My story: A long tale of wrong trails...

[Venom.]

I don’t know why I’m writing this. I think mostly, it’s to try and materialize some kind of closure. I’m a writer, and words just seem to help me, and maybe spilling the beans to some people who have gone through this kind of stuff might make me feel better, maybe spewing everything out will make me feel emptier on the inside. I am just not sure, but I’ll just begin simply.

 

Growing up, I had my fair share of bad relationships. I’ve been in the practice firing range of many cold, heartless women, who have taken all they can from me, emotionally, and have moved on to the greener pastures. I’ve always been aware that pain, loneliness, and heartbreak were always on the cards for anybody willing to try to find somebody who they wanted to spend their lives with, but my checkered history is full of mistakes. The first girl I ever fell in love with was my best friend, and she, while attempting to make another man jealous, slept with me and then barely bothered to talk to me ever again. The second girl, whom I barely shared a connection with, turned out to be a psychotic mess.

 

We’ll call her Molly. Molly would attack me, cut me; she’d even threaten other girls in my life. She was an awful person. That was strike two for me.

 

My first ever real relationship was with a girl named Stacy, who was a kind, smart girl. We were always happy, and shared a lot of things in common. There wasn’t any drama or jealousy. We argued, but we always made up. We were always close, and were planning on a good future together, except we didn’t plan on her being hit and killed by an erratic driver speeding through the streets for some reason. I was told she died instantly.

 

I remember feeling some sort of pain, and then numbness, like anybody would. I was young—Fifteen. I know I loved her, and I’ll always have this little place for her.

 

When I turned seventeen, I began working away with some friends. We worked all around the UK and China, the work was simple, easy, and decent money. I remembered the years passing by, with issues coming and going. After I quit this job, I remember returning back to the UK and began studying—And then I met a girl. We’ll call her Alison.

 

Alison was this quirky, short mixed-race girl who wouldn’t ever leave me alone. She’d message me, talk to me, and would always start conversations randomly. I remember when I first met her, I didn’t like her. When she tried to talk to me, I sighed, but never rebuffed. I accepted each conversation and we spoke, and spoke…and talked, and confided. Slowly, my feelings changed towards her. At the time I was a bit of a hardass. The work I had been doing had broken me down as a person, it was very stressful. Maybe this was why I was s close-minded towards Alison.

 

We went on a date, eventually. We went to the cinema, and could not stop looking at each other. The movie wasn’t as important—She sat next to me, smiling, with a leather jacket on and fishnet tights, and this big, red afro with a cheeky grin on her face. I could tell she was nervous, but there was something there. I wanted to call it electrical, I think it was attraction. We left the cinema that night, and I walked her home. We shared an awkward kiss. It was perfect to me, as cheesy as it was. I’d never done anything close to this.

 

We became a couple soon after. Life was good for a while. We were happy for a while. She became one of the most important people in my life. I’ve never been close to my mother, my father was never really around—And my mother’s partner was pretty much a useless cunt that would stroll about like he owned the very house we lived in, like it was some kind of achievement.

Things got hard here.

 

I got a phonecall from the hospital. My grandmother—the woman who had raised me from the ground up, had cancer; stage four, metastatic. She was going to die. I almost dropped out of college because I put my life on hold, to spend every moment with my dying grandmother. Losing her, was something I couldn’t be at peace with. I remember the nights, sleeping on the floor next to her, counting her breaths.

 

When she finally, peacefully passed away, I broke down. Doctors called it PTSD and Anxiety Disorder. I broke down, spent months in hospital, and became this big, empty thing.

 

The months in the hospital seemed to float by like a dream. But throughout it all, Alison came every day. I remember my mother showing up one night, giving me a cold macdonalds, and ****ing back off home. Once, she came. Alison came every afternoon and night. We would snuggle, and talk, and kiss. She made everything seem better to me, like things weren’t so hard. She became my rock.

 

My condition worsened, and I somehow got it twisted that Alison was a part of my problem. We broke up over my stupidity and condition, and slowly, in the months without her, I began to get back my life. The PTSD lessened, as did my anxiety. But in those months, I missed Alison so much. I thought about her all the time. I wanted to see her, and she wanted to see me too.

 

Six months later, we met, and in a single day, all those feelings came back. We kissed, we were already in love. We maintained our happiness. She was the first girl to ever really treat me with some kind of admiration and love. Yet, as we went along, my own selfishness came to a point where I was no decent person. I was a lazy ****er, who made excuses for things. Alison forked out money for me, she saved me many times from colossal ****ups. Somehow, throughout all this time, I never realized the ramifications of my own actions, and the way I acted. I became a very obnoxious man, one who just shrugged off her feelings. I chose other things over her, to the point where we never spent time together. I was, for all intents and purposes, a man-child; one that seemed to never want to take responsibility for anything.

 

My ensuing actions, of laziness, of never taking feelings into account, and of anything, were my own actions. I think it all stemmed from losing many people, and I somehow became a distant figure.

 

But Alison finally had enough, and her attitude shifted to a bitterness and criticism most of the time. Her strong, can-do attitude was broken down by me, because no matter what she tried, she couldn’t make me see the error of my ways. She couldn’t break the fog of who I had become. Finally, after she could endure no more, Alison packed her bags, and left me.

 

The famous saying, “you don’t know what you have til it’s gone,” was never truer. Because when we split, the fogginess dissipated, and her anger shook me up. I realized then, when she had gone, everything that was wrong. It was like somebody flicked a light-switch on in my head—As if something deep down in my head had broken off the rust of old cogs. I realized the man I had been for the last year, was not the real man who she had fallen in love with.

 

I made an effort to change, and I tried my best to reason with Alison. I tried to show her I had changed, but the damage, as she said, had been done. She decided she wanted to look towards the future, and decided that she would not get back with me. That was two weeks ago.

 

Alison has moved on now. She has removed me from all social media sites. She has cut me out of her life, and has told me that she never sees us getting back together, regardless of the fact I have truly woken up and seen the error of my ways. There is nothing I can do now, except accept what she has to say, and try to understand that she doesn’t want me anymore. I just wish I had one more chance to show her how I really felt.

 

Now comes the inevitable path of ‘getting over’ her. But to me, that seems like an impossible task. I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving Alison really. Because when I look back at past partners, I don’t feel regret, but with her, I do. What scares me is that a year from now, two, three, I’ll always have this pit of regret, and I’ll feel that little knot in my stomach when I think of her, and how happy she is now, only to realize that if I hadn’t been such an obnoxious person, then it would be me she would still be smiling at in the cinema, and not somebody else.

 

Thankyou for reading.

[Venom.]

Also, I know there's the mentality of losing somebody and you try to look back at the past and take blame, and wonder if you could change things the second time around.

 

I don't think that. I want her back--Nothing would make me feel better than to have her back, but I'm trying to accept she's trying to move on. I just wished one day down the line, maybe we can reconcile and try again. I see her faults, and I see mine, and I'm completely depressed right now, but I understand that she doesn't want me anymore. I miss her so much. It bothers me knowing I'll always regret my own actions towards her and I'll always have this awful feeling of regret.

[ThorntonMelon]

You are a very good writer and articulate your thoughts well.

 

The thing that I would say here is that your ex went through a lot supporting you and that may have been why she came into your life. Not to be your lifelong partner but to be the person that saw you through the loss of your grandmother.

 

I want to be very delicate in how I say what I say next. I know you have been through a tremendous amount. But obviously for you to more or less go through a year long funk with hospitalization, blaming your ex, PTSD, all of that, suggests you probably have a lot more personal work to do in order to be the kind of partner you want to be. I have trouble believing getting dumped scared you straight. I would imagine it's just a different distraction to process everything you've been through.

 

I'd use your single time to really focus on you. Forget about apologizing to your ex. She obviously wants you to get better. What you need to do is be entirely selfish and self-focused until your emotional quality of life improves substantially. She's done you a favor and someday you'll be able to thank her for everything she did for you - and that will happen best as a much healthier man.

 

Good luck to you.