didn't just leave for my sake. I tried to explain that at the time but he wouldn't listen. I doubt he thinks I'm capable of destroying him. If he truly believes that, more the fool.

Forgotten

Therapy has been difficult and utterly exhausting as of late. It wasn't only the meds slowing down my mind, clouding it. A series of events happened between the summer of '08 to late spring of '09. That was the beginning.

I have had other abusers and trauma, but none like the Ex. I hid myself so completely that I began having trouble recalling memories at will. Any memories. There were mainly partial flashes of pieces that only sort of made sense.

It was the months leading up to meeting Steve that parts of me began to emerge again. But there were things I didn't want back. Pieces that even hidden had been cracked and torn apart. I fought my damnedest and in the end, I'm here now with mostly everything. Enough that it feels like a complete picture, story once more.

I never quite understood the full extent of the damage done so it was impossible to relay it to anyone else. I'm still afraid, daily. I take klonopin these days to hold myself together from and away from that fear than anything else that goes on in my mind.

My memories only tormented me to the point of breaking because of current fear. And while the that against me lessening drastically has helped significantly, I can't shake the feeling of helplessness. Of feeling like I'm falling and don't know when I'm going to land. Of the unknown and unknowable. Because where someone threatening could be and having no idea, is a daily horror for me.

I don't talk about the Ex for good reason.

But memories. That's what has been the issue this whole time. Not being able to get to important details. Forgetting some things entirely. My therapist and I stumbled upon something on Wednesday that I wish I could take the words back.

Some things are better left forgotten. It is something I thought was completely and thoroughly examined. From every angle. Every rationale. Understanding, acceptance, forgiveness, even pity.

It seems I missed something. And given what I talked about with fear being a catalyst to losing memories, I have to wonder when I forgot this piece.

At its very core, the reason why I believe there is something intrinsically wrong with me because it was put there. In words, actions, inaction, perception.

Screwed up shit to do to a 7 year old, though it only continued from there.

And I know my therapist well enough to know that he realizes we touched on something major so there's no letting this far. Not that he should. It does all interconnect in a sickening way.

That time of my life has been fragmented at best, even not long after. I honestly don't know if I want those pieces, if I want to remember. Some things are better left forgotten.

I wonder if you'll ever read this

I remember. Oh yes, I remember. It's amazing what coming off of topamax does for mental clarity. There's a consensus topamax may be why I'm having taste issues. Regardless, no more clawing at concrete to find the simplest of words, to do math, and most importantly, remember.

How you told me about the trail of hearts broken and how they all ended up angry with you in the end. How people leave when your purpose to them is filled. How broken your heart was when we met and how I was the one to make you smile again. Why you hadn't dated and the reasons for it.

I remember telling you I was different. And I was. I am. I helped you heal. Soothed the wounds. Was the instrument to let out your pain and I would take it with joy. Allowed you to be what you wanted, needed to be...but I never forgot how that worked out in the end.

And how you said I was so you had been searching for your whole life. I remember the cold, the movie we saw, the whole conversation in the diner. I remember so clearly again.

How you said one day you'd cause me pain. I knew pain. I could always take that. I would have done it again and again and again because it's who I am. It's what makes me different.

I remember your fear of being in your current relationship and hurting her like you did me. Like the others. I couldn't fully assuage your doubts because I had them too. I still do.

But in this moment, I'm not angry. Just as I wasn't angry after things ended. I knew what I signed up for. Silly me, I'd likely do it all again knowing what it would mean. You never did understand what submission meant and how fully devoted I was, until the very very end. I would have stayed if you asked because you're my addiction.

I remember every step of how things got to that point. How I got there. You likely still think that I was happy being in a Catholic church again. No no no. I was happy to be with you and share something of my past, something that had such an impact, with you. I didn't have the heart to correct you at the time.

I remember and while my heart is breaking in ways you'll never comprehend, my mind is calm and focused. All the pieces are there, the questions answered.

I remember and that is enough.

My mistake

I took it off the shelf in my mind. On a tight leash with fraying threads. Uncontrolled moments.

Pain anger heartache, enough to tear apart my mind

Again, if I'm not careful

I was not ready to talk to my therapist. Open the wounds that had barely begun to heal.

I made a mistake. Believing I was stronger. Ready.

Back on the shelf it goes. Until another time.

Resignation and Regrets

I wish I had never met Steve.

It's a thought that's been ruminating for some time. When I'm so angry that a flip switches and suddenly I'm aching and crying. Or when the anger and sadness intertwine into a flurry that my mind tries to escape from, but can't anymore. I come close to disassociating yet I believe because of how long I've been on klonopin, I can't.

Honestly, I can't say which is worse: disassociating or the flurry that threatens to consume me.

I'm angry that I need to grieve at all because he's not worth it. But I guess it's not really about him. I have all these memories and feelings that I need to reconcile and learn to live with. They will never truly leave me.

It's why I wish I had never met him and there are very few people on that list surprisingly.

I'm still recovering from the worst depressive episode of my life. Knowing I was going to kill myself in 2015, I've been busy dealing with all of that with my therapist. Taking apart the pieces that led me there and trying to make some sort of peace. Steve was a part of that. Not a large part, but one of the more recent pieces.

I wasn't of sound mind to process breaking up. Had things happened differently, maybe, but I can't change that. I was too busy trying to fight a much larger demon in my mind.

And in the end, I lost my friend anyway.

That's the thing, on my list of priorities, processing the breakup and end of the friendship isn't even on my top ten. I have day to day things, my health, my relationship with Frank, dealing with a ton of other issues in therapy.

Depression is a constant and even my best days, it's still there. That comes first or worse things will happen.

I will get to everything with Steve, little by little over time. But it's not going to look like how I guess I imagine most people process this kind of stuff. I've had bigger issues to worry about long before he and I ever met, and those continue to exist.

So I do; I wish he and I had never met but it's something I can't change. Which I realize is something I'll need to work on before acceptance begins. For now, I'm settling with resignation.