It’s the first time I’ve left the house since Friday night, so I’m seeing the after-effects of Snowzilla 2016 for the first time. The snow is still very, very deep, and we’re having trouble finding places to put it…. although it is supposed to warm up to 40 today, so hopefully we’ll get some meltage up in this bitch.
And at the same time, I can’t stop thinking about the last entry that I wrote, and a quote from Louis C.K., “when you hurt someone, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.” I said that things had been blown out of proportion when I was hospitalized, and I will never take that back. What I will apologize for is both Dana and Argo being out of their minds with worry at what I might do. They didn’t know what was going on inside my head, and to me, a few shitty e-mails did not a stalker make. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have the right to think that about me, they were just wrong. But that’s because they couldn’t and wouldn’t get into my head and ask me those questions. They just made assumptions that didn’t line up and talked to each other rather than reaching out to me personally. But I take nothing away from their pain.
I didn’t think it was stalking so much as that Argo’s e-mails to me were every bit as shitty as the ones I sent her, just in a completely different way. I was in that unlovable space where I just wanted to push everyone away, and I did it, masterfully so, in fact. But that didn’t mean that there was anymore there there, you know? It was a coping mechanism, and a completely wrong-headed one at that, but I didn’t know what else to do because healthy coping mechanisms were beyond me at the time. I have progressed mightily, and will continue to do so. I just need to find a new therapist and a new psychiatrist, because while Vesta takes Medicaid, they do not take BCBS-MD.
I am sure that I created nightmares in both of the women I loved, and there is nothing I can say that will erase my own pain at that fact. Nothing that I can do for myself that will make me forget that time in my life. Nothing that will make me forget how much I loved them, how much I would have done anything for them, and how betrayed I felt when they thought of me as someone who needed to be handled instead of a person with real feelings.
I understand their pain, probably more than they’ll ever admit, but that being said, I don’t agree with their assessment. Moving to Silver Spring is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself, getting away from every negative behavior and thought process that hounded me with both of them. It is a shame that Argo and I could not have made up before I moved, so that getting to live in NoVA wasn’t a thing. But it worked out for the best, because Maryland had so many more mental health resources that I was able to tap into immediately.
But, if anything, the feeling that I needed to be worked against instead of with made me feel even worse, and if that was their idea of friendship, they could keep it. In the months since, I have received the blessing of Argo’s peace… but I doubt we’ll ever be seen strolling down the streets of DC, arm-in-arm and giggling at stupid people we find along our way.
It’s a good thing I didn’t move here for that, because I had no illusions. Just hope. Hope is a funny thing in that you hold onto it not to drive yourself crazy and when you reach a modicum of sanity, it’s ok to let go. It’s ok to realize that hope can die for better or for worse. In my case, I am going with better, because new relationships are releasing me from the person I used to be, the one that I cannot wait to discard.
I am regenerating, without a new face… just a commitment to walk humbly, and hope that new relationships are the driving force in my life to make me better than I was, called to a higher purpose than just someone who needs to be handled. I won’t get better all at once, but I will get better. It takes time to work out the amount of shit that’s been thrown at me pretty much all my life. There are only 11 years of my life where I wasn’t constantly being emotionally abused/groomed, and those patterns resurfaced every time Diane and I were in the same room, but if you think she wanted to talk about it, you are wrong about that. I cannot help but think what might have happened had we really opened up to each other, but at the same time, things worked out the way they were supposed to.
All I can say now is that I love you, Dana. I love you, Argo. I am sorry.
Snover and out.
Stories That Are All True 