A year ago today I thought I was broken. I had no idea how I was going to get through life. I was in what should be one of the greatest cities on Earth. I was with my mother, so I was safe. I was listening to amazing music; on the street, in every bar and restaurant, in the park, down by the water. I was eating fried catfish, or beignets, or barbecue… I was exploring the French market… And I was broken and bleeding.
A few days before, we had been out for dinner to celebrate our first anniversary. We were engaged and I was so sure that getting married would be the push I needed to feel safe, secure, and like I had everything I needed. We had breakfast that morning and then proceeded to play on the swings, one of our favourite pastimes. The wind was high but it was bright and sunny and we were discussing the idea of getting a cat together. I never wanted a female cat, but we wanted someone who would be cuddly and love people. We responded to some ads on Kijiji and we were in touch with one woman who seemed like she might have exactly the right cats for us.
I really convinced myself that getting married would solve my doubts about that relationship; that somehow I actually would love him if we got married and I could stop being so afraid of the things I was trying so desperately to keep buried in the subconscious.
Equality was something I never had the chance to experience in that relationship. I don’t want to sit and play victim here, because that is not constructive or useful in any way. That said, I always felt inferior to him. I felt that I was just a woman and that for all intents and purposes he was superior to me in every way. And he did have an undeniable anger and arrogance that fed that belief until it was full to bursting. From the beginning of our friendship back in late 2012 he made it clear that I was “just a woman” and that women should never be put in positions of power due to our emotional nature. We don’t use logic to think through decisions and we just run on emotion alone. I felt like I had to fight throughout that entire relationship and that is no way to garner trust or faith or any of those things that you are supposed to have when you’re in a relationship.
So I fought. I attacked whenever I felt anything that wasn’t positive, and that was often. I hated feeling so small, so worthless, so… woman-like if that’s how you think of women. I would manipulate and try to use everything I could to diminish him and make him feel as small and shitty as I felt that he made me feel… That’s an awful lot of feelings.
And I didn’t love him. I knew that from probably a week and a half into the thing if not sooner. The weakness, the powerlessness, the feeling that he was superior just hurt, all the time. During that time I smoked a lot of weed. Funny thing about weed, people say it makes you feel better when you’re down. For me, this is not the case. It is not a mood stabilizer but a mood enhancer. The other down side is it makes me see, with complete clarity, whatever I might be feeling subconsciously. So from the first time that Jake and I went to the lounge, I was seeing all the reasons I wasn’t in to him. I didn’t want to see that stuff. I wanted a boyfriend who could give me what I needed… And to his credit, he really did try. He showed up, he took care of me. He did all the right actions even if not always saying the right words. I often tell people that I loved him because I needed him, and that’s not how love is supposed to be. But I didn’t understand at the time what it was about him that I wasn’t happy with, so I just tried to deny it. For 367 days exactly. I just wanted to love him so much but I felt hurt by him all the time even with him doing things, helping me with things, it was never right.
So after that breakup, which started out as a break (I call it the fake break because it kind of seems like it was a break of convenience to keep me around in case he changed his mind), I had no idea what I’d done wrong. The hardest part of that breakup was that he was too scared to tell me to my face. He waited until I was gone to tell me. Upon further reflection, that may have happened as a result of the manipulations I used to play on him. I often took great joy in pushing him as far as I could before making him feel guilty and somehow getting him back every time. So really I can’t blame him for waiting. See? I know now what was up. I think I knew it then but it was in that category of things I didn’t want to admit to myself..
If real change and progress is to occur, however, one has to be accountable for one’s actions, both positive and negative. When we are in that much pain it is hard to recognize our part in the ultimate destruction. Not only did he have to deal with my power games, he also had to hear about the past relationship, all the time. Every single day, in some way or another, I talked about the past. I never understood why that ended the way it did and depression was well and truly out of control by the end of me and Jake, even by the end of the last one. I didn’t give myself time to heal. I thought 13 months would have been enough, but when you don’t understand the issue, you really can’t fix it.
So how is it that I’m back in a new relationship after even less time than the last one? That’s a good question, one that I have been contemplating for the last month at least. I think that I am finally at the point where I see my mistakes. I’m not saying everything that broke in those two relationships was my fault. It definitely takes two people to make or break a relationship. Having said that though, I am finally communicating and being communicated with. From the time I got back home from New Orleans, Alex was there. We talked for hours every day, and I was so blessed that he was able to see and call me out on the parts that were mine. They weren’t nice to hear, they sometimes didn’t make me feel great… Hell they reminded me of what a complete and utter failure I was in every way, but once I got past that feeling of failure and disappointment, progress actually started to happen..
I think the most important thing that I didn’t have in my other relationships was honest communication. I don’t know whether or not they tried, but I felt like I never really understood what I was doing to upset people. I don’t know if they tried to tell me and I just felt so powerless that I fought and shoved them down or if they never actually were able to express the problems, but I know them now. Alex is not afraid to say the things that I don’t want to hear when he feels I need to hear them. He is not afraid to challenge me, and he doesn’t let me get away with manipulation or bullshit, because he has done that stuff himself in the past. And we are both incredibly great at getting to the root of an issue right when it comes up. Granted we are still in the first weeks of this thing, the honeymoon phase, people call it.
But I was starting to feel better even before we were officially together. I am seeing a new psychiatrist now who I absolutely love. I feel so comfortable and safe talking to her; more so than I have with any other psychiatrist. Its funny because when I first switched from the guy at Queen’s to this new one, I was terrified. I actually missed the first appointment because I was completely freaking out about the idea of having to start over from the beginning, with a woman no less. Not that women don’t make great psychs, they do, but I was afraid and threatened and I always thought that I could get along better with men overall. But here we are. I started with her in March and I actually look forward to seeing her and talking about whatever needs discussing..
Another thing that seems to have helped is the realization that some of my actions… fuck it… a lot of my actions are very common in people with BPD. Alex found a few books on the subject that opened my eyes to a lot of things, and I think that I am finally doing better. One of the biggest things that I realized in this last year was that I am more than just my sexuality. For so long I believed that the best way to make guys like me was with my body. I never consciously understood that, and I don’t remember how I finally came to that realization, but now that I’ve put a lot of that aside, I feel so much more confident, so much more authentic, and the people who only wanted me for the things I could do for them physically are no longer in my life, and this is an amazing thing. There’s so much more that I may or may not go into in another post, but suffice it to say that I really did need to hit rock bottom before I could start healing, and the recovery process will obviously take time. But I’m ok right now. Really and truly I’m ok.
Jake, if you’re reading this, I am sorry for all the horrible shit I put you through. I am sorry that my insecurities transferred to my treatment of you. You did and said a lot of hurtful things, but I did too and for my part I am sorry. I hope that some day you will let your anger at the world go. It is so toxic, not only mentally but physically and you are a genuinely good person, anger aside. I hope you find joy and peace in your life and thank you for trying with me for as long as you did. We had some pretty great times, and though it took a lot of time, my head is finally above water and I can breathe easy.
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