What Happened

I think what happened to me is that my very emotions themselves died, my empathy itself. I had so much emotional pain from the war zone that was my marriage, I just didn’t know how to handle it, how to cope. So I did the only thing I could, I went into hiding.

In hiding, I still couldn’t handle the emotional pain. The very thought of dealing with my scary, dark, ominous, and all encompassing, emotional strife seemed like suicide, in and of itself (my emotional pain WAS my identity). So I kept it bottled… tighter, and tighter, as in vain I desperately sought to distract myself from the turmoil within, by seeking emotional releases from the exterior world. This inevitably proved my downfall. A human CANNOT, under any circumstance, afford to neglect their emotional well-being.

I believe a human has many different components that make up their existence. I believe that these components are all tied together and have relationships with each other (a society of yourself). They positively and negatively impact each other in many expected as well as unexpected ways. So if one component is suffering, the others try to make up for it the best they can. Therefore if one component is suffering CONSTANTLY, the entire system becomes overworked CONSTANTLY.

(Looking back on this, I am honestly amazed at how far along I went in isolation before completely breaking down).

If one part of you already feels dead (my emotional core, my empathy), then feeling as if the rest of yourself is “also not wanting to be around” isn’t too far around the corner. It’s a stone’s throw really. Too much isolation is extremely dangerous for the human who is already off balance.

“The reality is I just needed someone to talk to about how much I felt like my marriage had harmed me”, and in this society I felt like I wasn’t “supposed” to show my pain, not even to myself. So I kept swallowing it every day. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t “really” feeling emotionally hurt by the events surrounding my marriage, but rather, I resorted to the barren and cold comfort of logic to help suss the situation out. Listing to myself, reason after reason as to why a ‘woman like her’ shouldn’t have even been a part of my personal “American Dream” in the first place.

My harsh reality that I have to live with every day is that I failed the woman I was in love with, and I failed miserably. I failed her before it even began. I failed her because I had doubt in myself, a secret fear. A fear that I never thought I would ever even whisper to anyone:

“I feared that I was not good enough for her.”

And I believe that this fear was the reason for any of the poison that I contributed to our failed relationship. For this, I am so sorry. For this is my terrible secret, “I let the repetitive story of our “system” lead me to truly believe, within my heart of hearts, that I was not good enough for the Muse of my Life. My Love, My Heart, My Aphrodite, My Inspiration.

It’s only now that I have lost everything, and I no longer have anything of myself left to lose that I can finally safely say I am…

officially…

a… stone… cold…

IDIOT!

Call me a true fool or not, because I now unquestionably believe she truly did love me just as fiercely as I loved her and we were meant for eachother goddammit! At least at that moment in time in our lives, it sure felt like we were meant for each other. I can still feel it, and I do know that it will never go away. I love her still, and that fire burns brighter than ever. This I can now tell anyone and everyone while retaining an absolutely clear heart and conscious, “I Love you still to this day, through and through, for now, forever and for always.”

(Hmm, after that ode I may actually have to name a constellation after her! She’s just that impressive!).

Unrequited love aside, the point is “I” let the stories of our people, our very machine, our “system” get so ingrained into my head that “I” no longer “believed” it possible for an above average looking man, to be with a woman who is, from just looks alone, a solid 10. (I think she’s at least a 10,000 million btw.)

Oh and if you’re wondering, it doesn’t stop about her there. You got the memo from #MeToo right? World’s changed. University degrees you might ask? She’s got 2. Why? Because she’s curious about the world and believes in herself, that’s why. Also you should check out the ratings on her “animal loving empathy meter”. The actual creators of the basic empathy metric used *her for the theoretical empathy maximums. She is a modern day role model for women around the world. She is truly doing it all.

And I, for some ‘strange reason’, didn’t believe I was worthy of this woman. Tsk, Tsk… Well who the hell could be?!? Do you blame me?…

It’s not too hard to see that, “If you already believe you’re going to fail at something, you more likely will.” So then Mr. Holmes, is this a case of me actually aiming a little too high? I don’t know. I wonder what “she” thinks.

But therin lies the problem.. Why am “I” thinking her thoughts for her in the first place? For that matter, why is the “system” thinking her thoughts for her? Hey… What about, why do “I” “believe” that the “system” is influencing her actual decision path? Why are “YOU” thinking for her right now? STOP! Please stop. It’s hurting us all and we have no idea how much damage we’ve already done.

Who has time to listen to what anyone else thinks “for” this amazing human being? Why should anyone’s thoughts dictate her patterns, her decisions, her life? Those are for her and her alone to determine. And let me remind you that we have already determined that she’s quite capable of making all of her decisions on her own. Hopefully you didn’t already forget. #MeToo.

So, for myself, that’s “my” reality of my failed marriage. I let a small nuisance of a worry get to me. And that worry’s “emotional genesis” came from the society I am born of. There are many other factors to consider, for sure, while accounting the different possibilities as to why things fell the way they fell. But what is important for me to share right now, is that little, personal, private secret of mine. My own feelings of my fear of self worth. Fearing that society would find us and get to us, my hidden Xanadu, and reject a girl like her, from a guy like me.

Now that’s all many years behind me and I am sullen to report, that I have fallen face first, straight into the dirt. I am a recovering alcoholic who has attempted and failed suicide, and is currently going through self administered outpatient rehab in my parents basement for depression and social anxiety, amongst a slew of other, not worth noting, mental health quirks.

In not so many words, a failure. Or rather… I should rephrase that to say, our “system” would really prefer it to have you call me failure. To call me fool. “The fool who believed he was wily enough to snare the genie in a bottle.”

Well I am a fool. I am a fool for letting a little self doubt turn my life completely upside down. And I am an even bigger fool for ever letting this “system” of ours convince me, to truly convince me, that a genie even wants a bottle.

I learned that instead, I should just ask the genie what they want from life, and do my damned best to not get in their way, trying to help where possible. I have also learned that the dreams of myself and others do not have to match what’s shown on the silver screen, or even your individual screens. In fact, here’s another secret for you, the best dreams never even make it to any screen. Those dreams are on a permanent reserved list from the public, they’re reserved for the dreamers <wink>.

That about covers my relevant experience on the matter at hand, and with all of this in mind I do have some advice: “It does absolutely no good ever, for anyone, EVER, to pretend like a problem doesn’t exist when it clearly does.” It’s these, the “Unresolved Paradoxes” of your life that will catch up with you eventually.

“Ignore your personal problems at the risk of your personal mental health.” I have officially learned the hard way that the “nature of personal problems”, is such that; simply, they need to be solved. Which means that, unfortunately they cannot be ignored.

If they are ignored, they will just turn into bigger problems. Even if the problem appears mild and small we do need to deal with it. Small problems turn into bigger problems, and bigger problems turn into dangerous problems. And if the problem is dangerous enough, it’ll eventually swallow you whole too. (I am looking directly at you alcohol!)

Hopefully this old fool can learn something further from all of this and successfully put it to practice one day. I have now been sober for over five months and I am finally feeling once again, a desire to do something with my life. Something that let’s me feel like I’m needed. And maybe, just maybe this fool’s experience is something you needed to hear. Maybe you needed to hear someone else say it first. I don’t know. I do know that I needed to say it, so there’s that. Maybe, I’m just a good bad example. I’ve been pretty good at that all my life.

I believe that eventually we’re going to push our society just a little too far. Just one too many tasks assigned to the average person breaking their back, while they are trying to balance the whirlwind of demands facing the generations of today. I believe that we all suffer from symptoms of mental health daily, and we are conveniently ignoring it right now. I am very scared about ignoring it. I’m scared because I know what happens to the lives of people who pretend like a problem doesn’t exist, when it clearly does.

So let’s work on this together. Let’s talk.

We should try to actively listen to each other a little more for a start. Who knows what’s really bothering your friends, your family, your neighbors, better than they? They are also likely suffering from their own inability to talk about their personal emotions. Their “real” emotions. Many of us feel that we’re not “supposed” to, or worse “no one wants us to”. This needs to change and people need to feel like it’s okay to be vulnerable. Ask the person next to you, genuinely ask them, how their life is going. And Please don’t forget to be available to listen!

-A Good Bad Example