His contention that he fell out of love with me gradually never sat well with me, and it still does not. That excuse - if one can even call it that - has been met with disbelief and strange looks from everyone I have revealed that to. They all have shown a similar reaction to my own: basically wondering where the hell that came from. Neither his actions nor his words pointed to that sort of dynamic being true; this appears to be something both my friends as well as his (the ones I have spoken with) have found bizarre and baffling.
I have accused him of placing the blame of his own issues on our relationship. That everything awful which was going on for him as an individual, he took out on us. That he attributed many feelings and such to our relationship rather than recognizing that he needed help and that I could only do so much. Instead of getting help when I first suggested that, he refused, and just carried on as if everything would sort itself out. He was terrified of me leaving, and yet didn't do anything to keep me from doing so. I stayed not because he was a fantastic boyfriend or anything at that point. I stayed because I loved him. I stayed because I wanted to help him. I stayed because I was afraid for him. But I am not a professional, and in reality, only he could have helped himself. But he did not. He refused. So in a way, he refused to actually acknowledge that he needed help. That was just how he was. He succumbed to misery without truly fighting when he reached a low point. At least, that is how I have seen the situation. He told me afterward that he was happier, and maybe he was for a fleeting moment. But I also know/believe that he was not happy. Instead of focusing on himself, as he told me he wanted to do, he ran into the arms and comfort of another person. Despite him telling me how that was not a relationship, in his eyes, I know that he always underplayed that connection in order to appease me. And then when that ended (or he realized that he just could not use that source of comfort anymore), he jumped immediately to someone else. To obtain comfort, he jumped from one person to the next to the next, and left when he could not get anything more. In doing so, he left a pile of bodies in his wake (metaphorically speaking).
Truthfully, I do not know what he has done since. As I have repeatedly said, I do not hold out hope for him, though there is a tiny piece of me that still hopes he proves me wrong. That he can rise above the examples and lessons of selfishness that his parents gave to him, and become a decent person. That does not mean that he should change who he is. Of course not. That doesn't even mean that he needs to be with anyone. It does mean that he should not use people the way he used me. He should not lie to people for his own benefit. My desire for him is not to be happy; that is too...simplistic, in a way. It is for him to be a good person. To not push away the people who truly care about him. Not just for his prowess at video games or his ability to code. But for him. For his hopes and dreams. For his sadness and his happiness. For everything that makes him him.
He is good at pushing those people away, it appears.
I truly cared about him, for everything he was. And I know that I was not the only one.
Now, what does all this have to do with my own depression and my own feelings? While I cannot say that his experience and mine have been similar, but I can speak to my own emotions when I was at incredibly low points in the past 2+ years.
There were many times where I would proclaim that I did not care about anything. And I didn't, truthfully. I did not feel as though I cared about anyone, myself least of all. I did not feel as though I cared for my friends or my family, my professors or my peers. I did not feel as though I cared about maintaining relationships or building new ones. All I felt was emptiness. Hollow, in a way. As though I was a shell with nothing inside me to make me human. I cared for nothing and no one. That was how I felt.
But I knew, deep down, that those feelings were lies, in a way.
If I had listened to those feelings, in those moments I would have proclaimed that I did not love anyone. I did not love my parents nor my sisters nor my friends. No one. But, I never would have made that exclamation, because I knew that it was not true. Despite not feeling any emotion for quite some time, and not caring about a damn thing, I knew that I still loved the people who surrounded me. Even if I could not feel it. My depression did not make me not love them. It is honestly hard to describe. But I knew that my condition was basically lying to me. Despite my hollowness and my emptiness, despite the lack of emotion I constantly felt, I knew that I loved these people. I loved my parents, my sisters, my friends. I loved them with all my heart. That love kept me from doing horrible things to myself, and kept me moving forward even though all I wanted to do was stop. And my love for them made me go and begin to get the help that I so desperately needed.
I did not confuse my depression with a lack of love.
And I can't help but wonder if he has.
But I cannot speak for his experiences, and whether what I have gone through is similar to him.
Perhaps he did just fall out of love with me, despite everything that I did. Perhaps he did not, and just uses that as a way to explain his bizarre and inconsistent behaviour around that time.
I'll never really know, because I will never believe what he says anyway.
And whatever the answer...it still probably would not bring me satisfaction.
(Honestly I really do not know why this has been nagging at me, among other things. But I wanted to get it out. I'm feeling weird.)
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