Down the rabbit hole

The plan was simple. Don't. Shag. Him.

What could possibly go wrong...

We were in contact daily. Every single day I'd get a text without fail. We'd chat, about nothing in particular. Vague suggestions about maybe meeting up were thrown about by him and valiantly avoided by me. I was being strong.

I was also however crying every day. Depression had slowly clawed its way back around me and now I was trapped underneath the cloud. I had felt it creeping on for a month and then one day I woke up and realised I was crippled. After 18months of building myself back up I was back on the floor. As much as I tried to fight it the force was far too great and here I was again. And as if by magic the universe aligned which meant we would be in the exact same place at the exact same time.

I arrived at rock bottom on a Tuesday. A familiar territory, having spent a lot of time here last year, but this time it was different. More intense. I felt like I was drunk most of the time and to make matters worse I didn't have the luxury of being able to wallow and stagnate as I had Christmas shopping to do. numerous uni deadlines to hit and work to go to. I typed up my last assignment crying with every word. 2000 sobbed words. It will be interesting to see the marks I get for this module as it was completed during a total breakdown. I get mitigating circumstances as I have a letter from my doctor but i weirdly wanted to complete the module with no help. Was being a bit of a bellend in that respect really but anyway it's done now and what will be will be.

I was weak. It was like a magnet pulling me in. I was intoxicated by the taste of his skin. His scent, his touch. It was as if no time had gone by at all. I was powerless. It was agony. It was ecstasy.

This man broke my heart. This man broke my soul. I was tortured by the memories. I have concluded the main problem here is that I know this man is probably the only man on earth who truly knows me. He understands my chaotic mind as I understand his. It's not common knowledge but we are both ADHD, although his a lot more severe than mine. 2 troubled souls with limited control. He knows every inch of my body and know every inch of his. Every freckle, every muscle, every single bit. It felt safe. It felt dangerous. It felt wrong. It felt perfect. The intensity of it all was a force greater than I could fight. I fell down the rabbit hole.

The Tuesday breakdown began in a shambles. My thoughts were racing  and I couldn't control them- I craved peace. I had thought of nothing but Him 24/7 for weeks. In fact if I am truly honest with myself, there hasn't been a day that's gone by in years that I haven't thought of him. But he was ALL I thought about now. And I was in what was now unbearable pain. Exquisite pain. But pain none the less. My friends must have noticed my irratic mood and i presume a few frantic phonecalls were made because no less than 17 of them contacted me to talk me through the haze. Texts. Calls. 2 even came round to my house. I had not told them what I had been up to as I was ashamed. I was haunted by the memory of being strangled during the first major assault that got him arrested the first time. In fact that thought haunts me daily. I remember being scared but I do not remember pain. I was thinking how nice it would be if I could recreate that myself. Maybe with something nice and soft like my dressing gown belt. I reasoned I would probably just pass out and drift away. It's not that I wanted to die. Far from it. I just wanted it all to stop. I needed to get out somehow. And this was the only thing I could think of. My friends had no knowledge of what had been going on. But they all could see that something was drastically wrong. Every ounce of pain I had shielded myself from through the last couple of years with anger and defiance was now attacking me and I had no more defences left. I was exhausted from keeping up the charade of being fine. I curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor and cried.They asked me what had brought this on. And I told them things just went wrong too many times.

My army of well wishers carried me through.

The clarity came on a Sunday. I woke up feeling close to normal. I could breathe and I wasn't in pain. I think these last few weeks had to happen. The weird thing about a domestic violence break up is that it's all sort of taken out of your hands. There was the final incident, he was arrested, and then bail conditions were put in place so he wasn't allowed to contact me. It's obviously for your own safety but it's almost as if the police just come and say look right you've got to break up with him now and you don't get to discuss it or actually break up with him because we will do it for you. You my dear are fucked and can't make proper decisions so that's what's happening.

It is almost as if you are robbed of the actual break up. There's no "it's over" conversation. There's no closure. And you can mask it all you want with the anger and the moving on but it's still there like unfinished business.

I feel like this was pain I had to feel. It was a shock I had to deal with and I feel like I'm seeing things more clearly now. I'm still in love with him. But I know we can never ever be together again. And maybe that's OK to feel that way. I may never get over what happened. But I know I can survive it. And that feels empowering. It still doesn't feel quite dealt with. And maybe in a couple of years il go through the cycle again. I fucking hope not though, it's a royal pain in the arse.

The plan now is to concentrate on uni. That's my ticket out of this life. I have 3 books to read over the next month so I can lose myself in them.

I have also acquired a Christmas fuck buddy because, well, a girls got to eat. And straightforward sex with a straight forward guy is both calming and refreshing.

So yes, that's all for now. They say never look back, but I think we can all agree I never actually left in the first place. I feel like Iv taken a few steps away now. Actual steps not baby steps. It feels like I have shut the door myself now, rather than the police doing it if that makes sense.

Let's see what the next chapter of my mess of a life has in store hahaha xxx