I’ve been seeing a lot of posts that deal with love and lost relationships, and it’s really been hitting home for me. This is something I thought I would never share with anyone. But I think it’s time that I try to get this poison out of me. This is going to be a long one.
I’m sure most of you are thinking, “Oh great, another post about love and heartache.”, and that’s fine. But this is a major part of my depression.
When I was 11 years old, I’m 27 now and turn 28 in a few months, in middle school I met this girl, and for the sake of privacy lets call her Angela. We were the same age, but she was a grade above me because I repeated second grade because my parents wanted to keep me and my brothers in the same grade so we could graduate together, I’m a triplet. Any way, Angela and I became best friends in school. In wvery after school activity such as roller skating, going to the pool, birthday parties, she was always invited. When we got to high school we were inseparable. We had every class together except for those that were mandatory for our grades, as I stated before she was a grade ahead of me. As soon as school would let out, we would find each other and go off with our friends and dick off. I’d help her with her math and science work at the town park and then we’d go get on our skateboards and tear it up with the other hooligans. Every year until she graduated, her, myself, and two of our other friends would go and take a school picture together. She always stood either right beside or in front of me. Eventually she started talking to guys and dating them and, as her best friend, I encouraged it. Her happiness has always been at the top of my list. So, while she was dating other guys, I started hooking up with other girls and things were great. We still did almost everything together. Double dates with significant others, heavy metal concerts, meeting up on the weekends and going to the black hole(a favorite/ private swimming spot), and just cruising around from sun up til sun down. Going home with sun burns on our arms because we had the windows down. We did this nonstop all throughout high school. Even though I had been battling depression, she knew exactly how to get me out of my head. So, we never went a day without seeing each other from the time I was 11 until I graduated at 17. Things stayed just about the same until we turned 21. By this time she was with a different guy and I with a different girl. And her boyfriend, at that time, did not like me very much and everyone knew it. He didn’t like how close we were and she would end up giving him the next 3 years of her life on and off, they had also dated in high school. Things we really south for her. They moved to South Carolina and they ended up homeless, jumping from couch to couch, while she worked 3 jobs and went school full time. She has the determination that could move mountains. We still talked daily. And I would habe to be her rock. This was physically abusing her while he was drunk or high on meth. And I would be her to come home and I would give her a place to stay. Every time, she said no, that they would work it out. I was heart broken. Then, one day, she had enough. She couldn’t do it any more. So, she left him, after she had agreed to marry him. She came home and stayed with her parents and things were different. It took me a long time to crack her shell. But I did. She told me everything that he had done, in detail, and it took everythin in me to not go and take his life, because she still loved him and wanted things to work out with him. She was just giving him space. Anyway, she started to see other guys again and every single one of them were terrible to her, physical and mental abuse daily. And she would call me crying, asking what was wrong with her, and every time I had to tell her that she was perfect and that these guys are not meant for her. So she would break up with them and go find some other asshole. Now, I’m not afraid to admit it, I have done terrible things to people that have hurt her. I will do whatever it takes to protect her, and I mean that in the most sincere way. Genghis Khan said it best, “I am the punishment of God…If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”, things happened. It is what it is.
Fast forward to December 2018. I wake up after a rough night, my uncle who was a major part of my life had just died right after midnight, and I take my dog, Heimdall, outside so he can relieve himself. Angela calls me in a panicked state, freaking out and sobbing uncontrollably, to the point I can only make out a few words. Her ex fiance had overdosed on meth. He was dead. My heart was broken, not for him, for the sorrow and hopelessness that she was feeling. I hated that she was going through that pain. And so, I was her rock. I was the strength she needed to get through it. And I everything I could to help her. She couldn’t talk to her boyfriend at the time because he was overtly jealous of everything. She was living with him at the time. But she talked to me because she knew I held no judgment against her. Time goes on and we see each other a few times a week, she lives two hours away from her work and I make it a point to meet her when shes on jer way home before she goes over the mountain, and she talks about how her current boyfriend is treating her and how she just wants to get away. So, I push her to go for it. She was doing eveything she could to keep the relationship going and he just kept draging her down. She didnt want to leave him because he had so many things in her name and she didnt want to deal with the aftermath. I didnt like that, but I understood. Then, september 10th, I’ll never forget that day, of 2019 she called and wanted me to meet at walmart about 20 miles away from where I was. So, I went. We talked for about half an hour before she had to leave and go home over the mountain to her boyfriends house. After I left she texted me and asked if I had ever had a moment where I was talking with someone and wanted to kiss them and didnt and then regretted it. So, I pulled off into a gas station and called her and told her to meet me there. When she got there we got out of our cars and I walked over to her and kissed her. You dont have to tell me, it was a complete breach of trust between her and her boyfriend and me and my girlfriend, I know. But it changed me. It was our first kiss after 15 years of friendship and it was amazing, it literally felt like something you read in a book or see in a movie. It was that small moment that told me she was made for me. It took a few months but I finally let everything out. Everything. All of my love and affection for her. And she reciprocated thise feelings. I was ecstatic.
Here’s where everything goes south. Several months later she calls me while Im asleep, about 1am, and she says, “You’re probably the only one who’s going to be happy about this, but my boyfriend and I broke up.”. I was devastated. Not because they broke up, but because she had taken the frustration of the break up and used it as a means to attack me. I still havent gotten over that. She was once again homeless. I offered for her to come live with me. She declined and said she was going to move in with one of her guy friends, because he lived closer to where she worked. Normally I wouldnt mind this, however this guy was head over heels for her as well. I became extremely jealous. I had tried talking to her about it, but she was spending all of her time with him. I slowly began to cut her off because I felt used. But every time I tried to staop talkong to her, I became extremely bitter with myself because I could not let her go. To this day, she is still living with him and I have no idea where I am with her. Ive tried pouring my heart out to her and she just changes the subject or says she has a lot to say but she never tells me how she feels. I am at my lowest because of this. I want to let her go, but I cant because it’s so hard after all we have shared amd been together through. She is my rock. I love her more than anything and I would never forgive myself if I quit being there for her. Just the thought of cutting her out brings me to immediate resentment. I hate that I’m in this situation, but I have no idea what to do. She got me through one of the darkest parts of my life, she was there after I got out of the hospital for my mental health, she is honestly the only reason I am still alive. But she is beating around the bush. When we are together she leans on me, holds my hand, kisses me, and it’s like we are a couple, but when I bring it up, she has nothing to say. And when I try and let her go, she reels me back in with aluring words that give me hope of a future with her. I am torn.
16 years is a long time to love someone, though it doesnt feel like its been that long. How do you go from being their rock, protector, enforcer, encouragement, and everything else to being none of that?
To add on to this, I have asperger’s syndrome, a form of high functioning autism. She is the only one who truly understands me. She knows when I need my space, and she’s there when I need her the most. Even though I have learned to control my meltdowns and internalize them, she allows me to have my fits and loves me through them. She is my everything. And I cannot fathom a world in which she is not a part of.
and take care 