Fiat.

Every night for the past few months, I’ve been ‘praying’ to the Power That Is that anything that anything that I have been holding onto that will not serve me in my sleep or in my tomorrow, may it be released.

I’ve had dreams of all my exes.

My first ‘love’, whom I never dated but was my best friend for three and a half years, showed up in my dream the other night. I haven’t spoken to him in well over a year or so. Even then, it’s been a three-message exchange for many years, especially after his marriage.

I can’t remember anymore what that dream was, how we approached each other. But that evening, he messaged me. I know that my energy is so tired in with others; I can often feel when they are considering me without my permissions.

Ten days later, he showed up again, last night. He really wanted to speak with me, and I didn’t care to. I kept doing what I needed to do, but he was insisting. So he followed me, walked and talked.

He still couldn’t be completely straight forward about what happened between us, just like when I was 18 and he came back and apologized for leaving me in the dark. But his mom approached me in the dream scolding me, saying I wasn’t good enough for her son.

He had never introduced me to his parents. I even spent time in his home, wrestling with him on his living room floor while they were away. I hadn’t remembered that maybe his mom just wanted him to be with someone of his own culture. Maybe he never told me but I had figured.

But with the nickname he gave me upon first meeting, it made sense.

I could see the guilt and sadness on his face when his mom told me this in the realm. I still walked away, him following after me. I had the upper hand.

I stopped and asked him what. I urged him to just say it, but he couldn’t, still. I asked him if he wanted to be with me back then. I was looking for a straight answer, a yes or no.

But he looked me straight in the face instead with dilated pupils. “What do you think,” he said. The answer was clear.

I said something snarky before walking off. But he stopped me one more time.

“Just wait for me in the next life. Okay?” He seemed to plead.

I felt soft for him. We were both young, and he wasn’t even ready to handle my depression, or to let go of his family expectations.

After 15 years, it all became so clear… I agreed to the terms.

This time he didn’t follow behind and let me go.

I just don’t know if that’s what I really want. I have the opportunity to quiet down and live a more settled life with S, and it sounds so peaceful. Isn’t that what I want? But why do I keep being pulled in the other direction, my whole life?

I don’t know how to help. And he doesn’t know how to help me. We’re feeding this in each other. And he’s trying really hard to be strong for me, but it’s really getting to him when things aren’t changing overnight. Maybe we’re too similar in this.

I’m trying to be strong for him, but I need him to be strong for me in this, too.

After I said I was the problem, he said, “No, it’s your brain that’s the problem.”

I told him thank you for saying that. Because then it’s us vs the problem, rather than me vs him.

He sighed big and fell silent, though…

I got very anxious when he talked about visiting again, and the possibility of me visiting there. I just shot everything down, and he felt defeated. I asked if we could hang up the call and talk later…

I realized that of her visits again, or I over there, in my mind it would be making a serious commitment with him, although it doesn’t have to mean that. But we don’t have money like that, and traveling is incredibly difficult for us. So to do all that and me not be sure, is hard.

But then how can I be sure if I don’t sees him again?

After about an hour, we spoke again. He said his heart and chest were heavy…

I told him why I got anxious. Even some parts of this conversation I started twitching and dissociating..

I told him that my PTSD started with a flight. With traveling to the airport. That flying meant commitment. And I’m not ready for marriage or to be committed in that way with the way my life is right now. If he was also more stable in his life, maybe. But it’s just hard to see that with the state of our lives right now, particularly mind when I feel like I’m not putting in enough work to make things work for us.

He said he needed to stop dealing like a child, and “distance himself” from saying super lovey things all the time if it freaks me out. Because he feels he’s making me worse. If that’s true, I can’t see that yet.

He said that I have other things to worry about in life over him. I gut reacted, “You are my life, S. I don’t have any life outside of you. I would give up nearly everything for you, including [my passion], and that’s saying a lot... Nothing else matters to me like you.”

We both felt inadequate; that we both can’t be enough for each other. That I won’t be healed enough for him, and he can’t be “man enough” to heal me.

He said he would be “the alpha male I’ve been looking for.” I asked him what does that mean. I told him he doesn’t even know what that means. What objective things would make you that… He couldn’t answer. He just said he can’t be as feminine, “like the man I fell in love with.”

“You would be a fake version of yourself for someone else to love you,” I questioned back with bite. “What would that even look like? Would that really be worth it?”

He paused. “If it keeps me from losing you.”

“That’s unhealthy,” I said. “And if you end up becoming a completely different person because of what you think I’d like, then I’ve lost you.”

I kept telling him I didn’t want to lose him. And it hurt me every time he said that we could remain friends, regardless.

I really try to avoid saying any breakup things in my discernment. But when he starts to mention it, it really hurts.

He said if he can’t help me, then he feels no point. I told him if I can’t help myself, I set no point.

I asked him if I should go back to therapy. “You already know more than them so what’s the point,” he said.

But something just clicked tonight. I told him that I know that when he’s around, life is actually so much easier. And that my thoughts fade away. And that that’s soo foreign to me, that of I really want that life, I would have to kill my current/old self. And I’m not sure if I’m completely ready for that.

I told him that I have to see him again. That somehow we need to make it happen. That I’m going to start trying to let him help when I understand, and openly accept his fiscal gifts even when it normally triggers me. And that I’ve got to start trying harder, doing more somehow.

I can’t stop thinking about what he said… He said it with a serious tone, afraid to say it but uttering the words anyway.

“You’re my soulmate.”

He had just told me how angry he was with himself; that when I suffer, he took it as his fault. “If only I had gotten further ahead in life or had enough money, you wouldn’t be experiencing this.”

I had a call with my dad where he was listening in to keep me comfort. My dad didn’t know, but he said that S should be paying for everything. I told S that in an ideal world that would be nice, but it’s also very privileged. And we’re just don’t have it like that.

“But I’m the man, I’m supposed to,” He said with a dark, self-hating tone.

I told him my father never even took care of his wives, so he has no say on anything… I hated how my dad had the power to get to S, too.

“It’s not your fault I’m going through this” I said gently. “But if you want to take it as your responsibility, and then you want to be upset about that, then that’s on you.” He said he’d accept that much.

I told him that it’s hard for me to accept his help because I feel it takes away from himself. I tell him he needs to be his priority, he says I’m his priority. I say if he is better I am better, he says vice versa, too.

Many of the things he says are so beautiful, as if they’re scripted by myself. Many of the things he says I always desire to write down. But the words always lose me somehow. Even had I rejected all of them, the internet would run out of paper to write them all down.

They make me cry. They make me speechless. And today, it made me change my mind. I want to let him support me.

“I will do whatever it takes to spend the rest of my life with you,” he says through nearly gritted teeth. I believe him.

I had to ask him four times for him to tell me what he was thinking, why he was so angry when I had hopped off the phone with him earlier from being overstimulated. I’m glad I could read him and he felt safe enough to talk, or this whole conversation, with tears from both of us, wouldn’t have happened.

“I just feel I keep falling short and I’m never good enough for you.”

I apologized for giving him that. That was never his to take from he. And he wanted to take those things from me. But I just really hope it doesn’t destroy him like it has me.

I told him that’s how I feel, because I can’t even meet my basic needs. “I can’t even meet the bare minimum,” I said. “I feel it’s my fault [too]. We could be so much further along in actually moving forward, rather than trying to meet the bare minimum.”

“Let me fill in what is lacking [with you],” he said gently and strongly. I fell silent.

“I just don’t want you to have to sacrifice yourself..”

“Not being able to have you would be my only sacrifice in life,” he replied.

He later said he just wants to be more. I asked him what “more” looked like to him. “I just want to be the best man I can be for you. The most loving boyfriend, the best husband,

“Whatever you need me to be.”

I don’t take hood words lightly, especially the soulmate comment.

“How do you know,” I asked. “I can’t explain it,” he said. “I was just instantly constable with you. It felt so natural. But it’s like, I’ve always known you…” It sounded true to the stories you hear about. I love him, but don’t I feel as deeply yet? Will I ever with the depth he does? Or maybe do I not see it because he don’t have many lows, and that’s how I’ve always determined love?

That not because he was leaving but that somebody was leaving, again.

I don’t know if I’m loving him the way he deserves. Or if I am even capable of it.

My heart isn’t opening up enough. And so much of my past is probably getting in the way.

In that short pause, he interrupted in a strong, masculine, dominating voice.

“Hey. It’s time for me to take care of you now…. Okay?”

I froze a bit. Buried my head into my lap and looked at him with puppy eyes. I didn’t know what to say. I hesitate to get him to help me so much, but it sounded like he gave me no other option.

He responded to my long silence. “Okay, I’m taking care of you now. Good girl.”

And as J walks out after wanting to reconnect, and S makes it back home, I feel this sense of abandonment again. And I’m trying to manage it on my own. But it’s really hard.

I miss S a lot. I’m so unmotivated, so much without energy, no desire to eat if he’s not here eating with me.

I still can’t ask him to move here. I just wish he were already here. I can’t ask him to pick up his life and change things if I’m still not certain about him.

Landing is at 2:05pm. He’s gone through so much, from a complete mental breakdown to the anxieties of traveling and the airport…

He must really care a lot about me.

We’ve gone through so much to get here…

We were voice memoing when I was at the hotel. At one point he sighed and said, “I love you, A.” It was the most real and earnest I had ever heard him say it…

I’m still so hurt by everything that happened.

He had called me before 8am. It was the first time I had heard from him in nearly 5 days.

“What are you running from?” When I got no response I asked again. “What are you running from?” Still silence.

“S, there is a lot I’m learning that you haven’t told me. There is clearly a lot buried that is coming out right now. You are not telling me a lot. It’s time to start talking.

“S… what are you running from.”

“You.”

I asked him what he was afraid of. “I’m afraid of how I’m going to feel.”

“Getting to the flight? On the flight? When you’re here—“

“When I’m with you.”

“What do you think is going to happen?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to love you…”

I sighed greatly at this. He had told me he loved me countless times, but this was different.

“I’m afraid the same thing is going to happen again,” he said.

He had really only spoken of one other that he still hasn’t uttered the name of. “Do you think I’m going to abuse you?”

“No…”

I pieced more together, things I had already figured. “Were you in a romantic relationship with them?” He fell silent.

“S, you had always told me they were just a friend. Were they a romantic relationship?”

A long pause before, “Yes.”

“You know I already figured that this was why you’re in this state right?” He said yes. I figured the flight could have been bringing up feelings and memories of them again, like my PTSD of the sorts with highways. That was the last partner he took a flight with. Shortly before I got to speak to him in his drunkenness, I learned that this would also be his first flight alone.

“You know that that would have been important for me to know before you booked that flight, right? And now it makes things a bit more complicated.”

“Yes,” he continued in single words in shame.

I told him that he is destroying himself, and destroying me in this state. I made it clear that he did not need to come if he was going to be like this.

“What do you want to do,” I asked firmly.

A short pause, but a strong, “I want to go.”

I told him that this flight would bring up many more emotions. That they will not stop.

“If you make that choice, you will have to face these things. Life will be calling you to face them. You can’t run from them. Are you ready for that?”

Silence.

“Are you ready?” More silence. But concerning silence.

“S?..”

He had dropped the phone. I heard him stemming across the room, into an animalistic state, sounding like s*lf harm. I called out to him, in a stern voice, in an adoring voice, any way I could. My heart started beating heavy and my chest got a hot flash saying, trust your instinct. I immediately messaged his family in emergency.

I asked him if he was SH, and he said yes. I told him to place it across the room, for me. I don’t know if he had, but by the time his sibling walked in, he had gone outside for a smoke. He had just spent months quitting the habit out of free will, for me.

Sibling picked up the phone, and I felt like I was on the receiving end of a crisis hotline, trying to talk sibling down so that they could take away the alcohol (I later learned) and pills so that he was safe.

“See,” the younger sibling said. “This is why I thought the flight may not be a good idea—“

“I understand you. Yes, we will definitely have to talk about the flight. But right now we need to make sure he’s safe. You’ve doing a great job and I’m proud of you for doing this.”

His mom and I spoke on the phone for two hours after she had arrived there and left. She shared stories with me that he hasn’t told me. She grieved not being able to do more as a mother and seeing how hard it is to see her son suffer. She got emotional, and I just felt like an old soul speaking to another mother, as if I had already been one in a past life.

She told me that he urged her not to call me. I affirmed her that he brought it upon himself, that there would be no need to call me if he didn’t put himself in this situation.

She told me that he was getting on him about contacting me, to “not put that poor girl through that.” I also affirmed her that she was right and that I was being destroyed inside by all of this.

The stories she told me were heavy. He has never told me so many of those things. And it reminded me of all the times in the beginning when I basically played a one sided 21 questions with him because I felt he wouldn’t talk about himself enough, and it was like I didn’t know him at all but he had just fallen head over heels for me somehow.

But after all this, and everything I’ve learned, it is proof that I know even less than I thought about him.

I try to grant some grace with the autism. But this whole situation reminded me of R, and when I had to save him.

I also had his family try to send S to the hospital, per recommendation of my mental health care coordinator. They called emergency services to check him out and he refused to go.

Fortunately they were able to find more liquor in his room that sibling hadn’t found, all poured out. Supposedly he four bottles of rum over the past 4-5 days. Mom confiscated his phone and wallet so he couldn’t have any more delivered.

All this I learned from mom.

Today he said his voice was out, but kept using his dying electronics as an excuse, as of you can’t charge and talk at the same time, and it has never been a problem before. I told him that they were all excuses, that he was still running. He said it wasn’t intentional, and he’s trying to “start talking”.

He said that he already feels bad for feeling like he loses everything good in his life. This broke my heart, which now as I write I guess is his perception of his abuser when he was young. Maybe he wanted to stay with them. I don’t even know how they got reported. I have so many questions.

I will ask them all and see where he decides to come clean, and where I have to force him not to omit any information from me.

Under normal circumstances, I would leave. And I realized that in my last relationships I knew 6 months in Joe things would end up. And now I really don’t think this would last long term. But I don’t want to leave yet. This is the second instance of this, even though the first time we weren’t serious. But I’ve started to wonder if the first time was because of me too.

I just don’t know if this is actually redeemable. It sent me to such a dark place. I reverted back three years when I was in great trauma, having panic attacks and jittering just trying to get to sleep. Everything around me feeling so dark and dull and worthless.

I refuse to let him set me back with all the hard work I’ve done over the years. I will sorrowfully let him go if I must. I would hate it, but I would have to.

Can he go to therapy for this, and am I willing to wait years for him to work on this, plus accept the risk that at any moment in our marriage when shit hits the fam, he was drink himself to his grave while I’ll be left alone and live just as my mother did with my father, again?

He’s afraid that “it’ll end up like last time.” I’ve always told him about joes he manifest things upon himself.