After waking up at 1:30 in the afternoon for no good reason whatsoever, I spent pretty much the rest of the day reading A Dance with Dragons, as I am not only super into it, but I also kind of want to finish it before heading back to Bing. Mostly so that I then have no reason to neglect my work anymore...besides the video games and such which await me, of course. But I will sit on those for now.
There was some terrible terrible person on tumblr telling a woman who was contemplating suicide to do it and that because she hadn't she was just attention whoring. For some reason I looked through all of this and it kind of hit me really hard. I would say I am in a much better place now than I was several months ago, and if that sort of person came to me and said things like that...I really don't know what would have happened. Luckily, the woman with depression was consoled by friends and stuff, and people are flocking to report that one user and get her hopefully blocked.
It was all really unsettling, though. It reminded me of when I felt pushed towards that edge, thinking of how worthless I felt, and how terrible everything seemed. How graduate school had sucked the life from me, and the ex had just shown me how pathetic I was and how replaceable I am. That despite saying how fucking special I was, I wasn't. It was all lies.
All that, coupled with my own self-loathing, drove me to that edge, and I wanted nothing more than to take the step off some days.
Once I met her, Callie became the biggest reason I did not take the step. Really, even before I met her, she was. I would tell myself that I wanted to experience life with a dog. With an animal companion, whom I would trust more than most humans. Really, to some people I downplay exactly how much she saved me, and it is really only because they did not know how dark my thoughts had become. But I cannot stress enough how much she means to me. I care more for her than myself, really. That remark worries some people, when I say it, but it is so very true. I continue to hate myself some days. Other days I dislike myself, and on good days I actually care for myself. But even on good days I do not see myself in the same light as her. Or most animals, really. But especially her.
Sometimes, in my dreams or my fantasies, when the ex and I meet, she is there to save me again. She dislikes him, distrusts him, growls and barks at him...despite loving practically everyone, she does not like him. In my dreams, anyway. In real life that would not happen, most likely.
Where ex tossed me aside and - despite all he has ever said to me - showed me how unwanted and unimportant I truly was in the end, how replaceable and such, Callie was the one to show me that perhaps I did have value. She has never greeted anyone with the same enthusiasm as me. When I leave even for a little bit, she looks sad. Even when I leave her with people she loves - my parents or my roommate, for example - she apparently still looks for me and is sad that I am not around. Every car door she hears has her at the window searching for me. Every time she hears my name, she is up, looking to see where I am. No one else receives that behaviour. And she did not do anything like that for her previous owners, from my understanding. If I left her, she would be sad and alone again, at least in her mind. I could never do that to her.
I was thinking about something the other day. The fact that I always saw myself as replaceable, and the fact that the ex always yelled at me for thinking things like that, basically. He said I was unfair for thinking that, and that I could not be replaced, etc., etc. But he always blamed me, essentially, for thinking that. Never once did he look behind the curtain to reveal what that thought really said. "I am so worthless, that you took a month to find someone new. You don't miss me, because I am terrible and anyone is better. I am replaceable, because I am not special. I never was. You made me think that I might have been, but you were wrong." He never really seemed to acknowledge my own self-esteem issues, though. I don't know if he just did not see them, or he did not want to see them. Or he was so blinded by his own shit that he could not deal with my own, and chose to ignore them. When things ended, everything was blamed on me. Even though he said (and probably would still say) otherwise, it was always my fault. My feelings were unfair to him, even though he lied to me. Even though he told me one thing when he broke up with me, and then did things that contradicted everything he had said. And every time he told me that I was at fault, I just felt worse and worse.
Sometimes, I wonder if he ever really saw me. He always described me as 'perfect,' which was probably the worst thing he could say to me. I'm a perfectionist, and perfection is what I strove for most of the time (even if I would be unwilling to say that). If I was perfect, he would not have left. That makes no sense, in my mind. No, I don't think he ever really saw me. Maybe I'm wrong, and him seeing me contributed to him leaving...I don't know. Despite that he and I did talk about why he left, I still do not believe his story, really. How could I, with all the lies he has ever told me?
It is probably strange that I sometimes still think about these things so deeply. I really only discuss them with Callie, in my head, with Nancy, or here. I know Nancy tells me that there is no timeline for healing, and despite that I often do not think I've made much progress, I am doing so much better than I once was. But I still find it...frustrating. Knowing me, it isn't too unusual. Hell, I'm still mad about my senior year's Mock Trial team being robbed of our state championship (fuck that judge, seriously; he didn't know how to score us at all and it is bullshit still). But...it is frustrating to continue to think about this so much.
Then again, only ever having loved one person in my life in such a way, I suppose it is not too strange? Maybe? My mind does sometimes run to my flame from the CONA conference, actually. I wonder what he is doing and I wish him the best, still sad that we lost contact. I could see myself loving him if we had been given a chance. Perhaps not reciprocated, but me to him, yeah. Perhaps what I felt was the beginnings of love. I don't know. So is it that unusual that I do think about the one person I felt that deep emotional attachment and romantic connection with? Even though those thoughts are filled with questions and anger and hurt and all those things.
I remember when ex and I were together and he asked me if I had ever been in love before him. I told him no, and that surprised him greatly. Love - that romantic, emotional love - does not come easily to me, as I have said before (and it will probably come less easily to me now). Hell, even friendship has been hard to come by lately. Most people I regard with suspicion nowadays. The friends I have I do not stay in contact with as much as I should, and the friends I could make I keep at a distance. And then lately those I have tried to become friends with have betrayed me in some manner.
So love is...fascinating to me, in a way. And when it took a hold of me, truly, it held on tightly. So tightly that it left a mark that refuses to fade away. It is rather annoying.
I know I say all these things to try and justify to myself that continually thinking about this is not as terrible as I usually believe it to be. Really, I'm also writing them because they are the thoughts battling against my self-hatred, which tells me that I am a pathetic little girl who can't let shit go. And I promised I would at least try to fight against such self-hating thoughts. A lot of times, the more positive ones don't win, but sometimes they come out on top, or at least put up a good fight.
And so I write them. Acknowledge them. Try to strengthen them.
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