Eight years ago I found myself newly divorced, a single mother of two small children, and devastated after an emotionally brutal experience caring for my dying grandfather. Now when I say brutal I don't mean the kind of brutality devoid of love. Mine was a brutality caused by so much love that I would't step away to save myself. I wanted to take the pain for him, but since that wasn't possible I gave him as much love as I could. My grandfather wanted to die at home so I made sure that was possible. He was afraid to fall asleep so I would stay up and watch him breathe. Just knowing I was there allowed him to relax and close his eyes. On the good nights we would watch Godzilla reruns, and he would tell me stories about his early life with my grandma, but on the bad nights I would watch him start to drown in his own body. My only wish in those days was that he would not die in the middle of a COPD flair up terrified. I got my my wish three months later when he died peacefully unaware holding my hand. I remember being so grateful that he went home in peace, and his fight was finally over... but my peace was gone, and my battle had just begun. It always surprises me how naive I used to be before all of this happened. I didn't even have a vocabulary for things I was experiencing, and sadly no one in my life did either. My battle took a devastating turn and a year later I was bitterly divorced, mainly because I no longer felt connected to anything. This is where my P found me... I had started playing an online video game with my father as a distraction from the grief. We had a team we played with and would communicate with headsets. My P was a member of our team. In the beginning we would just spend hours talking . He was intelligent, loved art, music, goofy everything I felt was missing from my marriage. I had never met someone who seemed so perfect. I admired him. He felt like the only person in my life willing to listen. Until I met him I felt alone, disconnected, and for the first time in a long time he reminded me what happy felt like. To top it all off he could empathize with my emotional struggle, by sharing his experiences with Bi-polar and OCD. Now normally when someone tells you they are bi-polar that would be a red flag, but he was so successful in his life that it actually was a source of admiration. I remember thinking that if he can overcome an obstacle like that and find success that there was hope. He was awkward and shy, but he had such a good sense of humor about it all it just made me love him more. Our relationship continued online for about 8 months, before we decided to bring it face to face. Two weeks before our visit was when the first big shock took place. I still remember every moment of that conversation. I asked a question about his bi-polar, and his answer was incomprehensible..."I'm not bi-polar". When I started crying he began to explain how it was a joke that went to far. He said I took it so seriously, and shared my struggles that he had no idea how to tell me he wasn't serious. Looking back I should have hung up the phone, blocked his number, and moved on, but i didn't. At that point in my life he was more than my best friend he was an emotional lifeline. The idea of losing the only connection I had was devastating. I rationalized his "joke" by telling myself he was a handful of years younger than me, and immature, and in that didn't understand how a joke like that might hurt someone. He apologized over and over, and I forgave him. I loved him, and wasn't willing to give that up over a stupid mistake. Two weeks later we met in person and in that my fate was sealed. I was so strongly bonded that being without him seemed unimaginable. It wasn't long after that, that he started his game. Since we were 600 miles away there was obviously talk of removing the distance. I made it very clear that if he wasn't willing to move that I couldn't continue the relationship, because I didn't want that kind of heartbreak. He agreed that keeping it long distance was not an option, and we started making plans for him to move to be with me after he graduated from college in a year. Moving to him was not an option because of my two children needing to be close to their dad. A state law prevented me from moving more than 100 miles from my ex, and for the kids sake that wasn't an option anyway.
He filled my head with exactly what I wanted to hear. Telling me it didn't matter where he was as long as he was with me, and that I was worth moving for. The semester before he graduated I began to start asking him when he planned on moving and what he was going to bring, and how he was getting it here, and just like the bi-polar he answered "I'm not moving". Again he said he had been afraid to tell me, and he thought saying those things was what a good boyfriend would say. My response was " A good boyfriend would mean it". At this point in my life I was also going back to college set to graduate a year after he did. I had three jobs, and two babies, and a very irate ex husband, and I felt like I mentally could not take anything else and still move forward. It sounds so dumb to say now, but I didn't have the time to be devastated so I forgave him yet again... blamed it on his being younger yet again, and justified it by belittling my own contribution. I mean really? Who would want to sign up to be with me during all of that stress? He had a life of friends, and fun, and no stress. I felt like I could understand. I wouldn't want my life either if I had a choice. So I went to my schools stress center to see if I could get some help. They put me on meds and I was able to keep functioning. He would use my emotional state against me telling me everything was fine, and that it was just my disorder causing me to see things so negatively. He would say the proof was that he was fine, and happy, so it had to just be me. I was obviously the sick one because he had so many friends and I didn't. He would do things like ask for my ring size then tell me he didn't believe in marriage. He would tell me how his friend that was a girl kissed him at a party and tried to get him to stay the night, but then he would still insist on hanging out with her. Even worse I caught him hanging out with this girl that he seemed to hide from me. He would tell me every person at the party, but her. I knew he had friends that were girls and the only one that bothered me was the one that disrespected the fact he had a girlfriend(which he made a point of telling me all about) so I didn't understand why he hid this one? Nothing made sense. When he would fly in to visit the week or two we were together I had never been so happy in my entire life. He bought me presents, was super affectionate, he was the best boyfriend I had ever had until he would leave and it was like I didn't exist. The time we were apart was totally without affection. He was say I love you when he hung up the phone, but that was pretty much it. He wouldn't return a text message, he would only call late at night when he had nothing left to do. He didn't care if I was sick, hurt, stressed. In fact it became very clear that he only wanted me around if I was happy. I started trying to control my emotions, because if I didn't he would hang up on me and I never knew if he was going to ever callback or not. Sometimes he wouldn't call for days, and I didn't know if he was dead or alive. I'd text, call his house, phone, email, .... nothing. Then when he would finally answer he'd say if I got mad I was only punishing myself because he wouldn't talk to me again. I had to try and walk on egg shells. The times I did get upset somehow it would always end up with me apologizing to him. I would hang up the phone totally confused. It seemed too surreal to be the truth I thought it had to be me. After all I was the sick one right? This continued for almost 3 years. The more he did his thing the more anxiety I developed and the more meds the doctors gave me, which just gave him more ammunition to use against me. I completely believed it was me. He was the successful one, and I was a charity case that should be thankful he hasn't left yet. After finding yet another indiscretion with the friend where he would tell me he had to get off the phone at midnight to go to bed, and was telling her that he could only talk after midnight my anxiety hit a breaking point. A week after a visit where he told me he wanted a future with me, and loved me more than anything. He called to say he was breaking up, and that he would talk to me tomorrow.. I didn't hear from him again for six months. He always had this way of making me feel like I had been blind-sided by a freight train. I was always so nervous if I started to feel too happy, because I knew it wouldn't last. During those six months I was just lost. I was reckless, and it felt like I was trying to run away from something dark to the point that I was afraid to stop. Yet, at the same time I never missed someone so badly in my life, because I felt like it was my fault he left. I wasn't happy enough, or skinny enough, or put together enough. I was too jealous, and insecure. I couldn't relax. I was too sick for him to love. It was my fault he sought out other girls, or ignored me when I was upset. I should have been better.
When he came back after six months of total silence I was thrilled for a second chance. I was dead set on doing it right this time. I made a promise to be less suspicious if he promised to be honest, and that is exactly what I did. For almost 2 years I stopped playing detective, I stopped making an issue when he went out with certain people. I worked on trusting him like it was my job. I thought for those 2 years he was holding up his end of the bargain, but that was only because it was a lot easier to hide the lies when I wasn't looking for them. That new years I was looking at the pictures on his phone when an email popped up containing the truth about a lie he told... there was that train again. In 5 min I found 3 lies. If you do the math statistically the odds are not in my favor. His only response was "I didn't know he was going to send pictures", not "I'm so sorry I hurt you". He was just sorry he got caught. I went from being the healthiest I had been in years to right back to panic attacks and crippling anxiety. I felt like my whole life was a lie. I didn't know what was real and what was fake. He then turned around on our 5th anniversary to tell me he was moving in with his friend from work. I had waited 5 years for him to be ready to be with me. He always had an excuse and I thought his next move was finally going to be with me. I was devastated. Not only because he was almost 30 moving in with a 30+ year old co-worker who absolutely hated me because he wanted a single wingman, but because I knew my mental health couldn't take another year of long distance. I had wanted more kids, the normal life he promised. That was the night I lost all hope. I literally gave up. I felt trapped in a version of Hell I didn't know was possible. This was where I am pretty sure I met P number 2. At this point I was too sick to do anything to help myself so I went to a psychiatrist. Again, I kick myself for my naivety. I trusted this doctor not to hurt me. I was very clear on the fact that I needed to be clear headed, I was a single mom, I didn't want anything that would make me addicted. I just wanted help so I could be strong enough to do what I knew I needed to do. The doctor promised me I'd be ok and it would only be a year at most on the meds. That day he sent me out of his office with a prescription and that was the last time I ever saw the girl I used to be. He totally changed my personality with pills. From the moment he had me I was lost. I was so drugged I couldn't even fight back. I saw this man every 2 weeks for 4 months. In that time I lost 50 lbs, died my hair red, got a nose ring, tattoos, started smoking, and his reaction was to upped my dosage. I became aggressive, and OCD. He had me on everything from bipolar meds to Adderall, and Xanex. He told me it was like prozac, but a "different" kind of drug that would help. I have never been a drug addict so I had no clue about the dangers of these drugs. I trusted him when he told me that as long as I followed his instructions I wouldn't have any issues. Four months into it I started to lose my memory, and my coordination, I developed a bad cough,and lost my night vision. My skin turned yellow, and my hair was falling out in clumps,and at this point I was going days without a bite of food. Yet, I was unable to see that anything was wrong. The medication had completely turned off my ability to see myself and feel fear. I would see my hair in clumps on my brush and just think..hmm... that's weird. My mother cried when she saw me, and I couldn't understand what she was seeing. I'd see old friends in public and they would give me this look like I was an alien. I didn't understand why I was getting this kind of reaction from people. It wasn't until the fourth month into it that I finally had what I can only describe as a moment of clarity. For just a short window I was able to see the truth. I panicked when I realized I was forgetting everything, and I looked at my work and it was like someone else wrote it. The words were jumbled and repeated, and nothing made sense. I tried to call the doctor, but his office was closed mid week and just as quickly as the fog lifted it returned. It was about a week later that I had another lucid moment and it was then that I remembered the last. I quickly wrote a note to myself to stop taking my the meds and made a plan to start reducing that day. I tried to call my psychiatrist again and still his office was closed. I left a message for his answering service telling him something was seriously wrong, but never got a call back. I knew at that moment that I was going to have to do this alone. I don't know what caused those lucid moments. Sometimes I think it was my spirit fighting to get free. Whatever it was I am eternally grateful, because it saved my life. I was dying.
That first day was a living Hell. I have never had drug withdrawals before aside from a mild caffeine headache when I try to cut back my morning coffee, so this was a new experience... One I wish I could have lived my entire life without. The withdrawals hit only a couple hours after reducing my dosage that first day. I had only cut it down by 10% and still it was nearly unbearable. Time when flat. I had no idea if it had been hours or years, or seconds. I couldn't remember if I had eaten, I was afraid I might turn on the stove or hurt myself accidentally so I just sat frozen on the couch. A friend had stopped by with soup because she heard I wasn't feeling well. I told her I was sick when she called, because I was too embarrassed to say the truth. She sat in my living room needing to share her story, and I couldn't tell her this wasn't the time. She told me a very tragic story of her childhood for nearly two hours while I tried to force down the soup she brought. I felt bad that I wasn't more support, but I all I wanted was for her to leave so I could be alone with my withdrawals. Later that night I tried to eat more of the soup she brought only to realize the horror she had shared had bonded itself to the soup. When I took a bit i did not taste chicken and noodles I tasted horror, and pain, and fear. My brain had crossed my senses and I was tasting the emotion I felt when she was telling her story. It was completely horrifying and I spit the soup out onto the floor. It was then that the gravity of what I had to do hit. I wasn't even sure I was going to survive. Yet! that wasn't my main concern. All I could think of was "If I don' get over this fast enough he is going to leave me". Makes me mad to think about. Even at my worst I was more worried about him than myself. I called him crying and he didn't care. I told him " You are going to hate me before this is over with", and all he said was "You're probably right". I was right.
I never heard from my doctor again aside from a letter I received in december telling me he was quitting his practice and to find another doctor. He never charged my insurance for the visits. I trusted him with my life and he abandoned me the second it went bad just like my bf.
The entire time I was fighting for my life my bf used it to his advantage. He lied more, treated me worse, called less, laughed at me when I was upset saying if "I didn't want him to laugh I shouldn't be so funny". I am a programmer and one of the things that was most disturbing to me was the fact that I had acquired dyslexia from the medication. I would try and talk about this with him, because I left like if I could talk about it maybe it would seem less scary. He took this opportunity to humor himself with my sickness. He told me that after I told him what I was suffering with he researched dyslexia caused by medication and found an article that said this of all the side effects this would most likely be permanent. I was stunned. He followed that with yeah, I'll send you a link to the article. When I started crying he scoffed and said he was just joking and that I had no sense of humor, and hung up. The only thing I had during all of this was hope that I would be able to get better. His "joke" was aimed at removing that hope. I can't image why you would do that to someone you loved who was fighting such an awful battle. It would have hurt less if he had punched me in the throat. Oddly enough a punch was how it ended. His last visit was typical for the most part. He pretended to be the loving boyfriend that was misunderstood because he didn't know how to handle me being sick as usual. We had a two hour conversation about how his lying was making my recovery a lot harder and I needed him to stop. I even made a safe word for him to say if he was afraid I was going to be too upset. I wanted to make it as safe as possible, because still I believed it was my fault he lied...I got too emotional. I had been fighting withdrawals for nearly 5 months now and was really worn down. I didn't know it, but I was in the beginning stages of PTSD, and I would get upset very easily if triggered. It wasn't two hours after our "please don't lie" conversation that I caught him in an old lie. When we first started dating he told me his girlfriends name was Megan Storm... obviously made up right? He insist it wasn't, but I got him to admit it was a lie when we got back together the second time. His excuse was that he was afraid I would cyber stalk her if I knew her real name (which didn't make sense because I knew he hung out with his first crush, and never cyber stalked her. What did I care who he dated as a teenager?)
It happened innocently enough, this lady on the news last name was Storm. At this point I found it comical and asked him what was the real name of his first gf. He replied "Megan Storm"... ok he is messing with me right? I asked again and this time he gets hostile with me and says the name even louder. He had lied so many times he actually forgot which lies he still had, and which ones he had come clean about. I was devastated ...again. He apologizes for not remembering he told me the truth ... and I snapped. I told him I felt like hitting him I was so mad. After everything I went through he would still lie about something so stupid. He told me to go ahead and hit him, and for a second it was a joke. I told him I'd just hit his arm because I'd feel bad if I really punched him. He agreed and I swung... what I didn't realize was the extent of the rage I felt. I remember hitting his arm once and then it goes black. The next thing I know I feel my knuckle hit bone and I'm jerked back into myself to see that I have completely blacked his eye. When I saw his face I screamed and took off crying to my bedroom. We fought the rest of the night, but he seemed to be normal by the time he left two days later. I have never felt so awful in my entire life. I couldn't explain what happened or why.
What I know know is that with that single punch I broke his control. I was no longer something he felt powerful over. I was a source of humiliation for him now not ego. He spent the next couple weeks trying to make me as miserable as possible for what I had done. He would ignore me for days, call me weak, and all this while I'm still sick. Not only with windrows, but my hormones and become totally out of balance and I was bleeding to the point where they thought I might have fibroids, and my immunity had taken a dive and I was sick with an infection almost every two weeks. Until one day he just stopped calling. After 6 years of suffering for him he was gone without so much as a goodbye.
It took a year to get my memory back to the point where I could make new memories and remember numbers. Shortly after my P vanished I lost my job as a programmer. Honestly I have no idea how I was able to hold onto it as long as I had. I wasn't even coherent. I believe the only thing that saved me was that I worked from home and I was able to hide most of my struggles from the outside world. I had a plan for everything. On the days I had to step down my dosage I knew I had 3-4 days of Hell to face. I'd send the kids to their dads on a friday and by the time they came home on Sunday night I was able to function enough to keep the kids from seeing how sick I really was. It took me 3 months just to ween myself off all the drugs and another 6 for the withdrawals to run their course. When I opened up to my family doctor about what I had been through she said I was on 12x the recommended dosage. She also said it was an absolute miracle that I was able to stop them by myself. Looking back I am sure I should have been hospitalized. It was insane to try and do that on my own, but I didn't want to leave my kids. I didn't want anyone to know what I was going through. It wasn't like just being sick. It was totally humiliating. Not only had I trusted a terrible bf, but I also trusted a terrible doctor. In my mind I was the only one to blame for the situation I was in, and I was embarrassed to admit it to people. I had let myself turn into something awful.
When I came out of it finally, after the meds and withdrawals, after my P, after I lost my job I didn't recognize myself. I had this overwhelming sense of being homesick, but I had no idea where home was. I didn't know the face in the mirror. The memories I did have from the meds were like I was watching someone else. I can see my face all contorted in pain, but there is no emotion associated with it. It was right around the time I started regaining my memory that the flashbacks started. I would see a scene played out before me like I was watching it at the IMAX. I knew something wasn't right so I started therapy, and that's when I was diagnosed with PTSD. It has been 2 years since I last saw my P, and still I am haunted like it was yesterday. I feel like I have two lives one I live without emotion, and one I live with raw emotion. In my life without emotion my career is doing fantastic. I recovered my memory and found out that once I was able to work without every ounce of my energy being sapped by my P I was really good at what I did. I was promoted 3 times in a year, I won a hackathon at my local college, and I landed a new job with an elite group of developers. I got my health back for the most part...well from my neck down. I took on my recovery like it was a job, and I have accomplished so much more than I thought possible ... in my life without emotion. In my emotional life I'm still in a battle. I have learned to keep them very separate so the outside doesn't see. In my emotional life I am hollow. No matter how much I achieve it's like a black hole has opened up in the center of my chest and sucks in everything good. At this point I feel like I could cure cancer, and still to myself, in my emotional life, I would still be that stupid girl that got taken advantage of and thrown away like a piece of garbage. The idea of dating makes me sick to my stomach yet I miss having a partner. I have achieved more in two years than I did in the last decade and still I feel empty. PTSD sucks. I hate it. Its like I have something in my head playing those horrible memory clips over and over and as soon as I get tired, or weak the playback gets stronger. It's always there, always waiting for an opportunity. I have fought an impossible battle for two years and it's not over. I'm tired, I'm homesick, I'm numb, I'm angry, I'm fearful... In my emotional life. The worst part is knowing after all of that... he is the one who left. I don't even have the dignity of saying I wised up and left him. No... I loved him. I always had hope I could make it better right up until the last bit was stripped. Because of the long distance and the Jekyll and Hyde nature of our relationship my mind has divided his two personalities. The perfect bf that would visit me died. Even though I know he wasn't real I mourn him like a death. I miss him everyday of my life. The other is the monster that killed him. It's so dumb right? I don't even get the dignity of mourning a real person. I read the articles on this forum and it makes me so mad to see there is a vocabulary for what he put me through. All of those things I blamed on myself for being sick was nothing more than manipulation. I medicated manipulation. I don't want revenge I just don't want to be this. How do you forgive yourself after something like this? It took a year after he left to feel anger towards my P. There is a part of me that still feels bad for him. That he felt like it was necessary to ruin someone just so he could feel something. It's heartbreaking. Anyway, that's my story. -V