OMG wow! E.X.A.C.T.L.Y. Are you me? Am I you? Did I write this? I am astounded at the parallels to my story. I mean. Really? I didn’t actually write this. You did. But it’s me.

At one point I had cut out all of the toxic people in my life and I was really left with no one. No one to call or go out with or make plans with. He comes along and promises all these sweet things, but when you want to do one of the suggestions you’re clingy and over bearing and selfish and unrealistic to try and MAKE them be around you all the time,

I can sit here and rationalize all day long, and when that text comes through or I have something exciting to say to y walls, I always end up letting him treat me poorly. Because there isn’t anyone else. I always wince when I answer, thinking, this is exactly what you are not supposed to do, but then the brush of your hair off your face or a smile, a “genuine ” smile at some small goofy joke you make has all the hurt pouring out of you until any given moment the monster flips the switch and you’re left reeling and blindsided, wondering why you don’t get the same kind of respect the other people in their life do. You know, the ones that matter, the ones they aren’t ashamed to be seen in public with etc etc.

Yeah I can relate, I know what is right, I know what I should be doing, So why can’t I do it?

Your story is so familiar. It is mine. Thank you! Please share support group sites. I believe those would be very helpful to me as I have become completely isolated from friends and family and am struggling to get through my first three days of no contact.

Yes it is. Everything was broken, and maybe had always been? People were already a mystery to me. Friends abandoned me. Or maybe they didn’t know what to say. Maybe I responded like a caged animal. I don’t remember. Many people attacked me. Family shunned me? That realization that I had always been alone was so painful. I slap denial on it. And repress as much of it as I can. So I’m basically useless. But after trying for years to fix it, to figure it out, to accept it, to whatever it, waiting for that cathartic moment that never came, having lost my core, and had nothing to tether me to anything. No beliefs were safe. Hyper vigilant. Nightmares. Unable to make friends. 2 brothers and 1 sister have left me for dead. I did tell my sister to please do just that if she needed to. I forget that and hate her sometimes. Which is exactly why I can’t talk to her. There’s nothing here to talk to. Years and years of all that and here I am. I’ve lost every person and idea and feeling and experience I ever cared about. Anyway, I finally gave up. And might be going towards some severally diminished small existence. As long as I can just keep forgetting everything, and repressing any feelings or curiosity, I think I might find some sad type of existence. Possibly not institutionalized? Idk. And be happy about it. I’m not allowed to ponder if that’s a mistake. I just hope it’s not a problem.

A late-night message, ostensibly from one of my children; a statement that amounted to little more than an attempt at devaluation … and what did I do? I responded.

Her use of my son’s phone as the conduit, as well as the content of the message, so offended me that I felt a need to respond. Except that it wasn’t a response. It was a thoughtless reaction.

I had been exchanging messages with my two sons–platitudes, really, about what’s important about being educated. She’d apparently read the exchange and was offended. Or something. So she lashed out.

I thought I had moved through and gotten clear of all of the emotions above. Of them, despair was probably the most difficult to shake. But shake it I did, some time ago. A new feeling of freedom and tranquility replaced it. Along with a sense that what I had with her was *never* real. But never mind that. As soon as I allowed her to re-engage with me, I realized my mistake. Everything shifted, as if I was being jerked backward three years. I empowered her, and I had to block her in order to switch her off.

The moral of the story? Don’t break no contact. Ever. It’s unspeakably dangerous to your new, calmer state of mind. As the character Finnick Odair Mockingjay says in The Hunger Games, “Better not to give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

Nothing could be more true. Yet each night leads us into a new day; a day where we can acquire new experiences and perspectives, and reclaim what we’ve lost. Keep moving forward, and reflect on the lessons learned along the way.