I've relapsed hard and I'm ashamed
(This is a long one. Writing this for my own therapeutic means. Haven't posted here before, so sorry if I'm in the wrong place.) So I used to have bad depression and anxiety in high school. Not to the point of suicidal thoughts, but enough to convince myself that I was better off staying in my room than risking having people find out how worthless I am. I was on all different kinds of medication throughout my school life and they made me so numb that I felt like a supporting character in the story of my life. However, after high school, I decided I didn't need the meds anymore and I felt the spotlight return to me. I decided to pursue my dreams of becoming an actor and I enrolled in a drama college. Now, acting is obviously a craft that requires immense vulnerability, so to be practicing vulnerability with a group of people for two years means you're bound to make a deep connection with someone eventually (Yes, this post is about falling in love). About three months before we graduated, I started dating this girl in the same course. Let's just call her Jane so it's not too personal. I feel that Jane was underappreciated; she was funny, pretty, smart, the usual, but she also had ambition. Very early on in our relationship, she told me she got accepted into a very prestigious acting academy overseas. She would have to leave next year, 2018. We both agreed that we'd spend as much time with each other as we could in the year to come. Unfortunately, she had to work as much as she could to save money to go overseas, and I was lucky enough to already be getting work as an actor. Couple that with an hour and a half journey between us and we had a bit of a problem on our hands. At this point, I'd like to tell you about another person I connected with at drama college. Let's call him Brian. A guy that exudes confidence and good vibes. A good friend that was so loving and supportive of me, that made me believe in myself. He used to tell me he thought of me as a brother; the feeling was mutual. While I was at college, I wrote a short play, and it was Brian who told me how great it was and that I should enter it into a short play festival and that he wanted to direct it. So I entered it, and we found out days before graduation that it was accepted into the festival, and would be performed in the first week of February with Brian directing. I was the happiest I had been for a long time. So it comes to the day my play premieres. I haven't seen Jane for over two weeks because of work. But today I get to see her for lunch... and she breaks up with me. She says we hardly see each other, and "we" don't feel the same about each other anymore, and she has to keep working, and she doesn't want to keep me around and make me feel like an afterthought. She says more, but I'm too busy trying to put all the pieces together. She says she still loves me and that just confuses me even more. I ask her if this is really what she wants. She nods. I say I understand, but I don't know if I do. I give her a hug and say "we can still be friends" like a fucking idiot, and we talk like friends for the rest of the time. I feel surprisingly fine. Two days later, I finally have a night off to see my play. And she's there. And I'm not fine. She tries talking to me like we were never together. She's really trying to make things okay. I can't bring myself to look at her. The only time I forgot she was there was when I got to see my play performed. either side of the performance, I felt lost. I felt depression and anxiety creeping back on me. I see my friends and her after the performance, say thanks, bye, and go home. The next day involved excruciating paranoia and melancholy. See, I forgot to mention Brian and Jane are pretty close. They performed in a play at college, where they played lovers, and they've been close ever since. I kept thinking maybe she left me for him. But I had nothing to go off of and I knew it may have been an overreaction. I slowly got out of those bad feelings, but a few nights later, I saw Brian. I was happy to see him. I wanted to talk to him about what he'd been up to, about the play, about anything. It had been so long. But he didn't talk to me. We said Hi and We need to catch up, but that was it. Another night, I heard he was going to be in my area, so I sent him a text to see if he wanted to hang out. H told me he suddenly got called into work. Maybe just bad timing and coincidence, but this didn't help my paranoia. A week has passed and I've started feeling better. I sent Jane a text apologising for being cold at the play. She sends one back apologising for trying too hard to seem like everything was okay. We say we missed each other much more than we expected to, but we're both getting to a better state of mind now. I feel like I'm on the edge of surviving this break-up. Then, last night, I saw a photo. It's Brian, Jane, and two other girls we also went to college with and who I used to be friends with. There's nothing to suggest Brian and Jane are together... But that's what my brain tells me. I start replaying everything she said to me when we broke up, analysing it, questioning its truth. I imagine them together. I think about these two people who meant so much to me, the first person I fell in love with, and the person who made me feel worthwhile, and how they've abandoned me. I think about how that's all bullshit and I must be going crazy. I fear I'll never stop thinking about this, even if I know it's not worth thinking about. I think about killing myself. And I think about this all at the same time. I end up having three separate panic attacks. Today, I feel all the old high school feelings festering inside me. I sent a message to Jane asking if we could talk. She said yes. We're meeting on Monday. I don't know what I want to know. I don't know what I want to say. As much as I want to get this all off my chest, I know Jane may be dealing with things of her own. And what if my paranoia is actually truth? What if it isn't? What can I possibly get out of telling her all these things? I'm afraid I'm looking for a reason to die. But I don't want to go back on the medication because I want to know I'm strong enough to not let this take me over. If I take the meds, I've failed myself. But it's so hard. I feel so trapped. And even though I can see my life laid out before me, where I can go, what I can do next... I don't want it, and I hate that I don't want it. I've been through hardships before, but not like this. This is something else.
Posted Feb 17, 2017, 3:34 AM UTC