So for the last 5 months my activity on here has been very limited. That is because my life has been turned upside down in a way that was both very good…and then very bad. I felt the need to write it all down and I thought I might as well share it on here and this site is about sharing my experiences with the world in the hopes that they may possibly help someone else in the future…
I believe I’ve found a balance between sharing and oversharing in what is a very difficult time for me at the moment. I haven’t gone into great detail about the after effects of this heartbreak, simply the story of how and why it happened. I intend to do a post explaining the aftermath of this situation once my head is in a slightly stronger position to do so….
On Monday 14th November 2016 I experienced the worst pain in my life…heartbreak. To say it was unexpected is a gross understatement. No one saw it coming, least of all me. Everyone said we were the perfect fit. Sure we moved fast; we had only been together 5 months and were living together with my family after 3 weeks…but neither of us regretted a second of it. We were so in love. Everything just felt right. From the moment we met things just clicked; there were no awkward, unfilled silences, or judgement, no doubt, no commitment issues…just real love. Yes we fought. But I believe that if a couple doesn’t really fight, then they don’t really love either. You see, we only ever fought over things that weren’t really our faults. They were brought on by a much bigger force; depression. Both of us struggled immensely with mental health and had done since a very young age.
Now it’s hard enough going through mental illness yourself, but to also watch the person you love more than anyone in the world go through it as well? It’s devastating. We were both insecure and our illnesses leaked this in different ways. I became paranoid, controlling and irrational; constantly going through his phone, demanding he spend every free minute with me as a couple, pushing him in a certain direction. The thought of having done that to the one I love makes me sick, and I felt that way throughout our relationship as I was acting so irrationally…but it wasn’t until I lost him that I realised what my actions had caused me to lose. He on the other hand was the opposite. He was very bad at showing emotion and, whenever he was sad or angry, he would just bury his head in the sad and wait for the pain to go away…but it never did. I told him so many times that people could support him endlessly, but the only person who could actually help him get better…was himself. While he knew this, he didn’t quite accept it. He always said I was stronger than he was and I always denied it because, for the last year, I have been going through my own relapse with my mental health. However, since the breakup I have realised that, actually, he was right; I am the stronger one between the two of us! Despite my downfalls, I was, am and have been working on my issues everyday for the last 3 years…he hasn’t! Now I’m not for one second trying to badmouth him. I for one know how hard it is to get yourself out of the harsh grip of depression and, although he had the longest way to go, I could see that he was slowly trying to better himself. I love him with all my heart- I have since almost the day I met him- and I can honestly say that, to me, he was perfectly imperfect. He wasn’t educated, he wasn’t wildly ambitious, and he didn’t have an endless string of skills to his bow.
However…..he was my person. No matter how dark the world became, just the sight of his beautiful smile made the pain start to drain away. The only thing I could truly fault in his nature was his communication…or rather lack of it. As I said, he’s not one for facing your demons. He tends to run and hide, and by hide I mean shut down…completely shut down. I have terrifying memories of his episodes. The fits. The blackouts. Sometimes he would even stop breathing for a solid few minutes whilst I just sat there helpless. What’s worse is that, while I knew he suffered with these episodes, he had no idea how bad they were because he simply would not remember them when he came to. It really does break your heart to watch the person that you love go through such hell. I truly believed there was nothing worse…until I lost that person.
If you’ve experienced heartbreak you’ll understand, but until you do…there really is nothing I can say that can even begin to explain just what that feeling is like. There really isn’t a pain in the world that’s as bad- and that’s coming from someone who’d lived with 5 mental health disorders for the majority of her life. The difference is, a mental illness is in your own head. It’s a heartless entity that only seeks to hurt you and deep down you know that. But heartbreak is a feeling that originally stems from something good. You put your love and trust in the hands of another and what hurts the most is knowing that the person who was meant to love you the most decided to hurt you in a way they promised they never would. What’s worse is that I gave my love everything. I gave him something I thought I’d never give away, my virginity. You see…I am asexual. This means I am not sexually attracted to anyone and I am actually at the end of the spectrum that is sex repulsed. Because of that, and a few other serious aspects of my past, one of which being an emotionally abusive relationship (and I use that word loosely), I had accepted the fact that I would never be comfortable having sex once in my life. I also genuinely believed that this would mean I would never find a partner because, as nice as nice as people may be, you take sex off the table and people run for the hills…
…And then I found him; someone completely unexpected who came into my life like a fallen star. Now I’m not saying I met him and my sexuality was no more. Quite the opposite; I told him from the start that being with me meant possibly never having sex again. Of course I was expecting him to run a mile like everyone else…but he was completely unfazed. In his own words he said ‘why would I give up something so amazing for something as trivial as sex’. Well that was the moment that my heart just burst quite frankly. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying the reason I was with him was because he was the only man to accept me for who I am…I am just saying that was the reasons that caused me to fall in love with him as deeply as I did.
Now as time went on I started to feel something, a feeling I’d never felt before in my life; longing. And by that I do not mean a sexual longing. I simply mean a longing to be close. In fact I quickly realised that, however close we were, it wasn’t close enough. As our love grew stronger I felt myself wanting to be closer and closer to his heart. Eventually…that meant sex! Now this scared and confused me beyond belief. I couldn’t believe that I was finding myself thinking about such a thing. In the first week that we spend sleeping next to each other we started to take steps; bigger and bigger steps each night. I was finding myself doing things that had always used made me feel sick to my stomach just thinking about them. I freaked out. I pulled back. I cried in disgust and confusion…but at the same time, something felt…right? Just a month and a half into our relationship we took that final step. There were no candles, no hotel room, not even any protection (I’m ashamed to say)…but it was perfect. I mean if I explained the night to anyone else they would probably think it was a fucking disaster but to me I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
But while we were taking bigger and bigger steps in our relationship by planning a future and holidays and even talking about weddings and a family…this meant I was becoming more and more vulnerable. Now, as I mentioned, my only other relationship experience was with an emotionally immature and abusive young boy who may or may not have been in love with his ex girlfriend the entire time. That, coupled with my mental health and all the other shit I’ve experienced in myself, means I am not good with handling my vulnerability. That is why I do everything in my power not to show it. However, when you’re in a relationship, that is damn near impossible.
You see, while I was individually stronger than he was, he was actually the stronger one when it came to the relationship. He had the right values and understanding to make a relationship strong and healthy compared to I who, as I say was far too paranoid and controlling. The ridiculous thing is I knew he would never cheat. I had absolutely no doubt over him staying faithful and yet my own insecurities got in the way and caused me to do some inexcusable things that caused me to lose the one person I loved more than anyone else in the world.
I guess one good point has emerged from this (it pains me to say it) break up, and that is I have come to a very big realisation about myself that has allowed me to make some very important changes in terms of what I do or say in a relationship. You seen, since late December 2015 (that’s nearly 11 months) I have been having a relapse with my mental health. Christmas is a difficult time for me given I am a recovering anorexic and, since last Christmas, I have been slowly feeling worse and worse about myself to the point where my panic attacks were returning strong and frequent, my eating habits were suffering, and my general opinion of myself was diminishing. At so many points during 2016 I said to myself ‘this is it, this is where I turn things around’…but I didn’t. My mind just wasn’t there yet. I think this was because it wasn’t a sudden downfall; it was gradual, which meant that, even though I knew I was struggling, I never felt I was a danger to myself enough to do something about it. Even when I met my love in June and suddenly my life had light in it for the first time, I pinned all of my happiness on him, which sadly, actually meant I got worse. Now I am not placing the blame on him, not in the slightest! In fact this was my own fault as I refused to exist in a world where he wasn’t at the core. For once in my life I had found something that actually brought me joy and I think, subconsciously, I was so afraid to let that go that I became obsessed. I thought that because my life was getting better, that I was too…but I wasn’t. I kept getting worse without realising and soon I was a mess; extremely unstable and, of course, who did I turn to for comfort; the only person who I allowed myself to be vulnerable with who just happened to be extremely vulnerable himself and therefore was eventually unable to cope with the pressure no matter how hard he tried.
Things got messy. Not necessarily between us because our actual relationship was incredible! I couldn’t fault it in anyway. But, because we were trying to manage our own individual issues whilst focussing on trying to keep the other stable and safe…things just got too much. After all, it’s true; you can’t help someone else if you can’t help yourself first.
I don’t regret loving him. I don’t regret caring for him. I don’t regret a single second of our relationship and I’m not afraid to admit that, right now, I hope that we do get back together. As early as tomorrow would be great but I’m slowly starting to accept that that’s just not going to happen. I guess if he’s made the decision to take the time to work on himself, then I should do the same. So as I said; this week has actually, in a strange way, been good for me. Losing him was the final straw for me. It was my catalyst. Finally I’ve found the strength to get myself out of this relapse. I’ve realised that I cannot be the irrational, controlling, over emotional person that I am in a relationship anymore! I just can’t- it’s exhausting and it’s healthy for neither my partner nor myself. I always thought that if I didn’t have control over everything in my life, that it would fall apart. Since all this has happened I’ve realised that that’s just not true! My need for control was causing my life to fall apart.
So while sure, whilst this week may have helped mend my thoughts, it hasn’t exactly done much to help mend my broken heart. It hasn’t stopped the screaming. It hasn’t stopped the crying. It certainly hasn’t stopped the hours of non-existent sleep…I guess only time can do that. Right now it just feels like I’ve had my whole world ripped away from me. A heartbreak is worse than death, because at least in mourning you know the person is physically gone and they left the world loving you all the same. A heartbreak is soul destroying because the person you love is still there, you could reach out and hold them and yet…you can’t, because in your heart of heart you know that, if they loved you…they’d reach and hold you first.
I do not hold any resentment against my used to be partner. I still love him with all my heart and it kills me that I may have realised my mistakes in the relationship too late to save it. Don’t get me wrong I was not solely at fault here; we both had a part to play in this sudden breakup. However, when I think over every single happy memory that we had together, big or small, even up to our final night before the storm……I can say that, if I had a choice between the rest of my life or living the last 5 months with him on repeat…I would sit and press that replay button day after day after day. I found my person…and the time we had is time I never want to end…
Courage;
Alice xxx