How I Lost Myself

Now that I've gotten the hardest part out of the way, I'm going to start backing up and hitting some of the other tough stuff.

Somewhere in the course of my relationship, I became extremely unhealthy.  This is not something I ever thought I would talk about, and it's a good part of why I've avoided blogging for so long.  But the truth is, if something I've been through can help even one person, then sharing my story is worth it.  So I'm going to buck up and be brave and talk about something I don't want to talk about.

I began self-harming.  I've thought up and down and all over of a "nicer" way to say it.  But there really is no good way to say it.  I hurt myself.  I'm certainly not proud of it.  I'm not putting it out to a bunch of anonymous strangers for attention or pity.  I'm simply putting it out there because I need to talk about it.  

It started in October, I believe.  The first weekend Callie's husband was home, and I stayed in London alone.  Before that weekend, I had taken the coach from London each Friday to spend the weekend with my love and her beautiful children.  Those weekends, we felt like a family.  But that weekend in October, he was home.  THEY were the family.  And I was alone and lonely in a place I didn't belong. I stayed in bed, in the dark, and cried.  

And I had mini panic attacks.  I would cry so hard I couldn't breathe, laying in bed in the dark, gasping for breath and feeling like calm would never come.  And somehow I started scratching my arm.  And that calmed me.  The physical pain gave me a release from the emotional pain, and I stopped crying.  I found I could breathe again. Even though I knew that wasn't the right way to deal with it, it was too late.  That connection, fucked up as it it may be, was already made in my head.  Scratching calmed the panic.  So that weekend, whenever I found myself unable to breathe, think, or just BE, I calmed myself by scratching my arm.  

I didn't want to tell Callie, but I did.  After her husband left Sunday night, I texted her to tell her about this messed up reaction I was having to my emotional pain.  And I left the next morning to be with her. I spent 3 weeks at her house, forgetting about school or any responsibilities, because I couldn't be trusted to be left alone until my antidepressants kicked in.  

But it didn't stop.  When things got difficult, where I just didn't know how to deal, I would scratch. I would pinch. I would cut.  At one point,when Callie and I talked about breaking up (because of the way I was reacting to the stress of the relationship!) I took a pair of scissors and traced stars on my leg.  After a particularly bad fight where I felt like I'd disappointed her more than ever and couldn't stand it, I sliced up the length of my calf.

I really didn't know how to make it stop.  I could identify the trigger.  But I wasn't willing to let go of Callie, lose the person I loved most in the world.  I needed her.  As much as the relationship (and her relationship with her husband) seemed to be the trigger to my self-destructive behavior, she herself was also my cure.  She was my most effective antidepressant.  When things were good, they were GOOD.  They were great.  In the deepest pit of despair, she was the one to pull me out.  No matter how sad I felt, she always managed to make me smile, make me feel ok.  Make me feel good.   

I've come home to America.  Callie's husband is home until the end of May, and we both knew there was no way I was going to be able to survive on my own in London, in a graduate program I wasn't enjoying.  So we (I) made a very difficult decision.  I withdrew from my grad program, left the university, and returned to the US where I would have the support of family during a difficult time.  We made a plan, to give she and her husband time together, then I would return in the summer so we could have our time together.  Then she would choose.  (More on this later)

And yet...here we are...

I couldn't even stick to the plan.  I suck.