Whoa, Back Here Again
I was kind of reminded that this existed because for some reason (I really can't remember why) I got it in my head to look over my BSG reviews (maybe because I wanted to lose myself in that show again but Netflix got rid of it and that has to be the craziest thing Netflix has ever done because how do you get rid of BSG? The show that had a special UN panel to celebrate its brilliance?).
Anyway. Hey, people. It's been, like, half a year.
A half a year of shit. Absolute shit. In reading my last entry from January, Jesus Christ have things taken a 180 turn. A 180 turn in which I cry at least once a day (and those are good days) and have been for literally months. A 180 in which I just go to sleep in the middle of the day because I can't stand being awake. A 180 in which I've just crashed. Melted. Combusted?
In my last entry I mentioned this girl, right? That died, just as I should have anticipated, but it did so in such a spectacularly brilliantly awful way that I'm actually sure it effected my brain chemistry. Because I've never ever been like this. Ever in my life. When people leave me I'm usually relieved. Or I leave them because I assume they'll leave me and I'm relieved. But the last . . . God . . . five months or so have been full of the most amazing feats of self-sabotage I've ever accomplished. And, if it was even possible, my low self esteem that I had my entire life? Got even worse after finding love!
I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.
I'm still shellshocked. It's strange. I felt so sure, so comfortable, so content, so happy, that it never occurred to me that she might not feel the same way. I did what I never do: I trusted her when she said things were good and I opened myself up. And it was easy, you guys. It was so easy for me. It felt right. It didn't feel forced or awkward or scary, even. It felt inevitable for me. Like, falling in love ended up feeling inevitable. It was kind of like, "Well, how could I not?"
Meanwhile, I was definitely in it alone. And the realization of that has been . . . Difficult to take, I guess. Because it makes me question myself completely. I've never felt happy or content or comfortable or sure. About anything in my life ever. So it seems incredibly significant to actually feel those things. And I was definitely assured by her that I wasn't alone, that she felt our connection and that she thought it was strong and rare. But she so easily fell out of her feelings for me, so easily that I don't think they were true to begin with, you know? Because had they been real I don't think they would have just fled.
But maybe they did. And that makes me sink even lower. That I'm a Monet: Good to look at from far away but a hot mess up close. She got back in late January and we had what I thought was a nearly perfect two weeks together. Intense, I'll admit, but magic. But while I was having all these revelations of happiness, she was basically having the experience of, "Maybe this is nothing about what I want."
But I also feel deeply manipulated, too, which I don't believe was deliberate but it's hard to overlook when I'm so in my head. In February after she had a freak out, I offered to step back. I offered to cool it down, if not shut it down, until she could figure things out. She begged (and that's not an exaggeration) for that to not happen. So I think, "Okay. We'll slow down but we won't stop because she's literally begging me in tears" but the pattern starts up against two days later of intensity (not even initiated by me because I thought sex and all that had been put off the table) and around and around we go. And she breaks up with me in public on a whim a few weeks later (after a mostly fine week) but sends messages that are unambiguous about her feelings and encourages me (obviously not directly) to fight her decision, which of course I do. And a weird time getting back together but there's this weird tension now and we still have pockets of good, when we're together, but miscommunication when we aren't and there's another break up and this time I pursue her completely because I honestly don't understand how everything has changed to completely in such a short period of time and she takes me back and a week later, after what I thought was a perfect weekend where everything felt RIGHT to me, she breaks it off again. On a whim. Over text.
Like she didn't gasp my name and tell me how she missed me as she left marks all over my body that Friday. As if she didn't happily sleep me with twice that Saturday. Or happily go to a museum with me and go to watch the basketball game with me (I don't think I pressured? I didn't mean to. I wanted her with me but I don't think I made it seem like it would be a problem if she didn't go) and as if she didn't engage with me in a frank talk about our sexual connection that was fun and flirty and open and honest. As if she didn't text me the next day talking about how she could still smell me on her and how it was distracting her. And as if she didn't easily succumb to my "Want me to come over?" with an affirmation.
As if I was the intense one? Maybe I was. Maybe I was. But how else do I interpret that stuff except in a positive way? And I can't help it if my eyes stare into your eyes, that are looking at me with the same intensity. And I can't help it if you can feel my feelings in my hands and on my tongue because yours have the same intensity. And I can't help that I text you to talk to you because you used to do the same to me and if that was too much, I wish I had known because I could have deescalated. I was just following our patterns.
But with that in mind, the way it ended made me feel like garbage. Trash easily thrown out. And I was so confused because I thought my body was telling me something when it communicated so intimately with hers and her words- the words I'm not even sure she remembers saying- those were unambiguous, too. So I questioned, because I honestly didn't understand, and eventually she managed to beat it into me (because I'm self destructive and made her say it a lot): She just lost her feelings for me. They faded. They went away.
In the end, I wasn't even equal to some dude she dated years ago she doesn't even think about anymore. And I'm that chump who equates sex with love. That naive asshole who thinks something is happening when it's not. Definitely not. I thought the way she talked to me was special. But it wasn't. It was . . . regular? I thought the way she reacted to me physically was special. But it wasn't.
And I have no other experience with love. I just know I was floored by everything about her and I guess because she reacted in a positive manner with me, I just misinterpreted everything. So while I was misinterpreting everything, basically making up this fantasy world where we could be together and be happy, she was losing all her feelings towards me.
I know I didn't help. I probably got smothering because she would occasionally do or say something that would worry me about her and I just wanted to make her feel better and she didn't like that. I should have been better at respecting that but I'm a fixator: I fixate on things I want to make better. I didn't want to change her or anything. I just wanted her to feel better. But she didn't want me or my help. I'm sure I was too much.
But that plays some crazy games on your mind, you know? The only person I've ever, in my entire life, felt such a strong connection to, just dumped me. And she's fine, you know? She's been fine for months. I'm the one who can't move on. I go to sleep crying. I wake up super early in the morning with just a thought of her and it sets me off. I go to therapy and week after week it comes down to the same things. And I'm so jealous because I know she isn't crying about me. I doubt she even thinks about me. I want her out of my mind and out of my heart and I keep waiting. I keep trying to sleep because I rarely ever dream about her. And I make myself go and explore the city in an almost defiant way, the things I would have wanted to do together, to show myself that I don't need her.
And the truth is that I dno't need her. When I'm out I'm distracted and I have a good time. It's when I'm alone and in my thoughts that I'm practically comatose.
It's this weird thing. I know she's fucked up. I know it. My therapist keeps reminding me (based off the details I've given her) that she's unstable, that she changes her emotions on a dime and doesn't think there's much wrong with that, and that I need to focus on that instead of focusing on all the stuff about her that made my feelings inevitable. And I try, sometimes. But I don't like to be mean to her or about her, even in my head. It's really not okay that she knew this about herself and still let herself say all those wonderful things to me and do all those wonderful things with me knowing the liklihood that she would be over it in, literally, a week. It's selfish to the extreme. It's discounting me and my feelings and, fuck my humanity. Like, for real. And to just be like, "That's just who I am" as though it's something that can't be changed as if there's no room for self improvement. If "that's just how we are" were so inevitable, why bother to try to change anything at all about anyone or anything? Since she knew that quality in herself, had she actually cared about me at all, she would have dialled it all back to spare me some pain when it ended.
But . . . I've always had self esteem problems. And I've always had self destructive tendencies, particuarly as they relate to people I care about. So I went ahead and destroyed any chance there could have been for friendship. And I feel so worthless, for so many reasons, that I'm not even sure I understand what I'm even doing interacting with anyone at all.
It's a shock I let my guard down and trusted her at all. As soon as she showed an interest I should have been suspicious. As much as it hurts that she so callously ended things with me and so easily got over me, a huge part of me understands because I don't think there's much about me that's worth anything. Really, this just confirms what I've always thought. I guess the difference now is that I feel like, insteading of just thinking it or assuming it, I know it. She came to her senses, you know? And maybe I deserved the way she ended it. Maybe I didn't deserve better.
Still, even if I think I deserved it, for a few weeks there, I was legitimately happy. Over the moon happy. And it meant everything to me to know what that feels like. And to have felt it, even for such a short period of time . . . I'm just not coping well with it being gone. And realizing that it was all in my head.
I'm just trying to frame it differently now, you know? In hopes that I'll get better quicker? All I wanted was for her to be happy. Even now, though I haven't done a good job of showing it (I've probably contradicted it at times, even, in my bitterness and anger), it's still all I want for her. She didn't want me to be happy. I didn't make her happy. So I'm just trying to be glad now that she's happy, or at least happier without me. I guess I can be miserable if it means she's happier? It's not exactly what I want. I'd prefer to be happy, too, but one out of two isn't bad, maybe.
For now I'm just trying, trying, trying to fight against all my instincts that tell me to stay in bed and not see anyone. Every day I'm fighting it. It's all I want. And some days I give in and I lay in the dark and I cry and I sleep and I cry and I sleep and I hate myself so much for not being good enough in any part of my life. But the next day I try really hard to not do that again. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail. The goal is to succeed more than fail.
ETA: I also wanted to note that it didn't bother me that she wasn't at the same level of her feelings that I was. I didn't think it was strange that she wasn't in love with me. I was as surprised as anyone when my feelings developed as quickly as they did and I always understood that these things develop at different times under different circumstances. I thought I could feel the strength of her feelings in her words and in her touch, and that good enough for me, by far. So when she also started to say that she ended it because my feelings were stronger, I thought that was confusing, too. How often do two people fall in love at the same time? Is it supposed to be simultaneous? And if she thought it was quick on my end why would she be concerned that it hadn't happened for her yet? Again, it was quick. Why be worried that you aren't in love after a couple of months? I wasn't. All I wanted was clarity on boundaries. That was pretty much my biggest concern. Boundaries and her happiness.