#cantgiveup

I don’t sleep anymore. It’s gotten so bad I can’t even remember the last time I had sleep. But I guess sleep isn’t high on your list of priorities when you’re fighting a whole lifetime full of disappointment, depression, finding out who you are, trying to be a mom, and dealing with the exact moment your entire world comes crashing down right in front of you.

And without going into detail let me just get to my original question.

Is it just me?

I’ve been in plenty of relationships that ended and I was able to bounce back and get to a point where I was okay.

But I’ve only ever had 3 relationships that ever stuck with me in such a way that strongly affected my life. And that’s because I let it.

Somewhere along the way I lost control of who I am as a person. One day I woke up and I felt like I was more than one person. Which led to me waking up one day and not recognizing the person looking at me in the mirror. As a result I avoided anything that allowed me to look at myself.

As things got worse and the voices got more frequent I started feeling like there were times when I would be aware of what was happening around me but I felt like I was watching myself do it. Like I was outside of my body and one of the voices inside of me was taking over.

The worst part about struggling with mental health is that you never know what it will do to you and your relationships. But as humans it’s a risk we take because we can’t bare to live life alone when we hold out so much hope that someone out in the world was made for us.

And if you’re lucky. I mean if you’re really lucky, life will allow your paths to cross and you’ll finally get a chance to be with the person you’re meant to be with.

That happened for me. I’ll never forget what it felt like. Just one look at her picture and I was hooked. Something inside of me felt different and I decided to take a chance. Fuck was it the best risk I’ve ever taken in life. Every time I found out something new about her I fell in love with her even more and it turned me on physically and emotionally. I’m talking, she could text me that she was going to take out the trash and my whole body would melt and I would just feel this urge to push her into the wall and rip off her clothes.

It didn’t take me long to realize that her entire existence turned me on and for the first time in my life I was so happy and so grateful I actually asked her mom how she made such a perfect human being.

I started praying to god, thanking him for my greatest blessing, asking him for positive vibes and to steer me in the right direction so I could find the building blocks we needed for a strong and healthy relationship.

And I actually succeeded. So much so that we got married. Anybody that knows me would tell you that they couldn’t see anyone wanting to marry me.

I’m not entirely a good person and I don’t pretend to be anymore. But I do intend to do something about it.

This part of my life is called rock bottom.

At the beginning of the year I chose to leave my wife. And not the way that you’re thinking so bare with me. Throughout most of our marriage I made a LOT of mistakes. I lied to her. I manipulated her. I tried to play victim most of the time instead of taking responsibility and apologizing. I made her feel like she wasn’t good enough. Like she wasn’t worthy. I became the reason she would cry herself to sleep at night. The reason she was always shocked to see me sitting on the couch when she came home because we had both lost count of the times fighting led me to picking up and leaving when she wasn’t there.

I wasn’t a good wife. I wasn’t the person she fell in love with. And I’m not going to justify my actions by using my mental health as a crutch but I will say that when your head and your heart are fighting two different fights all while the voices in your head can never agree on anything it makes it a lot harder to have full control over all of it.

I can’t help what I suffer from but I can help how I handle it. How I let it affect me and my life. The truth is that one day I woke up and I looked into my wife’s big beautiful brown eyes and I could instantly feel a knife in my chest. Why? Because I could see the hurt she was holding in. I could see how broken down she was. How much hope she had lost. And not only that but I could feel it.

She was and still is my person, my best friend and the love of my life. She’s the calm in the storm and she makes life exciting, something worth living for. She’s a beautiful adventure. I knew that I was losing her. I knew that I was destroying her, that I was taking all of the best parts of her and chewing them up and spitting them out. And I knew if I didn’t do something about it that I would wake up and there would be nothing left.

I had to save our marriage. So I left. And most people will tell me that leaving isn’t how you save your marriage but I knew I couldn’t fix myself if I didn’t face the demons that got me to where I was.

The only way I was going to suck out all of the poison and get control of my life was to go back to my moms and face it all head on.

It’s been the worst, most challenging, heartbreaking road of my life. They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone but that’s not true for me because I’ve always known from day one what I have when I have her. And the answer is everything. With her I have the whole world. Even when I don’t deserve it she treats me like a queen. Even when she has a million things she’s trying to deal with she pushes everything to the side to focus on me.

When I think about perfection, blessings, happiness, destiny and soulmates I think about her. God couldn’t have created a more perfect human being. And I couldn’t believe that he made her for me.

But I let that go. And now I might have lost it forever.

People are wrong you know. We seem to have this stipulation that whoever does the leaving doesn’t suffer any pain but that’s simply not true. Making the decision to leave, to seriously work on my mental health, get put on my medications and be away from my wife at the same time wasn’t easy for me. It BROKE me, KILLED me watching her fade away in the rear view mirror.

I remember being in school and during recess we would play tug of war. Two groups of people standing on either side of the rope and each side pulls as hard as they can until one side falls down. That’s what it feels like is happening between my heart and my head and I’m pulling the rope towards my heart as hard as I can but I know I can’t do it alone. And I pushed my wife away.

I left to get better and she waited for me and I pushed her away. Because I’m a coward. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to win her back.

Ever since we’ve been apart there are certain places I can’t go, certain songs I can’t listen to. Just things that feel wrong without her. Is it just me?

I don’t go to Taco Bell because that’s her favorite place in the whole world and going there would feel wrong. I can’t listen to body like a backroad, love like crazy, don’t, literally ANYTHING 21 pilots.

Is it just me or do certain things just feel wrong even after somebody is gone? Is it just me or do simple things like laughing and smiling seem wrong because you don’t want to be laughing and smiling without your person?

Is it just me or do those of us who are lost inside of our minds overcome the demons? And if you can overcome the demons, if you can learn how to finally get control of your body so you never get that bad again, do you find your way back to your person? Or does it end up being too late?

I know I need to get better for myself and for Ben but this all started because I wanted so desperately to get better for her as well. To come home and rebuild our marriage and be stronger than we’ve ever been before. So does it all work out?

Or are you left with the cold hard reality that your world, your person has moved on?

And that’s one of the hardest pills to swallow. I’m on the road to change. I’m on the road to bettering myself and I won’t stop driving until I’ve reached my final destination.. her.

And the hardest pill to swallow is knowing that I could get to the end of the road and be left with nothing and if that happens I will be faced with how well I handle that. And I’m scared. Because without her it’s all for nothing.

I love my wife and I’m so deeply in love with her that I will do anything, ANYTHING, to get her back. To make her see that she’s a priority not a choice. That she’s priority over everyone and everything. To make her feel like she’s looking at the woman she fell in love with.

I have loved her for so long and so deeply that I’m completely obsessed with her. And people can say what they want but I will ALWAYS hold out hope that the universe will bring us back together again.

And that’s the thing. Even if she moves on. Even if she finds someone better than me, I’ll wait for her. I’ll always wait for her. Because she’s worth the wait. She’s worth the fight and she’s worth the risk.