Sliding Doors Moments

I know it is counter productive to think this way, but have you ever had a sliding door moment like that lame movie. Where you came to a crossroads and you knew even then but with hindsight even more now that you had a choice and life would have turned out 2 very different directions.

In January 2011, I had one of these moments. A moment where I almost walked out the door, but something pulled me back. As counter productive as this is, as I can’t change the past, sometimes when I think of this fateful day I can’t help but think, if only you walked away.Where I am at in life would be completely different had a walked away then. The stupid thing now is, that nothing changed in my relationship from when I almost walked away from it to when it ended in November. The only thing that changed was that I realised that I would have to accept that this wouldn’t change, so in a sense I settled for a fault in a relationship. A rather large flaw, or rather a flaw that was made larger and larger over time.

I know now I just have to walk away and realise that I learnt my lesson even if it was possibly the most painful lesson that I have had to learn in life. Maybe that was the way I needed to learn it, maybe it was the only way I would learn it.

This relationship caused me to have a mental breakdown. Am I mad about this or at him? No I’m not. Because I should have walked away and I didn’t. Walking away would have been hard, but turns out not walking away was much harder.

I’m not crazy, or even remotely unwell.

Ok, I am just going to issue a quick warning to start with. This post is overly personal, so if personal stories make you uncomfortable then do not read. Personal as in emotional, not sexual lol.

Recently I came back from overseas, heartbroken, depressed and convinced that there was something wrong with me. At the very least I was mentally ill and at the most, I had to be committed to a psych ward. I came home and went to the doctors straight away. My ex had convinced me that there was something wrong with me and then eventually I had convinced myself. I was crazy.

I was overseas living a life I didn’t really want, with a man I really did for some reason want. I was living his life that he dreamed up and not the one I thought we dreamed up together. The further along it got the more about him it got. I was struggling. But at the same time I was convinced that my not coping was my fault, so I gave more of myself up, got worse and allowed myself to be told there was something wrong with me.

I got bad. I am not taking anything away from my ex in saying this because it must have been hard for him too. But I got bad. Really bad. I was having anxiety attacks, getting physically ill in every way possible, shaking and just really not in a good place. Eventually after a day of already having an anxiety attack, I was pushed even further. I will admit I drank because I was in so much pain. Then I had a break down. I mean a full on breakdown. I blacked out and don’t really remember any of it and it still freaks the shit out of me. I woke up, scared and hiding under a car, all wet with no clue what happened. I know now that what happened was that my body couldn’t take how much physical and emotional pain I was in and then in combination with a depressive drug, just could not handle it anymore. I can honestly say that nothing in life has ever gotten me like that before and I will never allow it to again. It’s scary what can happen to your body when you don’t take care of yourself.

After this, my self-confidence was even more shattered, and my ex kept convincing me that something was wrong. I went and saw a doctor overseas who told me it was stress. Whilst my ex tried really hard to not have me be in stressful situations and do things like make me sleep more and eased the basic everyday life things (which I appreciate) my stress was mostly emotional. I needed to know that things could be about me sometimes and that what I wanted mattered to him. It didn’t. Eventually he forced me to go home. I am grateful for that. I am loving being home. At first I wanted him back, but now I can see how dangerous it is to love someone who just loves themselves. I am angry and unbelievably hurt, but I am doing pretty good considering.

Since coming back, I have spent so long defending my ex and not enough time listening to the family,friends,doctors and psychologist who have told me that I was in an unhealthy relationship and that it was completely normal not to be able to put up with what I was coping with. I have really started to realise that it’s not my fault I couldn’t cope with the impossible and that my mistake was placing too much importance on my relationship and not enough importance of myself when I was being damaged. My self-confidence is back. Everything is uphill from here.

Oh that feels so good to finally get off my chest. Like it can’t hurt me anymore.