Well here I am again
Ive been staring at the blank screen for the last 30 minutes, itching to write this for release… its my only release… but hesitant because of the overwhelming shame that floods me as soon as I start to type… because I know everything I have to say is pathetic.. and I know when people read this they think I am pathetic too…
But nevertheless its all I have… blank screen, keyboard, black and white letters, HTML…
I know I need help, I know I need a psychiatrist and medication… I have insurance, I still cant afford it…
So I am here. Free release, just usually costs me my dignity and pride…
But the level of manipulation Ive dealt with in the last 4 years, I just cant hold it in anymore… the state I am in mentally is not good. I am broken, untrusting, unfocused, confused, depressed, scared, angry as all hell, constantly anxious, im developing nervous habits that werent there before.. I try to stay positive and I truly am grateful for everything I do have, and for my amazingly sweet son. I try to post things to boost my self esteem, things that will make me happy and that I can look at and remind myself that who I know I can be is still somewhere in there… but I struggle to hold conversations with people, I struggle to make eye contact, I cry.. constantly.. nonstop, silent sobbing… at work, as soon as I drop my son off and get back into my car, brushing my teeth.. followed by uncontrollable dry heaving over the toilet…fantasies about dying.. the sweet release… but I could never leave my boy.  He is the only thing getting me out of bed at this point… I pray everyday that he doesnt feel that weight…. but Im scared Im failing there too, he’s caught me crying a few times now.. I just tell him I dont feel good, & I can see the distrust in his face… he, too, must think Im crazy at this point..
I always wonder how I look to those who are mentally healthy…do they see pain? or just see a trainwreck?  I dont know, I always hear I shouldnt even care… but I cant relate.
I cant relate to anyone, I cant talk to anyone.. as soon as I try to talk I can see their eyes glaze over in disappointment and judgement… because they know what I know… that I chose this. I chose it over and over again. I chose a manipulator over and over again. And now I am back in this place just like before, as if the first time wasnt warning enough. And after years and years of seeing things with my own eyes and him denying and defending and deflecting, enlisting others to help him deny, defend, and deflect… lying to them about me, about the situations, to garner sympathy.. watching one by one as they shun and exclude me over these lies, over my reactions to being lied to, cheated on, manipulated and used…chastising me for every ounce of truth I spoke… so hypocritical and overwhelmingly fake.  My own “support system” turning on me too, for “allowing” all of this chaos into my life…like I asked for it…
Wanting a family of my own and trying to make it work, trying to be understanding and forgive infidelities, trying to give second chances (that turn to third, and fourth, and tenth, and fifteenth..) trying to manifest the things I want for myself… a trustworthy, dependable, loyal husband, by BEING trustworthy, dependable, & loyal.. trying to manifest things I want for my son… a man that treats his mom well, a sibling or two, stability… Ive been honest and hard working, Ive helped him financially when I dont even have my own finances in order, paid more of the bills, listen to him trash talk his family & friends who he then turns to for help lying to me… treated and cared for his daughter as my own– have done more for her than he even does, or HIS mother or family even does, and whatever he DOES do for her is usually at my urging and insistance…  this is me ASKING for it? I guess it is…and I guess because I could never just let him go- I have been choosing it. What everyone doesnt see is how many times I’ve tried to walk away, I’ve probably broken things off 100 times.. even then I faced manipulation.  While Im sick over it, crying, not eating, feeling worthless..he’d immediately let me know he’s already talking to someone else, while telling me it doesnt have to be this way if I’d “just take him back”… it felt like a sickening physical withdrawal  you’d hear about from drug addicts, with the drug telling me “it’ll all go away if you just take it once more, one more time”
Its not easy when you have someone begging at your feet for another “one-last-chance”, calling you 400+ times, one after the other, despite blocking their number, despite not anwering.. and then finding other ways to contact you, even enlisting those same people who help him lie, to now help him beg for you back… its utter manipulation. I know it is. Sometimes its made me want to take him back and then cheat on him as revenge, because I KNOW he wouldnt be able to handle half of what he’s put me through, let alone hearing if I were to actually go out and be with someone else. Sometimes I’ve fantasized about what it would feel like to break him, too… Id hook up with someone else and send him the proof myself…or keep it to myself, but let little hints leak out for months, while I tell him how much I love and would never hurt him, and that hes the only one I could ever want, and how bad I want to have his kids… then let the truth of what I did come out and stab him in the heart.  He’d be beside himself and bed-ridden, he’d probably go into A-fib and get rushed to a hospital, not joking. The thought of it eases the knot I have in my own stomach, just for a moment, until I realize Im too chicken shit to actually do it…
But eventually, fighting and resisting him becomes too tiresome to bear. A manipulator knows this. Especially one whose been doing it to every woman in his life since childhood. They attack the sensitive spots, tell you everything youve ever wanted to hear.. “What about our life together!?? What about our kids?!? What about the kids we are going to have?!? And the happy life I keep promising you yet never fulfill my promises?!?” Combine that with an already broken, used up, insecure girl…its the easiest target. And I’ve been the target.
Its gone on so long now that I no longer have a shred of confidence.  Past lovers, I would be sad knowing I had to end things, but I never once felt like there wasnt a better, calmer, safer existence ahead. I never once thought I wouldnt find someone else, and receive love as hard as I give it…and get married… and have more children…
But now im breaching 32 and I dont see any of that in sight. Im actually starting to believe I *dont* deserve it because I feel so emotionally fucked that I dont think I’d even be capable of offering anything to anyone other than the embodiement of a feral cat with psychosis…
I look at myself from pictures before him, envious of the headspace I was in… before all these lies and the abuse… I dont have this “hope” that she had anymore– Ive let a man change me this time…Ive let a man waste such important years of my life and my son’s life, and rob us of futures we both wanted. Every so often for the last few years my son asks me for a house, and a dog, and a brother… and I just feel like an empty well hes throwing wishing pennies into only to hear them clank at the bottom… I’ve failed in giving him the basic “family” and childhood and stability all kids crave and deserve.  I crave it constantly too.  I just cant believe I am this terrible at choosing who to have it with, and now, knowing how horrible I am at choosing—I feel like I can never choose again, out of pure fucking fear.  I dont want one more second of mine or my son’s life wasted bringing an undeserving, wasteful, man in….. im also fearful that even a good man- I dont deserve in my current state.. I have no trust, none whatsoever. I wouldnt even know what one looked like, I will doubt everything he says to me the minute he speaks, because my experience has taught me to.  I will doubt his relationships are platonic even if they are…because my experience has shown me platonic doesnt exist between a man and a woman… one of them is always open to fucking the other, and its just a waiting game till the other gives the go-ahead.  Nothing will change my mind about that.  I wont trust him if he’s got a big group of friends…too many liabilities… no many scenarios in which he could betray me, use them as excuses, and they rally to cover for him… I wont like it if hes TOO CLOSE to his mother…I also wont like it if hes not close with her at all…I wont trust him with social media… so much access, and given how many men in relationships are constantly sending me messages in secret, it makes my stomach turn.  If I dont have his location, I cant be sure he is where he says he is… that hes actually at the job interview instead of in a hotel getting an escort…. or that hes actually with his grandma watching the game instead of a strip club with his friends spending $300+ on private interactions and getting numbers so he can sext… or that hes actually spending the night at his house… not at some random apartment in his town who to this day I still dont know who he was with…. The minute one thing he says doesnt add up to another, my mind will take me straight to hell trying to make 2+2 equal 4… If he’s a “go out to the bar” type, nope. If hes a “boys weekend” type, nope.  If hes a “take the cellphone to the bathroom during a shower, keep changing the password, keep it face down” type, nope nope nope.  My wires are fried.. short circuting. I have no faith in men and yet Im responsible for raising a good one? That scares me. His own father isnt anything to write home about either…Will he see my tears and vow not to be the type of man that causes them? Or will he see the man I’ve let him grow up around for 4 very important years of his life, and mimic him?  As long as I stay, this is what will be…  Yet I find myself back in his arms over and over again, why?  I know the promises arent real, I know any bit of happiness doesnt last.. I know its only a matter of time before another lie is uncovered, whether its a new one or an old one.. and Im still not over all of the old ones. But they keep piling up on me like paperwork Im tasked to sort through and reconcile, its an endless task.  Once I think Ive gotten past one of the traumas, another secret is revealed… another betrayal, and its the saaaame cycle. He act shocked, denies everything for hours or days or months, I say terrible things to try and get him to finally leave me alone.. to stop coming for me..but he never does stop.  I leave the room, or block his number, stop answering calls or emails. Nothing works. He *literally* picks the lock, I’m then subjected to hours of rehearsed, dramatic monologue-type deflection and lies, then accused of random things I havent even done, or things I’ve said when angry months or years ago.. then IF he eventually owns the accusation, he proceeds to downplay its significance or says I “didnt allow him” to tell me the truth… sometimes the “owning” could take months, or years… where, during a new betrayal, he will confess to an OLD one and try to use it as “See! Im being honest about things I previously lied about–so Im obviously not lying now! See! You dont believe what I say even when im being honest Sam!”…. manipulation. And all Im left doing is re-feeling the hurt from the revelation of the prior betrayal and lies- on top of the new one at hand… its never ending… and then he (and his family) blames and shames me for “not letting go of things” that “happened in the past” even if “the past” was 2 weeks ago… like cheating on me with escorts and strippers for the first two whole years but me not finding out about it till the middle of year 2… since he was supposedly “done with all that” for a few months by then, I should have gotten over it faster..
But I guess its my fault, because Im still here. After trying to leave and dealing with the begging and “threats of escalated depression and self medicating” and threats of “immediately finding someone else”, and enlisting all of his family members to text me with more manipulation saying “If i ever even loved him I would forgive him and work through all these problems”… my stupid ass dug inside myself to try to find the forgiveness & second chances that I normally wouldnt give…
I got so manipulated by it all that I actually believed I could heal HIM if I showed him the love and mercy and forgiveness, and the light of a second chance. But this bitch clearly isnt Jesus…  he took the second chance and then spent new years eve with me texting an ex while I sat with my grandmother on her breathing machine… nonchalantly telling me I should dye my hair this specific shade of dark Ariel-red… where I had yet to realize this was the color of the exes hair who he was texting….. BUT I didnt find out about the texting until another time when he went out “to watch a UFC fight” but really got a girls number from some bar and then went to the strip club…. and I didnt find out about THAT until I spent my mother’s day weekend building a Pinterest worthy bird bath for his grandmother in her yard and he picked a fight with me about a comment I made on Instagram on a picture of someone’s weed…It was like no matter what positive things I tried to bring into our world… he was some snake slithering behind me leaving a trail of poison just destroying and killing everything good I tried to do… .souring the moments and their memories. Now every time I see pictures from these same days, I just get this sick feeling in my stomach knowing what he was doing and how oblivious I was at the time, not even seeing it. And whenever I did suspect something, or catch him in a lie, it was usually always at his mother’s house where he lived (and now lives again) and the whole hypocrite gang would rally and attack me all at once. I never stood a fucking chance. But I’d stay, and try, try again. For us? For our kids? Every month that passess is just more energy I put into this and convince myself If i leave now- all the progress will be lost! But there IS NO PROGRESS.
In fact, things are worse off than before. He tells me  theres progress because he hasnt gotten a hooker in 2 years or been to a strip club that I know about.. but theres still no trust, we are both entirely estranged from each other’s families, holidays will no longer be spent together, I had to have him move out of the apartment we got together to avoid our fights playing out in front of my son, and the tension that I know comes with an unhappy home, from experience.
Everything is separate now. But he owes me money for the car I “had” to buy him on my credit card, when he got drunk and drove (again) and totaled his last year, and conveniently the people he enlists to help him lie to me, refused to help him w the car… so if I didnt do it, he would have no way to get to work, and if he couldnt get to work then he couldnt help pay rent…or be able to pick up his daughter every other weekend… these are the things that end up falling on MY shoulders, and I stepped up and helped and then I still get lied to and betrayed. Im a fucking doormat.  Now that he’s moved out I have to remain in contact just to get small pieces of payment for the car every month. He refuses to pay me in lump sums so that we can go our separate ways faster.  He’s also threatened to cancel the lease, knowing me and my son wouldnt have anywhere else to go. And on top of all this he somehow still manages to play the victim, and people buy it. Im just this raging, mean, lunatic who controls his every move… thats what he has them believe.  Like I said… piles upon piles.
Now Im struggling to pay rent on my own because I’ve been relentlessly paying down my own debt too.  Thankfully my mother has helped me recently with a good chunk of my medical bills that have gone into collections so I can pay Brandon’s.  But its still not a good feeling… we arent that close, and I dont want her to feel used.  Im not close with anyone anymore because of ther judgements about this relationship. Im also just struggling with my mental health in general. As I get older I still havent come to terms with the fact I will be losing people from my life. My depression has me romanticizing my own death, but I have a child’s mind when it comes to the thought and realiziation of the inevitable deaths of those around me… my family members that are getting older.. or ones who are still fairly young but have health problems… my only living grandparent that I dont get to see anymore because my uncle moved her over almost two hours away, and then I have him leaving me nasty voicemails about how im a lowlife piece of shit for not making time every week to drive down and see her with my son… ya know, because Im not a single mother and I also dont work full time M-F and have my son in sports or CCD… and as irrational as I know it is, it EFFECTS me to the core. Because I know how its felt thus far losing the grandparents I’ve already lost, losing great uncles and great aunts, I watched one of my uncles die in front of me, one of my aunts has had 5 strokes and now cant walk or talk or move or eat, so it’s like I’ve lost her too. All of it weighs too heavily on me to the point it consumes my thoughts and sometimes all day long, for days.  Dont get me wrong, I can still find reasons to laugh and smile, and be grateful for what I have left, and enjoy my time with my child… but looming underneath it all is this dark depressing realization that I could lose anyone at any given moment, young, old, sick, or healthy… I cant shake it.  I find myself mouring memories and feelings of how things were, and hearing people’s voices.. or even just seeing them around at functions… what it felt like having my big family always together, and what the hell changed that its nothing like it was before.  It rattles me out knowing at some point I was experiencing someone or something for the last time and completely not knowing it…
I feel intimidated by people who dont have these same worries as me- part of me just doesnt understand them and the other part is envious of them for not being able to focus on it and let it drown them.

xSx ©