ALL THOUGHTS ARE PREY TO SOME BEAST

 2023 has been a pretty shit year really. Even when The National has released two full albums. 

I kind of forgot about this place and to be honest, I still post like a ghost over at livejournal very occasionally. I thought I'd pull out my macbook and type out an entry, rather than tap away at my phone. But then for some reason the blankness of this textbox just felt overwhelming and I just sat in bed and cried a bit.

I mean, the crying in itself is something newish. When I left my government job back in 2021 and started taking escitalopram, I just stopped crying. Going from one extreme to another. I switched to mirtazapin briefly last year, which is probably the closest I've ever felt to a full on mental breakdown. It gave me such altered sensations in my body and really intrusive thoughts. So then I went on sertraline. In the last 5 months I've progressing weaned myself off it. I'm probably on half a 25mcg tab once every three or so days. I was taking ashwagandha for a while too to help lower my dose but that was probably more placebo than anything. 

Back in April, I had super insane intrusive thoughts. Like they took over every waking moment, just this part of me in the back of my head constantly telling me to kill myself. Then, I just kept seeing patterns in everything and became hyperfixated. I kept seeing triangles in everything and I become obsessed with the meaning of where the two brown and white cows were in the field up the hill to my house. Like if they were at the top of the field, it meant something, if they were at the bottom, if they were apart. A bit like pass the pigs. I can't actually even think what that even meant. Just as that started to recede after about three weeks, Ish's grandad died and he went off to the UK. I followed about 10 days later and spent just over two weeks there. Like for me, I knew I wouldn't see him again. Austin and I sat on the couch last August the day we were leaving to fly back to New Zealand, we never said anything, we just held hands and left it unspoken. I held his hand again, I told him that when he came home for his wake. "I still get to hold your hand one last time, Austin". 

Then we came home. And everything fell apart. The seams that were always just holding on, split. That elephant in the room of living with and loving a functional alcoholic, when they finally stopped being functional. Because you no longer enabled it and other people did. And yet, it felt like after all these years of that undercurrent of holding back consequences, that the biggest consequences all washed over me. I've always liked a water metaphor, especially the ocean. One minute it is calm. The next it is drowning you. Another time, it is keeping you suspended, and sane, and just keeping you afloat, when that is all you need to do. Stay afloat. 

And I still sit here, and blame myself. And think of my shortcomings. Why I wasn't enough. What did I do to do deserve this. Why when I knew that this was always going to be the outcome, why did I keep staying and keep loving, thinking that would make any difference? I feel like I am such a fool because I read back lj entries, and I always knew, I always fucking knew, and I still did it anyway. And then you wonder if really, its all the same self sabotaged, and that part of me who goes "you don't deserve any better Jo". 

But I certainly didn't see myself spending my 39th birthday getting an STI test. But there I was. And I keep telling myself, someone cheating on me is THE dealbreaker. The number one. And I'm still fucking here. And I don't know why I'm sitting here feeling like I am giving up every piece of myself because I don't want to fail. Because we own a house. And we have our dog. And our cat. How can I love someone who did this to me? And not only did that, but gaslit me for a whole entire month until the other woman told me all the truth. And to find out it had already started before we went to the UK and he still had the audacity to claim it was the grief. While I sat with his granny, and he was talking to her every single fucking day. 

And now, that he has stopped drinking and going to AA and has been sober for 3 months (like, great for him...but why does it take absolutely destroying me, my life, and my dreams in the process?)...why do I feel like I am making all the concessions and that I should feel grateful? August last year here I was thinking we were going to get engaged, and now I am like, I will never marry this man. And when people ask me why I am still here, and I don't have an answer. Love? Or self preservation? Because I am strong enough to be on my own, I don't need him. And yes I have so much to lose financially by leaving. But maybe the only reason I am staying is because I don't want to look down that barrel of my own failures. Like, I always knew this was the outcome but still convinced myself otherwise. 

In all this as well, I quit my job at the council and then was put on garden leave and paid a settlement. I am doing some cool part time contracting for an amazing non-profit. And yet, all my self doubt is like, you are the sort of person that someone thinks that they can do this to. And you are, because you are still here. 

And you tell yourself, give it six months, sit with the discomfort. But am I just delaying the inevitable? 

She says "after today, there is nothing you owe me"
And I'm so glad that you came
I needed someone who loves me
But just don't try to talk
Yourself into this love
And sleep like a baby while I'm staying up
It's as much what you say
As it is what you don't
You can't try to stay you
Either will or you won't

I wanted to do this again for no reason. That or I need to feel like I exist today.

We don’t tell each other what we think of each other enough or how much we mean to one another. It's nice to just reach out sometimes and give a little love, so make my day and post a comment anonymously telling me how you feel about me, what you think of me or anything you like.

Then post this on your journal and see what people think of you.