Giving It Up

At one time I said, I wish V was back in my life because I thought it would be easier to deal with an active alcoholic than to be without him. Talk about insanity. Now that V is back, the anxiety hasn’t lifted at all, it fact, at times it is worse!

When he doesn’t respond to a message in what I believe is an appropriate time, each time we have a planned date, or simply being around him trying to decipher if he had drank that day, I go into panic mode.

There is still a part of me that believes that I can control alcoholism. There is a bigger part of me that simply doesn’t want to be hurt again. Yet, all I am doing is hurting myself by constantly worrying about his addiction. If he is going to drink, he is going to do it regardless of my action or inaction.

Although I keep telling myself this, it is hard to not live in fear. After an emotional talk with my sponsor, she suggested that I ask my higher power for help letting go of control.

What a terrifying thought, letting go. Some how I got it in my head that I am responsible for the world. Deep inside this psyche, I really do not trust in the Universe. Life feels chaotic and full of bad things that could happen if I don’t tread carefully. I think I am going to be on Step 3 for a while.

Glimmer of Hope

V reached out to me last night. He said he was sorry for all that has happened and that he loved me. I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest. It had been over three weeks. I didn’t think I would ever hear from him again. I went to see him. We cried and talked.

He is back on his meds. He said he wants sobriety.

He said those magic words, but I am still a mess. I am right back to feeling terrified of being hurt again. As much as I want to believe that this is it, so much has happened. I am scared he is going to disappear on me again.

I need a program now, more than ever. Immediately, I wanted to ask a million questions about how he is going to get sober. I wanted to check up on all the things that worried me. I wanted assurances that THIS TIME it was legit. But, I can’t do that. It’s not my battle.

I can’t control alcoholism and I can’t control him. We are supposed to see each other tonight. I planned on going to a meeting. In the past, I would have cancelled going to the meeting to be with him. Instead I told him I had a meeting to go to.

He asked if he could come. He grew up in an alcoholic home so he has absolutely been affected. I was surprised that he would want to go with me. I told him that we can’t sit together because I need this meeting for me, but I would be happy to take him with me. He said he would like to go for him. I am scared he is going to flake on me though.

As much as I desperately want to believe what he tells me, my guard is up and I need to be careful not to fall into old habits. I need to let him work his own recovery. I need to not get involved.

I’m trying not to let the anxiety ruin me today. The closer it gets to 5pm, the more my mind races with “what if he” questions. I keep practicing giving it to God. This is out of my control. If he flakes on me, I still have a meeting to go to. If he doesn’t, then how great that he is following through.

Either way, I have a program to fall back on. I just keep telling myself, one day at a time. Thank God for meetings.

Unnatural

Some nights I lay in bed and listen to the sound of my own heart beat. A loud, ominous thumping inside my chest. The hard contractions reverberate through my whole body. It scares me. As if my heart could stop at any moment.

I feel like I am losing my grip on reality. Many times I have questioned if I am really awake. I question if V was real. He disappeared from my life as quickly as he came into it. Maybe he was a figment of my imagination. Perhaps I’ve dreamed this whole life and every one in it.

V lied to me a lot. I learned that I couldn’t trust him. I also learned that I couldn’t trust myself. Premonitions would lead me on wild goose hunts, searching for the truth. He was an expert liar. So going against my own judgements, I would believe him, only to find out later that I was right all along.

That gnawing feeling that something isn’t right never really goes away. My head feels like it’s in a fog all the time, and all I can hear is the sound of my own heart beat. That unnatural pounding coming from inside of me.

What kind of quiet hell is this? Trapped in your own mind, suffocating.

Have I always been this crazy or did V trigger some kind of psychosis in me that I am now unable to escape?

I am my own worst enemy.

Surrender to…?

Sometimes I wish I could see the future. I wish I knew if V was going to get better. If we are ever going to have a real chance. I haven’t heard from him since Saturday and I wonder if I ever will again. Sometimes I get anxiety so badly that I cannot function. It feels like I am dying.

I am trying to figure out how to surrender. In order to surrender however, I need to figure out what I am surrendering to. That is a tall order.

Although I’ve been going to a New Thought church for over a year, I don’t understand what God represents. I picked up a bible last week and started thumbing through it. I also started listening to a Christian codependency workshop. All I can say is that I am more confused than ever.

If I wanted to make a certain food, but knew nothing about it, I would do an internet search. The problem is, fifty different variations of the recipe come up. Which one do I choose? Which is the right one?

As so it is with forming a belief system. At least for me. The more I learn, the more things contradict, and the more anxious and lost I feel. How can I trust in something that I don’t understand? What if I pick the wrong belief system? What if God really doesn’t care and spirituality is pointless? What if this life really is up to me and I just gave up on the person that I love? What if V never gets better…

I wish I could just go up in the mountains and study with a spiritual teacher for a year. I’ve seen what spirituality can do for other people. I want that kind of peace. I simply can’t take any more heartbreak.

He Texted Me – Now What

He texted me. He apologized for hurting me and not being a good friend. He also apologized for not knowing how to take a step back without pulling away completely. He said he knows what he did was wrong, that his heart is breaking, and that is what he deserves.

For the last four days, I have been agonizing over his disappearance, wishing that he would talk to me. Now that he has contacted me, I am scared to reply. I am scared that I am going to say the wrong thing and drive him away again. I don’t want to mess this up. I also feel like, I was slowly starting to move on. At a snail’s pace, but still healing nonetheless. Now, he has sent me an apology and I don’t know what to do.

I am currently working and have decided not to text for the time being. I need time to think and I don’t want to get into an emotional conversation in the middle of conferences. Reading the text alone brought me to tears. I won’t be home until close to 8:30pm and I know he works at 6:30am tomorrow. He may or may not be in bed by that time. The problem is that i have conferences tomorrow too. So I will be working late again. I don’t want to ignore his messages for two days. That would be cruel. I could text him tonight and it would be up to him to respond. If he is asleep, then he will see it tomorrow, and if he is awake, he can make his choice.

I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to say “It’s okay,” because it’s not. I also don’t want to say something inflammatory that will make him pull away again. I got a fortune from a fortune cookie that said “Compassion is a way of being.” I keep it in my car and look at it every day. That wisdom comes to me now. Compassion. He is hurting too and he made a thoughtless decision.

Aaand he just posted a picture on Facebook of a trip that we took with the caption “You know that moment when you realize that you’ve been irreversibly awful to someone close to you and the gravity of it all finally sinks in? Yeah, that.”

My heart just tore in two and my eyes are watery. I just want to text him right now. I want to leave this conference and show up at his door with a hug and some chocolate.

I can’t text him now. I can’t get into a conversation that I cannot give my full attention too. I am also at work, it would look pretty bad if I was glued to my phone.

I have to admit, there is a part of me that wants to punish him by not responding. Make him feel what it is like to wait on me. However, I don’t want to be that vengeful, bitter person. I want to be love. I want to be compassion.

Another revelation: Yesterday he posted a picture of the studio set up in his “new place.” I shouldn’t be upset by it but I am. Especially since he tagged someone who was a complete ass to me while we worked together. Granted, the guy was his friend first but, it’s one of those things, what am I really worth…

When a man loves a woman, he’d turn his back on his best friend if he puts her down.

Yeah, that song just started playing in my head. Plus, it feels like he is bragging. Like “Oh, look at how well off I am doing.” It feels like a big slap in the face to be honest. It was posted yesterday and now today he sends his apology. Maybe he was just keeping himself busy. I don’t know. It just hurts. I need to let it go.

Compassion. I am just going to keep saying that word to myself until I am it.

When I am off, I am going to message him and say that I am still here for him and I love him anyway. We had this saying of “I love you anyway.” I used to tell him I wanted him to see my faults, to see the good and bad, and then tell me that he loves me anyway. He did not understand it at first but over time it made sense. So it became a thing, whenever one of us would be weird or in a bad mood, we would say, I love you anyway.

I think that is the best thing I can say right now. Just keep it simple and just let him know I care.

What If…

I couldn’t bring myself to go to church today and any hope of hearing from my ex is gone with sundown. It’s day four and not a single word. My birthday is next Friday. My sister is convinced he will at least text me then.

I called my parents today. Since they got back together after 10+ years apart, I have been avoiding them. There is a lot that happened during and after their marriage that is too painful and that everyone refuses to talk about. Plus, now with my break up, I just can’t stand to go through the questions. I haven’t told them. As far as they know, we are still together.

I keep checking his facebook to see if he has removed me. I haven’t taken down any pictures of us. He hasn’t either. He did however remove every mutual friend we had. My family, friends, people associated with me. This happened a while ago though. He told me about it when we were still trying to “work things out.” He also said he was going to add back some of the primary family members and friends because he still cared about them. He hasn’t. He says a lot of things that he does not follow through on.

A friend told me he just isn’t ready to work on himself enough to be in a relationship. That is basically what he said, he didn’t want to be with me, or with anyone. He wanted to be able to do whatever he wanted without having to answer to anyone. He also said he wanted to remain friends. I guess the question becomes, what kind of friends? The kind that speak every few months to say hi?

There is the more pressing issue of, what if something has happened to him. What if he wants to text me but he is scared and is waiting on me. I am deluding myself. If he wanted to talk to me, he would. And if life has taught me anything, it’s that people are pretty resourceful when they have to be. He doesn’t need me. I can’t compel him to love me, or even talk to me.

The other day I noticed that he took a drink shaker when he left. It was his but when he “stopped” drinking, he put it in the garage. The plan was to donate it because he had no need for it anymore. I can only assume he took it with intent to use it. There are still a few things here that are his. Most importantly, his old trumpet. He let my dad borrow it and during the conversation with my dad, he reminded me that he still had it. I need to pick it up from him. At the very least, that is some leverage I have to make him talk to me. I sound insane. I have considered other options, like dropping it off at his apartment complex office so he can just pick it up there without ever having to see or talk to me again. It’s not what I want, but I don’t want to contact him. I want him to contact me because he wants to, not because he has to respond in order to get his stuff back.

My sister is certain I will hear from him again and told me I should just stay occupied. She gave me the cliched “a watched pot of water will not boil” line. Scientifically speaking, yes it will. And he will text me if he wants to, whether I worry about it or not. I guess that is the whole point, right? Why worry, it is only hurting me.

I just have these thoughts that creep in. What if he has already moved on, what if he is on a bender, what if he is hurt and needs help. I could drown myself in what if. I was just really hoping I would hear from him today.