Hot mess – http://wp.me/p271pb-8U
I wrote that post about a month after I purposely swallowed a handful of pills with half a bottle of vodka. Needless to say, I still woke up several hours later. I took enough to knock out a horse and all I got was a few hours of sleep. At 2 in the morning I reached for a life line by sending a text to a friend. It was my call for help. Immediately he called and I answered the phone sobbing in shame and embarrassment of what brought me into this darkness and only admitted the truth to him because I was still drunk.
I had been on a drinking binge that last month mixed with xanax and pain pills left over from a surgery. That night the pain of what I did mixed with the rejection became too much to bare. I had built up a tolerance and needed more and more to feel relief from them. He was a recovered addict and helped guide me out. After that I weaned myself off xanax which I had taken for over 13 years, and I stopped drinking completely.
This was the result of what I refer to as my falling off the wagon. Not because of the booze and pills. It was a drug that I struggled with since I was a kid. My ex-husband whom I met at 13 and immediately was in a trans by him. We lost touch for years and I began my life with a different guy. 3 years later I was 18 pregnant with twins and alone, a friend reconnected us and I was putty in his hand.
After our traumatic 10 year marriage, I finally broke free from him. I had been “sober” from him for 8 years, most of that time living in hiding from him then relapsed back to the devil after losing my support system and best friend. This followed a 2 year severe depression and from disappointment and shame in myself, that night resulted. This was the lowest moment in life for me, all of it but the only time I actually risked leaving my children motherless. What a very selfish and weak moment and while I still have my bad days, never that bad.
I always have this whispering in my ear, reminding me how far I fell down with him. I’m terrible at making connections with people, so I fear being alone forever but I need to accept being alone to keep my strength. It’s my security. I can’t fall that hard ever again. Honestly I would rather die.
Because of him, I’m terrified to really live. I’m terrified to completely give myself to anyone, afraid I will lose the controlled and rational person I’ve become. Afraid I will never be chosen. Afraid I’m not good enough, pretty enough, successful enough, sexy enough. I know I am but he proved I was not and there was always 10 females in line trying to take my place. He convinced me that men can’t control themselves with temptations no matter how deep they love or how unattractive the woman is. Sex is sex and when the lights are off none of that matters.
He trained my brain to believe what he needed to make me stay. I didn’t stay because I was afraid I couldn’t find anyone. I stayed because I loved him deeply and I honestly didn’t think I could do better. I loved the fantasy he painted in my head. He convinced me that we were soul mates but he also tore down my self esteem. When he was mad, his words were evil and savage. And intentionally said to tear me down and tear me down it did, like a fucking battling ram. I felt unworthy, useless and unattractive. I was ashamed and embarrassed of what I had become and what I had accepted.
If we went out and men hit on me, even though I immediately shot them down and proudly pointed to my husband, I was in the wrong and I would pay for that at home. He said they wanted me strictly for sex and I was nothing to them. That no one saw me the way he did, and no one would ever love me as he did. Then when we went home he was abusive and sex was demanded. I’d cry as he forced himself into me, be it my mouth or my vagina, yelling that I belong to him and no one could ever taste or touch my pussy (his words). I was his property and I belonged to him.
Eventually I stopped fighting. I did what he said, I learned it was easier that way. When I grew frustrated with his cheating and tried to end it or even argued with him to defend myself, he’d say that it was me who drove him to cheat or be crazy. That I made him “crazy in love” because I was his and no-one could have me but him. He would kill any man who even thought of touching me if I ever left him. He always wanted to prove to me he could immediately move on even though he “didn’t want to”, it was me pushing him away with my cold demeanor that pushed him into someone else’s bed and they meant nothing. It was “just fucking” with them but he “only made love to me.” And eventually I believed him.
I was beaten down mentally, emotionally, and physically. It took most of the marriage before I learned not to fight back, it was a waste of my energy to try to make him hear me and those fights were awful. I finally got to a point I didn’t make him leave the home, I didn’t kick him out but he would not have my conversation and I would withhold my attention to him. If I gave him sex, I literally laid there while he rolled on top of me and pumped away for a few minutes. I didn’t even look at him. In the beginning I’d silently cry and a single tear would roll down my face. Eventually I didn’t cry, I was used to this. When he was done he’d say how he can’t help himself with me, he was powerless over his desire for me and no one did this to him but me. He’d kiss me, roll off and wash his dick in the bathroom sink. This was our normal.
2.5 years ago I met a man and fell in love. But you see, I couldn’t openly admit this for most of that relationship. Partly from fear of it triggering that devil’s rage to come back around, and partly because it terrifies me to love. Eventually it ends, which it did and I hate the sadness that follows losing love. Most of that relationship he was fighting his demons, hiding his struggles from me. His medication of choice was vodka. A lot of vodka.
His struggles caused him to pull away and withhold truths from me, and I read that as he didn’t really love me. That all his beautiful words were fake. He hid relationships from me, secrets and lies. My wall went up because all I saw was that he wasn’t real. I heard my ex-husband in my head “I told you that you’re not good enough and no one would love you”. I even replayed a memory with my daughters father when he told me I pushed him to drugs because I was too much.
Distance has it’s way of making you look at things differently. My anger from the lies turned into pain over losing who I thought he was. While he can be the most gentle caring person, his other behavior is too familiar of that toxic marriage. I think back when he immediately moved on with another girl during one of our breakups… “Tell me you will take me back and I’m yours, she’s not you”. “She’s sitting 5 feet from me now and I’m sitting here texting you how much I love you, tell me that doesn’t tell you where my head is, it’s on you”. He sent me a hot photo of us together when the sex was our shared drug, telling me “I still watch and touch myself to you at all times!” She was sitting with him and he was saying this to me, looking at our pictures right across from her. He didn’t care that she was with him, he repeatedly claimed “Jesus fuck I only want you!”.
So much has happened since then, but one thing has always been.
I miss him.
I saw him as my best friend so foolishly I keep trying to continue our friendship. And at first he’s back to funny meme’s and inside jokes, letting me vent. Messages when I wake up, all day long until I fall asleep. Again telling him “dude get to work!”. But he quickly comes out of nowhere for sex. And yes a part of me wants that, but it’s dangerous. This time was so clear.
He only wanted sex.
It only took a few days this time. He had no interest in our friendship. I’ve held him up on a pedestal before thinking he was genuine, just a mess and who am I to not sympathize considering my life is the definition of being a work in progress. But now the crushing blow of truth – he is no different and my ex was at least partly right.
