Emotional Havok

See, the thing about me, is that my emotions don't work properly. I've been diagnosed with a whole bunch of fancy psych terms, but that's what it boils down to. I'm not ashamed, because I look at my mental health like one ought to look at their physical health. Like someone with diabetes or COPD or something, I have a chronic, life altering condition. There are no cures, but one can treat the symptoms, if they want to. And who wouldn't want to, right? Who wouldn't want to have some shred or normalcy in their life? So I try. And you know what? The last two years, I've been pretty healthy. I've slipped a few times, I've made some tactical errors, but mostly, I'm really doing pretty well. After a lifetime of confusion and chaos and darkness, to be dramatic, I have some light. I am content. I have peace, and I have had a moment's rest from my demons.

But I am not myself. Unlike diabetes, my mental health is a large part of who I am. I absolutely can be defined by my personality, because that is actually what defines us. My mother spent my entire life teaching me right from wrong, which is a good thing for a person who lacks general empathy. I don't have much of a conscience. I don't feel for people the way that I'm supposed to. There are people in my life, certainly, who I love, who I care for, and for them, yes, I can hurt for them. But I've spent my whole life essentially borrowing emotions. I read voraciously. I become attached to television shows. Fictional characters. I write, I give my feelings to people that I can't hurt, and it leaves me sometimes bereft... but for a very long time, it kept me sane. I learned to use that tactic in my everyday life. If everyone around me is sad, I should be sad, too. If they're angry, there should be a reason. Death isn't funny, so I shouldn't laugh. I may see all the reasons why a bad person, someone who never learned what my mother taught me, should die, but killing is wrong, you don't just go around killing people. I have a fake moral compass, and I rely very heavily upon it.

And now here I am, and my emotions are my own, and I am very isolated. I spend 90% of my time alone, and I feel like I'm losing touch with my fake moral compass. I'm struggling to make sense of the world around me. My relationship with the man I love is suffering, and he's doing all he can to help, but I'm letting him down. I'm angry with him for not believing in me, even though I know he probably does. I'm sad that I feel this wall between us, hurting that he doesn't always try to peek over the top of it to find me, even though I know this man, and he would tear the wall down with his bare hands, if he could. I'm frustrated that his family, the only people in our world in a real position to help us, don't, while my family struggles to help us tread water at the risk of drowning, themselves. He keeps asking me what's wrong, but I don't have any answers for him. I don't even have any answers for myself.

He asked to take the cage off, and I let him. And I'm hurt by this, I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm confused, because all I heard was "I'm sorry, but you can't be trusted, and I don't trust you, and I don't want to do this anymore." And I'm mad at myself for not fighting him. I'm mad that I didn't tell him that it hurt. I'm mad that this was more than a week ago and I'm too big a coward to tell him and that so much time has passed that now it feels wrong to bring it up. I'm scared that our last fight was too much, that any day now he'll wake up and realize that he's making a mistake wasting his time on me. That he's going to really see how broken I am and he won't want me anymore, and that I won't recover for that. I keep asking for reassurance, I keep begging for something, some little sign, but he's so tired. Tired of life, tired of struggling, tired of me. He has nothing left to give, and I am not strong enough to get better on my own this time. I'm not. I wanted to be, I really thought I was. I would never have even let this relationship happen if I didn't think I could survive the end of it, because that's how my life works. Everything ends. Everyone leaves.

I didn't count on this, because I've been borrowing emotions for so long, I never expected to ever be able to give myself completely to another person. I didn't count on him being the one. The missing piece. The safe place to exist and hide and find sanctuary. I didn't count on my own heart finally beating for someone else. I'm so afraid of losing him that I am frozen in place. I don't know how to keep him. I don't know how life keeps going on without him. I need help. I need him to help me, to coddle me, to be the strong one who fights for us, and I'm terrified that he's just too tired to give me that anymore.