Happy ‘X’mas.

To ‘X’,

Happy Christmas and New Year. It would have been nice to be able to see you before Christmas, to wish you that. It would have been nice to have just one Christmas and New Year, that I could enjoy and not feel was going to be my last. It would’ve been nice to go into a new year without taking you into it.

I’d hoped we could have had the meeting my CCO requested. I don’t yet understand the reasons you said no. I hope to discover that when I meet with your colleagues in the new year. I still probably won’t understand. Having no reason given, has left me considering ALL possibilities. I have an answer to each one. If it’s because you hate me – I hate myself. If it’s because you liked me too… get over it. I’ve had to. If it’s because of your own anxieties / reservations / fears – we need to discuss them so I can reassure you and find ways to accommodate your own needs whilst you consider mine. If it’s because of your health or personal life, then okay, but if you’re working there and doing the job you did before, then you’re capable of sitting in on this meeting. If it’s because you just don’t want to… that’s just not good enough.

I need to be free. I need peace. I need closure. I never wanted to say goodbye to you. That was the problem. I feared the loss of you. That’s all it ever was. Last year I made the choice to not come back to the centre. I took on that loss that I didn’t want. So, I’ve already got what I didn’t want. Please let me get a little bit of what I DO want…. a positive ending with you. A goodbye from you. That’s not too much to ask. If you think it is, then you must realise we are only at this point because you said no when I compromised massively. When I asked for 5% of what I needed. You said no then. It has escalated to this point because of that.

I don’t mean to disrespect your personal boundaries. You have a right to say no without an explanation. But you need to realise my stance too. I’m not being manipulative. I’m not being awkward. I’m not being stubborn. I’m not being dramatic. I’m not CHOOSING this. I’m neurodivergent. I see only two options that I can stomach. One is dependent on you saying yes to this meeting and giving me a positive ending. The other is for me to not exist anymore. I don’t want that to be the outcome. I wish there was a third option. To neurotypicals there would be multiple options… compromises. But I compromised enough already and was met with unreasonable responses. It’s time you all compromise with me. We’re at that stage now – you never have to see me again after this. That breaks me, but for you it will be a relief.

You’ve had three years away from me almost. Away from this issue, apart from when it’s popped up to annoy you. You’ve had peace in regard to this. Every single waking moment of my life in the last three years has been about this. The pain of this – of losing you… that was hard enough without thinking you hate me. The fact you keep saying no, when my only other option genuinely is suicide, tells me you hate me that much that you want me to be dead.

When I’ve only ever cared about you and wished the best for you, I just find that incredibly upsetting. I just wanted you to hear me out. To come along and hear what I have to say. The frustrating thing is that if you heard what I had to say, you’d agree to the meeting, but until you hear what I have to say you don’t want to attend it. There’s really no way around this though, other than agreeing to the meeting. I can’t give you what I was going to read out to you, because WRITING is the problem – it’s led to so many misunderstandings from all of you. I have to say it to your face, for you to understand me and not misinterpret my intentions. I cannot do that until you meet with me. And you won’t do that because you are obviously misunderstanding me.

Maybe you’re holding onto things I said or did in the past. That’s unfair. I was having a breakdown the last time I sent an email your way. I believed I would be gone from this world within weeks. I’m ashamed of the past. I’m not in the past. I’ve had therapy since. I’ve been with CMHT for about 18 months. They helped patch me up and get me back on my feet. Unfortunately waiting four months for a reply from the centre, and then hearing it’s a no from you, has knocked me back pretty much to the start. So unfortunately, what I wanted to share with you is now no longer the case. But if you had met with me / us, you would have discovered that I was doing better. You can’t hold me to the past. That’s not right.

The meeting was not about attacking you, as a person or as a service. Yes, I may have mentioned the complaint situation, purely from a point of explaining my triggers of being misunderstood / rejected / unheard etc… things that you have now also triggered. But what I had to say was not about you, it was about me. It was to explain… to feel heard and understood as a person. It was to tell you the positive (but appropriate) things I felt towards you. It was to wish you well. It was to tell you the impact a positive ending would have on me, and why I needed that. To show you what I’ve learnt in therapy, to explain what happened. It was in the hope you could say kind words to me, like my therapist and now my CCO did when I lost them. To give me the sort of ending I need and have never had with people that mattered to me… people who I may have had some form of ‘conflict’ with. I needed that repair. That healing. And being wished well regardless. I needed to hear goodbye. So that I can start to grieve you. Positively. If you refuse this, you’re no better than anyone who I knew personally from my past, who hurt me and then ghosted me. That leaves me with the only option of hating you. Putting you in the ‘dead to me’ pile. Believe me, I don’t want to do that.

This isn’t like a personal situation. It shouldn’t feel like one. You’re effectively a ‘professional’. This should feel like a professional situation. You would’ve had support. I would’ve had support – something I didn’t have in the past when you used to have a chaperone. I didn’t have somebody in MY corner, regardless of what you as a service said. You were not on my side. I know that, now I’ve experienced having somebody on my side. I have a right to be heard. I would like that to be in that meeting. It’s better than posting it online. What you’re doing at the moment is damaging me further. If I could’ve explained to you my CAT map, you’d understand this. I can’t do that unless I see you.

The meeting was going to be positive. It had to be. Originally it may have allowed me to use the service in the future if I needed to. But the experiences I’ve had with you all, have scarred me badly. I can’t see that I could ever trust you as a service ever again. So it’s unlikely I would come back. Choosing to leave and never see you again, was the hardest decision I ever made in my life. I didn’t have a choice. I had just nearly ended my life a couple of weeks earlier. You will never fully understand what the last two / three years have done to me. That’s a burden only I will carry and know throughout my life.

That life won’t be very long though at this rate. I honestly cannot live with things in the state they still are in. I never could. I have to be able to live with the outcome of this. There is only ONE outcome now that I can live with, given that I’ve already lost you. I wish I was being manipulative or dramatic. That would mean I had other options that I could live with. But I don’t. Those who suggest alternatives don’t have to live with this inside them, forever. And I honestly cannot live with the outcome we currently have. So I need it to change.

What I had to say was for the benefit of everyone. It would have made everyone feel better. That’s what annoys me. It wasn’t a whinge-fest. It wasn’t negative. It wasn’t a threat to anyone. But you won’t hear me out. So it makes me more negative sounding. It’s annoying. Because you’ve turned it from a positive, healing thing, to that desperate, suicidal thing again. But that’s not who I am and it’s not the purpose of the meeting. That’s just the result of me being unheard, overlooked, misunderstood and rejected, when my intentions were pure and positive. It’s so frustrating.

Why can’t you just meet with us and let me say goodbye to you? Why can’t you allow me to let you go? Don’t you want me to let you go? Don’t you want this to finally be over? I can only assume not. I can only assume you want me to suffer or to die, or you don’t want to let ME go. That seems unlikely and makes no sense to me, but I have to consider it as an option given the lack of information we’ve had. Please reconsider. Please. It’s my life on the line here.

I have to hide all of this over Christmas. I’ve hidden it all year. I’ve hidden that we’ve tried to get this meeting. I’ve hidden how long it took to get a response. I’ve hidden the response. I’ve hidden that I’ve set a new date for me to leave this world as a result of that response. I’ve had to pretend to be better than I am. It’s such a burden, and to have to carry this over this time of year… AGAIN… it sickens me. Why can’t you free me and let me go? Why can’t you just level with me here? This will be the most important thing you’ll ever do in your career…. saving a life. Why is it such a big deal to see me and wish me well and say goodbye? I know it’s asking a lot to request that you say nice things to me. I always used to have to drag kind sentiments out of friends in the past. So I know that I’m not somebody that people actually care about / miss / value. If people felt it, they wouldn’t need me to ask them to say it. So I know I’m not a likeable person. But this isn’t personal. This is professional. You could’ve pretended to give a damn. You could’ve pretended that I matter as a person and that you wish me well. But you don’t want to do that. Just like my friends in the past didn’t want to do that. You have no idea how worthless this has made me feel.

Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas with the people you do care about… those who are allowed to care about you. You have no clue what it’s like to be rejected for caring about somebody you can never have in your life….and for fearing losing them. To need a goodbye and be denied it.

But you have a good Christmas, I’ll have my last. And I hope 2023 is a good year for you and the ones you love. I only ever thought the best of you. I’m sorry you didn’t want that.

xxxx

The “Neurotypical” Illusion.

*Talk of suicide*

In 2021, I experienced a breakdown, as a result of an issue that started before the lockdowns of 2020. This led to me choosing the date I would leave this world. It was to be the second anniversary of the suicide of my one remaining friend. It felt like my only option. I couldn’t get the resolution I needed… the situation was spiralling out of control. Everything I feared was manifesting. I was isolated, cornered, severely misunderstood. Doors were slammed in my face and there was no way for me to find peace. I couldn’t continue living with things in the state they were in. I just wanted the pain to stop. I wanted my mind to stop. I needed peace. And as nobody would help me find that peace in life, I was forced to seek that peace in death.

My doctor referred me to the crisis team, where I was put with shared care under the CMHT, until assigned a care co-ordinator (CCO). In the last 18 months I have done a lot of work. I’ve had to have a support worker to try and help me leave the house, as anxiety and depression have stopped me going out. I also didn’t trust myself to leave the house, as that’s what I’d intended to do when I was going to end my life. I’m just finishing some exposure work now, where I’ve managed to get back to catching buses. It’s been exhausting work but it’s nice to have that independence back.

I also did CAT (cognitive analytical therapy), where I created a CAT map – a physical representation of the inner workings of my mind. It helped me identify patterns that keep repeating in relationships. I now know my triggers are being unheard, misunderstood and rejected. And I know how I react to these triggers and how that can sometimes feed the problem. I learnt a lot. It hasn’t changed a huge amount in my life, but I at least have a means to explain things better now.

A lot of time has been spent looking at how to resolve the issue that led to my suicide bid in the first place. It’s been an obstacle to my recovery. It still is, but I’m doing my best to stay strong and fight for what I need.

The thing that’s helped me is realising I may be on the autism spectrum. They screen for it now in the CMHT. I had never considered it and rejected the suggestion at first. But I did my own research and my whole life makes a lot more sense as a result. From lifelong physical issues to picky eating, sensory / emotional overload, my meltdowns. To always feeling like an outsider, different, misunderstood. I have a lot more self-compassion now I know why I am the way I am, and why things happened how they did.

I can now see why issues with friends came up. They thought I was ‘neurotypical’ like them. So, they held me to that standard. They expected me to just move on from things without discussing them. They expected me to accept things I physically could not accept. I was even accused of giving one of them an ultimatum I never gave. This is due to a difference in perception. From a neurotypical perspective it might have appeared that way. From my perspective I was simply communicating my discomfort and distress, and I had difficulty being able to live with things the way they were.

I realise that, now I’m facing another situation. I’m in a position where there are literally only two outcomes for me – positive closure or suicide. It is totally understandable to me, as someone who has pretended to be neurotypical for 30 years, that neurotypicals would see that as an ultimatum… manipulative… stubborn… “threatening suicide” to “get my way”. I wish that were so. That would mean I actually had other choices but chose to have ‘ending my life’ as the only other option. I get how outsiders would view this. But they don’t know what it’s like inside a neurodivergent mind like mine. There are honestly no other outcomes that I can actually live with. It is a highly emotive situation. It involves loss and endings.

Endings are incredibly hard for me. People from my past never gave me good endings. Most gave me no ending at all and just cut me out or ghosted me. Until the mental health team, I had never had a good ending to anything in my life. CAT therapy took into account my difficulties with endings. My therapist wrote a letter and read it to me, and I read one back to her. I shared my fear of her instantly forgetting me. She reassured me she wouldn’t. She said she learnt a lot from me, would miss our sessions and will probably wonder how I’m doing in the future. As a result of the reassurances that she gave and the positive ending she provided, I’m at the point I no longer care if I’ve been forgotten.

Similarly, my care co-ordinator recently left. She gave me a positive ending. She let me share my sentiments and returned them. She said she would miss me, and she wished me well. She said in real life we’d probably have been friends. She even gave me a hug goodbye. Then after our last phone call I got off the phone and cried… simply because I’d never really been told goodbye before. It was so new to me, to have a positive ending, to be wished well and hear goodbye on good terms. I feel this will be so healing for me – down the line the pain of losing her will be less because of the ending.

I’m currently in need of a similar positive ending with someone else. I never wanted the ending, especially under the circumstances involved. But given how much negativity was involved, I need a positive resolution and closure so I can move on. They may fear that by giving me what I ask for, it will increase my emotional attachment – it is in fact the opposite. I now know it would reduce the emotional attachment I feel. It would free me. I need to feel they don’t hate me, like I’ve felt they do. Every time my requests are rejected it confirms that they do hate me. That they don’t care if I live or die. Because in my head I cannot live with things in the state they are in. I can’t go on. So, if they refuse to say goodbye and wish me well, they want me to die.

I can’t help the black and white thinking. A lot of the time I see more colour than most people do. But when it’s something so emotionally painful and personal for me, I struggle to see colours. It’s not a case that people can help me to see a third option. Any options they see are neurotypical options, made for neurotypical minds who do not have to live with the outcome of this … minds that can let go. I know without a positive ending on this one issue, I won’t be here. It’s a certainty. It’s no threat, and I honestly do not want that to be the outcome. But it’s the only other outcome for me. I wish I could get neurotypical people to see inside my head and understand my position on this. Because they will probably mischaracterise me as dramatic, manipulative, controlling or whatever other words they think apply to me. When in reality I just face an impossible choice… to get to say goodbye to someone I don’t want to lose, or to die. I have to put my life in the hands of someone else’s decision – I can’t make them do what I need… so really, I have no control.

But this will never end until it’s resolved. So that’s why my head goes to suicide, because I’ve had three years of torment with this. Not one moment of peace from it, while the people involved have had that peace and space from it and me. My head and my heart can only take so much of it. I’ve kept fighting because I’ve always known without a positive outcome, I would die. And I didn’t want to die. So, I’ve fought for my life for three years. I will keep fighting for it until I no longer can. Every day I’ve lived with this burden, has traumatised me more and more. I don’t know how much more of it I can take. But I fight because it’s all I’ve got.

At the start I compromised a lot. I asked for 5% of what I needed and had it rejected. Now what I’m asking for seems a lot bigger, but I honestly cannot compromise on it anymore. I know that will make me seem unreasonable to neurotypicals… but I’ve faced ‘unreasonable’ myself the whole time, and people unwilling to co-operate or compromise with me. The fact is neurotypical people find it easier to compromise. It’s easier to see other options and to accommodate the needs of autistic / neurodivergent people.

The one thing that bothers me is this idea that autistic folk are the problem and need to adjust to fit into a neurotypical world. We have to change. I don’t accept this. The world should change to include us and accommodate our needs and limitations. And that’s what I’m going to fight for.

All my life I masked so that I might be accepted by my peers. Throughout school and college, I changed and over the years I hid my true self more and more. This is probably the cause of a lot of my mental health issues. It probably led to many misunderstandings in friendships, as I appeared ‘neurotypical’ so people expected things from me that I could not fulfil. I didn’t know back then that I may be autistic. I knew I was different, but I tried not to be too different. Whenever I shared too much of myself or let the mask down a bit, people abandoned me.

Similarly, I shared how I felt about somebody and doing so apparently made them ‘uncomfortable’. My masking has always been about making other people more comfortable, at the expense of my own comfort. It’s always been about making sure that other people feel okay – valued, appreciated and above all, comfortable. So, to hear that when I let my walls down and revealed a part of the true me, it made someone uncomfortable…that was the hardest thing to face. Experiences like this teach me to maintain the mask at all times or I will be rejected for who I am and how I truly feel.

My mask made people believe I was stronger than I was. More confident and friendly than I felt inside. More able than I was… ‘insightful’, so not needing as much support. It may have made me seem more aloof – like I didn’t need anyone. Perhaps that I didn’t feel negative emotions when I did. Apparently at school when I was bullied and had people throw things at me, I never reacted at all. It was as if they weren’t doing anything to me. I don’t understand why I did this. But I probably felt it was better to not show how I really felt, otherwise I’d never be accepted. I also struggled with smiling as a child. I rarely did at school. I’d constantly have people telling me to smile. All these little things that show society expects people to not be autistic. To change and ‘be more normal’. No. Society needs to change. I’m done changing for other people.

I’m a highly sensitive person. I care a lot about people but feel too scared to share that with them, because nobody likes me caring about them. But that is who I am. I may not share my care with people again now. I will more than likely avoid people altogether, because I’m too tired and drained to wear a mask for society anymore. And if caring about people makes them uncomfortable or makes them reject and hurt me, then it’s better to be completely alone. This is the struggle I face in my life. I don’t fit in here. All I want is people to accept my feelings and to validate me and tell me it’s okay to be who I am in my heart. To feel how I feel and to express that. And then for them to not reject or abandon me when I do let my walls down. Is that too much to ask?

The Urge To ‘Fix’.

I’ve always had this issue whereby if I have a falling out with someone, or feel in a bad place with them, I feel the need to ‘fix’ it, or resolve it as soon as possible. I guess this is to avoid the uncomfortable negative emotions associated with it.

I’m having to tell myself to leave it be for now. We need some distance. Nothing has changed for me – my circumstances are the same as a week ago, and nothing will have changed on their end, so for now I have to just accept things the way they are, and I have to try and tolerate the emotions and not overthink things. Easier said than done.

To feel a sense of peace, rather than the anxiety I feel right now, I have to see it as an ending at this point. We’re done. Yes, hopefully we’ll speak again at some point, but right now we’re obviously not good for each other’s wellbeing. We can’t be there for each other, and maybe the time apart will be a good thing. I have to try and believe that.

Yes I am hurt, upset and a little angry. There’s a lot I want to say. But that can come in time. Right now I need to get back to accepting reality as it is, and using it to push forward. I need to take this time to focus on getting better and not let it eat me up. Very hard not to obsess over it, especially late at night. Not been able to go to sleep until the early hours of the morning lately. My mind’s too active. It takes me to dark places. But I can’t let this destroy me. Must put it to the back of my mind and focus on what I have, rather than what I’ve lost. That’s my aim.

 

Things I Wish You Said.

These are things I wish people had said to me when it mattered…. this can be from friends past and present, family, bullies, men, or anyone who ever crossed my path and left a mark in my life. The impact of these few words would be tremendous for someone like me. So it’s sad that I’ve rarely heard such sentiments. The fact these things most often have gone unsaid has broken me. A series of imperfect people in this imperfect world, neglecting to be kind or help at all with a sense of closure, have left open wounds all over my body and soul. I know life doesn’t always allow us closure…. but from guys disappearing from my life, to friends betraying and hurting me with no remorse, to nobody saying I mattered to them, to leaving it too late to say ‘I love you’ and never being able to hear it back, to being ripped away from someone I was attached to in therapy… it’s all too much. All I’ve ever wanted was ONE person to prove that there can be a good ending in life. After too much of it I put my final faith in therapy, thinking they’d help me do this. They did not. It was a missed opportunity. So I struggle on with life, awaiting the next hurt, the next betrayal, the next loss, knowing I will never hear a single one of the things I need to hear in order to heal….

 

• I’ll never forget you. I’ll always remember you.
• Your friendship means / meant a lot to me.
• I’m glad to have known you.
• I miss you / I’ll miss you.
• I’m sorry. What I did was wrong. Please forgive me.
• I love you.
• I care about you / worry about you.
• I value you.
• You’re special.
• You’re beautiful.
• I couldn’t live without you.
• You’ve give me such lovely memories.
• I’m flattered you feel that way for me.
• You deserve better than me.
• Is there anything you want to say or to ask me?
• I lied to you. I lied about you. I’m sorry.
• I was selfish. I’m sorry.
• I let you down. I’m sorry.
• You have every right to hate me.
• I trust you.
• I admire you.
• You matter to me.
• You’re not a burden, and I’ll kick the ass of anyone who makes you think that!
• Thank you for everything you do and for being you.
• I believe in you. I have faith in you.
• I’m proud of you.
• I have your back.
• I don’t want to lose you.
• I’m not going to leave you.
• Nothing changes how I feel about you.
• You’re a good person.
• You mean the world to me.
• I’m so lucky to have you.
• I will help you through this. You’ve got me on your side, we’ll do this together.
• Your feelings matter most to me.
• I had feelings for you too.
• I made a mistake.
• I never wanted to hurt you.
• Losing you was painful for me.
• I wish I could undo what I did.
• You didn’t deserve that.
• I wish we could have had our chance.
• I wish I’d met you sooner.
• You make me happy.
• I want you to be happy.
• You deserve to experience love. I hope you’ll find it soon.
• I understand you.
• I want to understand you.
• I want to learn everything about you.
• Tell me how you’re feeling…
• It’s okay that you feel that way.
• You’re not alone.
• I wish you well.
• Goodbye.

Haunted Love.

Sod it. I feel like I’m choking on my heart. I have poetry screaming inside me, that I am too scared to put to paper… I’m afraid to open that door and let the words out, because a whole heap of crap will come out with them. I have too much pain and love and grief coursing through my veins right now, that I have to let it out. I have to be the most honest I’ve ever been about something. I have to risk the embarrassment, the shame, being vulnerable, because this is gnawing away at me more each day.

I love you. I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks anymore. It means nothing. It’s irrelevant how I feel. I know that. But these are my feelings, and I do myself no favours in denying them. I shut them away for a long time. I stopped talking about you. I never stopped thinking about you. Not for a second. But I pretended it was no longer an issue. I still don’t talk about you, and I won’t. Because the second I do, I’ll be judged. I’ll be told to move on. I’ll be told it’s not real.

If it’s not real, then why the fuck does it hurt so much? I miss you so much. Afterwards, people said it must feel like a break-up (even knowing it was nothing like it!)… they recognised the feelings I was going through…. and I recall saying at the time it’s more than that. It was like you died. Because I knew I would never see you again in my lifetime. I knew your life would go on, so it felt like grieving for someone who was still alive. But in terms of my life, you did die.

Your memory speaks to me in my dreams. Your ghost even appeared to me the other day. And just as painfully that ghost disappeared, and I was reminded of your passing. Your ghost reminded me I haven’t grieved you. But I don’t want to grieve you. I don’t want to accept you’re gone forever. I don’t want life to be this way. I escape into my mind sometimes, where we can be together. And I’d much rather live there. You come to me in dreams, and I never want to wake up from them, yet a part of me forces myself awake, at the pain of realisation it’s only a dream. You’re gone. And I’m in pain because of it. What’s so wrong in admitting this? Why do I have to pretend it’s ‘not real’ in order to escape the embarrassment of actually experiencing such feelings? I was attracted to you in every single way possible. The first therapist to talk to me about it asked if I ‘fancied’ you. And whilst yes, I very much was attracted to you in that way, it was unbelievably so much more, and she cheapened it. From then on I felt stupid for how I felt about you. She compounded the problem.

I just got upset a moment ago, thinking about the way everything went…. wondering how different my life would be now if I had just kept it all to myself, pretending I felt nothing. What if I’d just dropped out of the group instead? My life hurtled out of control because of a stupid choice I made, and I couldn’t put the toothpaste back in the tube after that…. I had to just go with it. But it’s left me with such immense regret for my decisions. Opening up about all of this has been one of the hardest, shameful experiences of my life. I’ve felt pathetic. I’ve felt not ‘good enough’ to feel this way for you. I’ve felt hideous. Deluded. Ashamed. I feel embarrassed to talk about my feelings for you. My personal life is personal, and I’ve had to be very open about my lack of experience with such things. I don’t want people knowing the ways in which I think of you. I don’t want them pitying me. I don’t want them thinking I’m just fantasising or that I’m immature in my approach to feelings, and in my views of ‘love’.

Who is to say what ‘love’ really is.. what it means? Love is what you make of it at the time. Love is love. Sure I might meet somebody and fall in love with them, and realise that whenever I thought I was in love before, I was wrong… that this is real love. But something even stronger could come along after that….. it doesn’t mean I didn’t love before. Love changes. There isn’t one mould for love…. love isn’t something you achieve – it’s not something where you go ‘Aha! This is what love feels like! This is love, and anything before this was not love’. I used to believe that, but after meeting you I see love in a different way. There are also different kinds of love. Obviously this is unrequited love. This is ‘I love you even though I’m nothing to you’. Of course if I meet someone one day who loves me like I love them, that is what I will call real love.  But it’s a different love. It doesn’t mean the love I feel today didn’t exist. Love is an emotion. That is why I have to accept that I feel it towards you, because you can’t help how you feel. Obviously I’m not daft – the love I feel for you is different to the love your wife feels for you. I’m not totally insane, saying that ‘I love you more than anyone else ever could!’ – I have more sense than that. I try not to be too logical about how I’m feeling…. that would indicate that I think I stood a chance. I’m a dreamer – but I am a realist. I know the reality. I don’t need to get into the complexities of reality. But with the knowledge that my feelings of love are miniscule in the great scheme of things, I have to be true to how I personally feel, and accept that this is how I feel… as embarrassing as it may be. I’m working on it. I know I have to let go. I have to move on. But even though this was not any form of ‘relationship’ in the slightest, I have to allow myself to heal as though it was something. It takes me quite a time to recover from my feelings for men – I have such feelings so rarely – I become quite devoted in my affections and desires. I have to treat myself with the care I would in trying to overcome a break-up.

In some ways this is worse than a break-up, because a break-up would indicate you were together in the first place. You had your time. You had memories together. You had your shot, and in theory you could have that conversation to get some sort of closure. But with you and me, there was no ‘you and me’. There was no relationship. There was no time together, no memories. We didn’t ‘have our shot’. We didn’t have a conversation and closure, because the situation did not call for it, being a purely professional one.

This was nothing. I know that. I was reminded of that… that there’s no need for closure as nothing existed. I’m not stupid. I know I don’t deserve closure. I’ve had bad experiences in my past where I wasn’t given closure, and although this wasn’t a situation that warranted ‘closure’, it just would have been nice to be given a chance to heal those wounds from the past. To actually feel like things can be different, people can be wished well and given a chance to heal…. rather than everything always being left unfinished – wounds gaping open, and the world hurting.

I just feel so upset right now at the way things were handled. The scars I’m left with because of this, both physical and mental. And I feel doomed to experience the same pains over and over in my life, because not even fucking therapists want to help give me hope. Not even fucking therapists could see an opportunity to fix the broken bits of me… the bits that believe I’m not worth a conversation…. that people come and they just leave – leave my heart gashed open…. that I’m a burden. I feel so upset right now. I can’t stop crying, and all I want is for you to hold me and make it go away. But that never was, never will be, and I feel sick with myself for even wanting that. I feel like a bad person. But I just want you here.

 

I wish I’d never met you. Because living without you, having discovered you exist, it’s too much. If I close my eyes in the daytime, if I don’t think of you, all I see is destruction. It’s like everything else has died. Everything is dead. The only time I see light, is when I think of you. But that doesn’t last long… it turns to tears when I realise it’s all make-believe. Even you are dead in this world I’m living in, in reality.

 

I often try to think how to describe the pain I feel about all this…. it’s not easy. It’s like a pent-up scream…. like roaring in pain and sadness, but on the inside. If you externalised it, it would be just that – a noise. A very loud noise. But because it cannot be released vocally it sends painful waves throughout my body – you know that pulling in your chest when you hear something that breaks your heart? It’s like that, but through my whole body. It’s a heaviness. A depression. It travels straight to my eyes – sometimes I can cry, sometimes all I can do is stare blankly at the floor, feeling like I’ll explode from the grief. There is anger there, and I want to punch walls because of it. But it’s a lesser emotion. Sadness, grief, despair, hopelessness, heartache…. these are my emotions. And I’m not so good at coping with those emotions. They’re less reactive emotions, and more ruminative. I find it harder to pull myself out of these emotions… they paralyse me. It sometimes feels like someone is reaching into my chest and squeezing my heart and won’t let go – it feels like my heart stops beating, like it’s giving up… and I can’t breathe. I don’t even want to anymore. It’s in those moments I think ‘How am I ever going to carry on living with this pain, and you gone forever?’ That grasping of my heart, the despair of loss… it’s enough to make me not want to live anymore. In those moments I just want the world to end. If I can’t know you, and I can’t forget you, I can’t exist with the memory of you. It’s too much. It’s just too much.

 

Love & Loss: An Open Letter.

*Contains swearing, suicidal thoughts etc*

 

Dear Matthew,

All I wanted when I sought your advice, was to know how to let you go…. to know how to stop the pain. I just want it to stop. Why wouldn’t you help me…?

Nobody knows this burden I carry. Yes they now know about it, but it’s not spoken about anymore, and even if it was discussed, nobody can ever comprehend what I’m feeling. Can you understand it? What it’s like… to be wholly enamoured with someone… someone you know you can never have… to be heartbroken with this realisation…. but on top of that to never see or speak to them ever again…

I can’t do it Matt. I can’t do it. I thought I could. Look, I’ve already made it through three weeks without you. I survived Christmas. But it’s having to survive however many years I’m given to live. I know this makes no sense to you, to my friends and family, to anyone, but I cannot do this. I don’t understand why I feel how I do, but this is how I feel. And it’s unbearable.

I wish I never met you… just so I didn’t have to lose you. I don’t know how to recover from this loss. I don’t know how to stop ‘loving’ you. I don’t know how to stop wanting you, missing you and hurting for you.

I dreamt of you last night. It was a nice dream. But I awoke having thoughts of ending my life. I can’t see any other way to stop this bomb of emotions ticking away inside me. I need to scream into a valley and let the pain echo over the land. I need to cry and collapse in a puddle of tears. I need to be held and protected from myself.

I haven’t harmed since that night I lost you. But the scary thing is, I feel I’m beyond that now. Harming myself won’t stop the pain. The only thing that will stop this grief is to see you again. And that will never happen. So do you see the predicament I’m in? There is no other way out of this mess… this torture. And that’s why my mind turns to that dark place.

I’ve started having visions again, of me standing on the bridge. I call your number, just to hear your voice one more time, on the answerphone. But you answer instead. I tell you goodbye. And after that, I don’t know what happens. I don’t know if I jump or if I’m saved. But if I’m saved I want the pain to stop. I want to forget you.

Knowing you has scarred me forever. Not only physically but emotionally. You are my living ghost, haunting me day and night now… I can’t even escape you in my dreams. I just want to forget you. How do I forget you?

Why didn’t you help me? Why did you have to be so cold and distant? Forget the job, haven’t you a heart? I saw it in the penultimate week… when you spoke to me and seemed to understand more – why couldn’t you have shown me that compassion earlier? And why couldn’t you have allowed me closure? Don’t I deserve just one fucking ounce of closure, just once in my life?! You’ve added to the pile of crap I already had to live with. You’ve taught me all people, particularly men, are the same. And I am not worth a conversation. I know, I know… I’m too demanding. I don’t have rights to ask for these things in this situation… you have to do things ‘by the book’. Screw the book – I’m a human being, you’re a human being, couldn’t you just burn the book for a moment and treat me like a person in need of a little human understanding and warmth? I guess that really is too much to ask, of anyone… But do you see how being made to feel that way is adding to my shit sense of self-worth? This is what I mean about being failed by you lot…. I have come away worse off… thinking I’m a burden, a nuisance, an attention-seeker, demanding, needy, stupid, pathetic, immature, completely fucked up in the head and beyond help. I believe you and everyone else there are pleased I’m gone, and no longer an issue for you. I believe none of you gave a fig about me as a person. You all detested me.

And that fills me with such intense rage, I want to throw my computer out of the window, and punch the wall next to me, until I break my own hand, or there’s a hole in the wall – whichever comes first. I want to trash the whole room. I want to harm myself. It’s not your fault I was stuck with a shit therapist, who didn’t take any interest in my struggles, made me feel like an idiot for how I felt about you, and ditched me immediately after the course…. but the fact that happened makes me hate, not only her, but also you. Because you didn’t help me. You robbed me of that option, and made it so I would have to discuss the problem with my therapist at the end, and did she help me? NO. You dodged the issue yourself, made me think I would have support afterwards, and I didn’t. So it feels like you lied to me. You avoided helping me, you lied about the support I’d get. And now none of you have to care what the fuck happens to me. I could throw myself off a roof tomorrow and none of you would be any the wiser. And if you knew, you wouldn’t care!

Do you know how painful that fact is?! That you don’t even give half a shit about me, and I feel 100% emotionally invested in you! I know you can’t help how I feel about you. And my God I wish I didn’t feel it. If it was a physical part of me ‘loving’ you, I would cut it out this instant…. but this feeling for you permeates through every single cell in me. It exists in every bone, every muscle. It’s in my blood and the air I breathe. It’s in my heart and my mind – I can’t cut this out of me… no matter how many times I’ve tried. You’re a part of me now, and I can’t get rid of you. A part of me doesn’t want to be rid of you. I want you in my life, in some capacity. But then I just sound pathetic… for needing someone in my life so much, and feeling like I can’t live without them, and you probably don’t even remember my name by now. This fucking sucks.

I asked you weeks before I lost you, how to detach from you. You never gave me an answer. I wish you had. I needed to prepare for losing you. All you said was about remembering my values. How does that help me? What, remember the fact I’m a ‘good person’ and would never be ‘the other woman’ – this isn’t even the issue – it was never that kind of issue. It was never something I’d have to consult my values about. I know full well that I am a decent woman. I would never in a trillion years go after a married man. I knew this was hopeless and unrequited from the start, I made that clear. My values don’t even enter here. Remembering I’m a good woman doesn’t help me to not have feelings for you. It’s quite possible to have strong feelings for a married man and yet not act on them! I wanted to know how to let you go. And thinking ‘Well, he’s married’, wasn’t and isn’t enough to do that. This doesn’t change the fact that I know it’s one-sided and that you’re married and happy and about to have a child. I know that even in a perfect world where these things didn’t exist, you would never choose me. I know that. This isn’t about whether I can have you or not, and whether I’m a person who would cheat with someone or not….. this is about intense feelings of love, and immense grief and sadness that I’ve lost you, forever. It doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to make sense. I feel these strong feelings for you whether I can have you or not…. whether you’re in my life or not…. this is how I feel. And I can’t just stop feeling this way. I wish more than anything I could. If I could fall asleep, wake up in the morning and have no memory of ever meeting you, my life would be that much better… I’m sorry to say. You’re a lovely guy, but to have known you and lost you, is worse than to have never known you existed. I wish you and other people could understand this concept.

Meeting you has further ruined my life. Because I’m sat here in pain, trying to cope with essentially the ‘death’ of a man who I never had, and who never knew how I felt about him – yet he’s still living life happily, and blissfully unaware of the mess I’ve been left in.

I’ve been left with a whopping great gaping wound on my heart, that nobody can help mend but you. And since you’re gone from my life forever, I have to hope I don’t bleed to death before I find a way to heal it alone.

xxxx

Open Letter: Why Didn’t You Help Me?

*Bad language*

 

Dear *James,

Yet another night I’m sat in tears over you. I guess I should want to sleep, as that’s the only way I will ever see you again. I’m heartbroken that I didn’t even really get to say goodbye to you. I wasn’t mentally present. I don’t know if you wished us well, said goodbye or what. I didn’t even say thank you.

I wish so much that I could’ve been given the opportunity to sit down with you, once the course was finished, and just be allowed to talk about the elephant in the room…. to finally express how I felt, and perhaps find some level of healing. In a perfect world I would’ve been allowed that closure. I would’ve been able to say anything I needed to, and I would’ve had validation, that it’s okay to feel how I do, it’s a positive, and you might say that you hope I’ll find someone to share these feelings with… that I don’t need to be ashamed… and that there is hope… there are good men out there.

This could’ve been your opportunity to fix all the broken parts of me, all the fucked up beliefs I have… you could’ve played a huge part in my healing, but now it feels like you’re a part of the damage. I wasn’t given the space to express myself. I wasn’t given closure. I could’ve done with you checking that I’d be okay after the last session…. that I’d be safe… you had the knowledge that I felt unsafe about losing you… you knew that. So why didn’t you care what might happen to me when I walked out the door?

I know throughout the course you couldn’t help me, it wasn’t your job. That’s why I held onto it all, to speak to my therapist about it at the end. But she did fuck all to help me. I feel you’ve all abandoned me with it. This massive horrible, heart-wrenching experience and it’s like none of you want to know.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I came along and delivered a problem to your door – something none of you were prepared for. I’m sorry I’m that person. That one who fucks everything up. I’m sorry I ever said anything. I wish I hadn’t. This has only reaffirmed the belief that I just should not open my mouth ever. I should suffer in silence. None of you have made me feel it’s a good thing I opened up about it, so I can only assume it wasn’t.

You probably think I saw my therapist and she helped me and I’m okay now. You’re probably not concerned about how I am. But you lot failed me. And now I’ve been sent out into the world to cope with it on my own. You all washed your hands of me. You’re free. But I’m suffering, because of the way you handled this.

And to be honest, those feelings paired with the feelings I have for you, and the loss of you, are making me consider the bridge again. I’m so sick and so tired of feeling how I do tonight… and I feel it most days at the moment. I feel such an overpowering sense of love towards you, that I know isn’t ‘real’ but it fucking feels like it right now. I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of forever without you. I don’t want to do ‘forever’ if that’s the case. I just feel if I could’ve had one conversation with you afterwards, it might have cleared things in my head, and allowed me to move on. But just like with everyone else from my past, you didn’t allow me that closure. So now I’m stuck in a place of love, loss, and abandonment.

You know, here I am thinking about jumping off a bridge, and here you guys are leaving me with this huge problem to solve on my own – which effectively feels like you’re throwing me off the bridge, or at least giving me a push. Therapy is supposed to help you, and make you feel safe. I’m more of a danger to myself now than before therapy.

I just want you to know you could’ve done more to help me. I would’ve really appreciated it. You might’ve freed me from my past, but now I’m firmly rooted in it. Now my heart is violently ripped open and won’t stop bleeding, and I don’t know what to do. I just want the pain to stop. I want to not love you. I want to not miss you. I want to not lose you. But I do, I do, and I have. And nothing can change that. I just wish you had helped me when you had the chance.

xxxx

 

*Name changed

Open Letter To The Therapists.

 

*Names changed*

 

Dear James and Sarah,

As my attempt to communicate something to you failed, I choose to tell you in this way. These are the things I wanted to say, but had very little time to do so. Whenever I have written about, talked about, or even just thought about the words I’m about to say to you, I have broken down in tears. I feel so emotional about this, but being in the spotlight in the group, trying to convey how I felt in a short space of time, I couldn’t express the emotion properly. Unfortunately the written word does little to show emotional depth and pain, but I will do my best.

First of all I want to thank you both so much for the help and support you have given me in the last couple of months. My journey on this course has been incredibly tough, as you know. The difficulty I had in the third week was traumatic, and I wouldn’t have blame you if you’d given up on me there and then. So the fact you didn’t, and you gave me another chance to try again, means a lot. I know at times you both might question if you’re helping me… you might think I’m going downhill, and whilst yes, I am finding things a lot tougher right now, the things you tell us each week are slowly sinking in. You’re giving me other options… other ways of thinking. Even something as simple as mindfulness of my body and my breathing is making a difference to my life. I also accept now that my emotions are valid, and whilst they might not require action, they need to be acknowledged, accepted and respected… and allowed to just be, without judgement. I didn’t have this belief before. I don’t think I even had this belief when I did two courses of DBT. So thank you for giving me that help. And for continuing to believe in me after I felt I let myself and you both down.

The second part of what I wanted to say is how attached I have become to you. Sarah I obviously feel attached because of the practical help and treatment you gave me, and continued support. And James, you know I’m transferring on you. I’m not about to lie and say that this is ALL a past problem, it’s not. I am attracted to you, and like you as a person in your own right. This is a present problem as well as a past one. The present problem is being intensified by the links to my past.

When I think about this course ending I’m in tears, because I’m hurtling towards another loss that I don’t want. A goodbye I don’t want to say. I don’t want to lose you James. Whether it makes sense to anyone else; whether people think I’m mad for feeling that way for someone I’ve only known a few weeks, I don’t care. This is the reality of how I’m feeling. And I wish you could help me deal with that feeling. I don’t trust anyone else to do it. I don’t trust them enough to talk to them about this. I need you. I need your help.

This feels like it’s going to be another loss to add to the pile. I’ve had a lot of losses in my life, in the last few years. People I cared about, meant a lot to me, and those I didn’t want to lose from my life. They either hurt me before leaving, or they just vanished on me. Disappeared without a word. They never allowed me to have closure. They never gave me a conversation… a chance to say what I needed to say… and to hear what I needed to hear. When people left my life, I expressed my sadness to them – I told them what I needed to say, and those were the things I needed to hear back. But I never heard anything back. I’d either hear something really unhelpful and uncaring back, or radio silence. Both told me that I didn’t matter…. that my feelings didn’t matter…. that I was worthless and these people never cared about me.

The same will be true of you. I could spout out words until the cows come home, about how much I admire you, like you, care about you, worry about you, think about you, will miss you, will be utterly heartbroken to never see you again…. it’s irrelevant to you. I’m just a number. You will never say anything in response. You will never miss me. In fact you’ll likely be glad to see the back of me! As soon as I’m gone you’ll forget I ever existed. And that is just a mirror of my life. That’s why it hurts so much.

When I care about someone I care to the nth degree. When I fall, I fall hard. When I’m thankful for your existence in my life, I feel like you are a part of me, and the loss of you will rip that part of me out. I can’t help it. I don’t love by halves. I don’t care by thirds. I don’t value by quarters. I’m in 100% or not at all. And with you James I’m 100% attached. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m that messed up in the head and the heart that I feel something for you that I shouldn’t.

Any pain I feel is amplified too, by the level I care about you. If I even detect or perceive rejection from you, it’s like you’ve just kicked me in the heart and it stops beating. If I think about losing you forever, I don’t want to face forever. If I feel ignored by you, I’m a terrible person, nobody cares about me, and I shouldn’t be allowed to speak to people.

Even if you were not married and not a therapist, and even in the most unlikely situation that you even liked me back, there is STILL no way that you could ever feel for me, as strongly as I feel for you. That’s the loneliness of BPD. So to feel that way for you, and have all those obstacles, meaning you feel nothing for me…. it’s so lonely, and so desperate. I feel trapped. Helpless. Hopeless.

I guess my hope was that as a therapist you could help with the transference and GIVE me the closure that nobody ever has. Let me say what I need to. And if needs be just bloody fake saying what I need to hear, in order to heal from the past. But that won’t happen. I sense that. I sense I’m out of my depth… or you guys are with me.

I feel too complex for you. I feel like a burden and like you probably wish you’d never taken me on now. And since I’ve found myself in this tricky situation I kind of feel the same. As I don’t believe you are prepared to help me with this issue, it’s like I’ve come for help and been left with more problems… and I’ll be sent off into the world with it unresolved… feeling worse…. with nobody to help me.

The thought of losing you forever is too much to handle. The group thought I meant them, or the routine of coming to the group. But I meant you James… losing you is agony. It doesn’t have to make sense for it to be valid and true. I don’t cope well with ‘forever’ and ‘never again’. Just a few months ago I lost someone forever…. where it truly is forever. My first major loss. So now any sense of loss I feel is multiplied by that. I was ‘fortunate’ enough to know when the end was coming. He had been deteriorating for eight months before he died. And we knew when the end was near. So not even 48 hours before he passed away, I got the opportunity to sit beside him, stroking his head and telling him everything I needed to – like how proud I was of him, and how thankful I am to be his granddaughter…. that I’d be okay, and if he wanted to go to sleep he could… I told him how much I loved him, and I said goodbye……. But by that time he was unconscious. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t say anything back. All those years of his life when I could have told him I loved him, and heard him say it back, and I didn’t, because I struggle with those words… because I never hear anything back. I chose his deathbed to tell him. And he couldn’t say anything back to me. I don’t even know if he heard me. So although I got closure in the form of saying what I needed to, I have still never had closure in the form of hearing from the people I’m losing. I’ve never had that. I need that. And I wish so much that you could help me get that. Just once in my life.

But I’m now in the mindset, where I think I’ll just shut up for the rest of the course. Get through it, knowing I’m not understood and can’t be helped. I’ll face the crisis at the end, and after that I’ll do whatever I have to do… you won’t care what happens to me anyway. I don’t matter to you like you do to me.

This burden is too hard to bear on my own. But it seems that’s the way it’s got to be. I wish I’d never got into this mess. As much as I appreciate your support, I know it’s not enough for someone like me. I’m scared all it’s doing is waking up my demons, before throwing me out there again to cope with them on my own. That’s more dangerous than leaving them sleeping. I don’t feel safe right now. I don’t feel supported. And I don’t know what to do.

xxxx